City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, we'll go ahead and call this evening's meeting to order. Uh the time is 6:08 p.m. The date is uh Monday, April 27th, 2026. Uh the first item on our agenda is our agenda. Is there a motion to adopt it? So moved. Thank you, councelor Singh. Is there a second? Thank you, Councelor Mcnite. If there's no discussion on that item, all in favor, please say I. I.

Any opposed? That carries unanimously. So we have our agenda. Uh before turning to item two on our agenda, which is a work session with uh Burlington Electric Department, General Manager Springer, I'd welcome your coming to the table and and getting set up here. Uh I will just note that I'm going to be passing the gavl this evening to uh councelor Barlo to preside over the meeting. Uh I have a uh celebratory personal family matter to attend to this evening. Um I will be tuned in online and we'll try to return to the meeting but uh call me aspirational here. I think we we may this the end of this meeting may beat my returning. Uh so uh hopefully that's the case. So council Barlo happy to give this seat to you and then I'll be tuning in online. Yeah, that's Okay, I guess we're uh we're ready to go. I Our first item on the on our agenda now is a work session. Let me just get there uh regarding the net zero energy update

and general manager Springer's here to to do that. So go ahead.

Excellent. Good evening. Good to be with you to share our annual uh net zero energy roadmap update. And as a reminder, we work with Synapse Energy Economics from Cambridge, Massachusetts, which helped us with the original roadmap work to conduct the tracking work, much of which is contained in these slides. Um our our introductory slide, which I know you all know us at Burlington Electric. Um so I won't linger on this slide here. Um as a reminder with the net zero energy roadmap uh this is a focus on uh reducing and eventually eliminating fossil fuel use across the electric, thermal and ground transportation sectors. We of course uh have achieved that in the electric sector uh but have not achieved that in the thermal and ground transportation sectors. So the road map focuses on the buildings, the thermal sector as well as ground transportation uh in the city and it's been recognized as one of the first uh US netzero 2030 plans uh by smart electric power alliance and it involves a variety of efforts not just Burlington Electric but efforts across the city by other city departments as well as uh partners in the private sector and the nonprofit sector as well. So jumping to some of the highlights and uh updates that we have for 2025. Um so greenhouse gas emissions in the ground transportation and the thermal sector are down 17.8% relative to the 2018 baseline as of 2025. Uh for those who were here last year, you may recall we had a lower uh or we had more of a reduction last year. There was a minor uh rebound and I'll get into why we think that happened. Um the good news up front here is 2025 was by far the best year we've seen in terms of reducing fossil fuel use and emissions in ground transportation in

Burlington. Uh we have nearly a quarter reduction a 24.3% reduction in gasoline and diesel consumption by Burlington residents estimated in 2025 relative to 2019. Um why is that happening? Well, we're seeing continued reduction in the registration of gasoline vehicles in the city, uh, which is good news. We're seeing an increase in the registration of plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles in the city. Uh, we're seeing more electric buses as part of the fleet in 2025. Um, in terms of vehicle miles traveled, uh, we're not necessarily seeing a reduction, which I I'll touch on, uh, in a moment. Um, in terms of the thermal sector, as I mentioned, we did have a rebound, which I'll get into here in a moment, but I know some counselors have asked in the past, could you weather normalize the data so we know how we're doing, even if the year is warmer or colder, how are we doing on a trend line beyond that? And this year is the first year that we do have weather normalized data. And I'll I'll touch on it in the charts as we go through. Um, so just some additional context before we dive fully into this. Um, every year Synapse goes back and does some revisions to the prior year data, getting more granular information on things like miles traveled for vehicles, uh, and other different information. So, last year we reported we were down 19%, turns out it was actually 19.6%. So, last year was the best year so far uh, for our emissions reduction. That was 2024. Uh 2025 was the second best year. Uh but we had that rebound. As I discussed um and as we've talked about here in the past, if you have uh a colder winter, you will likely see some increase in usage uh in natural gas heating, for example. Uh we saw that in 2025, we had more what are called heating degree days, which essentially means a warmer or colder uh period. If

you have more heating degree days, that means you had a colder relative winter. We had a colder relative winter in 2025 uh compared to 2023 and 2024. So that drove at least some of the increased usage in natural gas in 2025 uh compared to the prior years. As I mentioned, vehicle miles traveled um they were low obviously in 2020 during the pandemic and then they rose back up and they've been pretty level over the past few years. They're hovering right underneath the prepandemic level. uh so they're not necessarily a driver of the emissions reduction in the ground transportation sector and I also want to just acknowledge that there has been a shift a dramatic shift in the federal uh and to some extent the state incentive environment that we're seeing uh when we do this update for you for 2026 we're going to be doing it without any federal incentives for electric vehicles without any state rebates being in play for electric vehicles and with a host of really important federal incentives for things like heat pumps and energy efficiency off the table. So we know that's a headwind for future years. So jumping into the data. So here you'll see uh residential natural gas consumption 2018 to 2025. An 11.7% reduction. Um but as you can see uh we actually had a better year uh a much better year last year than we did in 2025. Um, you can see as well the weather normalized the WN or actual with WN. That's weather normalized trend line which is much flatter kind of more gradual reduction. And just to explain it a little further, we have a note at the end of this slide or at the bottom of this slide. When we talk about heating degree days, the data that Synapse used is a 10-year rolling average of the heating degree days based on a 65 degree average temperature. So essentially, if you're seeing the weather normalization patterns, we're using an average, a rolling average from

a 10-year data set, and we're weathernormalizing the data using that. So, as we see uh variations in the actuals that are not weathernormalized, you see less variation, a little more consistent trend line in the weather normalized data. For the commercial sector, uh we have a 17.4% reduction uh between 2018 and 2025. a little bit less of a rebound there uh compared to the residential sector. Again, 2024 was still the better year. Uh 2025 uh had a modest rebound in the commercial sector as well. Going to ground transportation. So here you can see the 24.3% reduction that I mentioned uh for Burlington between 2019 and 2025. You can see we're almost uh near the trajectory. We're close to the trajectory that you would want to be on to achieve the net zero uh trajectory for uh ground transportation which is incredibly ambitious. We have one of the most ambitious goals of any community in the country. So to be anywhere near that trend line is something to be uh thinking about as a a real positive. And for comparison, uh, between 2019 and 2024, which was the most current data that we could find, um, for the US, there was a 5.15% reduction in emissions from ground transportation fuel. Going to a state comparison, uh, which uses gasoline and diesel gallons taxed from the joint fiscal office, uh, you can see an estimated 7.3% reduction, uh, between 2019 and 2025 for the state and Burlington at a 24.3% reduction. So really good progress on ground transportation, a little bit of a a rebound on thermal sector um is is sort of the big takeaways from the roadmap data. Um jumping in, I just wanted to provide a few slides that I thought would be helpful for economic context. Um this is from a couple of these from the energy action network. Uh this just

shows that Vermoners as a whole, we paid over 15 million more in March alone for gasoline. Had we uh compared to the price that was at the beginning of March uh versus what we actually paid. So essentially, if prices had remained the same for gasoline in March as they were in February, we would have paid 15 million less, but drivers are paying 15 million more in March alone due to the jump that we've all seen in gasoline up near $4 a gallon up from around $3 a gallon. Um, this compares different transportation fuels over time in Vermont. You can see the volatility in gasoline and diesel. Those prices are ramping up and down based on commodity prices and global events that we have uh no control over in Burlington, but are subject to the same price variation. At the bottom, the very much much more level line is the average residential electric rate. uh and below that both BED and GMP electric vehicle charging rates. And you can see that BED has the best by far the best opportunity for somebody to fuel a vehicle uh in the state of Vermont regardless of transportation fuel whether using gas, diesel or electric. We offer the best EV rate uh anywhere in the state. Um and there's obviously a lot less volatility there which is important for customers as well. Um, and another thing that I just like to touch on, you spend a dollar with your electric utility in the state of Vermont, about 610 of that dollar stays in the Vermont economy. Uh, if you spend a dollar at the gas station, uh, only about a quarter of your dollar stays in the Vermont economy. So, obviously, driving electric is good from an environmental standpoint and a savings standpoint. It's also helping us keep more dollars local compared to buying gasoline. Uh and then lastly on economic context and this is something we'll have for those who are joining us for our budget presentation on Wednesday we'll have in there as well. The Rocky Mountain

Institute which is a well- reggarded uh nonprofit organization did analysis uh that we learned about just recently comparing Burlington's uh energy bill uh average monthly residential bill trajectory to Eversource in New Hampshire. And what you can see there is the line on the bottom is the Burlington trajectory between 2020 and 2025. And the line on the top is Eversource. And as they noted in this quote, uh Burlington has a variety of sources including uh biomass, hydro, wind, solar. They mention oil, they they mean our our peaker plant, which we don't really rely on for generation. But um we have a diverse kind of array of different renewable resources. Eversource is uh essentially exposed to natural gas prices. So their customers are seeing uh pretty intense fluctuations and this does not even include the impact of energy efficiency in Burlington and they note later on that Burlington bills are actually much lower uh than what they're representing here on the chart. This assumed a customer who was using the same amount in Burlington compared to uh New Hampshire. So, shows that there is an affordability element to our overall strategy relative to one of our neighbors, which I thought was was useful and relative to natural gas, which we don't want to rely on uh for generation. Um, every year we come, we we offer an incentive update as well. Um, how are we doing? Um, mayor, we got a couple slides in here for uh some of our events we've had over the year with uh this our calendar contest winners for our fourth grade along with CHAMP. Uh, we had the mayor. Um but these are some of the different initiatives that have supported some of the progress. Um obviously there are policies that have been passed here on rental weatherization, on carbon fee ordinance, on energy uh benchmarking. There's also BED's incentive programs uh where we offer for efficiency and dozens of electrification incentives. Um there are other incentives that have been in play that are no longer in play. As I

mentioned, uh we continue to invest, however, in our infrastructure through the net zero energy revenue bonds. Uh the first of which we've essentially expended from the original 2021 vote. And the next of which we've issued this year, the $20 million net zero energy and grid reliability revenue bond, uh which voters approved in November of 2024, and we're we've issued it this year. Uh continuing, uh reductions through electrification of the Green Mountain Transit fleet. I want to mention there was an article for folks who may have seen it in Vermont Digger just recently that there was a plan to electrify far more buses and the federal government has made it uh essentially impossible for uh transit agencies like ours to procure those electric buses. They're now going to have to procure hybrid buses and they're only going to be able to get two new electric buses as opposed to a much larger plan. So I want to flag that as well as a potential headwind. We continue to provide incentives for them to electrify. Uh but they've also relied on federal uh funding as well. Um in terms of numbers, mayor, we got you here again. This was our electric vehicle incentive uh announcement. We we also had students from the fifth grade in Champlain Elementary who were with us that day. Um uh so these are the numbers for the different incentive programs, most of which we launched in 2017 or somewhere between 2017 and 2022. um over 3,400 heat pumps, uh over,200 EV and plug-in hybrid incentives, for example, over a thousand ebike incentives, and uh a growing number in some of the other programs that are newer, uh as you go through here. And then, you know, in terms of heat pumps, so I mentioned over 3,400 total, our tier three program is one incentive program that we use to drive heat pump adoption. And you can see since the COVID period in 2020 when we really boosted that incentive uh we've had a 31x or over 31x kind of trajectory uh for heat pump installations under the

tier 3 program uh compared to when we had started that program in 2019 as well. We we offer enhanced incentives for incomequalified customers in most of our key programs. And here you can see that uh 21.6% of our EV and plug-in hybrid rebates and 14.6% 6% of our heat pump rebates have actually gone as enhanced rebates to income qualified customers uh to support improved access to those technologies. Uh we continue to offer those programs uh today. Um this is the big picture slide uh looking at the ground transportation and thermal greenhouse gas emissions reduction uh since 2019. Uh you can see here that that modest rebound reflected in the slide. Uh you can see as well both the net zero trajectory and the IPCC trajectory. Uh we were on track with the IPCC last year. We're a little less on track with it this year. These numbers will move around based on a variety of factors that we've discussed, but I think it's helpful context to have those other lines in there uh as we look at this. Uh 17.8% reduction is still a very good result. Not as good a result as we had last year, but still a real positive result relative to what we see uh at the federal and state levels. And then my last slide, and I'm glad to answer any questions. Um, just in terms of next steps, uh, we've been working, uh, this legislative session on a bill called H, uh, bill H940, which would allow BED in the 2027 to 2029 time period to continue to access a portion of our energy efficiency funds uh, to support some of our key programs, including our EV incentives, our rental uh, property EV charging incentives, our geothermal test well program, which has helped customers in Burlington, including the high school uh drill test wells for geothermal so that they can then install geothermal which they've done at the high school. We're very

pleased with that. Um as well as offer new programs uh including an incomequalified electric panel upgrade program and a variety of weatherization programs. So that bill is on third reading in the Senate tomorrow and uh if it passes I believe it goes to the governor's desk at that point. So, we're we're hopeful to uh have the results there and be able to continue those programs. Um, we are also working hard on a heat pump uh bill credit program uh with support from the Department of Energy. Uh we've launched a commercial sector program and we're working to get the residential program uh up and running in the near future as well. And this is the idea that if heat pump customers, for example, or electric heating customers can help reduce usage a little bit during peak that we can offer a bill credit to make it cheaper to operate the heat pump, save money for the customer, save money on the system as a whole, reduce our need in New England for more costly generation that comes during peak times. Uh we're continuing to invest in EV charging. We still do not have access to our EV charging grant of nearly 5 million that was awarded in 2024 and then paused uh along with a number of other EV charging grants in 2025 by the current administration. Uh that is being litigated currently. Um but regardless through our revenue bonds we're investing in EV charging. There are two new fast chargers here downtown uh near the new uh AC hotel uh that are now operational. Uh we're looking forward to bringing more fast chargers as well as more level two chargers online uh including at uh places around the city like schools and parks uh where we know uh people may benefit from them. Um I mentioned the $20 million bond investment that's now been issued in partnership with the Vermont uh Municipal Bond Bank. Um so we appreciate that. I know the mayor's climate advisors report will be coming soon. So we'll be working in collaboration with other city departments around those recommendations. Uh we have the first all-electric bucket truck for our line crew. We're going to have a second

all-electric bucket truck for our line crew coming in 2027. Uh which we're very pleased with. And we will have at least hopefully two more electric buses to add to the Green Mountain Transit fleet. Um we're going to continue to work in partnership with Department of Permitting uh and inspections and others on tracking progress on the various ordinances that I mentioned as well. And uh with that, let me stop sharing here. Um, hopefully I've left a little time. If there are questions, uh, I'm glad to answer any.

Well, um, could I get a sense of how many counselors want to get in the queue for questions? One, two. Anybody on this side? No. Um, I'm mindful of the time. It's 6:29 and we've warned a public forum for a time certain of 6:30. Um, would you mind uh waiting to answer questions? Uh whatever you'd like.

Okay. Uh I think that uh with that then we'll just suspend this item and and then turn to public forum. Okay. Um so under our rules uh we've first heard from Burlington residents here in city hall. Then we'll hear from Burlington residents online. Followed by non- Burlington residents here in city hall. And lastly, non Burlington residents online. As a reminder, online participants participants in public forum must sign up at least an hour in advance of the meeting. Whether in person or online, each person will be allowed 2 minutes. When I call your name, if you're here in city hall, please come to the table. Make sure your microphone is on. There should be a green light illuminated on the microphone itself and hold the microphone close. Um, for those online, um, I think Lori is going to help promote folks tonight, so we'll let you know when it's time to speak. Um, when providing comments, please direct them to me as the chair and not to any other individual. It's important that city hall remain a safe place for those in attendance and for those watching our meetings. The council certainly respects the and values diversity of opinions on public issues. We ask, however, that all comments be free from any individualized attacks, hate, harassment, obscenities, or other derogatory language about individuals, particularly any individuals protected characteristics. We also ask that public comments avoid conduct which is unreasonably loud, disruptive, or discourteous. If I interrupt any speaker at any point, it will be to give them an opportunity to act in accordance with these rules. If someone continues to violate these rules, I reserve the right to end public comment at that point in time. With that, we'll begin with individuals uh Burlington in uh residents signed up that are here in

city hall. Excuse me, I've had my hand raised. I'd like to recuse myself from public form. Okay, so noted.

Thank you. Okay, our first speaker uh is Gil Livingston and that'll be followed by Giles Cheney. Good evening. Uh I am Gil Livingston, a Ward One resident. For the past two years, you see me at virtually every council meeting. I count as friends, counselors on uh from both parties. I see how hard you work, but I also see the frustration when you're not able to work together. I've spoken to many of you about the ways in which we together might become more effective. We all play a role in the periodic dysfunction that happens in this chamber. counselors who speak up and those who are silent, those who show up for public comment and those who stay home. There's inmperence on both sides of the aisle, including among newly appointed committee chairs. If that's the issue, I'd ask that you address that directly rather than wielding majoritarian tactics. Milo Grant speaks truth to power both as a woman as an African-American and seemingly for that she has been removed as public safety committee chair. I've heard no critique of Milo as chair. You know she is highly qualified. You know she works hard. She has collaborative relationships with police the police chief and the fire chief and she shows up throughout the community. She creates a forum for honest community participation uh especially for those without a voice. More than any other counselor, Milo has focused on improving police

recruitment. She supported increased downtown patrols. She does not support a downtown safety hub because it has not been requested by the chief of police. And she does not want to rush the police chief search because she trusts Chief Burke. and she wants an equally skilled successor welcomed by the city as a whole. Removing Milo as chair comes across as mean-spirited bullying. You have created at least the appearance, if not the reality, of racial bias. You've magnified the inner party divide without addressing the root causes of divisiveness.

An apology. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, next is Guiles Cheney. Hello. Um, Giles Cheney. Um, I am speaking about the um the resolution having to do with negotiations between UVM Health Network and the unions. Um, so I'm a food service worker at the medical center. Um, and I'm representing co-workers from the support staff united. Um, right now three of the larger unions of the hospital are bargaining currently, including the SSU, VFHP, and the CIR. We're asking city council to adopt the resolution to ensure good faith bargaining between the unions and the UVM Health Network. This resolution would support us in our fight to secure good contracts for the 3,700 workers members of our unions. As the largest employer in the state, the unions are working for a common good platform while bargaining to benefit not just the members of our unions, but Vermonters as a whole. This includes safe staffing, health care as a human right, livable wages for all, immigrant immigrant rights, our workers rights, and allowing our unorganized co-workers to unionize. Thank you.

Thank you, guys. Uh, next is Tegan Cook. Hello, my name is Tegan Cook. I am the chief steward for cancer and radiology from UVMMC Support Staff United. If you or anyone you love in this local area has received chemotherapy or amunotherapy in the past three years, odds are their chart has crossed my desk. My team is the group of people who are scheduling people's appointments, who are double-checking the doctor's orders to make sure that things haven't slipped their mind, who are making sure that people are having their labs done prior to their treatment so that they are being treated safely. All that we are asking support staff united and our fellow unions is to also be treated safely. Our entire community relies on UVMC as the largest employer and as our major source of healthcare. I was at a meeting today with the leadership of a portion of the cancer center um that led to the vast majority of us in the room breaking down in tears today because we are so overworked. There is an overtime cut right now and exemption. No one is able to work overtime and yet we have no staff to do the jobs that need to be doing. We are struggling so deeply and this is why we are asking for your support in this resolution so that we can have a fair seat at the table. We do represent a large number of people and there is a lot of power in that. UVMC however is a cultural institution around here with large amounts of money and large amounts of power accordingly and we just are here hoping that you guys will give us a chance to have a chance with them. Thank you. Thank you. Um then this next speaker, please uh correct me if I mispronounce your name, but is it Rise Nadekis?

Good evening everyone. My name is Reese Naidcker. I am a resident physician up at UVMMC, an elected leader of our residents union, CIR, and a longtime Burlington resident. I'm here tonight uh representing roughly 400 resident physicians at UVM who are currently in new contract negotiations. And along with our colleagues at Support Staff United and the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Healthcare Workers, we represent a coalition that constitutes more than half of all employees at UVMC. We are asking city council to back our resolution for support of a fair contract and good faith negotiations with UVM Health Network going forward. I don't think it would surprise anyone here to know that uh healthcare in Vermont is in a very precarious state. Uh the cost of care continues to climb while the state struggles to recruit and retain the people who provide that care. And I can tell you for sure that that shortage is going to worsen over the next five years as many of the doctors and providers who currently provide care are aging out of the workforce. Residency programs act as the state's best recruiting tool for new providers. People come from all over the country to train here in Burlington and to serve our community. And I can tell you that more than half of the people who train in primary care end up staying in Vermont afterwards to make careers here as physicians and providers. Which is why it's so important that the contracts that we have through UVMC are fair and represent a strong recruiting tool to bring people in so that they'll stay here. residents work upwards of 40 hours or 80 hours per week um on shifts that can sometimes last over 24 hours and that's considered regular. Meanwhile, our per hour pay is often close to minimum wage. Uh like you, I've seen the cost of living increased dramatically

over the last 10 years here in Vermont. And our wages just don't reflect that right now. There are people who drive Uber to make ends meet and there are people who can't afford daycare. Please support our resolution for safe staffing levels and for safe provider um work conditions so that we can continue to serve our community here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Uh next is Nick Pampiary. Thank you, Nick Persampiary. Board three, Burlington Electric.

Thank you, Nick Persampiary. Ward three. Burlington Electric has some great rebate programs for heat pumps, electric vehicles, and other things that promote electrification. However, in order to achieve meaningful greenhouse gas emission reductions from electrification, we need to both electrify and make sure that our power supply is low or no carbon. And that is where the city and Burlington Electric falls short. We rely on the McNeel power plant which is very high carbon for 30 to 45% of our power supply. The plant emits more greenhouse gas per unit of energy produced than any fossil fuel. For years, the city has looked primarily to Burlington Electric for development of climate policy. That that is a mistake. Putting the operator of the largest stationary source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state in charge of climate policy. That has led to flawed policies, including the net zero energy roadmap, which you heard focuses on eliminating fossil fuel use, not greenhouse gas emissions. There is a big difference. The city is promoting renew use of renewables that emit high greenhouse gases. That needs to end. We need to put someone else in charge of the city's uh climate policy development and we need to adopt a policy that calls for

reducing greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors in order to do our part. Thank you. Thank you, Nick. Uh next up we have Gina Bannerman. Yeah. Followed by Andrea Vitz. Thank you.

Hello, city council. My name is Gina Bannerman

and my name is Beth and we have a small family business, the Maui African Market. It's located under on North Wuski Avenue in Burlington. And our mom started this business in 2007. Um in 2021, we had to move the location of our business um because our landlord had access to vacate um and our current landlord has access to vacate um our current space that we're in with limited or rather no available retail spaces, affordable retail spaces in Burlington. Um, so we are here on behalf of Burlington retail, small businesses, entrepreneurs, um, to raise the issue of accessible and affordable retail spaces for small businesses in Burlington. Um, we've lived in Burlington all of our lives and we understand that Burlington does aim to make the city affordable through for Burlingtonians. um like housing, we know that there's policy 15 to 25% of housing units must be affordable for renters, but a similar policy doesn't really apply for retail spaces for small businesses um for small businesses to also thrive in. So, we're asking the city to provide affordable retail spaces for small business owners here in Burlington. Our small family business of almost 20 years has been moved multiple times now because of this. And now we're at risk to having to close our business due to unavailable retail space. We're a vulnerable We are a valuable resource. Sorry, one second. We are a valuable resource to the African community and we foster a cultural diversity in Vermont. We hope you are all informed on the value and benefits of small businesses like ours bring to the city and state. We want to

recognize that yes, while we are a womanowned BIPOC business, we are raising the issue for all small businesses who are struggling with affordable retail space. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Gina and Beth. And

Andrea Vitz is next, followed by Dave Maher. Good evening. My name is Andrea Vitz, director of the Heineberg Community Senior Center in the New North End. I'm here to give you a quick update. As the only remaining senior center in Burlington, the Hineberg is seeing consistent increases in demand for services. We welcome an average of a dozen new participants every month. Have increased our free homemade lunches from 25 seats to 30 and now 35 and are facing the reality of needing to be open additional hours. Based on a recent survey of our participants, we anticipate adding a fourth session of boneuilders. And thanks to a creative aging grant from the Vermont Arts Council, local artist Julio Desmont will lead a six-w weekek series, Painting Your Story. We've hired a half-time program manager who's brought us, and these are just some highlights, bi-weekly conversation circles that include English language learners from CCV with our participants. presentations from the Vermont Bird Museum, Homeshare, he's a Homeshare resident, the Grand Friends program from the UVM Center on Aging, as well as trips to Very Mary Theater, Red Wagon Plants, and Snowflake Bentley Museum, and more. We are grateful for the city's contribution toward including former core participants at the Heinberg, especially for SSTA coverage. Based on the city's financial challenges, parks and recck director Phil Lewis has let me know. I will update this to say that I now understand that um recreational program

specialists will not be assigned a specific age category, which is a delight for me to hear. Um in order to provide the level of services that city residents are requesting, the Heineberg needs a funding increase of $38,000 for FY27. With an annual budget of just $200,000, we are serving more than 500 older Vermonters annually.

Thank you, Andrea. Dave Mars is next, followed by Milo Grant. Good evening. My name is Dave Maher. live in Ward 4. I've lived with this general area since 1973. This is a beautiful time of year. The weather improves, the grass starts turning green, and the birds return for the summer. We should take this as an opportunity to begin enforcing our current no camping ordinance in the urban reserve north of the Moran plant. I saw a WCAX news article showing a group of city employees and volunteers cleaning up the debris, including discarded syringes that were left by last year's campers. We should not allow this illegal camping to continue. This is an area visited by tourists and locals alike. These homeless encampments inhabited by drug users do not provide a welcoming atmosphere. If people need a place to camp, they should camp in the Intervail rather than on prime waterfront acorage. There's lots of room there. It's away from tourist zones, and there's opportunities for gardening and other recreation activities. Our current policies have failed the homeless and our city as a whole. As pointed out in a recent 7 days article, our housing first policy is a failure because the homeless need more than housing. They need need inpatient drug addiction and other mental health services. And we need the state's help in providing these. If Burlington wasn't so accommodating, the homeless would migrate to neighboring towns, resulting in wider support for the state providing

these needed services. The urban reserve is a beautiful spot, and if we keep it open for homeless encampments, we will only attract more. Thank you.

Thank you, Dave. Uh, next up is Milo Grant, followed by Romeo von Herman. Thank you. My name is Mila Grant. I'm a W 2 resident. I also represent the central district on council, which is WS two and three. I talked to a local reporter who advised me that a fellow counselor said that I was prone to violence. He asked uh for my response to that. I guess I don't really have the words for how I felt. It is a very age-old trope that black people are more prone to violence. It is a result of systematic racism. It affects data in all kinds of ways, especially data in policing and inequity in policing. And my work in the city started with addressing the inequity because of multiple incidents that hurt people in our central district who identify for marginalized communities. And the city has paid dearly with regards to lawsuits. That's just a fact. The city still has two open lawsuits. the idea that counselors should not

openly criticize police or I might add ask questions because that quote unquote doesn't grow trust in the police department with the public safety committee. What about trust with the public? It's a balance. How are we going to have equity and policing if we don't have a balance? Thank you, Milo. Uh, next is Romeo von Herman, followed by Michael Nadell.

Good afternoon, Mr. President. Um, I just want to address something that has been said publicly and echoed in recent discussions surrounding this council, including on seven days. Disagreements are part of public service. It's always been and it will always will be. But labeling your fellow counselors, council president or representatives either racist, sexist is simply simply because of policy differences or not being reappointed to a chair or a member in a committee crosses a line that does not serve our city. As we've seen recently, coverage of the council committee leadership changes. There are real differences in priorities and approaches to public safety and governance. These differences should be debated publicly and openly and respectfully and not reduced to throwing around unfounded accusations that undermine the trust and respect that we do expect from our council. Please let me end on this that this council is lucky to have council president Travis. He's brought some changes to this council that is working well. Thank you. Thank you, Romeo. Next is Michael Nadell. And our last uh in person Burlington resident speaking after Michael is Lisa Lax.

Hello, my name is Michael. I'm a res of the Old North End uh landlord, taxpayer, employer, taxpayer. Again, I'm here to address the impact the pods are having on the quality of life in the surrounding area in the Old North End. People in recovery are easy targets for drug dealers. Pod residents are not to blame. But the surrounding drug activity from the dealers and other drug users is degrading the neighborhood. Elwood Avenue, Pearl Street. This morning I saw about 20 people sitting in front of the Unitarian Church brazingly uh looked like they were doing drugs to me. While there weren't many church taking that popular photo of the church at 7:15 a.m., I'm sure that's not what p not pictures that we want taken throughout the day. That's not what anyone wants documented as this is Burlington. Seeing some sketchy drug trade or sale or out and out drug use has become a daily reality. If I'm seeing this while I walk through town twice a day, imagine what a cons consistent police presence or patrol would uncover or possibly work to curtail. It's no surprise that the pods have had a low success rate when residents aren't being protected from what was a logical outcome of building a recovery shelter. Drug dealers prey on people attempting recovery. Since the cleanup of City Hall Park, the drug activity in the hood has only increased. I've expressed these problems here before, so I know you all know about them. If you know about a problem and don't do anything about it, I believe that is the definition of negligence. You need to protect both pod residents and their neighborhood by implementing regular patrols as you've done in other areas. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. And our last uh inperson Burlington resident speaker is Lisa Lax.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Um my name is Lisa Lax and I'm a 40-year resident of Ward One in Burlington. Burlington Electric has in many ways moved the city in a good direction by reducing fossil fuel use. However, as long as the McNeel plant is operating, net zero in Burlington really isn't zero in terms of carbon emissions or greenhouse gas emissions. McNeel is not net zero or carbon neutral. We shouldn't gloss over this fact because carbon emissions make the climate crisis worse. In February of 2021, a group of more than a thousand scientists and economists from around the world wrote a letter to then President Biden and other world leaders urging them to quote not undermine both climate goals and the world's biodiversity by shifting from fossil fuels to burning trees to generate electricity or energy. They note, quote, "There has been a misguided move to cut down whole trees or to divert portions of stemwood for bioeny, releasing carbon that would otherwise stay locked up in the forests." In this letter, they also addressed the false understandings about carbon debt. I urge counselors and the mayor to read this full letter and I challenge you to consider Burlington's climate policies in light of what the science says about burning wood and climate change. Your decisions on these matters will affect future generations in the city and beyond and thus are terribly important. And I have a copy of the letter. I don't know if I can submit that.

Okay. Uh certainly you can. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa. Um, next we're going to turn to Burlington residents online and, uh, Lori is going to help me with that. Um, and the first online resident, a Burlington resident, is Pike Porter. Go ahead, Pike.

Good evening. Uh, thanks for taking my call. Um I sent you a a comment written comment the other day and uh I afterwards noticed an egregious error that I wanted to correct. Um in the graph on slide 21 um I had stated that it represented about 280,000 tons of CO2. It actually only represents 180,000 tons of CO2. So I wanted to correct that. Um the 316,000 um tons of CO2 from McNeel is correct. Uh so about 74 75% more than the all the sectors combined that um the ver the uh net zero energy roadmap is trying to eliminate. I also noticed uh after the fact that BED is netting out renewable natural gas. Um, renewable natural gas, just like fossil natural gas is methane. And renewable natural gas also emits CO2 when it's burned. We should be counting these emissions as well. Um, and more generally, we should not be making up our own definitions about what zero net zero means. Um, I finally since I have you, I'd like to just focus on the last two slides of the presentation. Um while we have re uh uh re made a 17.8 uh reduction this year uh if you look at the slide we needed about an 80% reduction. Um we've adopted this goal uh about six years ago and in those six years we've only uh reduced our emissions about 20%. Um it's clear that the road map is not taking us where we want to be. Um earlier today before this meeting several of you had some uh

important uh discussions about the um budget gap and what you need to do to correct it. Uh this road map has its own gap a very large gap between where we want to be and where we are. Can you please wrap up? We are it looks like roughly based on the graph only about 5,000 uh tons reduction per year. Um, and on that current current track, we won't be meeting our goals until about60. Um, so I'd ask you to think about what we can do just like you're doing with what we can do. I'm sorry. Could you please wrap up? Um,

yes. 30 more seconds. 20 20 more seconds. Um, what we you're over your two minutes already. Like you're like two and a half minutes. And the lowhanging fruit is the McNeel emissions. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Pike. Um, next, our next online speaker from Burlington is Msky Nure. Oh, you can be in person.

Hi, my name is Msky. I want to speak on um about housing affordability and how it connects to the decision making being made in the city, including discussions around transport transportation and long-term sustainability. Right now, housing costs in Burlington are putting a lot of pressure on residents. Rent continues to rise faster than wages, and many people are being forced into difficult choices, whether staying in unsafe or overcrowded housing, leaving the city entirely, or spending an unsustainable portion of their income just to stay housed. When we talk about new initiatives like electric vehicle expansion or infrastructure upgrades, I think it's important to ask how these priorities are being balanced with the immediate needs of residents who are struggling to afford basic housing. Clean energy and sustainability are important, but they can't come at the expense of affordability or equity. My concern is that without inter intentional planning, we end up investing in systems that primarily benefit higher income homeowners while renters and low-income residents who are already most um the most burdened see little to direct relief. So my question is, what concrete steps is the city taking right now to increase afford affordable housing, protect current tenants from displacement, and ensure the long-term planning doesn't widen the gap between those who can afford to stay in Burlington and those who can't. Housing is not just one issue among many. It is the foundation that determines whether people can actually remain part of this community.

Thank you. Thank you, Msky. Our next our last online Burlington uh resident is Sharon Busher. Go ahead, Sharon.

Um yes, thank you very much. Um I'm going to speak to an item on your consent agenda. It has to do with Queen City Iron and Metal. And on that that item doesn't have a lot of meat on it. It does have a deed, an old deed. Um, and what you're being asked to do is approve this uh functioning as a salvage yard. Now, my understanding is that this is a renewal of a request that has been approved in the past, but I don't know really what we are approving. What is a salvage yard? And the proximity to the intervail is troubling to me. And I would like to think that if indeed Queen City Iron and Metal sold and that deed or that ability to use a salvage yard went with that property, could there be a dump there? And is that really what we want as an entrance to the Intervail? Um, so I I really hope that somebody, even though I'm sure you'll pass it, but I would really like to think that someone would look at this and what we are approving and if that approval runs with the deed in the future. Um, right now we've had this company function for quite a while and there has been no negative impact that I've heard of. Um, but I am concerned about what we are approving. So, thank you so much. And thank you, Sharon. Um, next we're going to turn to non- Burlington residents here in Contosys. And the first one is Leander Husman. Hisman correct me if I mispronounced your name.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak here. My name is Lane Houseman. You are close enough. Um I'm talk want to talk about uh Burlington PED's intention to arrive at net zero. Over the years the Burlington uh electric department has consistently claimed that net zero means no fossil fuels. But this is not what the Burlington the people of Burlington wanted. In resolution 5.05 05 which was accepted in 2019. It stated clearly that the city of Burlington commits to a citywide just transition and climate en e emergency mobilization effort to mitigate the climate crisis which gets Burlington to net zero greenhouse gas emissions. Clearly more than just fossil fuels are meant here. Of course, BED needs to justify its neglect of greenhouse gases coming from the McNeel plant, which is renewable, not a fossil fuel, but where wood is being burned. And it does so by perpetuating a variety of highly deceptive and long since debunked stories. Among them is a very uh deceptive picture in which greenhouse gases CO2 are taken from the atmosphere absorbed by the trees in a forest and then returned. What this picture completely ignores is the time that the carbon spends in the forest and in the soil. And it is that

time that is needed to take carbon and carbon dioxide out of the air. The picture suggests there is no such time involved and that would mean that no carbon is sequested at all. If I may have one more suggestion if anyone is interested in hearing here or beed what actually happens when carbon is circulating. Please wrap up. Every every speaker is allowed 2 minutes.

I am wrapping up right now. Uh please contact me. You have my telephone number. I'm very willing to come over and explain the details of the actual science. Thank you.

Thank you. Um next we have Leslie uh Swakimer. And our last speaker after Leslie is Nicole Diva. Hi, I'm Lesie Swackhammer. Swackhammer. uh and I'm a member of third act which is um elders who have um gathered for the purpose of protecting democracy and defending uh the planet particularly the environment. Um and I have a position paper that I'd love to submit that is um the position of third act Vermont regarding the McNeel power plant. Surprise. Um, I'm going to talk about it in a little bit of a different context. First, I just want to say that Burlington has a proud history of leadership on clean energy and and we should all be very grateful and proud for that. But the science and the finances have both moved since this leadership was established. And there's now overwhelming scientific consensus that biomass is not renewable and actually just as or more polluting than coal and natural gas. Burlington has now become an outlier in New England for continuing to classify biomass as renewable. But the city has a chance to lead again and this time on the transition away from biomass just as it once led on the transition away from fossil fuels. Beyond the world of climate emergency locally, we face a true fiscal emergency

and good money is going after bad if you keep McNeel running. Council members are accountable to rateayers. A plant bleeding money while its revenue streams dry up is a liability, not an asset. And the city is now considering taking on 100% ownership of that liability. On that note, I feel that the current ownership negotiation as to McNeel is the moment to get us moving towards closing McNeel. Well, I'd be happy to tell you about that strategy, but I'll have to come another time. Please take this opportunity to seriously develop a plan to close McNeel. Thank you.

Thank you, Leslie. And our last uh non Burlington resident here in Contosys is Nicole Diva.

Good evening everyone. My name is Nicole Dvita. I'm the president of the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals. I'm going to speak to the resolution in regard um to the um union's bargaining at UVMC. Right now, more than 3,700 healthcare workers at the University of Vermont Medical Center are engaged in contract negotiations. This includes the committee of interns and residents who have been bargaining since January as well as the technical professionals of the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals and the members of support staff united who entered into bargaining in solidarity and in purpose a few weeks ago. I want to take a moment to specifically talk about VFNHP techs and SSU members. We as professionals are essential to patient care. We are the ones running critical tests, supporting clinical teams, transporting patients, creating diagnosis, dependent imaging, and keeping our keeping UVMC functioning day in and day out. Our work is fundamental to every patient interaction. Yet too often, the compensation has not kept pace with the value we provide. I want to also express clear solidarity with CIR residents who are bargaining at the same time. Resident physicians are not only providing care today, they are the future of health care in Vermont. We know that physicians are far more likely to stay and practice where they compete complete their residency. Yet, it is becoming increasingly difficult with the rising cost of living in Vermont and the greater Burlington area. Supporting them through fair contracts is directly tied to addressing Vermont's growing provider shortage. At the same time, we have to look at the broader context. Patients in Vermont are already facing the highest health insurance premiums in the country. Health care is becoming increasingly unaffordable and too many people are

being forced to delay or go without the care they need. On top of that is the rising cost of living here in the Burlington area and across Vermont. The income needed to afford housing has increased by more than 60% in just a few years. While rises in wages have remained generally slow, rent has significantly outpaced inflation, especially in today's economy. And yet many health care workers, especially text and support staff, are dealing with stagnant wages that simply do not match the reality of living and working in this community. Can you please wrap up?

Yep. The gap is not sustainable. We urge you to support the resolution put forth. Thank you. Thank you, Nicole. And our last uh non Burlington resident is an online uh speaker and that is Brian Clifford. If you'll Hello. Can you hear me? Yeah. Go ahead, Brian.

Great. Uh my name is Brian Clifford. I'm from Essex and I'd like to express my disappointment that Council Grant was removed as chair of the public safety committee. This is a critical moment for policing in Burlington. And to remove the person with the most experience and knowledge of how policing actually works is pretty confounding. To remove the most experienced and knowledgeable person who also happens to be a black woman feels discriminatory. The city has been dedicated to rebuilding trust in the police department. And I'm worried that the Democrats on the council don't understand the damage they're doing to that project. I disagree with the councelor Litman's comments that city council counselors should not criticize the police. In fact, if you're unwilling to criticize the police, I'm not really going to trust you. And I doubt I'm alone in this. Those of us who have been paying attention remember farther back than BPD's participation in the illegal ICE raid. We remember the mock shooter drill in front of the high school students. We remember the former police chief threatening a surgeon with arrest at the hospital. We remember silly fake social media accounts as well as disproportionate levels of police violence experienced by our black and brown neighbors, our poor and unhouse neighbors, and our neighbors living with mental illness. I'm just bringing all this up because a lot has happened and no meaningful changes have been implemented to impose consequences for police misconduct. And for a lot of us, trust in the police exist on the other side of meaningful change. And Council Grant understands this and has been committed to building trust the hard way because that's the only way it will work. We really need results and I'm worried that it's going to be harder now. Thank you.

Uh thank you, Brian. And that concludes uh public forum for tonight. Um we do have a local control commission meeting um that we had warned for 6:45. So I'm going to um briefly recess our city council meeting at 7:14 so that we can call to order the local control commission. And the first uh the first uh item on the agenda is the agenda. So I would entertain a motion on the agenda. Move to adopt the agenda. Um is there a second? Second. Second. So the motion. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the agenda indicate by saying I.

I. I. Right. Um next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. Um I move to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated. Thank you, Commissioner Broadick. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Singh. Is there any discussion? I have a brief I just wanted to state for the record I am recusing myself from a single item that pertains to my employer on the consent agenda the FL so noted um any other discussion seeing none all those in favor indicate by saying I

I that's unanimous um and on to our deliberative agenda uh the first item is 3.1 a second class liquor license application for campus kitchen, 273 Colchester Avenue. I move to approve the 2026 2027 secondass liquor license application for campus kitchen 273 Colchester Avenue with all standard conditions. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Singh. Uh any discussion on that? Seeing none, all those in favor indicate by saying I. I. I. I. Any opposed?

That's unanimous. Um item 3.2, 2 the first and third class uh liquor license application for Kona Beachside 60 Institute Road. I move to approve the 2026 2027 first and third class liquor license applications for Kona Beachside 60 Institute Road with the following conditions contingent upon fire marshall approval and with all standard conditions. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Singh. Uh any discussion on that one? Seeing none, all those in favor indicate by saying I.

I. Any opposed? That's unanimous. Um, and now we're on to item 3.4, first and third class liquor license applications for pizza Saraphina at 11 Flynn Avenue. Um, Commissioner Barla, I believe we're on 3.3. Oh, so it is. It's another Kona. I'm sorry. Thank you for that. Um, so I'll retract that and we'll next is uh 3.3 the outside consumption permit for Kona Beachside at 60 Institute Road. I move to approve the 2026 2027 outside consumption permit application for Kona Beachside 60 Institute Road. Is there a second?

Second. Second. Any discussion on that? Seeing none, all those in favor indicate by saying I. I. Any opposed? That is unanimous. And now we're on to 3.4. The first and third class liquor license applications for Pizza Saraphina at 11 Flynn Avenue. I move to approve the 2026 2027 first and third class liquor license applications for Pizza Saraphina 11 Flynn Avenue with the following conditions contingent upon fire marshall approval and with all standard conditions. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Commissioner Singh. Uh any discussion on that? Seeing none, all those in favor indicate by saying I. I. I.

Any opposed. That's unanimous. And our last item is 3.5, an outside consumption permit for Pizza Saraphina, 11 Flynn Avenue. I move to approve the 2026 2027 outside consumption permit application for Pizza Saraphina, 11 Flynn Avenue. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Commissioner Singh. Uh, any discussion on that one? Seeing none, all those in favor indicate by saying I. I. Any opposed?

That's unanimous. And with no further business and business before us and absent objection, I'll adjourn the local control commission at 7:18 and we'll be we'll reconvene our city council meeting. And we were in the middle of or near the end of our work session on the net zero energy roadmap update. And I'll invite uh general manager Springer back to the table. And now we will entertain some questions from the council. And I can I can have a show of hands if who's interested. Councelor Bergman and Okay. Council on Newer. Okay. Go ahead, councelor. Councelor Bergman.

Thank you, Acting President Barlo. Um actually uh Darren, thanks for for being here. What I'm going to do is just list uh four things that I would like you to come back and give us a more thorough report. Um we have got a weatherization um ordinance. It's DPI that administers it but um it's part of our roadmap. And although the people who were talking about the link between our environmental policy and affordability um have left, this is one that where we have required greater weatherization in our rental housing units, particularly with those that are using a lot of energy. And uh we need actually to get an update on the status. And while we have been asking for that and we have done that through the TUK, I think that given its relevance to the road map, given its um essentiality to the uh the thermal energy network that having a report here about that um the barriers, the status, everything and and including um ideas about how we can make sure that happens because there's no reason why people should be paying outrageous rents and freezing to death. You know, in you know, that's obviously hyperbole, but uh maybe not. But, um in in this city, um in the same uh regard, we adopted a benchmarking status uh benchmarking um ordinance to track energy uh usage so that we could begin to have the baseline. We could have the baseline for doing building energy reductions. Exactly. the kind of work that you point to in the road map and uh we need to get

a status report that really should be integrated. Both of those things should be integrated into the road map. There are existing laws that we've passed that are absolutely consistent with um the road map for the reduction of uh um emissions um and usage. you you raised good work that's being done in terms of geothermal networks um and what I think would be very informative and it would be informative for the entire council to have a real sense of a big picture about the potential for uh geothermal in the city, what it will take to get there, um what the benefits of geothermal. Um this is a a a a a source of electricity which is in my mind transformative and uh we need to understand it uh much more fully. And then the last thing um as part of my vote to uh approve the uh the the district energy heating system, we included in their um in um requirements for transition planning for McNeel. And it would be very important, I think, for the entire council and to put it in the context and we've heard the public talk about that to have a status report on that aspect of the uh of that resolution. So, um I'm not asking for anything tonight as much as for you to take those uh consider them and and uh my request is that you come back uh with uh with reports on those. Uh, thank you. If I may, just briefly, um, on the first two items, we would really need the Department of Permitting and Inspections to to present that data. We don't hold

that data. Um, they're, you know, enforcing those two ordinances. We're supporting that effort. Uh, but we don't have the data, so we would need that Department of Permitting and Inspections to come in. The results are incorporated, of course, in the road map. So the extent that we reduce our usage through rental weatherization ordinance or uh other efforts that that gets obviously incorporated within the broader data that we present on thermal but uh I know our team would be glad to come in with the department of permitting and inspections and talk through uh anything related to those two ordinances. Um, regarding geothermal, we're also happy at any point to talk. It's not so much, it can be a source of electricity, but here in Burlington, it's really a source for for heating and cooling. And um, it's not always in networks that it that it's applied, although that's a a popular concept at the moment as well. Uh, but in large institutional buildings like our high school, like Champlain College, like some of our elementary schools, there can be a great application for it. Uh we started uh the geothermal test well program precisely for that reason because we know customers don't always have the funds to drill a test well and see if they hit the right uh type of water to be able to do a geo system. As I mentioned we're fighting in Mielar to maintain that program. Uh and we we believe uh hopefully we'll be able to do so. So we'd be glad to talk more about that. And on the McNeel item that was in the district energy resolution, I of course uh would refer folks as well to the vality report uh which was a part of that effort. Um as a result of the vality report which we presented to TUK uh late last year, we also issued an RFI uh for technologies that uh among the several that were the most compelling to see what types of options there might be. Uh we've gotten a few responses to that. We're having some conversations with uh potential vendors for how we can demonstrate uh some tangible progress on some of those technologies. So, um I I wouldn't have more to report now than that at the moment. Uh we have the Valarity report which was the third

party report that looked at the technologies and we're doing our best uh in the midst of a variety of competing priorities of course to uh bring some of those projects forward and we'll definitely when we have something tangible to provide we'd be glad to do it. I I thank you. I I all the things that we tal you know we've just talked about I think are really important for this council to hear for the public to hear in this setting. Um so I look forward to that and the collaboration with the various partners that you said I think is essential. So thank you. Thank you. Of course. Um thank you um councelor Newer.

Um thank you. I I wonder if so I have a question and my question is if you could speak a little bit to some of the comments made in public forum around McNeel. Um, this is not a conversation that's that's new. It's a conversation that's been ongoing. It's a conversation you've been involved in. Um before I have you do that, I I do want to zoom out for a second and maybe you'll have comments on on this as well, but this is more my own commentary, which is um we have made real progress and I think BED has played a really big part in pushing Burlington to be a leader on electrification to make it more feasible for residents financially to electrify, giving that incentive, especially now with the federal government um taking a step back. we saw the city take a step forward uh and increase incentives. Um and so I think we've done the electrification incentives really really well. Uh and I think we can serve as a model for many other communities there. I think the the broader point that I think is reflected in the conversation around McNeel, but I also myself am wondering um and we've talked about before is how do we address these other strategies that we haven't been as good on. Right? So for example, we are making progress and and a couple of those charts and we don't have to pull it back up per se um around overall emission reduction and because of you know the COVID dip uh and then we saw sort of like us going in the opposite direction. We're essentially where we are in 2019 2020 arena um if you look at the uh some of the charts you shared um in terms of the number right. No.

Um no just just to correct we we have seen reduction from the 2019 2020 time frame. Yes. Yeah. Which is really important point. Uh

I guess I'm just saying that it's it's yes that's absolutely true. Um my my point is that it's the reductions we've made. We're just not getting where we need to go right with electrification alone. I do take the point around McNeil and we don't have to debate it tonight. I you know it's a longer conversation. It's been going on for a while. Um, but to me that is a high-carbon emitter. Um, and so I don't sort of as I'm looking at this at at a high level I I don't count that as a win necessarily, even though yes, it is technically a renewable energy specifically for that that timeline, that carbon recapture timeline. Not that I'm a fan of gas either. So, um I think that uh what councelor Bergman spoke to and having a conversation moving forward around uh geothermal and thermal networks for the city is really exciting to me. I think could be really effective and while it is challenging um there are groups nationally helping with financing um and and sort of still budding um but I think that's an opportunity for us and and we should be thinking about how that impacts our planning 5 10 15 20 years uh moving forward and then I just want to come back to and and councelor Bergman spoke to it but the um universal uh rental weatherization that we passed back in I think it was 2019 I believe um and I could have that year off but the implementation it's it's a great policy I think but the implementation hasn't been there um you know I know when I first got on the council one of my first meetings you presented a roadmap it was in 24 and we talked about workforce development being a challenge like not having the workers to go do the actual weatherization I will say like a few years ago I got um you know since that meeting I had my house weatherized and as at least a residential, you know, small scale one unit customer, I I had a pretty easy time doing it. There's 0%

financing, so, you know, it's free money over terminal loan basically. Um, so I do think we're hopefully in a better spot. Um, and I understand too it's a a Department of Permanent and Inspection question as well, but I'm I'm really hoping that we can see more collaboration moving forward in in moving that policy forward because to someone's earlier comments, and I don't know that they're actually still here. Um, but to me, like the most sort of equitable, justiceoriented climate solution we can look at is weatherization. It's reducing the amount of energy we're using in the first place. Um, and at the same time, we create good union paying jobs. We increase quality of life for renters. Um, we we invest in our incredibly old housing stock as a community. Um, so I I I really think that that's a a key strategy moving forward and want to figure out together how we um get that implementation in place and and uh you know we're we're just way past the deadlines that even you know the deadlines to me were insufficient in terms of where that policy landed for folks to transition, but there was sort of a transition period. Um and and a lot of large property owners, landlords haven't haven't complied with that. So, want to figure out how we how we do that. And I'll get off my soap box with all that. Thank you.

Well, I just offer we're we're big supporters of weatherization as one tool in the toolbox, of course, um because we also want to get people off of fossil fuel for heating, uh for cooking, for appliances, for transportation. So, agreed that it's a key strategy. We actually in the legislation I was mentioning um H940, we worked with the Department of Public Service and we have provisions in there that allow us uh to provide including increasingly for incomequalified uh residents of Burlington to provide weatherization support not just the incentives because Vermont Gas has 98% of our service territory and they provide incentives for weatherization but we can do with this bill if it passes and we're doing some of this now with CVOE we can provide support for what we think of as the pre-weatherization abatement of health and safety issues. Uh maybe somebody has knob and tube wiring that needs to be replaced or they need an electric panel upgrade or there's asbestos or vermiculite that needs to be abated or they have a leaky roof so we can't insulate and put uh appropriate you know air sealing measures in. So we're going to have funds to increasingly support those types of efforts and I think that's a newish tool in our toolbox and we're we're interested to deploy that. Um, I would again defer to my colleagues at at DPI in terms of enforcement of the weatherization ordinance. We just don't have visibility into that. We've certainly tried to be supportive. um we have some limited resources in terms of staffing uh help that we can provide in terms of the implementation the technical aspects but um we just I don't have visibility fully into kind of where where the barriers are right now in terms of implementation but stand ready to work with you and and our colleagues to make sure we do as much as we can to advance that. Um, in terms of kind of the broader point, I did just want to make clear we did have a real important kind of moment during the pandemic where we saw a dip and then we saw a little bit of a rebound, but we are down on a net basis the 17.8% on greenhouse gas

emissions in the ground transportation and thermal sector uh since our 2018 2019 baseline. So pre- pandemic baseline uh because we don't want to just count progress that happened during the pandemic because people weren't using energy because they weren't driving or they weren't in buildings. So, it's an important moment to kind of account for. Um, but we've we've moved past it and our best years have been the last two uh relatively uh compared to those earlier years. In terms of McNeel, um it's it's not the focus of the road map and it doesn't mean that it's not important to discuss. It just happens to be that there are transportation sector and the thermal sector, the two biggest sources of emissions in Vermont. And the idea was at the time when we became the first city in the nation in 2014 to source 100% of our power from renewable generation uh which only a handful of cities have accomplished since the idea was how could we expand that accomplishment to other sectors of our economy and help create additional benefits uh not just from a climate standpoint but from a cost standpoint. You know since that time there's been some critique of McNeel. We're certainly we we understand the critique. I wouldn't say we necessarily agree on all of the parameters here. I think there's there's important distinctions. Uh for example, we don't go out and cut trees to provide wood for McNeel. We take leftover product uh tops, limbs, disease damaged trees, non-commercial wood from harvests that are happening anyway. And that's in our contracts. And there's a different carbon footprint to using that kind of wood than if you were going out and cutting wood for the purpose of using it for energy. So there's some important distinctions there. There's some important distinctions that I think are scientifically recognized in above ground carbon versus below ground carbon. All of that said, we're on board with the idea of let's find ways to improve the environmental footprint and the efficiency uh options that we have at McNeel. Let's not stand pat and have the status quo just be the status quo. We're interested in innovation. uh were maybe at a moment like we were uh with the Moran plant back when originally we

had a coal plant on the waterfront and they tested uh for a period of time could we use wood for energy instead of coal and they did that for a period of time and then they they had enough success that they were able to say okay we can transition the plant to uh to decommission Moran and move towards a new facility which was McNeel at the time we need time to work with the results of this RFI to reach out to the vendors to take the third party analysis that we mentioned from the Valerity study and see if we can turn it into a demonstration of real tangible progress at the plant. That could involve battery storage which we've been interested in uh at the facility. It could involve different technologies that could reduce our use of wood, reduce stack emissions, which is a common goal that I think we all share. So, you know, I I hate to see the conversation be something that's that's adversarial in nature around BED because we're we're a public power utility. We work for the city. We are city employees. We're not here to defend any specific interest. Uh we're not shareholder owned. We're publicly owned. So we're here to work with everybody, but we also have multiple overlapping priorities that we have not just from the city, but from the state in terms of managing operations prudently and being reliable and having uh you know to meet a variety of different policy objectives, keep affordability for customers. So we're doing our best to do that. Uh we'll continue to work with you and lean in on options to do it even better. Um, but I think uh we're right to recognize some good progress this evening with the roadmap and certainly I would be the first to say there's more to do and we look forward to doing it.

Thank you. Um, is there anybody else who wants to speak to this item before we move on? I'm sure this is a discussion that will continue. Um, so appreciate you coming tonight and giving us that update. Thank you all. Appreciate it. Um, next on our agenda is item number four, Mayor General City Affairs. And I'll turn over to

Thank you, Acting President Barlo, and thanks Darren for your presentation, Susan. Um, I want to start actually start first with just acknowledging that we have many of our hardworking uh, Burlington Fire Department staff in the room there in the corner, including the president of the BFFA, who I just noticed came in, uh, President Kirkling. Thank you for being here. I know they're here for a resolution later on the agenda, but I thought I would start with just appreciating them because I don't think there could be enough of that with our frontline workers and what they do for our city every day. And I'm sure I'm speaking on behalf of counselors and more will be said at that resolution item on the agenda. Um, I also just wanted to note that our Burlington Fire Department took the lead in offering the fourth annual spring training uh here in Burlington led by Chief Curtain and his team uh which is something that we hosted for uh communities from around New England and we should be very proud to be able to host that many folks who came to town and I heard we were very good hosts in showing them everything about Burlington outside of just the conference room. So, thank you for that. The second item I want to mention is our continued work on fiscal year 27's budget and that process for folks who didn't tune in tonight began uh officially our budget hearing process over the next two weeks. We presented on an overview a high level overview of where we are right now with balancing fiscal year 27's budget. As we've communicated to the community since at least January, we continue to have a structural budget challenge in our general fund budget this year estimated between 10 to 12 million 10 to 11 million or so as a as a gap. We've been working diligently to provide a balanced approach with three different um strategies to raise revenue. And I really want to always thank the voters. We um passed a police and fire tax winter with over 70% of the vote, which is no small undertaking given the affordability challenges in Vermont and Burlington. So, I really want to appreciate folks for being able to greenlight that option. My budget will include using that full 5-cent increase because it is part of the three-part

balance um approach. The second strategy is to continue to rightsize our our city operating expenses. Um, and in that work, uh, if folks again didn't tune in to board of finance, you'll hear more about this, but I want to emphasize after a lot of diligent and, uh, diligence and hard work, our budget will include no reductions in force of filled positions. And I want to say that again because last year was very difficult and did include reductions in force that were in filled positions, but we looked towards vacancies and got very um, very strategic and very granular in our work. And the reduction uh will include sorry the there are reductions but they're only vacant positions. So so 27 positions will be part of this cost-saving measure uh to really focus on core services and we have 13 of those positions will be ended but they are vacant and 13 others will be held open uh for the year so we can um see those savings uh and help close this budget gap but those 13 will be rolled into fiscal year 28. That is a big moment for this budget. Uh the last part is realizing opportunities where we can raise revenue or be more strategic on using other city assets. Uh and there's more in those details in the presentation again tonight to the board of finance. Lastly, as you'll see over the next two weeks, each department will come to a special board of finance meeting. Uh members of the community I encourage to tune in. We'll have a similar format for every department. So you can track the expenses um operating expenses and revenues for those departments who can raise revenues and get a little bit of an overview of kind of the opportunities within each department as well as the challenges though that format will be the same. So hopefully people could track similar information across all of our 14 departments. Um in this budget we've applied lessons from last year and I also asked the team to really apply a concept of solidarity budgeting because last year certain departments really gave uh significantly in terms of cuts

to help us close last year's structural budget challenge and this year we tried to make sure that we looked at that information in applying who which departments were less impacted last year that could give a little bit more in terms of cuts this year and again in order to fully balance our budget. Uh, and I just want to appreciate uh before I move on from this item, we have engaged the unions. All four of our unions, even IBW who represents staff over at BEED, and it's an enterprise fund, so they're not directly impacted by general fund budget challenges. All four unions have been at the table and working um diligently with my administration and my team uh frequently to find solutions and get creative and to listen to feedback and give me early feedback on initial proposals we had. So, thank you to the city team on that. Uh the next item I want to mention uh is called project next actually and for folks who haven't been to the airport in the last few weeks we opened a new terminal uh and in in terms of our climate goals and also our goals to expand this regional uh transportation hub. It was a big moment for our airport and our airport team. Um there were lots of partnerships uh that helped make that possible. Uh the vast majority of funding came from federal sources uh and also partnerships not from local city dollars. And this is a great economic driver for our community to make sure that we have a state-of-the-art airport and have more capacity to support um air travel in our region. So, thanks to Nick Longo and his team. It was a big moment. You should go check it out. It's a really great space to um to see and there's parts where the public can even engage with that new building. I also want to mention on Wednesday we kick off our our um an open session for our plan BTV 2050 uh comprehensive planning process and it is our our big public event to start gathering community input on the type of Burlington you want to see over the next 20 years essentially. Uh this is also an opportunity to really bring together several plans together to think about what we think about parks, what we think

about the formal planning and and housing design, but also our transportation needs etc. We have usually done those in peace meal different plans. We're bringing it all together under the leadership of Charles Dillard, our planning director, and it will be a great way for a small city to be really smart around thinking about integrated design about the vision we want for this city. So please join us. It's a drop in kind of event on Wednesday, April 30th. That's this Wednesday. Uh Thursday, April 30th is this week. I don't know what day it is, but April 30th, uh is definitely the date. Main Street Landing between 3:30 and 8:00 p.m. This is not the last opportunity. It's just the first kickoff for a community inerson event on July 17th and 18th. I mentioned this in my state of the city a few weeks ago, but I'm going to keep repeating it because Great Street Main Streets is going to have a party and we're going to celebrate the fact that Main Street is looking great. It's put back together. Uh, and three different departments, probably more, DPW, BCA, Cedo, probably more, are planning a grand reopening of the street. We're not going to close it. We're just going to celebrate it. So, J July 17th and 18th, I hope you'll mark your calendars. Another celebratory moment is this Friday, May 1st. It's May already. Um, we are bringing back after a pause during COVID the Celebrate Burlington Awards. This is a really wonderful event um that honors three different I was going to read you the quick um categories because they're impressive, but three different awards that have been named after um public servants here in the community um that honor community members in their name. The first is the Herb Blumenthal Award for Community Activism, which honors a volunteer whose leadership, tenacity, and dedication has somehow improved Burlington's neighborhoods. A second award that will be granted on Friday is the former mayor Peter Peter Clevel Legacy Award. This honor is a professional whose leadership has advanced social equity, environmental stewardship, quality education, economic growth, and vitality in our city. And finally, the Ken Shats Award. Ken Shatz

was a former city attorney for many years in the city. This award honors those who have demonstrated exemplary commitment to restorative justice, community- based responses to crime and conflict, and helping people stay out of or preventing their return to the criminal justice system. We've already received nominations, so the three people who will receive these awards will be named on Friday. And please come celebrate 3:30 to 5:00 here in Contoyce Auditorium. Couple more quick updates for you. Um, in the legislature, which will be wrapping up its work, believe it or not, in the next probably three weeks, our REIB charter passed on a unanimous voice vote, which means they didn't even need a roll call in the House, uh, just last week, and now it moves on to the Senate. That is an important charter that was supported by voters on town meeting day, and it allows us to put in our charter the permanency of our racial equity inclusion work, as well as the director role within the structure of the city. Uh one other piece of update from my office. I have happily announced the hiring of a permanent chief of staff. We've had u a vacancy uh and interim very dutifully held by uh myto director Cara Alasarif in the last two months, but Lisa Gerash will be the chief of staff. She'll join in about a week and a half. Um and we're very excited. She has strong labor organizing backgrounds, legislative experience, and formerly served as a chief of staff for the lieutenant governor. Finally, just a couple highlights from the community. Um, I did a tour in February of the soda plant with just a small handful of the dozens of small businesses that that operate out of that building. If you haven't been in a while, I encourage you to go and check out all of the uh vibrancy and creative thought that goes into the small businesses that are supported in that in that space. I also visited with just before town meeting day um an immigrant women's group largely from the African continent from various parts of the continent uh that was convened by AALV as well as our trusted community voices and I think

these types of listening sessions are not only critical for hearing what African um immigrant families need from our city but how they're experiencing our city and we talked a lot about access to all resident voting as well as the ongoing issues with our federal administration ation and the fear-mongering and the real um uh safety issues of concerns that are coming from the federal government and how that's showing up in our community. So, I appreciate uh those women's time and their um honesty with how they're how again they're experiencing those issues. Just a couple other quick ones. I met with the board of the Burlington Housing Authority, which I do on a semi-regular basis. When I came into this mayorship about two years ago, Decker Towers was making the news on seven days, given the safety concerns and issues in that building. And while things have generally quieted down significantly through the hard work of the resident council there and better partnership and responsiveness by the city, um they are still working on a few house uh related issues given the HUD challenges on the federal government in terms of negative impacts on vouchers but also um limited funds for infrastructure upkeeps including elevator maintenance etc. I just name that because BHA is a important community partner in our affordability structure. There are some units that are available. So, I also want to make sure that's known. Sometimes people assume they don't qualify for a housing authority HUD voucher, but there are opportunities available and I want to make sure people can look to the BHA website or reach out to our CEDO department to learn more about housing availability for our subsidized unit. And finally, I'll wrap up uh with just mentioning I joined the UVM community coalition meeting about two-ish weeks ago, maybe three with Dr. Trump. uh we were she's president of UVM. We were invited to appear together to engage uh this coalition which is between students and community members in the ward 1 and w 8 area uh to just talk about our partnerships and our approach to

collaborative leadership. It was a really good uh conversation. A few counselors were also part of that conversation to re be able to articulate how she sees the city, how I see UVM, and how we're really um breaking new ground in this important relationship. and as two fairly new leaders um that this is an opportunity for us to solve problems together and to solve especially housing challenges together with some new innovation that she brings from Boise which I've spoken about before her former former post but also at the how intertwined we are beyond housing related to community safety community building student engagement um and other opportunities so it was a good good meeting and we've heard some good feedback on that and with that acting president Barlo back to Uh thank you mayor. Um just to give people a road mapap um we're going to um do consent agenda next but then we're going to absent objection uh turn to uh 6.4 the firefighter appreciation resolution and then come back to item 6.1 after that since we have so many members of the fire uh fire department that have joined us here tonight. So before we get to that we have to do our consent agenda first. So I would entertain a motion on the consent agenda. I'm so moved.

Moved by councelor Shakar. Uh is there a second? Second. Second by councelor Mcnite. Um any discussion on the consent agenda? Go ahead, councelor Sher. Um, I just wanted to acknowledge former councelor Busher's remarks on the Intervale Road uh property and uh it is a renewal and we have noted that we are uh glad it we're it's flagged with us and we're we're asking a couple questions but nothing that'll hold up today's vote. Okay. Thank you. Any other discussion on the consent agenda? Seeing none, all those in favor indicate by saying I. I.

Any opposed? That's unanimous and we've adopted our consent agenda. So, next we're going to turn to item 6.4. Um, if I can get there myself, a resolution uh to declare May 4th International Firefighter Appreciation Day in the city of Burlington. And I'm going to turn to councelor Litwin to introduce this. Thanks. Um, do you want me to make a motion now or you certainly can. Okay, great. So, I would uh make a motion to wave the reading and adopt the resolution. I would just ask for the floor back after a second. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by councelor Shakar. Okay, the floor is yours. Councelor Litland.

Thanks a lot. And I appreciate um everybody's willingness to move this on the agenda as um so many fire uh fire department staff members are here this evening. Some actually got paged and had to run out likely to an emergency. So um it just goes to show you how busy they really are. Um, essentially this is sort of a resolution that I won't read everything from it. Um, but I do encourage the public to even just take a take a look at it on the civic clerk website because um, even just in the work of doing this resolution, I came to appreciate our firefighters even more uh because I kept learning something new that I didn't uh know before. And so, um, one of the things I I recently met with Chief Curtain, um, that shocked me, um, and gave me pause, um, was just the sheer high rates of occupational cancer that our firefighters face, um, as a result of, um, the work that the profession that they have chosen. Um, so, uh, I want to acknowledge the chief and the union, um, and anyone else who has from the city who supported this that they'll be, um, they're working on bringing, uh, cancer screenings right to the firehouse to improve, um, occupational safety and health and well-being for our firefighters. Um, firefighter also doesn't always encapsulate everything that they do. Um, one, uh, it took me only one or two ride alongs to really see that they are social workers, that they are, um, paramedics, medical professionals, that they're on the front lines of our opioid um, pandemic, excuse me, opioid uh, epidemic, and more importantly, how many of us stopped and paused to really process uh, the global pandemic?

Um it sort of felt like we threw ourselves back into business as usual um without acknowledging the sheer effect that it had on our community, our country, our world. Um and they were on the front lines of that during a very scary time when many of us um if we had that privilege of being housed um were safe away in our homes. um and that their families were at risk and they had just the same amount of lack of information and misinformation as we were receiving. Um so I I want to thank them for um I'm sure they were thanked before but in a belated way thank them for their work during that um amazing moment in humanity. Um, so that being said, uh, we thought about, uh, we worked with the union to find out how how best to, um, acknowledge their work and this was the the first step in that process. Um, and so this would if passed tonight, which hopefully it will, um, this would be sort of forever uh, May 4th as International Firefighter Day, which by the way has been celebrated around the world since uh, I think 1999. So, um, without further ado, I think, uh, I'll just leave my comments there, but just really thank all our name plates are all mixed up tonight, so I think I'm probably Mark. I have no idea. But, um, but I want to thank you all for being here. I want to thank you for the work that you do. Um, talk about shifts. I think it's like three days, four days on, three days off. Or maybe it's the other way around. Three days on, four days off. Um either way, it sounds like a lot to me. 8 hours on a firetruck was enough for me. So, um thank you uh for all that you do and knowing the real tough work we have uh to do downtown. I appreciate uh

and across our whole community. I appreciate that. So, I'll move on. Thank you. Uh thank you. Um who else would like to get into the queue? Go ahead, Councelor Sanchez Parkinson.

Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Litwin, for um putting this forward. I am in my first month. Um I've had the privilege of being able to ride along uh with the fire department. I also had a privilege to sit down with uh Chief Curtain and Lieutenant uh Kurtlink and I'm just very grateful. I think it's when you ride along, you are able to, I think, really soak in um all of what you all do and much more that we likely don't see. So, I just want to thank you all and um and we'll be supporting this resolution. I also wanted to highlight some of the things that stood out to me uh of the that work that you all do and one of them is around data collection. Uh just the way that you all really capture everything that is happening in our city. Um it's a really incredible snapshot uh to understand what's going on hour by hour in our city. So, I thank you for that extra work that also goes probably um invisible work. I also learned about your commitment to the workforce. Uh we talked about retention and recruitment um and something that I look forward to continuing discussion and and supporting. Um and that it's in connection to the next resolution that we'll be talking about. Um because I think that being able to support uh those who are at the front line of our city uh is really important. So, thank you uh for the work that you do. Thank you to the leadership for supporting um the employees and in the workforce.

Anyone else? Go ahead, councelor Grant.

Thank you. I also want to say um similar to what my fellow counselor just mentioned, I have had a great uh deal of appreciation for the willingness of the department to share data to um answer questions around data and be willing to um look at things differently. Sometimes the answer was no, but a lot of times the answer was yes. And I really appreciate that and I really appreciated always being available to have a a conversation about what was going on and um I appreciate the heat maps which is kind of an inside joke but it's uh really important especially in central district to have an understanding of what's going on. I also appreciate how much uh the department has really stepped up uh during the drug crisis. there just became a time where you're responding to all these calls on your own and it wasn't really meant to be that way but that is is what has happened and uh standing up the CRT team and also doing this at a time where to be frank there wasn't always you know I talk a lot about equity um so when we look at some wage disparities that have occurred heard in our uh two predominantly known uh public safety departments. I hope to see the city work on that in the next few years as well as the disparities in the the hours worked. Those are still really important things that we have to think about um as a council in the future as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Councelor Grant. Councelor Mcnite.

Thank you. Um, I'll just add to my colleagues gratitude here and thank you councelor Litwin for bringing this forward. Um, you know, I feel like every time we hear from the fire department, it's about a new innovative approach or a new success or a case study that other departments around the country are going to take and replicate. And when I think about a city of our size and maybe even more importantly a state of the size of Vermont, you know, we're we're tiny and this department is clearly just punching so far above your weight and uh that's because of the hard work that you are all putting in and the leadership that you give to the city. Um I also want to give a special appreciation for your community outreach with kids. Um, I have two young kids and my little ones have had the chance to climb on trucks and put on hats and it's just like so fun and cool for them and so um I think you guys maybe all have a good time doing that too. It really comes through in your work. Um so really I we there's so many praises to sing um from all of us. And then I I also can't not just remark on the date of this special day, which is is May the 4th, which if you're a Star Wars fan is like kind of a cool date. So May the fourth be with you. Thank you.

Thank you, Councelor Mcnite. Uh Councelor Shakar.

Uh thank you, Acting President Barlo. Um I would keep this very brief, but I would be remiss if I didn't pop in to also just say thank you. Um, I'm truly uh we are just so fortunate to have all of you. Your commitment, your leadership, your drive, uh your care for our community. Uh you're such a centerpiece of keeping our city functioning. Um and I've uh I I have the pleasure of working very nearby and stopping by every so often for lunch. And it's always a real treat to just see and hear everything going on with all of you, the way you think about your work. uh and again just the care you bring to all of it. So uh deeply grateful um and excited to celebrate May 4th with all of you. Thank you.

Is there anybody else who wants to speak to this resolution? Seeing none, I'll just um add my gratitude as well. And and I'm probably not supposed to do that. I'm going to do it anyways. Um and uh and I guess then we'll call the vote. Uh all those in favor of um waving the reading and adopting the resolution by saying I.

Anybody opposed? That's unanimous. Thank you very much. So, next we'll go back to the beginning of our deliberative agenda, which is item 6.1, um, an indoor entertainment permit application for Lucky U, 190 College Street. And I'll turn to the chair of our licensing committee, Councelor Broadick, for a motion on that. Uh, thank you. I move to approve the 2026 2027 indoor entertainment permit application for Lucky U 190 College um street with all standard conditions. Is there a second?

Second. Seconded by councelor Singh. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor indicate by saying I. I. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Uh and then item 6.2 2 is a tobacco license and tobacco substitute endorsement application uh for Campus Kitchen at 273 Colchester Avenue. I'll turn to councelor Brick for a motion on that. Uh I move to approve the 2026 2027 tobacco license and tobacco substitute endorsement applications for campus kitchen 273 Colchester Avenue. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by councelor Singh. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor indicate by saying I. I. I.

Any opposed? That is unanimous. Um and that brings us to item 6.3, a resolution on the negotiations between the committee of interns and residents, the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, Support Staff United, and the University of Vermont Medical Center. And I'll turn to councelor Newer uh to introduce this. And acting president Barlo, excuse me, just before return to the meeting. Going to let you stay there. Uh but just uh if I if I may note for the record due to a professional conflict of interest I am recused from this matter. Thank you. Understood. Noted.

So now I will turn to councelor Nubizer to for a motion and to introduce this. Um let me just pull up my thing here. Uh, sorry, I got tabs loading. Well, I'll start talking as I am if that's okay quickly.

All right, good. Um, so I'd move to wave the reading and adopt the agenda. Adopt the resolution. Second seconded by councelor Broadick. Go ahead.

Well, thank you. I I first just want to um thank folks for showing up and coming to public comment and speaking with us a little bit. Um my wife is a nurse and we're a proud union household. I've dedicated the last couple years uh to working in the labor movement um building power for workers and and some of the most important fights in the state of Vermont. we have today are the fights happening uh at the hospital. Um you know, we've had conversations across the state and and hear about the impact of property taxes. We'd have uh have had conversations about the state legislature and the governor uh trying to consolidate schools um and gut public education. Um, the reality is is that beneath a lot of those conversations is the uh incredible cost of health insurance and health insurance premiums to both individuals and organizations, private and government alike. Um, Vermont, you know, it shocks most people. We live in the country that spends the most per capita on healthcare compared to any developed country in the world. Vermont has the highest cost of insurance premiums uh in the entire country. So there's an argument to say that we are actually paying more for health care than anywhere else on the globe. Um and so a big driver of that here in Vermont is because the UVM health network uh it's I think it's over 60% now of all healthcare spending um goes through the UVM health network. And so they are essentially by no fault of their own per se, uh, but essentially a monopoly. And so what the UVM Health Network does in terms of price gouging consumers, how they treat their workers, um, and more really does determine what our health care system looks like as Burlingtonians and as and as Vermoners.

So that brings me to um this resolution. And again, I want to thank uh C, CI, SEIU, VNFHP, SSU for their work on on on this resolution. Um, I think it's critically critically important that as we try to address the rising cost of healthcare. Um, we acknowledge that unions are at the front line of that fight and these unions in particular are at the front line of that fight because there is a debate. Do we continue down a road where UVM Health leadership continues to spend uh money on layer after layer after layer of bureaucracy and non-patient care which accounts at least as of a year ago for about 70% of their budget for um salaries or do we uh push this institution at the local state uh level through places like the reink mountain care board through resolutions like these through supporting workers doing the organizing that will create this change um and asking UVM what their priorities are. Are they going to uh advocate for universal healthcare? Are they going to support uh patient care and approach um a solution to health care spending not just by squeezing every minute they can out of already overworked uh nurses and health professionals? So I I I'm hoping that we can unanimously support this resolution. Um I think it's a small step we can do given what these workers provide our community and our state. Um, and I do just want to one last note because I worked in uh the sort of justice movement on the left for my entire career. Um,

it it was shocking to learn through this process that residents uh have have times and there's there's a whole list of things we could talk about, but residents quite literally work in some cases 24 to 26-hour shifts at the hospital. And when you look at what they're paid, it equates to less than minimum wage. I mean, to to me that is um indicative of how our health care system treats residents overall and and for years they're expected to take on a bunch of medical debt and then be treated as subhuman in the workplace. And it's just wrong. Um so with all that rant, uh I hope that we can support this tonight. Um, and we'll pass it back to you, council president. Thank you.

Thank you, councelor Nuber. Who else would like to get in the queue on this? Councelor Shakar. Thank you, Council San Parkinson.

Um, I actually have just a couple of clarifying questions. Um, of course, want to extend deep gratitude to our health care professionals and all the amazing work that you do. Um, all of us are touched by that work. uh and our families. So truly, thank you. Um I think I noticed a few maybe typos or f wording funniness that I just wanted I I can send via email, but I kind of wanted to say out loud because I think we probably should correct it um in the final version. Is it okay if I just rattle a couple off? Do you have it up, Councelor Nubieser, in line? Um

I I do. I guess I I would uh I'm I'm open to hearing them. Uh I would have appreciate them in advance of the floor given we shared this on the 14th. However, um I would just ask if they're just wording differences that maybe we skip over them and and save everyone's time.

Just wording. I think in line three it says he and I think it should say the and lines seven and eight is about toque. So, I think it maybe just needs to be eliminated. And then there's just a couple words on the end of line 37, 36, and then into 37 that are duplicative. It's very minor. I can send a quick email, but I just kind of wanted to name that for the final version. Sure. I'd welcome the email. That's it. Are you all set? Yeah. Okay. Um, then we'll turn to Councelor Sanchez Parkinson next.

Thank you. I just wanted to um continue to extend my gratitude for everyone who works in our city and of course our health healthcare providers. Um I am supporting this resolution because it's important to continue to keep our city um and our workers healthy. If we if they keep us healthy, I think it's it's only fair that we work towards keeping um those who are providing that service healthy as well. Um, I wanted to also spend a little time like humanizing um, this resolution and thinking about what a fair contract means for healthcare providers. It means that um, as as residents of this community as part of this city, they're also being able to spend more time with their children. They're able to enjoy and shop local. They're able to provide in our local economy um, and enjoy the beautiful city that we have. And so, um, I'm in support both in terms of, um, thinking about, uh, working environments, fairness, and wages, uh, but also what it can do, uh, for a thriving, healthy, and, um, community that we have in our city.

Um, thank you, councelor Mcnite.

Thank you. Um, so, thank you, councelor Newer, for bringing this forward. The topic of healthc care is very especially at UVMC and especially at UVMCC is very uh topic that's very near and dear to my heart. Um six years ago I had a front row seat to the healthcare industry here in Burlington. And when I say the front row I mean the chemo chair which is a place nobody wants to end up. But it turns out when you are there you learn a lot of things really fast. And I think there's two things important to share from that experience that relate to this resolution and why I'll be supporting it. Um the first is that when your life depends on it, and mine definitely did, you realize you're entirely in the hands of the incredible dedicated experts that are at the hospital, in this case UVMCC, whether they're doctors or nurses or all the support staff in between. um you are um you're in their hands and luckily here in Burlington we have access to really incredible hair incredible care. Um so I want to just express very deep gratitude for that. Still gives me chills to think about what might have happened if if you all weren't here. Um and the second thing that you learn is just how broken the system is to uh that provides that care. everything from insurance to administration to the lack of good policy, lack of access to care, transportation to the hospital. That drag, all of those drags on the system um are really apparent at every single visit. And that's in spite of um that incredible expertise and dedication that I mentioned. um you can still see it coming through even as as much as the providers and support staff are kind of trying to do their muster up their very best every day. So going through all that really taught me how important it

is to make sure that all of the providers um that are mentioned in the resolution are supported at every turn. And I know that's something I'm committed to doing and um glad to have the chance to do it tonight because it's really important that you all have the tools you need to not just do your job but to thrive in your job. So thank you for everything you do for this community. I do not have anybody else in the queue right now. Councelor S and then councelor Broadick.

Thank you very much uh councelor Barlo. Um I also too want to express uh same as counselor Mcnite uh three years ago I had a really bad health scare and I want to say that I receive received exemplary care um for both my family and myself uh while I was in the hospital. Um so I'm extremely grateful for that. Um you know I do want to say um you know I'm not going to support this resolution. It's not because of lack of support for the work and the sacrifice of the interns, the residents, the nurses, and the other health care professionals that are absolutely essential to this community. I'm just uneasy about the council formalizing a resolution during contract negotiation that's beyond our our governance structure, essentially weighing in on labor negotiations. UVMC is not governed by the city of Burlington. Its regulatory authority is the Green Mountain Care Board. Burlington has many other private nonprofit organizations, both unionized and non-unized employees, but we are choosing to formalize a resolution with regards to just one institution. I really feel that it's important for this this council remain neutral with our community partners in labor negotiation but the resolution ex highlights the struggles of healthcare workers themselves but does not address the ongoing financial constraints budgetary pressures of the institution itself. I worry this will introduce a bi bias in the public sphere and that is then influenced by the council's vote tonight. Well-intentioned political statements can sometimes hinder and not help sensitive negotiations. We need to continue along a path of building more housing of all types, easing financial burdens, taxes, fees, regulatory,

providing adequate transportation. These are the items that this council has direct control and accountability for. those will go much further working on those items of which we are charged to do for the security of our neighbors that work in healthcare than any resolution that we put forward with regards to this negotiation. So I will not be supporting this but I do want to express extreme gratitude for the hard work and care that you provide to our community.

Thank you councelor Singh. Next I have councelor Broadick. Uh thank you and thank you all for bringing this resolution to us and for all all the work that you um have to do under such exploitative conditions. Um, I'm of course um supporting this resolution and um and I believe that um that our city um should absolutely um take the side of organized labor um not just at the hospital but uh but throughout Burlington um because the bottom line is that when Burlington's workers are thriving um it positively impacts um our entire city and everybody in it, not just um not just the workers themselves. Um um our our city is becoming um and has been increasingly unlivable for working-class people. Um and the exploitation that we see not just at the hospital but in um in many other uh workplaces um allows for exploitation to extend to places in such as our housing market where um where workers in in Burlington simply cannot afford a place to live and are being price gouged. Um and so if by um by supporting uh resolutions like this and standing in solidarity with um with organized labor and their struggle against exploitation. Um if supporting better working conditions for the workers at our hospital uh for their own sake um was not a good enough of a reason for uh I'll say that um that um the continued exploitation of our healthcare workers um affects all of us. uh it affects our health, it affects

our healthcare, it affects our economy um and extends out as I just described. Um so again, thank you for bringing this forward. I support this and I would encourage um the council to support resolutions like this and stand with uh Burlington's workers. Um and I'll give a shout out to our own city workers who are engaged in um negotiations right now. Solidarity. Um, next we have councelor Carpenter.

Thank you. Um, I have gone back and forth on this. Um, and only because I so want to appreciate the work of healthcare workers. I have been a high consumer of the hospital these last couple of years and I've had great care. Um, but the system is broken and we've all acknowledged that the system is broken and I I have concerns and go back and forth about how do we fix the system which is a political um effort that we need to do and how do we construct that in appreciation for all of the great workers at uh UVM and then a very specific union negotiation And so again, I go sort of back and forth. I I I will, I believe, support this because I want to show appreciation for the workers, not because I believe UVM is exploiting people. They have a no-win position with this system we have. And we got to figure that out. Um, but I do encourage us in the going forward and this is the third UVM union resolution we've had and we've got lots of workers in this city and every single one deserves the things that were in the in the context of the resolution. So, we need we this council should focus on on worker appreciation day. Last week was world health worker uh week. Next week is International Nurses Day. I mean, we need to appreciate it, but I I I get pause about focusing on one specific um negotiation. So, again, because it's here, I want to support everybody. Um I will support it this time, but I'm sort of getting telling the rest of my councils, we need a different strategy.

this is not the best strategy to um express both our appreciation for the workers and express our frustration with fixing the system. So, we need to continue to figure out how to appreciate all workers, including healthcare workers, and um how to fix the system. So, thank you.

Anybody who hasn't gone first, go ahead, councelor B. Well, I was hoping that I didn't have to speak, but I'm I'm sparked by a couple of the the comments. You know, I sat in a way on your side of the uh the fence there um when I tried to negotiate a contract with Guanette when I worked at the free press in production. Milo was actually in that union with me and we um we asked the city to uh to take some serious actions and also to express support and I can't tell you how important it was to the people who I worked with um to uh to have that expression of support. If you think that this means nothing, that it's just performative, then you haven't sat on that side of the table. you haven't worked those ungodly hours for, you know, when I was working there, I had worked for 10 and a half years and I was making eight bucks an hour. So, and losing my health care at the same time. So, to think that there is a single silver bullet to fix the health care system, you know, if you're looking for that, then you're looking in the wrong place, you know. Um, we have had for well since the the 1980 a growing disparity of wealth in this country that marks the decline of union representation and union power. It's just an absolute fact. You look at the economic policy institute and they document it all the time. Every time that working people need to be um supported, that we need to stand up with

them, you can count on me to to be there um because this is an existential fight for working people of this country. all of us who are um are there um you know this is actually an amazingly neutral resolution, right? It talks about fair negotiations. They're not they're not asking you to give them everything that they're asking for, which is it is sort of, you know, kind kind of sweet on your part, you know, because you're trying to do good faith negotiations. So I I totally uh appreciate that. But um let us be clear, the deck the deck is stacked against folks. And without unions who are standing up, who are working together, then it can only get worse for all of the people that each and every one of us around this table has said that we support. And that is why it is our job as city councilors to be standing up with people in our community who are fighting for justice. This is a local city issue for us to speak out and I'll stop. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anybody who hasn't spoken to this resolution? Go ahead, Councelor Grant.

Thank you. We really have to look at um how things are changing and how representation in government should be supporting our residents, no pun intended, but supporting all of the staff. To points made by my fellow counselors earlier, the vitality of the city is at stake. When people are squeezed too much, they can't contribute to the vitality. Because if all you can do is make your rent and feed your family, there's no room to do anything else. And that includes shopping, dining, etc. And that's a really reality. We cannot in this environment continue to be so dependent on tourism while our own residents can't enjoy our city. And that's what we're saying. Um over the years I've I've known a lot of people who've worked up at the medical center. I've had jobs that are adjacent to it, not in it, but related. There has many many times come up the uh salaries of administration, the amount of money that's been given to travelers rather than spending more on our local um workers. So I think this is important as everyone

said to to support but to also make a stand that we need our employers especially our large employers to really and especially the hospital right this is this is the largest health network in the state um to really look at these things in a whole different way and I too would use the term exploitive. I've known residents. There's some crazy stories about residents and housing that I don't have time to talk about, but they have these crazy shifts, the the infamous one where four of them shared a hotel room and then two were always working so the other two would switch out. Um it's it's incredible uh stories and you're learning but the all those hours you make mistakes. So all of this is related to good working conditions, pay and safety for our workers and safety for patients. And I thank you very much for coming tonight and strongly support your cause.

Thank you, Councelor Grant. Is there anybody else who hasn't spoken to this that wants to address the resolution? Um before I turn to you, councelor Sanchez Parkinson, I'm going to give new councelor Newzer, you have about 30 seconds left.

Yeah, I'll be very quick because I think it's a really important um frame for us to consider as a council before voting. You know, it's it is we we do have a broken health care system, but it is not that the administration is in a tough place and there's no money and they're trying to balance uh fiscal sustainability with investing in workers. From 2018 to 2024, uh, the hospital increased, and it might be the health network of the hospital, I don't want to mess up the stat, but increased their reserves by a billion dollars. At the same time, they forced the conditions of double-digit insurance premium uh, hikes on Vermoners year over year over year over year. 70% of all their salaries uh, roughly 70% are going to non-patient care. um which is compared to 30% which is actually spent on healthcare delivery which is what we are spending all our money on in the first place. Um and that's way out of line with comparable uh medical centers. Um and so there there actually is a ton of money. We do need to move to uh universal healthcare. But in the meantime, the hospital administration uh and Leler have a lot of opportunity and a lot of choices to make about how they spend their money. And are they going to save money and write the fiscal ship that they and disaster frankly that they created under their leadership by squeezing workers or are they going to decrease the administrative bloat that they created?

Uh thank you. Um, I'm going to recognize councelor Sanchez Parkinson because she was in the queue for a second, but councelor um, Litwin has asked for a first. So, I'll go to you and then I'll turn to councelor Litwin and then hopefully we'll go to a vote.

Thank you. Um, I initially didn't want to bring this up because I didn't want to make comparisons of these two resolutions, but I appreciate, councelor Carpenter, that you brought it up because that was on my mind as I was coming into this meeting and as I reviewed um the materials in how we are standing up, supporting appreciating workers in our city. Um, and you know, the one for the fire department to me felt very straightforward, right? It's a symbolic appreciation. Um, I recently spent time with them as I mentioned and we heavily spoke about their union and the ways that they are really supporting their workers, their well-being, their mental health. So, I know that if we were to speak with them and think about how do we uh beyond a symbolic day really support the fire department and their workers, um I know for a fact that they would bring up how to support their workers and and then be compensated and be healthy and and support uh well-being resources. And so in that same vein, um I would encourage all of our counselors to think about how do we pass resolutions that are not only symbolic but that sometimes may make make us feel a little bit uncomfortable because we are stepping up to maybe do something um that may not be necessarily may make us feel a little bit uncomfortable because we're stepping up for what feels right for equity uh for for you know their negotiations of this contract. And so for me um it's a yes because I feel like both resolutions are um in line and supporting our workers and this one for me feels going beyond the symbolic element of it to really supporting uh something that's very tangible.

Thank you. And councelor Leland will get the last word on this.

Thank you. Um and uh thank you uh to everyone's comments. uh there's very little said at the table today that I disagree with. Um there is one thing that I do want to point out which is that I feel the big difference between the two resolutions that um councelor Sanchez Parkinson was just discussing is that one are city employees employees that are employed by the city of Burlington and the other are not. And that to me feels more in alignment with I think what councelor Singh was talking about a little bit which is that uh where is our where's our scope where's our purview um where's our our governance over um suffice to say that of course healthcare workers are vital parts of our community our our neighbors and also um you know an an asset that we just do not have enough of in this in this city. Um, I've been put in a really tough position on this um on this and I'm I'm not sure where I'll land yet, but I've been very compelled by by everything that that folks said today and as well as at the table. But we are in the midst of our own contract negotiations with our own city union and every single one of us has sat in executive session and knows what some of those questions are. We have a fiduciary responsibility to all of this the people who live in this community to negotiate a a a solid contract um that does not put rateayers in any residents of Burlington in any particular position where they also as workingclass people have to dig deeper um to meet those um requirements under

any negotiated contract. So that certainly is something that sits with me. The second thing is, and I really have an issue with this, and it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, is that I really feel that councelor Nubieser has a conflict of interest here, and that that has not been disclosed, and that anyone could have brought this resolution forward. um both as a union organizer with the VSEA, you know, and having a spouse in one of the unions that's being named. To me, it explains why we've had only only resolutions for these particular unions at the hospital rather than any other union. That's an issue for me. We have rules around that and that makes it difficult for me to support the resolution. I will say that however I vote today does is not a reflection of the deep gratitude that I have for healthcare workers in our community and um they absolutely deserve to have fair bargaining. I've been a member of multiple unions. I have voted yes to join a union on multiple occasions, any opportunity I had and I will always do that because I believe unions are in our best interest as workers. But this is diff this is a difficult vote for me and I'll leave my comments there. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilw. Since you uh mentioned councelor Nubies by name, I'm going to allow him a very brief response. Well, since since it's been raised now on the floor multiple times and in private multiple times and it's been answered on the floor and in private multiple times. Um, yes, my wife is a nurse and we're a proud union household and we are proud uh a household that is a has a proud member of the VNFHP. Um, my wife is her own person. This is a nonbinding resolution, a statement of values that says we support labor against the largest institution in the city. There is no conflict. Um I I've never hid the fact that I my job, my my wife's employment. Um I started my comments tonight talking about that being a big motivation. And so you're absolutely right. I I do support workers. I'm always going to stand with workers. Um, and I'm incredibly proud of the contributions that my partners made to this community and will continue to make to this community. Um, if we were voting on sending a $200,000 check to uh my workplace or any uh entity associated with my work, that would be another question, right? Because now we're talking about the distribution of public money. Um, so I I just think and and then the last point I'll make, which again I think demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of the labor movement is VFHP has two contracts, one tech, one nurses. My wife is a nurse. The current contract being discussed is the tech contract um and is currently under negotiation. But even if it was my wife's contract, we're talking about a member of a multi,000 member union. Um, so again, I'm going to ask this again, uh, now publicly, and I hope that it's respected in the future, um, that when a question is asked and answered,

particularly about my spouse, um, that you respect that I've gotten guidance from the city attorney, which is the process when there's a potential conflict, um, on this very topic. Um, so I I I just find it unnecessary and completely inappropriate quite frankly. But thank you. Let's uh let's uh end that there if we can. And um I'm expecting a divided vote. So if the clerk would please call the role. Can I ask a quick question? You should do that. Um the friendly Yeah, word amendments that I proposed, are those what we're voting on? I will move for those friendly amendments.

Okay. Um I'll second them. Okay. Since those amendments are friendly, we don't need to um we can incorporate them into the underlying motion. As long as the uh for the for the record, I as the seconder of the of the resolution, I also find them friendly. You do not find them? I do. Oh, you do find them friendly. Good. I should also say I don't remember seeing them in the version you shared with us. I saw them on civic clerk. So just to clarify. Yeah. No, I appreciate it. It was good. Good catch. I appreciate it.

So we have friendly amendments that have been in incorporated into the underlying motion and those are all we have those uh and we have those amendments in writing somewhere. No. Do you Yes. If you can. Yes. I have sent them via email to all of us and to excellent. Okay. Well, with that then, anticipating a divided vote, um, I'll have the clerk call the role. Councelor Bergman, yes. Councelor Brick, yes. Councelor Carpenter, yes. Councelor Grant, yes. Councelor Litwin, yes.

Councelor Mcnite, yes. Councelor Newzer, yes. Councelor Sanchez Parkinson. Yes. Councelor Shakar. Yes. Councelor Singh. No. Acting city council president Barlo. No.

Nine eyes's two nays, one recusal. With nine eyes, two nays and one recusal. The motion passes. And so next we turn to next we're going to turn to uh item 6.5 the fourth amendment to city place ARTA 2.0 inclusionary housing delivery timeline and for that we have uh looks like director Alnesari from CEDO coming to us and and I'll let you tee this up. This is anformational item. Yes.

So there's no action being taken tonight, but acting president Barlo, I have a point of information. Okay. So qu two quick questions for the city attorney. Is it okay if I share those questions? Absolutely. Um so I

as I recall at other sort of sensitive negotiations that we've had in the past, we often do an executive session. And so my first question is I'm just wondering why we haven't had that for this process. And then given that there can sometimes be sensitivity and issues that are um you know potentially a risk for residents and taxpayers associated with projects like this. I'm wondering if there's any guidance for areas that we should steer away from or um topics that we should save for potentially a future executive session. Thank you.

And just so I'm clear, um, Councelor Mcnite, you're talking about this topic that we're about to start, not the one that we just talked about. Okay. Um,

I'm just looking. My staff did give me some updates um in preparation for a variety of topics on tonight's agenda. So, I'm just finding that information um regarding this matter. So, if I'm understanding your question correctly, you're asking why this is being discussed at a public meeting and not in executive session. Um, so I think that this um I think and um Director Alasar can correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a um amendment to an already public agreement. Is that correct? Yeah. Um so it is I I mean in short I think that's the answer. This isn't like a contract or an agreement that hasn't been entered into already. Um so that's my basic answer. There's no you know I have information just a summary of um what the amendment is but that's sort of what we're here to discuss. Um, so I don't have, you know, I wish I

could I don't know if that satisfies you or but that's my answer at this point. Okay. Well, um, perhaps we'll proceed with the update and, uh, if if you know there's a need at our next meeting for an executive session, we could certainly entertain one then. Sure. No,

I'm sorry. And I'll just add that um the attorney who did work on who has well multiple attorneys in my office have worked with CEDO um on this agreement um in this isn't the first amendment to it um as I'm sure you all know. So um and uh I'm confident that um particularly uh I know that attorney Rama Krishnan has worked on this agreement um and has advised Cedto on this agreement. So, I'm confident that if he felt that it um there was an exception for it uh and it needed to be discussed in executive session, he would have brought that to um director's attention. Okay, that's it.

Go ahead, kick us off.

Yes. Um I I would also just second what uh city attorney Brown said that uh there's generally a high bar to go into executive session and we didn't feel that that was met and that this is an amendment to an agreement that we are already in. Um I want to start by making sure everyone understands we're not looking for a vote tonight. Um, we do understand there was going to be a lot of questions and discussions around this and we decided to postpone um until your next session for an actual vote. Um, we're here this evening to discuss an an amendment, the fourth amendment to the amended and restated development agreement between City Place partners and the city of Burlington. This is related to um the project in the old mall space um sometimes affectionately known as the pit. Um and this is this amendment is um a request by the developers to um delay the I units coming online to push them to the north tower. There are multiple reasons for this which we will get into which are around um maintaining stability of their financing, securing financing for the north tower um and ensuring that the project remains viable. Um this project has 364 units of housing, 73 units of which are affordable. Um I did not introduce myself, so I just will for the record. My name is Cara Alisrai. I'm the director of the community and economic development office and I'm joined today by Gumi Jansen who is our real estate development manager as well as Patrick O'Brien who is representing the developers on this project. I'm now going to turn it over to Gumi to give you all um a brief rundown on the

changes um that we're requesting and the reasons behind them. Thank you. Yeah, my name is Gum and I'm and like Cara said, I'm the city's real estate development manager. I'm happy to be with you to Could you speak a little closer to the microphone, please? Yeah.

So, yeah. Yeah. My name is Kumson. I'm the city's real estate developer and and uh I'm very happy to be with you uh here tonight. Um I'm going to try not to be too redundant. Uh both you have the memo of course and the amendment itself and car gave us a quick overview. Uh just as context uh the second amendment to this development agreement was approved back in February 2024 and that uh approval allowed all the inclusionary zoning units to be located within the north tower uh while introducing safeguard u that if the north tower would not be completed or the first phase would not be completed by June 30th 2026 uh the 20% of the units in the south tower would have to become uh affordable. So the safeguard was to ensure timely delivery uh if that sort of timeline was not met. Uh when the last amendment to this agreement, third amendment was approved in June of last year. Uh the expectation surely was that the first phase of the north tower would be opening around this time. uh now that has not occurred and the project has as we described in the memo uh experienced continued delays uh driven by construction and financing challenges. So as the project has been approaching the the June 30, 2026 deadline uh the developer approached us um asking for amendments to uh the agreement. Uh so if you know if if we h had on into June uh and the north tower which is under construction but phase the first residential phase will not be completed uh the developer is required to turn uh currently leased units in the south tower which are now market rate into uh affordable units. Uh so that's sort of

the framework that we've been revisiting in the past for the past several months uh since back in I believe August or September last year. So we've sort of the staff has used this opportunity to reassess whether this existing structure would effectively deliver the intended affordability outcomes. Uh so at a high level this amendment uh that we're discussing tonight uh keeps the affordability commitments intact while we believe sort of we're updating the framework to ensure that they can be delivered under the current uh conditions. Like Cara mentions out of the 364 units uh that the project is delivering 73 will be uh inclusionary units with no public subsidy. they're being funded uh by the project itself. U not making any use of the housing trust fund uh tax credits etc. Uh that is uncommon and allows the city to sort of direct these limiting housing resources uh to other projects citywide. Uh now what the the fourth amendment does is essentially extend the timeline from the third amendment. Uh so the the deadline for the north tower completion is being extended from uh September 30th to December 31st u 2027. So it's a threemonth extension of the completion of the north tower. Uh the total number of the affordable units uh does not change. Uh the amendment keeps all of the affordable unit units on site and in one place. So they all remain within the north tower as was sort of originally anticipated or at least since 2024 and that is consistent with city policy to keep the units on site u and in the downtown core in this case. Uh the

amendment does replace that old fall back uh provision with something that we hope is more workable. So the previous safeguard requiring um the the already leased units to be converted into uh inclusionary units uh has in practice been challenging to implement. Uh so the the solution that we came up with uh which I will go into a bit further detail uh is what we believe it's it's more predictable and it's a more enforceable mechanism for the city as it is tied to performance. Um so if the units the the inclusion units are not delivered by the deadline u in the amendment the developer must make monthly payments to the housing trust fund based on the rent gap between the market and affordable units. uh these payments uh as put forward in the amendment they would start on January 1st, 2028 and they would continue until all the required units are uh delivered and they do not by any means replace the obligation to build the units and deliver them on site. So even in a delayed or further delayed scenario, the project would still be actively actively contributing to affordable housing in the city. Uh and furthermore u in the amendment we are sort of strengthening the enforcement mechanisms to the point that uh occupancy or like yeah all future occupancy in the north tower uh each each phase must meet inclusionary requirement as it opens. So there will be no certificates of occupancy issued in the north tower which is currently under construction unless all the required affordable units are delivered across both towers. Uh so ju just as a

quick example uh the first phase of the north tower will hopefully open within I'll let the developers speak to that but hopefully you know open or or be completed within the next months. uh and that would be 101 units in total. So that that first phase in the north tower combined with 53 units currently being leased in the south tower would require 31 of the total unit count to be delivered as affordable in the north tower. So the amendment it does not reduce the number of affordable units. It does not allow any off-site delivery of units or inloop payments and it certainly does not remove the city's ability to enforce uh compliance. Uh what we're aiming to do is to replace a safeguard uh that is difficult to implement with one that is clear, enforceable, and tied to real outcomes. So our goal has been uh to preserve 100% of the affordability commitment, keep the units on site, introduce a clear financial mechanism tied to delayed delivery and tie all future occupancy uh to full compliance and uh so in a challenging development environment uh this is how we were sort of hoping to protect the outcome while maintaining the project viability and and sort of the yeah goal has been strike that balance between accountability and feasibility and we're happy to answer any questions you you might have. Thank you.

Thank you. Is that Are you ready for

uh I guess that that is pretty much what uh what we're presenting to you tonight. Um I just want to highlight this. This isn't necessarily a position that any of us are happy to be in right now. uh neither the developers nor the city but this is our attempt to be have a pragmatic pro-ousing approach to this issue that is before us. We want this project to remain financially viable and stable and we don't want to be making decisions that um may put the project in jeopardy. Um in addition um we feel that um the city in the larger picture of the economic development and affordable housing of the city. The city unlike in previous days when CEDO was created can no longer rely on um federal subsidies to get affordable units built. Unfortunately, we are in the position right now that most of that money has been drying up for years and is now rapidly drying up. And we the best way for us to move forward with getting new affordable units built in our city is to be doing these public private partnerships with the developers. Um and when we are in lock step with developers, yes, that also means that we do feel some of the pressures of the market that the developers feel, those are also what if we're handinand with them. So again, if we're moving away from the model of abundant federal subsidies and we're moving more into a model of public private partnerships, which uh many of us agree is the only way to move affordable housing forward, then market pressures, market

fluctuations, things like tariffs, uh not enough workers, cost overruns, etc. are going to be impacting these projects. We see these development agreements as living breathing documents. Um that's why we're on our fourth amendment for this. Um this is the only way to move these forward is to try and tweak these agreements as we go forward. I want to just um wrap up by highlighting some of the things that um Gumi said which are that these developers are producing these affordable units uh with their own finances. So to give you a little bit of the financial landscape, um banks will generally provide uh funding uh or loans for affordable units of approximately 120 to 125,000 per unit. It costs approximately 400 to 500,000 to build these units. So that gap is often funded with some of our public housing vouchers. um and affordable vouchers. Our developers here at the table with us are funding for this all all out of pocket. So, they're leaving, just so you're all aware, the affordable vouchers out there, there's a limited number of them. So, if the developers are not accessing them, it leaves them on the table for other community partners, most notably Champlain Housing Trust, to be able to access those vouchers. Um so I think that's a really important point that we need to bring up. Uh there are no payment in loo options uh for this project. Um in addition I don't think we would want to head in that direction because that would delay delivery of the units even further. Um, while money in the housing

trust fund may sound nice, these units will be ready sooner than we would be able to get them online if a if a large lump payment were made to the housing trust fund. Um, another important point is if we did a payment in loo option or or if the project for some reason was not found to be viable, we lose affordable units in the downtown and CEDO has concerns about areas of the city being too gentrified and um we want to ensure that affordable units are being built on site where these projects are. Um and most notably in the downtown. Um now we're ready for questions.

Thank you. Um who wants to be in the queue for this? Councelor Singh, I'll start with you.

Thank you, Council President. Um thank you. A lot of gratitude to Cara and Gumi for keeping shephering this along. Again, it's a living breathing document as you say and um I just really want to thank you. I I do want to thank the developer too. Um your explaining of them leaving those vouchers on the table for our other community partners to build affordable housing speaks to uh local people who are committed to our community. Um and that commitment to our community to me um shows that we need to be committed to them as a as a partner to shepherd this long and get to the final phase. you know, there there's we're going to have 73 affordable units. Um, you know, these public private partnerships are vital to the city as you're saying. Um this is a largecale project and if we have to be able to move these things to the finish line um to deal with the housing crisis that we have here in Burlington and I am um really grateful for the commitment of your office Cara and Gumi and the developers uh for taking this project that has long been out here and something that this city has had to contend with and we're we're seeing uh getting close to the end here. So, let's do what we can to finish this off um and get these housing units online. So, I thank you all for your commitment.

Thank you, Councelor S. Councelor Carpenter next. And then um a question, a comment. Did I understand you to say we're talking about the north putting the units in the north tower and will some of them come online sooner than others? I thought I heard you say that 50 would come sooner than later.

Yes. So the project will open in phases and every time a phase opens, it will need to have a commensurate amount of affordable units with it. So it would be that 20% target. So, um, while the final deadline for the project is December 31st, 2027, um, every time we hope much sooner than that, um, there will be phases of the project that will come online and no certificates of occupancy will be issued unless the commensurate amount of affordable units is also coming online simultaneously. So, we are expecting the affordable units to hit the market before this deadline. I'm just curious how you phase a building like that. I mean just um

that is gonna be because that's very it's good and so I just was curious how that building was going to be phased.

Oh, thank you. Good question. Um I think the the easiest way to explain it is to just you know picture the building. Don't let's forget about it to you for now. It's one big building. And really what it has to do with is one thing, one additional thing that the fire department does that wasn't mentioned tonight is they do all our inspections, fire safety inspections. So what we have done is we have we have worked uh with the fire marshall and his staff to come up with a phasing plan. And what it looks like right now um is uh we are anticipating that at some point in June we will have the first three levels above the retail completed. That's our mark because approximately 32 of the first 100 plus units are student housing units. So we want to get we want to have them ready for when the lease student leases end in May. So to to repeat that um our goal right now is some point in June to open up the first phase. I think Cara mentioned those numbers in total there'll be 101 units. Um and those 20% of those will be inclusionary plus the the 20% of the 53 in the south tower. So when we open that first phase, it will encompass what we owe in the south tower and what we're getting a TCO for in the north tower.

Great. That that does I think clarify a lot and if other um councilors didn't quite understand that they should ask again. The other just sort of comment that I want to uh make and counselor Singh made it but I want to make it for my colleagues and the public. How two critical things. One is it is so unusual to see units without federal subsidy. And you've loosely used the word vouchers. It's not really vouchers. It's the capital that comes from things like the federal low-income housing tax credit which is queued up for five years. You you talked about the differential of 125,000 in financing and 400,000 to build. You got to build the capital in there and it's not the section 8 voucher on top of it helps somebody reduce their rent but it's getting access to that capital and

I appreciate you correcting my my vocabulary.

Well, I think it's important because um it's easy to to fuzz up and and we don't see many projects like that and it's hard to understand how that capital stack works. you need that chunk of money upfront to build the building to open it. And it's it's just a complicated concept. Uh and I think as we go forward, I I don't know what folks in the south end are going to end up doing. We're going to probably see some of it there. Um you really are at the mercy of the capital markets which are not very favorable for multi-unit buildings in a small town like Burlington, Vermont. I mean that that's just the bottom line. We have our build resolution and I don't we're going to look at you know ordinances and stuff like that. We really need capital help and I don't know I don't have an answer to where we get it but that's the problem. Everybody wants home ownership units. No capital to build them. Um more capital for rental but not enough. So I just I just want to make those comments because I think it's it's difficult to to understand but I am pleased to hear that the units will be delivered in phases with whatever is being construction. So thank you.

Who else would like to get in the queue? Go ahead councelor Brick.

Thank you um and thank you for the presentation. I obviously like all my colleagues support this project and um speaking for myself I given the environment um I I do understand um the the need for the this plan in a theoretical sense to happen pushing the units into the other tower. Um I certainly don't want 11 people to be evicted. Um but that the question of why they're in there is a a different question that I'm not touching on right now. Um my question is about the payments. Um so from what I understand under the current agreement um it was that 11 inclusionary zoning units in the south tower were to be opened by June 30th. Is that correct?

Um and then under this new agreement um these $11,000 payments would be made to our housing trust fund if inclusionary zoning units are not online by January 2028. Correct. Uh so kind of just to lay out like the logical path that I'm walking on right now is that we expected afford 11 affordable units to be online by the end of June in 2026 and that has now been delayed um until at latest hopefully uh December 31st 2027. Um but it's grateful I'm thankful to hear about the phases that that's good. Um, of course, um, um, I just still just don't understand as a city, um, why are we, um, not receiving payment under this agreement uh, following the date that we should have had 11 affordable units. um the reason they're not there, that reason being justified or not. Like I said, I think I understand why we're doing this, but why are we not requiring payments um to be from July 1st, 2026 until we have um 11 IC units online. Um and like and to address a point that you made earlier, I do find the the money going to our housing trust fund to be important. Um um as we try to attack our housing crisis, I'm not saying you don't believe that. I'm just talking about what you said. Um um these units are going to be amazing for our city in terms of affordable housing, but we we that's we know that we've not hit our housing goals. Um I think it's important that we're doing everything we can to get more money into that fund um in situations including this. So, just like I want to I'm

wondering what Yeah, I I appreciated your email to me um where you um gave an answer to that question, but I just still don't understand why are we not requiring payments from July until the units are online. Thank you.

Yes. Did you I was going to start. Um that was part of our negotiations with the developers. Um I to be completely clear the issue is money. So the issue is them financing these units, not jeopardizing their current financing in the south tower, not jeopardizing their expected financing in the north tower and then to be pulling more money out of them creates more of a financial issue for them. And that was what, you know, council can weigh in and I do appreciate you weighing in uh on that. Um and that was sort of where we we went with that. Um and just as a point of clarification, my comments about the housing trust fund were related to a payment in lie. Um and I think we are aligned in the importance of our housing trust fund.

Yeah. Like I said, I didn't mean to.

Yeah. No, no, I just wanted to clarify. Thanks. and GI maybe just to add a bit to our rationale is that I mean we are receiving the same message from pretty much every developer in town uh regardless of of the project uh they are facing tremendous challenges uh rising construction cost uh sort of demanding requirements from lenders and and financing companies. So yeah I I think we were just trying to as I said before sort of strike that that balance to continue to support the project while still sort of implementing some mechanism that sort of ties it all together in terms of delivery. So I I I think we yeah we're just acknowledging the challenges that not only this developer is facing but many others. Thank you.

You also have council. Okay. And oh go ahead. Go ahead Patrick. If I may offer a point of clarification, I may have misunderstood you counselor, but I believe that you may have referenced um the need to evict a need for evictions um currently. Was that a comment? Yeah. So the so the only evictions that would need to take place if this isn't uh passed would be we would have to evict 11 market rate tenants.

I appreciate the clarification and um I'm I'm sorry that I wasn't clear. I'm I'm aware that it would be market rate tenants. Okay. Thank you. Okay. others want to get in the queue. Councilor Llin,

thanks very much and I appreciate all the last minute um work that has gone into getting lots and lots of information together. Um so which is really my first point which is um I would love to know about these things well before Thursday uh before a council meeting. So just let me finish and yeah, thank you. And so I think when we when we and thankfully we now have the time to sort of keep working through that and I'm very appreciative. So but but that is really important to me when I'm having to think about um anything that comes before the council, especially things that as document heavy um as something like this because I do my due diligence and I do read a lot of these agreements including the airport agreements that just came through which were also really heavy. So, please go ahead, director.

I uh I just wanted to take ownership of that. Uh and and to apologize. I do think it's necessary that I do that though. Um I normally I do try and give counselors a heads up. This was document heavy and very technical. Um and I was moving too fast. So, I do apologize for that. I hope that council recognizes that my move to delay this vote was an acknowledgment of that error.

Thank you. And I also just want to acknowledge that you're doing two jobs at the same time. So it's it's understood and appreciated. Um so the really the biggest question that I have um is around this clause or whatever in the agreement that um that in the event that the that the south tower excuse me the north tower is not completed on deadline which we all know most of the time projects don't meet deadline and certainly not in a climate like this. Um, why have we been agreeing to a clause and had a clause in there around this if it wasn't something that we could actually do anyway? Because it's now my understanding that this would jeopardize the funding agreements that you have in place, which I am not privy to see.

Sorry. So the question is what why did the developers agree to put the units in the south tower if they weren't going to be able to and it was going to jeopardize

because this because to to in my position the I was a new counselor when this came came before me last time and I I read it and I said oh well if they don't get it on time then no you know no problem we'll be able to open I units in the south tower. I now understand the complexities around that, but I the fact that it even exists in the agreement in the f I just would have assumed not put it in there if it wasn't something that could be done. And so it certainly informed my last vote. Um and so just as a procedural thing, I I have issue with that. So I would just love to know more about that. um if if if it was something that would jeopardize your funding source, then it shouldn't be in there really in my opinion.

Fair question. Um and I'll do my best to answer it. Basically, I think it's just simply a function of timing and sequencing of events. And I believe um it was in February of 2024 when we all signed that ARTA which had this mechanism in it. It was just prior to that um where we had signed our well we the partners had signed their first um loan agreements for the South Tower. Um and when we sat here um and worked with you all on that amendment, uh we all certainly believed that meeting uh the June 30th deadline was not going to be an issue. Um, and so when we applied with all of our financial information and the proformers did not include any of units in the south tower, those applications preeded that 2024 amendment. So So that that is why. And so is it going to be removed going forward or are we keeping that language in there?

This amendment would amend that language. Okay.

Okay. So um I think that's important because um I you know I now understand more about the complexities and I've had to educate myself a little bit over the weekend on the fly. Um it's an amazing building. It's changing the downtown. It's going to be amazing when it comes online. I'm thrilled. Um, and it's not a pit anymore, so we should stop calling it that. Um, but I did I I do just appreciate that um you've done the work to show, you know, how we're going to get those units online. But if this doesn't come online in December of 2027 for whatever reason, um, who knows with the current government in Washington DC, um, that, you know, we'll be revisiting this again. I just want to make sure that we don't have clauses in there that like inform my opinion. Um, I'll I'll leave that there. So, that was my only my biggest concern. Everything else has been answered for me tonight. So, I'm I'm done with the rest of my time.

Thank you. Thank Thank you, Councelor Litwin. Anyone else want to speak to this item? Um, you've already gone once. Anybody else who hasn't gone? Have you gone already? Okay. So, councelor Shakar, then we'll go back to councelor and then councelor Travers and then back to councelor Carpenter.

Um, thank you, acting president Barlo. Um, and thank you all. Uh, I I just wanted to pipe in and say, um, because councelor Litwin, I you know, I I'm so grateful that I and on-site I units are a part of this project in the heart of our downtown, and we really do desperately need them. And I think the point you're raising about, you know, we set these goals. Uh, what it tells me is it just speaks to how living and breathing these documents are, right? that market conditions are changing that the that we are in a public private partnership that does have to be you know director onari what you were saying about being responsive and it puts us in a unique position um as a as a city government where we're used to a little bit more predictability long-term you know I mean not that it's ever super predictable but you know um so I just want to say that I'm really grateful the collaborative spirit that I sense from this project the the true commitment to our city um that is it is going to transform our downtown. We desperately need all of this housing. Um and so I I just want to say like I really appreciate this update tonight, the willingness to hold space for the discussion to allow for our questions to be answered. Um the degree to which uh there's so much um I hope not too much but like blood, sweat, and tears going into this project. Um I I think the commitment and care for doing this local uh in partnership uh in this public private partnership is really an important model that I want to see be successful and that I think I feel as a counselor an obligation to to really learn from and support and and ask questions but ultimately hold that we are on the same team and we're doing a really important thing for the city with this project. Um, but I think, you know, I appreciate your question, Councelor Litwin, and the point you raised and I think it is a living breathing document and that we're all holding ourselves accountable to the priorities that we're setting out, which is that is a core

part of this project. Um, so I just I sort of wanted to just voice all of that and also just my grat my true gratitude. Um, this will transform our downtown. It's hundreds of units already happening and more coming that we desperately need. Um, so I'll leave it there, but thank you. Thank you, councelor Shaker. We're going to go to councelor Travis and councelor Bergman for firsts and then we'll go back to councelor Carpenter for a second.

Thank you, acting president Barlo. Um sitting in the seat, don't have much opportunity to say much, so I'll take it here this evening. Uh thank you very much for the presentation. I want to take this opportunity away from this project to just note that from my perspective, our inclusionary zoning system is is broken. Uh, and it's even more broken with limited access to federal housing support. Our inclusionary zoning ordinance dates back to a time where when you wanted to build a large development, Burlington was basically the only game in town. You couldn't do it in South Burlington or in Willist or in Shelburn. Over the last 10 to 20 years, though, that's completely changed. And all you have to do is drive north through Wooki, drive east down Willist Road, drive south down Shelburn, and you'll see that the development that's occurring there, the development of of large housing units that's addressing the housing shortage we have is completely outpacing what we're doing here in Burlington right now. Um, and and why? Because developers have choices. If if you have a choice between uh building a 100 units um here in Burlington where you have to take a financial haircut on 20 of them or building a 100 units in a neighboring city that doesn't have inclusionary zoning, um the choice is obvious for that developer. And to keep Burlington competitive, our inclusionary zoning ordinance needs to completely change. And I I want to note uh that I I know that the mayor's administration and you director Almas Wawari and our office of city planning are actively working on this and I want to express my gratitude to that. I suspect that this may be frustrating to our local partners here, but my hope is that you're one of the last developers that's facing this unfunded inclusionary zoning housing mandate. We have to find a way to fund affordable housing as a municipality here, whether through new municipal tax structure or through uh fee rebates or uh through our housing trust fund, which has been expanding through short-term rental. We we need to find a better way

uh of of funding inclusionary zoning here in this community. Um, I want to note though that that that comment that I just made about developer choices um is based on the assumption that developers choices are oftentimes, which I think they are made through the lens of of business judgment and and finances. Um, but I want to acknowledge here as I have in the past that I think you all our local partners have have really broken the mold with respect to this. Uh, I I truly think that you care about this community. I'm going to try not to use the the PIT with a P word here, uh, Councelor Litwin, but I think that you were bothered by the, uh, torn down mall, uh, and the lack of progress there as much as anyone in this community. And that your commitment to this project and where you've gotten it this far is is more representative of your commitment to Burlington than it is a financial decision. And I want to express uh my deep gratitude to that. Um, our community owes you a deep debt of gratitude and trust. And I want to note that I trust that you're going to get this project done. I trust that you wouldn't be here this evening unless you truly felt that this amendment was necessary to that end. And uh I know that director and the administration uh knows that as much as anyone and and I trust this administration has uh worked this agreement to to the place that it needs to be uh to keep this excellent project on the right footing. Um, I I'd honestly be ready to vote in favor of this tonight. Uh, I think that the next two weeks will will provide us additional time, which will be helpful, but but I just I want to note that I'd be a yes vote tonight. I'll be a yes vote in two weeks, and I look forward to continuing to move this project forward. Thank you.

Uh, go ahead. You can respond. Uh, Mr. President, uh, thank you. And um if it's okay with you, what I would like to do is give one of the partners, Dave Ferington, two minutes on the floor because I'm because I know he wants to say something because it's the his nature and and if and and if it's nothing else because you keep you look you look over here when you're talking about the developers. I I'm not one of them, right? I'm here representing them and I'm proud of it. But uh Mr. Farington and Mr. clinical are behind me and I and I just want them to be recognized and not me. Would they like to do that? Would you like to come up now or would you want to after council?

If if nothing else, just to give an update on the construction sequence.

Okay. Um I think we'll first go to councelor Bergman and then councelor Carpenter and then we'll invite anybody from the development team that wants to come up. And this actually may be a an intro my question because I'm going to pass on the attack on as the original sponsor of that in 1991. I really believe in inclusionary zoning if you're going to build uh housing for more wellto-do people. I used to say rich people but not necessarily that. Then you got to build them for working people too. And I will die on that hill. But we have a long time uh to to get into that. There are many reasons why people build on the unbuilt areas throughout this county. But assuming approval, what I just need you to restate because I thought I heard it before and I just need this is the projected occupancy of the north tower, the first phase of the north tower and the you know I guess it'll be a temporary co with that and the number of inclusion inclusionary units that would occur in in that phase. So, just trying to nail that down and nail that timing down. And let me just say that I've tried to look at the all the paper, right? And I I haven't actually seen that projection in there. Um, I I've seen some other things that sort of approximate that, but I think that what I heard you say will make me feel a whole lot better to actually the the timing of this. So, please,

yes, I'll let um Patrick on behalf of developers answer that. But yes, while the documents do show the final deadline of December 31st, 2027, um, these projects open in phases. Um, and so we're hoping to have a lot more living livable units out there before then.

Okay. For for a point of clarification, uh here's what we are projecting. Uh the first residential phase of the north tower will consist of approximately 101 units. So 20% of that is is 20. What we have to do at that time in accordance with the proposal in front of you is make up the 11 units in the south tower. So in effect we will be opening up a phase with 101 units that will provide 31 units.

And the timing what we are hoping for is is again to meet that June deadline June of Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Almost a little over a year from now.

Okay. Um and then you wanted us

well um you can corre just offline correction. And I back at the envelope figured that the commitment of the 70 plus IS units is a $20 million commitment on behalf of the developers. And so that's why I think it's so important you understand capital versus operating. So, and maybe 20 million is not the right number, but that's my actually 21900 giving a low estimate or 21 million 900, but you know, we could go that I was just trying to make that point. This isn't this isn't a $1 million commitment. This is a 20 to $25 million commitment. And I I just think that scope is really important. It's really important to understand it in the concept of our own. I mean what we did 20 years ago is very different and so it's a huge win. The other piece I just wanted to point out with lots of my friends in the affordable housing world um who are relying on housing federal housing tax credits which is by far what builds housing is they too are so subject to the markets. They only get as much capital as you can sell those tax credits for. Our big beautiful bill is running a muck with the value of the credits and there's a lot of affordable housing stalled because they can't sell the credits which is the capital they relied on. So actually in one way we're maybe better off that they weren't relying on a big wad of federal credits because their ability to sell them today in this market is not great or not as good as it used to be. It's equally struggling with the financing market but it was just a point to make that you know the the 100% affordable developers

are still struggling with the market. Thank you, Councelor Carpenter. If there are no more counselors who want to speak to this, I'll invite the Dave Farington or any of the developers up that want to address the council.

You use that use the microphone, please. So, because they can't hear you on town meeting TV if you don't I can holler, too. They they still can't hear you on on town meeting TV. Yeah.

Here you go. just thanks for having us here and uh working with us over the years. Um you know, everybody's question is how how do we get in this boat? And it's a long story. It's as long as our our history of the the City Place partners being around. Um originally, we went into this project and we had one banking company that was we're here for you. We're going to do all this and things changed in 21,23. The whole banking world just flipped upside down. I don't understand all the the spec specifics of it. I'm a construction guy. He deals with the banks for us. Thank God. Um but we thought we had the project figured out and then they're like, "Well, we're having a little problems with some partners and in raising this, you know, we're trying to raise what 200 210 20 million." But we wanted to keep going. We wanted to get going. So, we said, "Well, just give us enough money to get the South Building go going and we'll figure this out." But so we went from feeling really good about it to saying, "All right, we're still feeling good. We got the money to build the south building. Let's get going." And then the minute we started the south building, we started working on, "All right, how are we going to fill the gap to to get the rest of the north building going?" and things just stalled down and the banks were having uh I don't know what the

it was just

they were being bankers and very conservative and looking at the project and we had some serious constrictions with this affordable piece that really drew down the uh the revenue that the building would produce that then their bankers are relying Um that's why we had to to do the switch to the bringing in the hotel partners which turned the turned the project around financially enough that the banks would be interested but it's still a huge project. I mean I thought the south building was the biggest thing I ever did the south building. I was like oh my god and then I'm looking out the window of my office and I've got something three times as big to build again and it's like wow this is and so the bankers are feeling it. Everybody's feeling that. And it's just a big deal. And luckily, we were all persistent with it. And the we ended up partnering with uh Mnt Bank and they had to go out and get like four or five other banks. Mnt Bank I thought was like the biggest thing around. They still needed four or five partners to pull this whole thing together. And we're almost there. Like we're two weeks away, right? Two two three weeks from closing. Thank God. Um but It's just been quite a ride. So to to answer like Evan's thing, how do we get here? We're here. It doesn't matter. It's just happened. Um but again, appreciate you guys and your patience and it's been, you know, two or three uh administrations and whole bunch of different city councilors, but we always feel the support from you guys. And that that's one reason we just keep plugging along. It's somebody These guys are here. I just had my 63rd birthday. I'm born in Burlington. I'm still here and I'm going to stay here. And this this place means a lot to me and we're going to get it done. But we

we need your help. Well, thank you for coming tonight and updating us. Are there any other final words? Oh, here we go. Go ahead.

Thank you. I I I want to address everybody, but I just want to say thank you very much for over the years how you've supported us. We come here telling you the truth of what we're dealing with. We get up at 4:30, 5:00 every morning. We're there six days a week. We're fighting with banks. We're fighting with, you know, all kinds of inspections and you guys have been very, very supportive. We hope that we'll be telling you the truth every time we come here. We always ask for a little bit of mercy and a little bit of, you know, help and that's what we're doing again. But we don't plan on quitting. We hope that you don't give up on us. We will get this project done one way or the other. And again, thank you for everything.

Thank you all. Um, any other comments? Uh, we're going to have you back on the 11th, right? Yes. And as always, uh, Gi and I are available for questions or if anyone would like to sit down with us to go through any of the mechanics. If you'd like further clarification over the next couple weeks, please just uh send us an email. Well, thank you so much everybody for Okay, be be careful. People take you up on that.

Okay. Excellent. Okay. Without any other further comments on this, I think we'll go ahead and close this item and thank you again for bringing it to us tonight. Um, and we'll look look forward to having it back on the 11th. Which leads us to our last deliberative item, item 6.6, an ordinance on the minimum housing registration fee, BCO chapter 18, article 2, section 18 to 20. And I think uh councelor Bergman as our um chair of the ordinance committee would be introducing this. I I would say that but this actually I think came directly from the finance board. Okay. And perhaps uh you all would do that. Although I would be happy to if nobody else would do it.

Uh perhaps I'll turn to you for a motion. But um but we'll have director Ward maybe set it up and then well let let me just make the motion and have it second and then we'll just throw it in there to say that I would move to uh wave the reading and adopt the ordinance which is in its second reading. Um yeah. Excellent. Is there a second? Second. Second from councelor Carpenter. Um so I'll turn to director Ward to uh set this up. You may need to use the other one. There you go. You got it. Um,

yes. I'll make a few brief comments and happy to uh take questions after that or if there's discussion. Uh, this is a request for an additional $10 in the rental registration fee. This will be effective a year from now, not right now, not at July 1st, but the the billing goes out and this is paid by property owners April 1st of 2027. That gives property owners plenty of time to respond um and to prepare for that if they are going to make other, you know, internal or business decisions between now and then. But um the fee is really overdue from our perspective. We haven't raised it since 2019 and our expenses have gone up significantly, you know, since since that. Um the estimate we have is that our our fees have gone up by about 18% or our expenses, excuse me. And in the meantime that rents have gone up about 31% in that time. We uh missed the the changeover period where we'd have been been back to change this sooner, but some of the fees that were listed on our budget are actually um zoning fees that are being they previously look like they were being credited in the housing division, but this is long overdue. It's necessary for the FY27 budget to support the housing team. The purpose of the chapter 18 rental registration fee is to pay for the inspection services of the housing unit. Pays for tenant and landlord um education through CVOE and Vermont Apartment owners association. And it also provides support to the U housing board of review administrative clerical support. And I'm happy to answer any

questions. Simply to say, uh, we've had pretty wide support of this and no push back when we've let property owners know about it. The only push back I'd received historically is that we did it sometimes with less than six months to go and landlords told us they needed more time. This is a full year. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, who would like to get in the queue on this item? Um, councelor Carpenter. Thanks. I I am fully supportive of it and it is long overdue and as a former property manager, I appreciate giving the window because you want to build it into your budget. And I and I probably should have asked you all this offline, but um I am concerned that we maybe don't get enough information from the owners, you know, bedrooms, uh size, square footages, and I don't know if there's a window to add that to our registry itself. And again, maybe there's a committee that could consider it because it's a really valuable tool and many of you know I worked very hard to try to get a statewide registry going and our current governor did not approve. Um, but it's just a valuable tool for planning and all of the research that we need to do. So, and maybe we talk offline, but I'm just saying to my colleagues, I want to make sure we maximize the data that we get from it. Um, I think the fee is very tolerable.

Thanks. Uh, thank you, Councelor Garper. Anyone else? Uh, go ahead, Councelor Litlin.

Thanks. Um, I'll be relatively brief, although those have always been words I should never utter. Um, so I think to councelor Carpenters's point, it is a very reasonable fee. Um, and it's long overdue and I know the work that DPI does and that we need to uh, in my mind, you guys are a revenue center in the sense that you need to generate the revenue to pay for the services that these folks enjoy and there's been a high demand on your services for a long time and growing. The only thing I just want to say is let's not pretend that they're not passing this on to the renter. This is in every single lease practically that I saw come through the housing board of review in the three years. Um if they're not overtly putting it into the lease, they're building it into the rent. So, I just want to like lay that out so that anytime we are putting fee increases into um into this structure, let's just be real, it's definitely being paid by the renter. Um no one is reaching in their pocket and saying, "Sure, we'll just eat that up." Um at least not that I'm aware of. maybe maybe some smaller landlords, okay, but certainly none of the big ones that I saw frequently come before before the housing board of review. Um, and additionally, uh, a little bit in the vein of what, uh, Council President Traverse, you're not president tonight, Councelor Traverse, um, was saying earlier is, uh, you know, I do think we are long overdue to to sort of look at that as a council to look at, um, many of these leases, which I was in the enviable uh, seat to

get to read a lot of these leases that folks are signing out of really out of desperation to find an apartment. Often they're being asked six, eight, 10 months in advance to renew. Um, and the amount of fees that are buried in there is in just astronomical, including a whole bunch of fees that really are totally inappropriate under our ordinances. So, we do have work to do there under that chapter. Um, but I just wanted to name that that I don't think I think the reason that they wanted a year was so that they can build it into the leases. Um, but thank you. Thank you, Council. Welcome to respond. Go ahead, Director Ward, if you want to respond.

Sure. I'll just quickly say that uh that's part of the reason why I don't come back every year with a request. It's been since 2019 since we made that. We're sensitive to the fact that this can increase rent. But also understand that this is a $10 in a year. So that would be less than a dollar a month if someone passed it on directly. Someone may decide to go $10 a month, but that's not what we're asking. We're only asking for a $10 per unit for the year. Thank you for that.

Um, sure. just for the for the point I want to make is it's not just the dollar, you know, a dollar a month or whatever it is. It's the constant, you know, I did light math on how much each apartment is going to pay for the high school that's being built. It's indirect. It's built into their taxes which is being passed on to the renter because that's the model that we live in. Um, but I just I take into consideration now I I think this is very reasonable and we need it, but I take every time I take a vote on the school budget on on the um the bonds that we bond. I think about what does this do to rent on the average um building. So, I think we all need to think about that. Renters, too need to think about that um when they're casting their ballot in my opinion.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who'd like to weigh in on this particular item? Carpenter, just a quick comment. I had a good, very good small landlord tell me, "Well, this is a cheap way to get an inspection. I get them to tell me what I need to fix. I don't have to pay somebody outside to do it, and I can meet all my code stuff." and and I'm not going to tell you who the landlord is, but they were they were appreciative of the inspection program because it allowed them to be a good landlord.

Okay. Thank you. Um and I see councelor Newbieser is online now. So, we'll try a voice vote on this and but if we have um a mixed vote, we'll have to go to a roll call.

Oh, go ahead, Councelor Grant. I just wanted to say um we have the level of price gouging that we see. I do agree with the issues of fees and extra expenses that are being passed on to tenants, but something like this doesn't account for the level of price gouging that we've seen, especially in the last two years. It's been really dramatic. Um, and it's not even six to eight months, it's year easily asking people to sign in advance. That's becoming really standard. And then the um the whole thing with communal living is a way to really take advantage of people that's increasing u dramatically. So it it is definitely high time because we need to be earning the fees in order to conduct the um the inspections, but it the there's a lot of other things that need to be done to address uh what's happening in our marketplace. Thank you.

Thank you, Councelor Grant. So um let's try this. Um, all those in favor of the motion made by councelor Bergman and seconded by councelor Carpenter indicate by saying I. I. I. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Thank you, director. Okay. Well, that brings us to the end of our uh deliberative agenda. Um, next item is item seven, committee reports. Are there is there anybody who has a committee report? Go ahead, councelor Bergman.

Yep. So, the ordinance committee is going to be meeting on the 1st this uh coming Friday um at uh 2:00, although we might be a little late uh in the start um where we will be taking up the uh UVM um housing um ordinance changes that we'll be bringing forward to the council um the gross receipts tax. We'll start to uh to take a look at those changes and hopefully but maybe not depending on the other conversation get into the bike and walk um ordinances that we just uh referred. The next city council meeting um you will see the two consumer protection um ordinances uh that we have been working on um consistently. one could say constantly uh for the last six months. Um and uh if all goes well, the UVM um habitability um ordinance changes as well. Although the the question of uh force tripbles um relates to the um the definition of dorm rooms as bedrooms or as some other space. And that's an issue which is thornier than what we can um deal with uh as quickly and there's no reason to h to to hold up these other things. So we're going to be uh continuing to to look at that. Um and we uh just tonight um sent us a a storm water or a wastewater I forget. It's one of those uh chapter 26 ones that that apparently is a very large um one that for some reason I thought that the ordinance committee would be the appropriate place

to look at that comprehensive ordinance rather than the Duke and that's because it's an ordinance and so we'll be looking at uh at that um as well. So u that's the the report for the ordinance committee. Thank you councelor Bergman. Are there any other counselors with the committee requires? Councelor Shakar,

thank you. Um, I just wanted to share that the parks, arts, and culture committee, we have a new meeting time. It's going to be noon on the first Tuesday of the month. So, our our first meeting will be Tuesday, May 5th at noon. Um, and we've got a couple agenda items coming up. Um, we'll be receiving an update on the library renovation project. Um, and also, uh, I want to express gratitude to everyone who participated in the recent cleanup of the urban reserve. We'll be talking about the urban reserve and ashtree removal among other things. So, please join us if you feel so inclined. Um, but we've uh, noon on Tuesdays is our meeting time.

Thank you, councelor Shaker. Any other Councelor San Parkinson, go ahead.

Thank you. Um, I first just wanted to say thank you to my caucus and to President Travers for uh believing and supporting me to chair the REI committee. I am just honored, thrilled, geeked. I don't I'm just excited to be able to serve in this capacity. So, thank you. Um, and also to be able to serve with both counselor Carpenter and Grant. I'm just excited for it. Um, we did meet, we had our first meeting last week, so we will continue. We'll keep our um the time the same. It's every third Tuesday of the month. Uh we met uh last week as I mentioned and we did come to um uh to uh we took on one of our main topics was around the um Abanaki Nation of Mrs. Esqua tribal memo that was on council a few weeks ago. uh we took that up and as a committee are recommending the city council to accept uh that memo moving forward. Um however I just wanted to I realized one of the things as a chair I realized that uh one there is a number of departments that have touched this project and I do feel that the information on this project has been a bit peacemeal and in terms of how the council has been receiving the information. Um, so one of the reasons I wanted to wait until the next meeting is so that I'm able to gather all of the documents, the resources, I'm connecting with all of the directors of the different um, departments uh, so that when we come to council next meeting, we're able to offer a comprehensive overview of this project for everybody to make an informed decision. Um, yeah, that's the update for that. I'm looking forward again to working with both the RIB team and the counselors. Thanks. Thank you. Are there any other committee reports?

Councelor Traers.

Yep. Thank you, Acting President Barlo. Just uh two updates with respect to some ad hoc committees and council Bergman, I hope you're okay with my sharing. Just a brief update on the on the ad hoc F-35 committee. I know that uh I believe that you are the chair of that. Um but first, I would like to mention the the ad hoc uh tax fairness committee that we stood up. That committee has now had two meetings. Um myself, councelor Singh, councelor Sanchez Parkinson, councelor Newer and deputy chief of staff Monro Carus are uh members of of that committee. Um really wanted to just update the council that uh we received presentations from Nancy Stson updating the committee on the work that had been done by the mayor's tax fairness working group. Uh the committee has spent its two meetings really trying to focus where it would like to take its discussion with the timeline of uh hoping to get this council back a proposed charter change for a November ballot uh in mind. Um at the moment we've been continuing to focus our discussions on uh some sort of property tax exemption like that but not exactly like that. uh which um had previously been proposed uh to this council as well as uh talking about uh different um property tax structure for for different classifications of property. As we know here uh in Burlington, for example, commercial properties are assessed at 120% of their value. Um but are there other classifications of property that we could be looking at? Vacant or blighted buildings, for example, second homes as another example. are uh the kinds of areas where we've been uh inquiring into and and deciding whether or not that's an area where the council the committee can continue to focus its work. Uh we'll be meeting again uh this Thursday, I believe. So folks are welcome to tune into that. Uh, and then, um, I do just want to note because we've

had some members of the public come and ask for updates on the status of the council's ad hoc F-35 committee, which councelor Bergman chairs along with uh, myself and councelor Barlo. Uh, I want to thank councelor Bergman for renewed effort to reach out to uh, our our federal delegation. Um, and uh, I know that those channels of communication are open and I think the three of us are hoping to get a meeting on the books with at least one if not all of our federal delegation members uh, over the course of the coming month. Thank you.

Thank you, Pres. Uh, Council President Traverse. Any other committee reports before we move on to our next item? Let's keep moving then. Um, next item is City Council General Affairs. Does anybody have a city council general affair to talk about? Go ahead, councelor Shector.

I just have two opportunities for public input. I posted about them on Front Porch Forum, but they feel one is particularly relevant to the East District, which is that this Wednesday from 5 to 7 PM in Wooki at the Wooki School District. Um there is an open house about the Burlington Wooki Bridge Project that I would highly recommend folks check out. Um I'm happy to you can email me if you have and it was in front porch forum a couple days ago. Um so that's a big one. And then on Thursday from 3:30 to 8:00 PM, there is a Plan BTV 2050 openhouse at Main Street Landing. That's going to be I've been seeing signs all over the town. I'm really grateful for the way this is being messaged. It's a huge comprehensive um citywide plan with four departments all participating. And um this is a a really great opportunity for public input. So I wanted to make sure that's on folks radars. Thank you. Oh, thank you, councelor Shakar. Any other city council general affairs? No. Okay, then we move on to city council president. Go ahead, councelor Grant.

Thank you. Um, I just wanted to talk about a couple of public safety concerns. Um, one, uh, continue to be distressed by, um, some of our businesses not being willing to file reports with our police departments um, when they experience robberies or other um, things in involving different types of crime. I understand why this happened. Um, under the prior leadership of the police department, there was a stunning issue of nonresponse and so the response has improved dramatically. the previous online reporting structure was scrapped by interimm chief Burke and replaced with something new that um reduced the number of items that had to be submitted that way. So, I um and councelor uh Sanchez Parkinson, we've already talked about this with regards to um approaching businesses to make sure that they have to have the understanding that they have to be reporting. If they're not reporting, this results in a few things. First of all, no report. That means there is no case put together by our police department. If they're able to make a case, and if they can make a case, then that would be forwarded to Sarah George because that was another link that was lost. We weren't having cases being forwarded to our uh state's attorney. So, the state's attorney can't process a case that hasn't been sent um to their office.

If something is not reported, that places a higher risk on a business to perhaps have a similar crime happen again or individuals that are not being held accountable uh doing the same thing to other businesses or the homes of residents. So I think um we all need to work together um with our various contacts to make sure that everyone is on the same page um with regards to uh having that responsibility to report. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Grant. Um I'm move Did you have your hand up? Okay, go ahead, Council Litman.

Yeah, I just want to um also add some public safety concerns as well in our downtown. Um, I did not uh I did stop by the abandoned state office building a couple times last week. It's been particularly bad um at all hours, day and night with uh a variety of activity um and spoke with different uh security guards who came up to me uh from the bus station and that sort of thing. Um the contractor uh associate director Ward who who's left now um let me know that the contractor for that building is going to be putting in a fence um to block off the stairwell areas of on both Cherry Street and Pearl Street. Um so that will hopefully help with some of it. However, um I did notice that, and I need to learn more about it, that GMT took out the glass bus stop outside of the post office. I don't know if anybody noticed that. Um I wasn't aware that that was happening. Um and um in addition, I would just say that it is important to report. I completely agree with Councelor Grant. Um we do need folks to to report. Um, and I would just add that we need a states attorney that is willing to prosecute and willing to and and has some data to show for it. I think part of the reason why folks have felt un disinterested in reporting is knowing that uh our state's attorney does not have a good track record with prosecuting these types of crimes or with

that has been provided by the state's attorney. I think that's not a valid point of order. I I think that we have to be very careful. It's not a valid point of order. How about you let me finish, please? How about you put a point of order? It's mine. The time is mine. How about you let me finish and then let the acting point of order. This is This is um This is acting. This is not a time back and forth. This is a time for um a a general city affairs update. And I I think it's within his counselor's perview to to give this update. So, I'm gonna rule that you may continue, but

yeah, thank you. And it is something that I hope that we get to discuss in the public safety committee. Um, and so that would be the place I think where we can have that discussion. Um, but I just wanted to add that because chief, former chief Murad was brought up as being an obstacle and I wanted to add the the uh context as well. Okay, let's um is that your the conclusion of your of your update? Okay, good. Is there any other city council general affairs? This this isn't I would just like to quickly reply to that because it's important that it wasn't it wasn't it's not it's not a debate. We're not I'm not saying it's a debate. I think it's really I I just think it's important point of order.

I think I I'm not going to I'm going to I'm going to close this segment unless there's another counselor who wants to the truth matters. General your truth. No, the truth.

This won't this won't be the forum for that. These were city council general affairs. These are um just councelor updates. This isn't a debate. And so that's the that's my ruling. Um and uh I'm going to move to to uh item number nine unless there's another general city affair update from another councelor and there isn't. So item number nine is city council president updates. And I checked with council president Traverse and he he uh said that he didn't have an update. If that's accurate, I'm going to move us on to adjournment which um that is accurate. I will I'll say something just very briefly here which is that

um I I want to give a lot of thanks and gratitude to Lori Bberg who as always that's evergreen thanks and gratitude but uh particularly at this time of year Lori in addition to being responsible here is responsible for uh our our uh local uh restaurant and and bar community uh resubmitting uh their their liquor license renewals that are all up uh at the end of April. Um, also an evergreen issue is that every year, uh, a number of folks are, uh, delayed sometimes in getting us their renewal applications. Um, it's one of the reasons we've been certain to try to schedule a council meeting always on the very last Monday in in April uh, to be able to accommodate um, those late applications, which we dealt with this evening through the local control commission. I believe uh that we should be pretty set um heading into to May now very much thanks to Lor's work as well as council Brderick and his role as chair uh of of the license committee. There is a very remote chance that uh if we receive um additional late applications that we may before the planned budget review meeting on May 4th schedule a very short uh local control commission which would require a quorum of at least uh seven commissioners um in order to approve those renewals. I know that that's something that council brick and I and Lori have have discussed. I don't think it will be necessary in from conversations with Lori. Um but I do just want to flag for folks so that they're not surprised that if we get a critical mass of those late applications that there's a um there's a remote possibility that we may ask for folks before we open up our our regularly scheduled

budget review session um to take a few minutes to approve those renewals. So that's just that's just a flag. Well, thank you for that update. Uh, which moves us to item number 10, adjournment. And, uh, with no further business and absent objection, I will adjourn us at 10:03. Thank you. Yeah. Hey.