City Council - Regular Meeting

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Yes, virtually. We're just waiting for our quorum, so I appreciate folks' patience. Noting the presence of a quorum. We'll go ahead and call this meeting of the City Council to order The date is Monday August 24th. The time is 6 o 8 p.m The first item on our agenda is a motion on our agenda. Is there a motion to that end? So moved Thank You councillor saying is there a second by councillor McKnight any discussion on that item? All in favor then please say aye aye any opposed carries unanimously. I will just note for the record that in person at the moment we have councillors Litwin, Barlow, Schachter, Singh, McKnight, Travers and Sanchez-Parkinson and we have councillor Broderick online. The next item on our agenda is a proposed executive session. Public forum is worn for a time certain this evening of 6 30 p.m. I anticipate that even though we started a few minutes late we should be able to complete public forum in time for us to be back, excuse me, executive session in time for us to be back for public forum at 6.30. Before turning to a motion on executive session though, City Attorney Brown, could I ask for you to give some factual background for the need for an executive session this evening?

Yes, thank you, President Travers. The city attorney's office, as well as a few other departments, are requesting this executive session to provide informational updates and related legal advice regarding security at City Hall. And to share that information publicly would put the city at a substantial disadvantage. So based on the exemptions cited in the motion language, we are requesting this executive session.

Thank you, City Attorney Brown. And just to confirm, are we unmuted and live on Time Meeting TV at the moment? We're now unmuted. Okay. All right. And our camera's on? Okay. Thank you. And thank you to Councillor Broderick for your text indicating that you couldn't hear us. So we just received the factual context for the executive session this evening. Councillor Broderick, do you need to hear that at all? Are you prepared for us to move to a motion?

I'm ready, thank you.

Okay, thank you. Councilor McKnight, can I ask for you to read the first of a two-part motion?

Yes, I move that the council find that the premature general public knowledge of information regarding security at City Hall and related legal advice would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage.

Thank you. Is there a second to that motion? Second. Thank you. Councilor Schachter, any discussion on this item? All in favor then please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Based upon that finding, I move that the council go into executive session to receive confidential attorney-client privileged information regarding and to discuss security at City Hall pursuant to and receive confidential attorney-client, I think that's a typo, and pursuant to VSA 313A1F and A10, and including representatives from the Mayor's Office, the DFA, Human Resources, CEDAW, and the City Attorney's Office.

Thank you. Is there a second to that motion? Second. Thank you, Councillor Singh. Any discussion on this item? All in favor, then, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Are any opposed? That carries unanimously. So the council is now in executive session. Again, as mentioned, public forum is worn for a time certain of 6.30. We will strive to be back before then. Thank you.

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All right. I greatly appreciate the public's patience. Are we back on Town Meeting TV? Okay. I greatly appreciate the public's patience as we ran a little bit over there in our public forum talking about important issues related to safety and security here at City Hall, particularly with respect to very hardworking city staff here in the building. We will now go ahead and open up public forum. The time for that is 6.45 p.m. As is our practice, we will begin public forum with Burlington residents who signed up here in City Hall. We have six of those individuals at the moment. We then have one Burlington resident signed up for public forum online who we'll turn to at that point in time. We then will return here to City Hall to hear from the one non-Burlington resident who has signed up for public forum. If you're here in person in City Hall, when I call your name, please come forward here to the table, pull the microphone close, make sure that the green light on the microphone itself is illuminated. If you're online, I will let you know once you've been unmuted and are able to speak. Every speaker, whether here in person or online, will be provided two minutes. I ask that members of the public please direct their comments to me as the chair and not to any other individual with individualized comments. We particularly will not tolerate any individualized attacks related to an individual's protected characteristics. We also ask that comments please refrain from being unduly disruptive, loud, disruptive, or otherwise using profanities. It's important that City Hall remain a safe space for those who serve, those in attendance, and those tuning into our meetings. With that, we will begin with our first speaker, who will be Bruce Wilson, who will be followed by Lisa Denatale.

Hello everybody, I'm Bruce Wilson, along with city councilors, chair, honorable mayor. I'm here to talk about Straight Talk from our program. It's a cognitive program created in 1999. I'm the founder at the Community Justice Center. That's where it started. What it is, is I'll go over thinking errors and patterns and conflict resolutions, exercises, and written drug and alcohol evaluations. We help individuals get into places like us Mandela Hall, Sanctuary House, Distance Houses, and we help them with their STEM system and needs by working with our community partners, let's say, like CBOEO, for instance. And so as I learned that the things that's happening primarily in Burlington, let's say City Hall Park, just for the heck of it, INDIVIDUALS, YOU KNOW, IN HIGH RISK, ECONOMICALLY CHALLENGED, AND PROBABLY ON DRUGS, NOT ON TOBACCO. AND SO THE THING IS THAT THESE INDIVIDUALS NEED TO LEARN WHAT THEIR THINKING ERRORS AND PATTERNS ARE, WHERE THEY CAN LEARN NEW INTERVENTIONS AS WELL AS HELP THEM WITH THEIR SYSTEMIC NEEDS. AND SO THIS INFORMATION RIGHT HERE, AND I GUESS EVERYBODY IS GOING TO GET ONE. I GUESS LORI IS GOING TO GIVE EVERYBODY ONE. to bring this program back. It was through all the jails, primarily through CROCF, Marble Valley, and St. Albans, and we facilitated this program. And over 500 people attended this program. It's a very famous program in this state. Most people know Straight Talkin' Mall as being a cable show, but that's what it is too. So I want everyone to support this program, I know there's a position opening up at the Burlington Police Department to help individuals like mediate situations and facilitate helping with their goals. The thing is that If they move those $85,000 to REIB or Community Justice Center, then people will probably get better. You can't have a police officer walking around with a mediator. It's not gonna work. Thank you. Thank you, Bruce.

And do you have something in writing there? Yes. Do you want to hand it over here? Do you have copies of it? Yeah, thanks. Great. Thank you, Jessica. Great. Thank you, Bruce. Our next speaker is Lisa Denitali, who will be followed by Parasarathy Namburi.

A member of this council was recently quoted as having said, the only ones that matter to them are their donor class. They only talk about the businesses. I'm here to respond to that statement. I'm the founder of Pasejata because I believe in community building. I also belong to the donor class. I'd like to share what being a part of the donor class means to me. It means feeling a deep commitment to my community. It means having an obligation to contribute my time, resources, and capacity. It means asking, how can I help? The donor class has been called uncompassionate, yet it helps sustain nonprofits doing critical work. These organizations seek and depend on the generosity of individual donors and family foundations. Just ask any executive director. Until recently, I served on the board of the Parks Foundation of Burlington. Last month, Pomeroy Playground was reopened to serve the families of the Old North End. The donor class contributed half of the $250,000 needed to rebuild Pomeroy. Building an inclusive community means acknowledging the contributions of everyone. As the former president of Special Olympics Vermont, I advocated on behalf of over 1,500 individuals for dignity and inclusion. You do not bring dignity to a community by devaluing others. You don't take care of the needs of some while ignoring, or worse, denigrating those who express different needs. This includes recognizing the role businesses play in sustaining our community. Look at any poster for a nonprofit fundraiser and there will be a long list of businesses that sponsor, donate, and volunteer. Businesses work on behalf of our communities in ways that may be invisible to you. They employ my son, who has Down syndrome. Businesses are a lifeline for some of our community's most vulnerable members. An inclusive community must balance the needs of everyone for dignity, safety, and compassion.

Thank you, Lisa. Our next speaker is Pardasaradhi Namburi, who will be followed by Chris McGrath.

Hi, everyone. Nice to meet you again. I go by Pardhu for short, and basically I came here today because it may be one of my last public forum comments in regards to the direct informed democracy platform concept that I spoke about. I have made significant progress and have developed a beta version of the technology, and I've showed it to Councillor Schachter, and she very well received it. and we're trying to find a way to bring this into a city meeting because there is potential for this. It increases empathy, government accountability, transparency, and it could make Burlington the pioneer in direct informed democracy technology. This is huge because we're at a time where democracy is being destroyed all over the place, and if Burlington can show that this could be piloted in the city, it could be a very big deal, and I'm sure the press would cover it and it would spread to many cities around. There's also some interest from a major politician in Santa Clara, California. And basically, in terms of this platform, my goal is to get a letter of support in the short term, because if I'm able to show the beta version to all of the city council members and the mayor, and if we could get a letter of support I spoke to someone from Vermont Community Foundation or Vermont Community Fund, and they basically told me that if I get that letter of support, then there may be a higher chance to get that funding, and I think he said he'll revert back to the CEO of Vermont Community Fund or Foundation. So I want to see if we can get actual support for this, because there's interest on both sides, I feel. I even spoke to the CIO, Scott Barker, He's also very interested in this, and I feel like this is something that all of us could agree on that we need in this city. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Next speaker is Chris McGrath, who will be followed by Charlie Messing.

All right. City Council, Chair, my name is Chris McGrath, and I am a resident of Ward 3. I live in the downtown core. It is my continued belief that our freedom is threatened by the Burlington Forward Resolution. This resolution takes aim at one of our most vulnerable populations, our unhoused community, a community which is statistically disproportionately made up of people of color and those identifying as members of the LGBTQIA plus community. This policy will infringe on the rights of our unhoused neighbors. By extension, therefore, this resolution infringes on my rights as well. So let me articulate some of those rights. Criminalizing homelessness and expelling the unhoused from Burlington once we reach an arbitrarily set cap violates our right to travel, a right that has its foundations in the Magna Carta of 1215 and a right that has been upheld by the Supreme Court through multiple landmark cases that use the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as their basis. It would also violate Article 9 of the Vermont State Constitution, which enshrines immigration as a right of every Vermonter. Forced removal from the city would also violate Article 22 of the Vermont State Constitution, which in part enshrines our right to quote, dignity to determine one's own life course, end quote. No resolution can stand that undermines any of our fundamental rights. Now I recognize that this resolution seeks to address a complex social issue. I also understand that all of the counselors are working in good faith in the various committees to make this resolution better. I want to encourage you to continue that work, bearing in mind that as it's written today, This resolution sets a dangerous precedent. Our recent human history is full of atrocity rooted in resolutions similar to this one. It is possible, although I know it is completely unintended in this case, to arrive at a policy that mirrors to an uncomfortable degree the fascist policies of the 1930s. I urge each of you to read the supporting documents I brought with me today, each of which goes into greater detail regarding the pitfalls we must avoid if we look to make the Burlington Forward Resolution a beneficial and egalitarian resolution for all the citizens of Burlington. I look forward to contributing to the committees that the resolution is currently going through, and thank you all for your time.

Thank you.

Oh, the documents are right here.

Sure, sorry. Jessica, thank you. And thank you for the written information as well. You're very welcome. Our next speaker is Charlie Messing, who will be followed by Fareed.

Good evening, Ben, and everybody you know. A couple of things. The electric bicycles, moto bikes, all of them, we've had people, I live on College Street, a block away from the park. We've had people on the sidewalk. I've had people go past my elbow. one inch away, but I think driving lessons are important. If somebody's 14 or 16, they didn't have any driver's lessons yet. Coming down off a hill, even just a gentle slope, onto a busy street, I think it's important that they know that if there's a car coming, they should wait for the car to go by and then proceed to make their left onto the street. I think somebody didn't do that and it's unfortunate. I think we really have to do something about that and about the noise. Burlington Forward, I've looked at a lot of the 20 pages and I like it. is aimed in the right direction, and I hope everything goes well. It's still a little crazy. I've heard of police going past somebody shooting up. I've heard of police grabbing a beer, fining a guy $50 while he pours the beer in the gutter, and this is not a guy with $50. I wish you luck with all that. And don't cut any trees. And we should cut down the noise made by emergency vehicles. They used to be loud enough. I don't think we ran over anybody. Thank you.

Thank you, Charlie. Our next Burlington resident here in person is Fareed. We'll then turn online to Romeo Von Herman.

I'm one of the coordinators of the People's Kitchen Project. It's a mutual aid project based in the South End that also serves dinner three nights of the week at City Hall Park from 8 o'clock on. We've been doing this our third year of being in the park and serving food there. And I want to address some of the points in the Burlington Forward Resolution. and also some of the communication I've seen, public communication by supporters of Burlington Forward, who seem to be a little confused, thinking that somehow the People's Kitchen, Food Not Cops, and other mutual aid organizations are there to do social service. We are not there to do social service. We are not motivated by altruism. we are there to meet our own needs for dignified, nutritious food. Half of our regulars, we serve regularly between 50 to 100 individuals. Between a third to a half of our regulars are actually housed individuals. These are people with housing, but are facing food insecurity in one way or another. including people who has less than livable wage jobs, and students, in addition to all kinds of characters from tourists, bar clerks, and even city councilors sometimes. And in formulating your plan ahead, please keep in mind that this was targeted to mutual aid, which have actually been helpful to people both housed and unhoused in meeting our needs. We invite everyone to come to the People's Potluck tomorrow, which has been happening every Tuesday at City Hall Park, and come and talk to us, and come and try some food, or bring some food and share them, and talk to all our community members who use this place to meet their needs. Thank you.

Thank you, Fareed. Our next Burlington resident is online. It will be Romeo Von Herman. We'll then turn back here to City Hall and hear from Chris Maresh. Romeo, let me go ahead and share my screen here so you can see the timer.

Thank you. Can you hear me?

Yeah, and once you see the timer, please go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Good afternoon. I'm here as a concerned private citizen, commissioner, and a resident of our city, particularly in light of the incidence of violence that has been happening rather very recently. I believe a prudent governance requires all of us to recognize that we are not going to always agree on how we can approach our city safe. But that being said, we should be able to be willing to find a common ground in solving these issues. It may not include everything that we look for, but we can find a common ground, especially on Resolution 7.3, which I think is very important. I personally may or may not agree or may or may not include some of the stuff that's in it. But the end of the day, it's a starting middle ground. And I support a resolution that brings different perspectives together while taking meaningful steps on how to keep our city safe. That being said, I would like to add an additional note that Based on what I'm observing is that even though we have disagreements, I've noticed that we tend to really go a little bit overboard. And I ask all of you to be a bit more respectful of each other, including the mayor. Respect her for who she is. Respect the council president. Respect the council themselves. Because at the end of the day, we are Team BTV. Irrespective of how we think of each other, we want to go to the same direction. We may not agree on how we get there, but we are on the same team at the end of the day. So please be kind to each other. Thank you.

Thank you, Romeo. Our last public forum participant is Chris Marash.

How are you guys doing tonight? I know I'm not from Burlington, but I spent a lot of my time here over the years, and I've seen for the last 20 years that things like Burlington Forward and other motions to clean up the park and the city have not worked, all right? What I'm proposing here today is a forwardness of us getting our freedom of art and music back. It's part of our First Amendment right. Burlington, over the last 10 years, has gone through multiple cases, federal cases, about First Amendment, and they've lost. There's not too many on the docket right now. So I understand People think freedom of art is gonna be disruptive and having people with a little table selling their home goods that they made is disrupting from other businesses. But that's a false thing because the more people come to city to see new things, everybody knows mostly who lives here, what businesses are on Church Street. So when you walk down Church Street, you already know where you're going. If we open it up to people to do what they like to do, right, we will occupy spaces like the Burlington Park out here and Church Street and these big new sidewalks that we have. And you will see people come to see what's on the street. When people come to Burlington now, they're thinking, what's going on in Burlington? But most of the time, there's not anything going on. And the only one thing we see out this window is a drug problem that creates homelessness, right? To me, they're two separate things, all right? And we can fix the view of what we see out the window by putting more things in the window and using our space wisely by letting people have their freedom of speech. I know right now you start a petition and make it legally binding. You guys have a right to turn it down. But right now on this November election, you have number zero coming, and zero If that passes, then we can start petitions, you know? And we don't need to go down all these different alleys and creating more chaos in our community about who's right or wrong. All of us ourselves are looking for art and music and happiness after our long days of work or even during our days off. And if we show and we get over these humps, I mean, I know it's a charter change, Chapter 21 and Article 4, appendix.

You could wrap up, Chris. Thank you.

I'm sorry. But essentially... If we look at this now and start doing it this winter, right, by spring we'll have a better place. And Burlington 404 would seem like it's in the past and this will be a better solution. If not, then we're gonna go after these laws ourselves.

Sorry, we gotta wrap up.

All right, you all have a thing and I appreciate it very much. See you next time. Thank you.

And appreciate that. Just have to hold everyone consistently to two minutes. And we have your... written copy here, which was also posted to our consent agenda. If you have any questions, call me.

Thank you. I'm an open book.

Great. We will close public forum now at 7.07 p.m. and turn now to item four, which is the mayor, general city affairs. Mayor, turn the floor to you.

Thank you, President Travers. Good evening, everyone, and on tonight's agenda is a very important bipartisan council resolution focused on our community health and safety challenges. The resolution outlines specific requests the city will bring to the governor to more meaningfully address our trifecta of issues, our homelessness issues, the substance use, issues and untreated mental health conditions. First, I'd like to thank city councilors for working with my administration and working across party lines to actually craft the resolution. I also want to thank them for considering the short-term and actionable ideas in this resolution, as they were developed by my office with our department heads and our partners in the community over the last several months, leading out of the last legislative session of 2026, as well as continuing to look at items after our work with the governor last fall with the 14-point plan, and specifically noting what areas were not addressed in that plan related to homelessness and also at-risk youth issues. It is crucial for our city government to stand united to advocate for more immediate and stronger state action. This is what is most urgently needed and will do the most to meaningfully advance our community health and safety goals. This is a moment for leadership, not politics, and with this resolution tonight, we are demonstrating that we can lead our city forward together. And I believe that this is what our residents most want to see from us in this moment. The contents of the resolution build on my work of my administration that has engaged not only in the last several months but over the past two years to make headway on complex community safety issues. This has always been my top priority as mayor. I recognized early on that the challenges we are seeing are deeply rooted. They are statewide and they are nearly impossible to solve as one city. The urgent crisis we are seeing in our streets and shared public spaces is what a historic statewide emergency looks like, one that has been in years in the making. We now see more reporting in the media on the challenges appearing in White Vert Junction, Montpelier, St. Albans, just to name a few of the municipalities. And thus this underscores the challenges are not unique to Burlington. We need local solutions to be sure, but we badly need regional and state ones as well. And we need them immediately. While my administration has expanded our community safety toolbox and innovated our local response, we've also identified our most urgent gaps and what policies and system changes and resources are needed to fill them. This was done through extensive engagement over the past two years with many of our local first responders, our service providers and community partners, our city staff, city counselors, our legislative delegation, and countless Burlington residents in our business community. I'm encouraged that all of these stakeholders have worked with my administration and with each other from a constructive place, and I am proud of the advocacy we've been able to do to the state as a result. Last fall, my administration met with the governor to bring these specific recommendations and ask to the table. Born out of that meeting was the now pretty famous 14-point plan that the state enacted over a three-month period last winter. The most impactful piece of that plan was the Chittenden County Accountability Docket. which cleared 78% of the Docket's cases, reducing a significant court backlog and freeing up our legal system to better do the work of accountability. This was huge for our entire region. Our work last fall with the governor was a start, and there is much more to do together, especially on the topic of homelessness, which was the 14-point plan's most significant omission. And this was despite my repeated attempts to advocate that homelessness must be part of that 14-point plan. I also appreciate my colleagues here on the council who consistently joined me in that call both last fall and repeatedly over the last two years. In this next round of engagement with the governor, I plan to push again for the state to take action on homelessness in particular. As outlined in this resolution this evening, this will include asking the state to proactively assist CVOEO's effort to launch a new 100-bed, year-round, low-barrier emergency shelter in Chittenden County, among other things. This shelter would make an immediate impact on the situation we are seeing escalate in our streets and in our public spaces. And we ideally want it to be operational by this winter, probably for obvious reasons because of the winters in Vermont. It would be an immediate pressure valve release for our city, and the state could undoubtedly help make this happen if they took this seriously today. I look forward to working with the governor on this and other specific ideas in the weeks to come. My team is currently working with his office to reconvene the group that met last fall and to continue building on our partnership with the state. While I want to name how urgently we need action from the state, I also want to acknowledge the incredible efforts of our city, which are collectively making progress even if that progress feels incremental. Our data shows overall violent crime continues to trend downward. As reported by BPD, preliminary 2026 data show aggravated assaults are down significantly and overall violent incidences are down compared with both 2025 and 2024. The BPD also continues to expand its foot patrols and proactive enforcement efforts while we rebuild staffing within the department. But as we can see from the recent acts of violence in our community, there is much more work that is needed and will continue to be prioritized by this administration. One particular area that I wanted to see reflected on our list requests from the state last year was around youth violence prevention and interruption strategies. We are seeing concerning levels of youth-involved violence and disorderly behavior in our community, and much more is needed to interrupt the conditions that give rise to it. This includes regular and more culturally competent outreach and engagement with our immigrant and refugee communities, which can face unfamiliar conditions in our country that help facilitate youth-involved violence, such as easy access to firearms. We need to continue efforts to support our youth and immigrant communities, both locally and statewide. One important initiative was the 2023 report from the Vermont New American Advisory Council on supporting New American youth and families affected by gun violence. Led in part by former city councilor Ali Zhang, this council, meaning the Vermont New American Advisory Council, collected important information from our community. The report itself was sparked by the 2022 murder of a Somali youth, as stated on page one in the report. as well as by increased incidences involving immigrant youth and gun violence in 2022, and the need for more culturally competency awareness and baseline trust building in the BPD's engagement with immigrant families. This report has many important insights we can build on, including strengthening communication, trust, and engagement between city, government, and new American communities, developing more after-school opportunities that encompass cultural and religious beliefs, diversifying our city workforce, and more regular engagement between the BPD and new American community groups focused on education and prevention. We've made small progress here by integrating trusted community voices more within our city government engagement efforts and working with REIB and HR, our human resources department, to focus on strategies to diversify our workforce. But much more is still needed to continue to build the trust needed among youth and their families and to implement prevention and interruption strategies that keep our young people safe. I want to fully acknowledge that today. We also need to specifically focus on adolescent boys and what our region can do to better support their development to move away from behaviors and patterns that lead to violence and inflicting harm to each other and their communities. And I take that so incredibly serious as someone who has a young child who is a boy I feel very passionately and I feel very nervous around the toxic masculinity and the culture for which a lot of our young people are being raised in, regardless of their background. There is so much more needed here and it requires more partnership, again, beyond city government. These community safety challenges are daunting and I'd like to take a moment to deeply appreciate the monumental efforts of our city staff, our police and fire departments, our many community partners, our businesses, our residents, who show up every single day and bring tremendous care, expertise, and commitment to bear on our unprecedented community safety challenges. On behalf of the entire city, thank you for continuing to be there for our community. While the progress may feel slow at times, it is absolutely there, and you are a core part of that. In closing, I'd like to reiterate that we need to acknowledge the serious challenges before us, and we also need to cheer this city on through the good and the bad if we're going to get through this moment. We want folks to continue to visit, shop, enjoy, invest, and live in Burlington. We need to send a balanced message of hope and vitality. So I'd like to close just commenting a couple things that happened this weekend where we saw that hope and vitality in action. First, with the event honoring First African Landing Day, which was hosted by the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance and the Richard Kemp Center. It's held in the Innerville. And if you're not familiar with the First African Landing Day, it's so important to educate yourself on this, because it is a day established to recognize and highlight the resilience and contributions of African Americans since 1619. Also, while acknowledging the impacts of slavery, that slavery and laws that reinforce racial discrimination in the United States, as well as educating the public on the arrival of Africans in the U.S. back in 1619. The work that the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance and Richard Kemp Center does, which is located in the Old North End, is incredibly important and empowering and acknowledges the incredible contributions for black and brown folks in our community here in Burlington. And finally, I know many of you were there on Saturday at the Burlington High School opening. It was such an important day of joy. It was a joyous event, so many people being able to walk through the halls of a building that did not exist prior to our collective effort as a city. I want to thank the taxpayers. I want to thank the residents, the school board members, both past and present, BSD administration leaders, the educators, the students, everyone. I said in my remarks that day, this shows exactly what Burlington can do when we work together for the collective betterment of our community. And again, I really want to appreciate everything that went into BHS being open to the public this last weekend so everyone, despite having kids or not, could really see the fruits of our collective efforts. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Mayor. Before we turn next to committee reports, we had warned our local control commission to meet at 6.25 p.m., and so in case anyone is tuned in for a business item there, I think I'm going to go ahead and briefly recess our city council meeting and call to order our local control commission meeting at 7.18 p.m., and we'll ask first for a motion on our agenda. So moved. Thank you, Commissioner Singh. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Commissioner Grant. All in favor of that motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. We have two items on the consent agenda this evening. Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated?

So moved.

Thank you, Commissioner Schachter. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Commissioner Grant. Any discussion on this item? all in favor then please say aye aye or any opposed that carries unanimously then there is one deliberative item item 3.1 the recommended action on this item is to approve the 2026-27 outside consumption permit application for almentari 196 st paul street is there a motion to that end What is that noise? So moved. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Grant. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Commissioner Singh. Any comments on that item? All right. All in favor, then please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. Seeing no other business before the Local Control Commission, in absent objection, I will adjourn that meeting at 7.20 p.m. and now return to our regular city council meeting where we turn to item five, committee reports. Is there any councillor with a committee report? Councillor Singh and then Councillor Barlow. Or we'll go to Councillor Barlow first.

Sure. The Transportation, Energy and Utilities Committee meeting will be tomorrow at 6.45. Pine Street, and that'll take place at 5.30. And one of the items we'll be taking up is an update on the unaccepted streets discussion that's been ongoing for several months.

Thank you, Councillor Barlow. Councillor Singh.

Thank you. Public Safety Committee meeting is this Thursday, the 27th at 5.30, either at the Buescher Conference Room or hybrid online. We'll be speaking with Mary Danko from Fletcher Free Library, talking about the successes of how they were able to mitigate public safety challenges there. Additionally, we'll have Sarah, or Rachel Jolly, excuse me, from the CJC to talk about City Circle. And then we'll have another special meeting on Monday, August 31st at 5.30. And so far we have Anna from the CAPE team To speak about the situation table other people will be invited to that meeting But I'm waiting for to speak to department heads to see who is available.

So, thank you Thank you Thank you so much president Travers CD&R which is community development neighborhood revitalization and Just had our meeting last week, I think, and we took a backup. We had started talking about it back, I think, in May of the graffiti abatement or defacement abatement, we know. There's some lovely graffiti art out there. And what that committee could and should look like. And I think we had a really interesting conversation that caused me pause and brought, I think, I really want to thank Councilor Sanchez-Parkinson's presence in that committee is really helpful as well. And so I think we have more work to do maybe than initially anticipated of like do we need a committee and what does that look like and how do we activate the wonderful sense of volunteerism that we have in this city in a way that makes sense for both the city staff so that we're not overburdening them or creating headaches for them but also for the community to feel like they are have agency and empowerment and to address community in their own neighborhoods, but in a way that also won't damage buildings. I learned a lot about historical brickwork. So, and then in addition, so I think just, also I wanna say, I saw some media reports out there, I wasn't aware that the media was covering this, I don't think that it was 100% accurate, so I wanna be clear that the Graffiti Abatement Committee did not get formed. I think I saw one article that said it got formed. We're very much early in the process of thinking about what that means for our community and hearing from folks, some of whom were here today, about what they wanna see and what they wanna do. So we'll pick that back up, but we're not gonna rush it, because I think that it deserves It deserves to be a conversation that is handled well. And then additionally, we're squeezing in an extra CDNR meeting on September 3rd, I think at our normal 6 p.m. time. And that one we're gonna be taking back up the report that we had issued in the prior CDNR cycle. Councilor Sanchez-Parkinson was not on that. committee I just wanted to name that so she'll be catching up but we will be taking up syringe the syringe litter report recommendations that we had originally returned back to the council our deadline I think was October November of last year so it's it's overdue to be picked back up but we will do that and so Just thank you, and I also thank the council and the president for their patience. I think there are a lot of moving parts that both connect directly and indirectly with Burlington Forward, and I'm not entirely confident that we'll be able to deliver exactly what was asked for within 30 days, but we'll do our best, so thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Litwin. Councilor Carpenter, and then Schachter.

Thanks. I'm just speaking this as a member of the ordinance committee. Our esteemed chair is not with us. But we had a meeting around e-motos and all of the discussion that's been going on about those bikes and behaviors on those bikes. And I just want to let folks know that at the end of our meeting we did ask and we assigned ourselves to put together a series of ideas and recommendations which we will deal with on our meeting on September 17th. It was sort of clear that the e-modo discussion is probably not in entirety best suited for ordinance. Ordinance will look at things like ordinances and do we need to change any of our rules and our laws around them. And we will. But I think broader than that was discussed the need for a multidisciplinary activity. And we're not sure headed by whom, but that's one of our discussion points. probably involving a public education campaign, clearly needing to involve the school board and the school department. So I'm bringing this up because we will be dealing with it on our September 17th meeting. So if you've got thoughts about how the non-ordinance part of this activity could be better coordinated, please let any of us know. Thanks.

Thank you, Councilor Carpenter. Councilor Schachter?

Thank you, President Travers. I just wanted to give a quick update on the Parks, Arts and Culture Commission. We had a meeting a few weeks ago now to really be exploring what are some of the barriers to really activating and bringing more art into our public spaces. That's a conversation that originated with our budget resolution that was passed in June. Really wanting to make sure we're making it as easy as possible for outside groups to partner with the city to do really exciting and joyful things in our public spaces all throughout the city. Some of that work is also reflected in the Burlington Forward Resolution, but we've already been taking it up on PAC. So that conversation's going to continue at our meeting next Tuesday at noon in the Fletcher Free Library. There may be some additional agenda items as well. I'm still firming that up. It should be up on Civic Clerk by this Friday. But you're more than welcome to join in person or remote. We've got some really great topics coming through that committee, and I'm excited for the work ahead.

Thanks. Thank you, Councilor Schachter. Councilor Sanchez-Parkinson.

Thank you. I wanted to just give an update related to the Racial Equity Inclusion and Belonging Committee, which we met last week. Our first agenda item was to provide a comprehensive impact assessment of the Burlington Forward Resolution, and we will be revisiting that tomorrow when we meet again, and look forward to bringing that to the council in terms of recommendations, and reflections from the process of how the resolution was developed. We also related to festivals. We took on a conversation related to cultural festivals and the ways that we can better coordinate and strategize in terms of how we support cultural festivals across our city, not only to ensure that there's a sense of belonging for our diverse residents, but also to increase visitors, a diverse representation of visitors and those who engage downtown as well. We have a series of special meetings coming up including tomorrow as I mentioned at 5.30 and then again next week September 1st and then September 15th that will be focused on a conversation around community health. specifically looking at diving deeper into substance use, addiction, and mental health. We'll be bringing national and local experts to inform and engage the committee as well as community members. So hope you can join us in person or virtually.

Thank you. Are there any other councillors with a committee report? Councillor Grant.

I would just add that regarding the Burlington Forward Resolution, there has been an equity review by our REIB department and their feedback is attached to the agenda with tomorrow's meeting. And it's full of a lot of very important points, many of which were brought up by members of the public, members of mutual aid groups, members of the agencies that work with the most marginalized individuals in our community. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Grant. I think the only other thing that I would note in my role as a member of the Tax Fairness Ad Hoc Committee, Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson, myself, Councillor Singh, Councillor Newby, Sir and Deputy Chief of Staff, Monroe Zakaris, met again keeping in mind this council's directive for us to move forward potential charter changes for a March ballot. We are planning on coming back to this council for a work session at our last meeting in September to outline a plan for three public forums over the course of October and November on issues that the committee has been focusing on. The committee continues to focus on some version of a homestead exemption, also different classifications of property taxes on different types of property in the city. And a proposed property transfer tax is also one that the committee has been discussing And our goal at the work session will be again to outline exactly what the broad public forums over the course of October and November will be on those issues and which idea or ideas, right? It's possible that more than one proposal may be put out there for the public's consideration for us to hopefully take action on that item in December to place it on a March ballot. Any other counselor with a committee report? Okay. We will move now then to item six, which is our consent agenda. Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated? So moved. Thank you, Councillor Litwin. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Councillor Singh. Any discussion on that motion? All in favor then please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? That carries unanimously, which brings us to our deliberative agenda. The first two items on our deliberative agenda are an entertainment permit application, 7.1 and 7.2. Councillor Grant with Councillor Broderick online, would you mind if I turn to you for motions on 7.1 and 7.2? Sure, I can do it.

Let me just spring it up, it's that time of year again for South End Art Hop and we are, I'm sorry, for 7.1, can we do both at the same time?

Sure, we could do both at the same time.

Thanks. I have a motion to approve the special event for outdoor entertainment permit application for SEBA, the South End Arts District, for Art Hop, which will be September 11th through the 13th. And also for 7.2, to approve the special outdoor entertainment permit application for Church Street Marketplace, the opera block in front of Pascagoula Ristorante for September 18th from 5 to 8 p.m. Second.

Thank you, Councillor Grant. Second by Councillor Litwin. And absent any objection, we will take these motions together. I do know that we have... The director of CIVA, Christy Mitchell, here. Christy, do you want to say anything about the event this year? Sure, we'd be happy to give you an opportunity to advertise this year's art hop.

Thank you, Council. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to quickly say thank you for all your work for the city of Burlington, especially when it comes to culture and safety and our unhoused population. When we work in the arts, we often think of really positive things, but what we don't realize all the time is that by boosting our creative sector, it also affects economic. So, happy to think of happy things in the South End Art Hub, but it is integral in a healthy economy. So the 34th annual South End Art Hub is coming right up. It is a three-day arts festival along the South End Arts District corridor of Pine Street. 34 years of community engagement. It's free and family friendly. I'm very excited to say that we are closing the street again on Friday night of Art Op. We are in a new location on Pine Street in the former Arts Riot space and it's been going really, really well. And so we're really excited to be right on the street. On Saturday, we are hosting Kids Hop, which is part of the Farmer's Market. The Farmer's Market will also have kid vendors, which is really sweet. We'll have artist markets at the dealer.com parking lot on Saturday and Sunday. We'll host the Strut Fashion Show on Saturday night at the Seba Center as well. There's so much more I could talk about, about art and culture and the town. But I'm just very excited for another successful event. I've done it every year since I moved here 22 years ago. So I've participated as an artist, business owner, director, and visitor. So do you have any questions?

Great. Thank you, Christy. Sure. Why don't we stick to SEPA first? Councillor Litwin, do you have a question or comment with respect to ARCO?

Well, mostly I just want to thank you and say that I enjoy the South End Art Hop, even though I'm the new North End counselor. It's one of the best reasons to go to the South End and I look forward to it every year. And I just think it's such an important, one of those important community events that we need to support and make happen. And if they ever run into problems, we need to figure out how to how to make sure that that can continue to happen. It's no secret that I'm one of the counselors who's incredibly concerned about crime and drug use and other kind of intersecting issues. And that is always a heavy and a tough topic to talk about. And We can talk about the really awesome, wonderful stuff that is still happening in the city. I'm looking forward to the Latin American Festival that I have not attended, because I think it's new this year. I could be wrong. Second year, okay, thank you. And the Old North End has wonderful events, so maybe the New North End has to come up with a big... signature event. But thank you for all the work that you do and it's always felt really well organized and safe and accessible. And as somebody who also lives on a fixed income, I always find something that I can buy to support an artist. So I really encourage people who are able to think about, you know, what's your budget and what could you do to support a small artist or maybe a big artist and add to your collection. And I challenge everyone here at the table to take a selfie with an artist that you end up liking and promoting. Shout out to the lady who made Wild Woogs. I don't know if you've ever seen those little monsters that she... Oh, yeah.

Yeah, those are great.

She's one of my favorite.

She's moved into the Maltex building now. She'll have a studio there.

Everybody always comments on my... Wild Woog on my chair in my living room, so thank you.

Oh, the fiber artist.

The fiber artist from Hyde Park. Oh, no, I haven't reached the threshold for purchasing one of those yet, but one day I would like to add that to my monster collections.

Wild Woog will be outside of Sterling Hardwoods at Art Hop.

Right off the top of your head, you knew that. All right, well, thank you for doing all you've done for two decades. It's really amazing.

I appreciate that, you're definitely hired for my marketing team. I do wanna say that we do need support for a couple things. I've really tried to make this event safe, but also thinking about transportation. So just kind of thinking about the way that we interact with cars, obviously it's been a big topic lately, and so we are closing the street to pedestrian only. We're gonna hire Local Motion to do bike filet. And then we're going to do something new this year. We're going to hire Burlington Trolley Tours to do a loop from Church Street Marketplace. So we want to involve downtown a little more. So we're going to have a trolley that goes from Church and Main and a loop to the soda plant. So Love Burlington and Church Street Marketplace are supporting that a little bit. But we definitely, whether or not this year, but in the future, we definitely need support around safety and transportation. I do enjoy that, the support we do get from the city. We go right to the Burlington Fire Department, Police Department, the flaggers, the security, crossing guards, so we definitely are thinking about how do we make it accessible. We're gonna do a lot of park and ride transportations with SSTA as well to get people to park down at Burton, for example, or on Lakeside and then kind of shuttle in versus making it a car heavy event.

Thanks, awesome.

Great.

Thank you all.

Thank you. Any other questions, comments related to SEBA and the ARCHA? Okay. Is there anyone here who wanted to speak to, and not necessary at all, but item 7.2, Church Street Marketplace Opera Block? Or do any councillors have any questions or comments regarding that item? And thank you, Christy.

Yeah, thank you.

All right. So again, this is a joint motion on item 7.1 and 7.2. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Are any opposed? So that carries unanimously for both items. That turns us now to item 7.3, resolution, as mentioned by the mayor during her comments, a request for immediate and short-term state action to alleviate and mitigate the serious state and federal issues of houselessness, mental illness, substance use disorder, and criminal activity negatively affecting Burlington and the rest of Vermont. And on this item, I would ask for Councilor Schachter to introduce the item with a motion.

Great. I would like to move to waive the reading and adopt the resolution and would ask for the floor back after a second.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Second by Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson. Did I see your hand there? Okay, great. So, Councillor Schachter, we'll turn the floor back to you.

Great. Thank you. I'll keep this brief. I appreciate how the mayor in her remarks this evening outlined a lot of some really important asks that are in this resolution. So just to kind of reiterate, tonight we are introducing a resolution with a series of asks of Governor Phil Scott and his administration on behalf of our city. This resolution is important and it represents a bipartisan collaborative effort between members of this council and the mayor's administration who have met a number of times in recent weeks to invite the governor in to help us address a number of serious and pressing health and safety challenges that we're facing in our city. You know, for the sake of the public, you may recall from our last meeting that Section 5 of the Burlington Forward Resolution noted the importance of requesting that the governor partner with us to address the unique public safety, behavioral health, homelessness, and substance use challenges confronting us here in Burlington. And I also very much commend and appreciate the work of the mayor, her administration, and our remarkable city staff for work that's already been underway, for all that came of last year's 14-point plan, which is a starting point for continued partnership I just want to acknowledge the bipartisan support that we are coming into this tonight, that this is an opportunity for us to collectively seek support to deepen our partnership with the state, to address some serious challenges that are truly larger than us and too large for us to tackle on our own. This work is urgent. And while many begrudge the slow pace of government, I do want to emphasize that we are bringing this together in a bipartisan and collaborative way with time to spare before your meeting with the governor, mayor. And so I'm thrilled that we're able to bring this forward tonight. And I see it as an important reflection of what we're able to do when we can roll up our sleeves and work together. And I really appreciate, we had some really constructive meetings, myself, President Travers, Councillor Sanchez Parkinson councillor Bergman and the mayor and her team to get this drafted and then get full input from our colleagues So with that I will That's it.

Thank you Thank You councillor Schechter councillor Sanchez Parkinson

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Schachter. And I'm pleased to also be sponsoring this resolution that is so timely and needed. The challenges that we are experiencing as a city and state related to homelessness, mental illness, substance use, criminal activity are decades in the making. which have now been exacerbated by our federal administration who has specifically been targeting some of our most vulnerable people in our communities. They are strategically disinvesting across our health system, housing, education, and workforce development, creating greater gaps in those who can and cannot afford to live and thrive in our city. If we are serious about improving the health and well-being of our community, this is the moment that calls for shared responsibility and coordination across the state. We cannot run from the root causes that continue to take our community in a downward spiral year after year. Through this resolution, we are asking that our mental health resources are strengthened. This includes coordinating and communicating across our state, nonprofit, and municipal partners in order to ensure that services are responsive to our community needs. We are also requesting immediate action in expanding our capacity to offer daytime and low-barrier shelter. We ask that the state funding distribution be expedited to cities who are disproportionately serving our unhoused populations. These are tangible solutions that we are proposing that would not only address the systemic harm, but also provide immediate relief to those suffering the most. So I wanna thank again my colleagues for working together on this resolution and the leadership of our mayor and her administration for the ongoing advocacy and work at the state level. I also look forward to continuing to partner as she brings these requests to Governor Phil Scott. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Sanchez-Parkinson. I see, Councillor Broderick, that you have your hand raised.

Thank you. Sorry about my voice. I'm recovering from strep throat. Yeah, just wanted to further emphasize and thank the mayor's office and the council for working on this resolution. Further emphasize the need to prioritize housing and healthcare resources when it comes to addressing the issues that are impacting our city, our state, and our country. It's clear that positive outcomes for folks who are suffering, regardless of the particular issue, dramatically increase when people have consistent and secure shelter and access to health resources, healthcare resources, whether physical or mental health. Our current system of putting folks up in a motel for a couple of months and then kicking them out is not enough for somebody to find the stability in their life that they need to improve their conditions. And stability is what folks need and what we should be striving for as a community. So I'm thankful for this resolution as a start for that advocacy for what folks truly need. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Broderick, and hope you feel much better soon. Any other comments from councillors? Yes, Councillor Carpenter.

Thanks, everyone, and thanks for all that worked on the resolution. I really do appreciate it, and I think it's just, again, important, and the mayor and Councillor Schachter pointed out that a big part of this resolution are some of our immediate short-term needs. Those do not interfere with the long-term needs. As someone who's spent their entire life in affordable housing, we need housing, but that will take us a while. What the city of Burlington needs, and a number of other cities in the state, we're not alone, are some immediate solutions. More shelter beds, more immediate responders, for the healthcare needs and the drug addiction that's going on. And so I want us to really just note that, that we can do both and we can deal with the crisis we've got in hand. There are solutions. There are other cities who have exercise solutions and we need to get together as a state and do that as we simultaneously work for the bigger systems that we know we all need.

Thank you, Councillor Carpenter. Is there any other councillor that wishes to speak to this item? Councillor Singh.

Thank you very much. I appreciate all the hard work from the administration and those on both sides of the aisle to get this through before the mayor's meeting with the governor. I do want to point out also You know, I do appreciate the convening of youth service providers. There's a lot of youth in our city. You know, school's about to start, and I think it's really important that we focus on our young people and the effects all these things are having on young people in the city of Burlington. I also want to, you know, point out, too, there's also in this resolution coordination with our public safety personnel here. In Burlington, that's not just the public safety personnel what there are many people involved with all the items that are going on here in the city from you know our urban park rangers to People in code enforcement that are dealing with all these items that we're dealing with here in the city and we do need help specifically with drug trafficking and Traffic enforcement as we talk about emotes speeding loud Vehicles drag racing retail theft and I appreciate that that's part of this resolution and that we're gonna work to try to find a way to Help mitigate, you know our short-term resources or our problem with resources in that area So I really want to thank both caucuses and the mayor for putting a focus on that Thank You councillor saying

Any other comments on this item? Councilor Grant.

Thank you. Back on August 3rd when we were talking about the Burlington Forward Resolution, I attempted to separate out an item for vote. to do something unified addressing state officials. So I'm glad to see that even though that was voted down, that we are proceeding to do something in a unified way. This is the type of resolution that we need to be doing, something where we're working together, we're in agreement on steps that we need from the state, and that we are supporting our mayor as she attempts to work with us the state governor, Governor Scott, which has not always been easy. I think a lot of people have heard about the pavilion building in Mount Pelier. That is the building that houses the governor's office, the treasurer, and I believe the attorney general. How there have been issues on that building with people sleeping on the porch and Also issues with regards to public urination and defecation and the idea that bird noise devices have been installed at this building is Actually, I don't even really know how to describe that, but it just says that this is a situation that is literally at the governor's door, and that was the best thing that they could come up with. This is not just a Burlington problem. Much has been made about politics in Burlington, and yes, we have politicized community safety, but it's not related to one political party or the other. This is a statewide, national problem. We need this low barrier 100 bed shelter and we need it immediately. September 1st is the next date that additional cutbacks will be made to what remains of the hotel motel program. Days that people can use who still qualify will be reduced to 70 and those that do qualify, that number is being reduced. There is a direct correlation with the reduction of that program and the number of homeless people on our street. So when people feel that we can't get ahead of this, it is quite literally because every time this program gets cut, Within a few weeks, there are more people on our streets. This requires state support, this requires a state plan. There also needs to be a state plan with regards to the drug crisis, similar to what Governor Shumlin did, I believe it was around 2014, where his state of the state address. said that the opioid crisis at that time was a statewide public health emergency and coordinated agencies across the state, and it helped. We can never really fully get rid of substance use disorders, but it did help. We have no such unity in our state at this time, which is why we see this getting worse. So I fully support this. I hope that we can do other resolutions like this that start from a place where we're including all the voices that we can. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Grant. Is there any other councillor that wishes to be heard on this item? Councillor Lipman.

Thanks very much. It's helpful to hear from everybody. You know, we don't always have a lot of agreement at this table. of how to address the problems, but what I really appreciated about this resolution and the first draft that I saw was it was really spot on with, I think, what we can at least agree we need. And that this municipality, with its modest resources, along with many other municipalities in the state and across the country, cannot do a lot of this on our own. We do need assistance. And ever since joining the council and before joining, I've heard, especially as I get outside of Burlington, you know, that this is a Burlington problem. And I understand where folks are coming from when they watch the news and see what's happening here and think, my gosh, what are they doing there? And maybe don't have a full picture of everything. The snippets on the news are 10 seconds, 20 seconds. But I want to I guess implore to the rest of my Vermonters I've spent most of my life here now. I lived in Lamoille County. I've lived in Washington County I loved living in both of those places and We need you as well to be part of the Burlington solution because We are, like it or not, the economic engine of this state, including our airport and our vibrant commercial and tourism scene here and so many other things, and the many jobs that people have moved here to be able to take. And so I want us to have discussions across the rural-urban divide, particularly about Well, what is a Burlington problem? What do we mean by a Burlington problem? And how can we understand and hear each other? Because I want to hear folks on the other side, too, who are struggling with different issues with fewer resources. I've met quite a few people now in recovery And their recovery stories involve intentionally moving here to access some of the many wonderful recovery programs that are available, including Turning Point Center that has over 50 meetings a day, and other centers you're lucky if you get two, three meetings a day. And some folks really need that multi-time a day check-in to stay on track. And I've been very inspired by those people who I've met who have shared their touching stories with me. And also hear from them about what it's like to have to navigate downtown as someone in recovery. and being triggered by a lot of the situations that are going on down here. While there are certainly things in the resolution, which is very short, and I really encourage everybody to read it, it's only four pages double-spaced. While there are certainly a couple things where I might say, well, gosh, I'd really suggest we approach it another way, that's okay. This doesn't have to be perfect for me to be happy to sign on for it. And that, I think, is the spirit of bipartisanship that I hope that we can continue to build on. And I agree that while I don't think the Motel Program was particularly successful in many aspects, I also think it's... incredibly challenging to imagine a family with young children who is unhoused being able to find new housing, safe housing, in 70 days. And so we do need to think about the realism of that. I also wanna name that, and I appreciate Councilor Grant for bringing up the situation in Montpelier, it's symbolic for folks as well, especially in our state capital. simultaneously I heard in those same interviews from folks who work at the historical building or whatever it is there that they had put out porta potties and people still didn't use the porta potties and use the porch. And so it's important to name, okay, how do we, maybe the, I certainly don't agree with the bird sound being the solution, but what do we get at when we're providing a porta potty and it's not being used? So I've got seven seconds left. I'll wrap it up. I'm here. I'm on board. And I thank the mayor and everybody for coming together on this.

Thank you, Councillor Litwin. Is there any other councillor that wishes to be heard on this item? All right. I think we will try a voice vote on it. All in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. That is the end of our deliberative agenda, which brings us now to item 8, City Council, General City Affairs. Is there any City Councillor with General City Affairs? Yes, Councillor Schachter.

Thank you, President Travers. I just wanted to give a quick heads up. Councillor Grant, I know you mentioned, I don't know, I think it was Councillor Grant who mentioned that we got some really great feedback from the REIB office on Burlington Forward. President Travers and I met with some staff there shortly after the resolution was introduced, and there is an updated version of the resolution with track changes and some edits taking that feedback into account that has been shared with both caucuses and is fine to start, I think, for REIB and other committees taking this up to be the version that's being used. So that can be posted to Civic Clerk anytime it takes time. the vast, vast if not all of their feedback very much to heart and into account in some important edits that were made as this document works through committee. So I just want to thank them for that work and acknowledge that there is an updated version circulating very much sort of directly based on that feedback.

Thank you. Councilor Schachter, Councilor Litwin.

Um, for me, I think one of the things I want to talk about is I've spent a lot of time downtown over the past three weeks, particularly on the block of St. Paul Street between college and bank, engaging with folks, talking to business owners, talking to folks on the street. And also, I attended a really what I thought was a thoughtfully facilitated community dialogue at the Baptist Church at 81 St. Paul Street, which has been, unfortunately, kind of the hub of a lot of really tough and disturbing activity lately, not the church's fault by any means, and Vermont Cares was there as part of that facilitation, and I think it was a really important, I couldn't stay the whole time because I was on my lunch break, and it was longer than my lunch break allows, but I appreciated that community members with really different viewpoints were able to come and be heard and have conversation. And the health commissioner from Montpelier came to that meeting, which was a pleasant surprise that I had. I think we should be making sure that we're following up with the Baptist Church and the folks who attended that meeting. I'm planning on following up with some folks to find out what I missed at the end there because they did some group work. Ultimately there is a lot of pressure on that particular neighborhood whether you're a resident or a business owner or a shopper And I think we've seen that in the news unfortunately on a pretty regular basis over the past week it's dangerous, and we do need to Think about how do we deploy our very minimal police resources we? I think it's no secret how few officers we have to make sure that that section of the city gets the attention that it really needs, including on Bank Street as well. I don't have the solution other than to know that just from my own personal observations from dozens of hours at this point down there, that it's very serious and I can't, Suggest even walking through that neighborhood for people particularly when it gets dark out, so I'll leave that there, but I'm very concerned about What is happening just a block from this building? I'm in the businesses that are in the middle of it one of whom has already said they're they're relocating to Essex so I'll leave that there.

Thank you Thank You councillor Lewin is there any other councillor that wishes to be recognized yep councillor Sanchez Parkinson it's

We have mentioned youth several times today, so I just wanted to acknowledge the start of a new school year for many of our kids across the Burlington School District. They're starting on Wednesday. Champlain College started today. UVM starts next week. So lots of engagement and vibrancy with our young people back to school. So excited to see them back and engaged in our community.

Thank you. Councilor Sanchez-Parkinson. Any other councillor wish to be recognized in general city affairs. Yes Councillor Grant.

I have a few things. First of all, I want to mention that the 13th annual A-Dog Day will be occurring this Saturday, the 29th, from noon to 6 p.m., and this will be at the skate park down at the waterfront that's named after Andy A-Dog Williams. He was a really fantastic Burlington resident, wonderful DJ, did great work with youth, loved to skate, loved hip-hop music, opened the first sneaker shop in Burlington, and he lost his life after a long, brave battle with leukemia. The Friends for a Dog Foundation have continued to work over the years where they've done programs with youth, such as teaching youth how to DJ, how to produce, how to write music, and also promoting activities down at the skate park. And I think it's really beautiful that we still remember him, especially as a prominent resident who was also a person of color. And their foundation will be there as well. They give people information on how to register so that if you could be a bone marrow, possibility of a match for a transplant, which is very difficult for BIPOC people, and especially people who are mixed. It's harder to find matches. These six hours at the skate park are going to include performances from DJs and also bands, so we'll have Ruff Francis there, Peg Tassie and the Loud Flowers, DJ Justin B, Maury, CeeLo, Charlie Maine, and more. I want to mention that I think we should be going back and looking at the Gun Violence Task Force, which occurred a few years ago at a difficult time, which was not only just in Burlington, it was across the state in 2022, which was one of the, if not the most, violently or across the state with regards to gun violence. And there was a incorrect assumption that the main source of this gun violence was coming from our new American community. In fact, this task force showed that that was not the case. It also showed that There were families who believed that lack of follow up from our police department caused the death of an individual. There was also a lot of information about the lack of cultural competency across multiple systems. For example, bodies being returned without their internal organs showing a complete disregard for people and how they choose to worship and say goodbye to their relatives. So I think that's something that would be worth looking at again. Regarding what's happening in the Central District, I was a police commissioner for 2020 to 2023. And as a city councilor, I have advocated nonstop for the residents of my community. I have tried my best but quite frankly was dismissed because of the political party I decided to be aligned with and quite frankly my skin color. Our residents dealt with higher volumes of incidents related to larcenies, car thefts, related to open use, related to people sleeping in people's backyards, using in people's backyards, and again and again we tried to bring attention to what was happening. This activity moved, it continues to move. And what we are seeing downtown, we have seen before. I do agree, I am concerned about new areas of downtown that are being affected. People do continue to visit that area, people do continue to walk at night, but everyone has different boundaries, everyone has different feelings with regards to, how safe they feel and I believe that is valid but I think it is important to to recognize that there is a vibrancy that is still continuing and people going to the waterfront to the old north end to the south end through the downtown area with regards to my comment about only listening to the donor class that was in no way meant to disregard businesses and important public-private partnerships that occur. I recognize that. It was a continued concern that we do not listen to everyone in our community. We don't. and that our residents in the Central District have been asking for help for some time now, and it's only when other voices ask for help that they're listened to, and that continues to be a problem as seen with the Burlington Forward Resolution. Thank you.

Is there any other counselor who wishes to be recognized on General City Affairs? Okay. That brings us to City Council President Council updates. I don't have any prepared remarks, but there's just a couple items that I wanted to touch on here briefly. One is while we certainly can't go into the details regarding the purpose of the executive session earlier this evening, I know that we've been having a lot of discussion here as a city and as a council regarding a sense of safety here in our community. and just want to make clear that that sense of safety should certainly by no means, and to a certain extent, to a greater extent, apply to our hardworking city staff as well. I think, unfortunately, there's been a number of incidents, particularly recently, where we've had city staff, unacceptably, addressed and this includes the mayor as a staff person of the city as well being unacceptably addressed in aggressive and harassing means and just in my role as the chair of this council just want to extend to you mayor and to all city staff including all of your department heads are heartfelt and strong support for your team doing whatever is necessary to Protect city staff and City Hall from that kind of behavior. So I wanted to take an opportunity to address that the Second item that I wanted to mention is I wanted to apologize for not being here for our last meeting I Intended on making it back here from time away with my family, but travel plans did Not permit for that. I want to thank Council Barlow for leading and guiding this council through what you could feel through the virtual screen was a difficult meeting for this council. And so thank you, Councillor Barlow, for doing that work. What I want to just note here briefly, and it is somewhat related to the comment I just made there with respect to city staff, is that whether it's city staff or whether it's the folks that sit around this table, all of us are doing this work because we care deeply about this city, we care deeply about this community, we care deeply for the folks that we serve. We wouldn't spend every Monday here sometimes very late into the evening unless that was the case. I was troubled even through the screen by the level of negativity and it was going always in all directions with respect to different viewpoints on this critical discussion that we're having here in our community. I was troubled by the level of negativity and would ask the public as well as folks around this table to please trust the good intentions of individuals when they come here to this table and serve this city. I don't think that anyone would be doing this work unless they had the best intentions of this city at heart. Yes, we may disagree with respect to the policy, but I hope we can all agree that we are here to do whatever we think is best on behalf of our neighbors for this great city. And I appreciated your comments, Councillor Grant. It is and remains and will continue to be a very vibrant city, and we are working to ensure that that's the case. So appreciate everyone, particularly you again, Councillor Barlow, for your leadership of our last meeting, which brings us to the end of our agenda. And absent objection, seeing no other business before the council, I will adjourn us at 8.13 PM. Thank you.