City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, noting that we have a quorum with Councillors Litwin, Schachter, myself, Sanchez-Parkinson, Broderick, Newbeeser, and Councillor Singh online, we will go ahead and call this meeting to order. It is Monday, September 14th. The time is 6.30 p.m. The first item on our agenda is an ask to move to adopt our agenda. Is there a motion to that end?

So moved.

Thank you. Councillor Newbeeser, is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson. Any discussion? All in favor, then, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. The first substantive item on our agenda is an anticipated executive session. As is our practice, I would ask City Attorney Brown to please give some factual context for the need for an executive session this evening.

Thank you, Council President Travers. Pursuant to open meeting law, the city attorney's office has requested this executive session to provide a litigation settlement, proposed settlement update to the council because doing so outside of executive session would place the city at a substantial disadvantage. Thank you.

Thank you, City Attorney Brown. Is there, Councilor Newbeeser, could I turn to you for the first of a two-part motion on this item?

Yes. I will move that the board find the premature general public knowledge of legal advice and information concerning the details of pending litigation to which the city as a party or as stated interest would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage.

Thank you. Is there a second to that motion?

Second.

Thank you. Councilor Schachter, is there any discussion on this item? All in favor, then please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? That's unanimous. Councilor Newbeeser, could I ask you for the second motion now?

Based on that finding, I move that the board go into executive session to receive confidential attorney-client communications. I'm going to mess this part up. Pursuant to 1 BSA 313A1F, impending civil litigation matters.

Thank you. Is there a second to that?

Second.

Thank you, Councillor Schachter. Any discussion on that item? All in favor, then please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? That carries unanimously. So the council is now... in executive session. I want to correct the record on one point. I may have said we started the meeting at 6.30. We started at 6.02 p.m. We have the local control commission warned for 6.20 p.m., and so we are going to try to complete executive session in the next 15, 20 minutes or so. We'll then turn to our local control commission, and then public forum will be at 6.30. So folks can stay here. We will be downstairs and back before then. Thank you.

do do Thank you. do Thank you. do do Thank you. you So,

folks patience as we completed that executive session we'll call the council back to order now at 6 24 p.m. public forum is set for a time certain at 6 30 p.m. we had warned our meeting as the local control commission at 6 20 p.m. that should only take a few minutes so we will now briefly recess the City Council meeting and call to order our meeting as the local control commission and And for a motion on our agenda as the local control commission, I'd ask the chair of our license committee, Commissioner Broderick, to make a motion.

I move to adopt the agenda as seen on civic clerk.

Thank you. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Commissioner Schachter. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. The next item on our local control commission agenda is the consent agenda. Commissioner Broderick, can I ask you for a motion on the consent agenda? Aye.

I move to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated.

Thank you. Is there a second to that motion? Second. Seconded by Commissioner McKnight. Any discussion on the consent agenda? All in favor, then, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. And we do have a deliberative agenda this evening. Commissioner Broderick, I ask you for a motion on the first deliberative item.

I move to approve the 2026-2027 first class liquor license application for Jamaican Taste 177 Church Street with the following conditions, a complete record check contingent upon fire marshal approval and with all standard conditions.

Thank you. Is there a second to that motion?

Second.

Thank you, Commissioner Schachter. Any discussion on that item? All in favor, then please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. So seeing no other business before the Local Control Commission, we will adjourn that meeting at 6.25 p.m. And thanks as always to Laura Oberg for keeping us honest on the Local Control Commission. So thank you. We will now resume the City Council meeting at 6.25 p.m. And we did warn Public Forum for a time certain at 6.30 p.m. At the moment, though, we have At least 10 folks signed up, which will take us well beyond 630. So if there's no objection, I would be fine with suspending our rules and opening public forum now. All right. So absent objection, we'll go ahead and open public forum at 625 p.m. As always, we'll begin public forum with any Burlington residents who are here in person in City Hall. We'll then turn online to any Burlington residents online. We repeat that same process for non-Burlington residents here in City Hall. and then non-Burlington residents who are online. When I say your name, if you're here in person, please come to the table, pull the microphone close, make sure the green light on the microphone itself is illuminated. If you're online, I will let you know once you've been unmuted on Zoom and we'll have a timer for you there. Both online and in person, speakers will be provided two minutes. We ask that all speakers please direct their comments to me as the chair and not to any other individual. The council doesn't tolerate any individualized comments or attacks, particularly those based on any individual's protected characteristics. We also ask that comments please refrain from being unruly, disruptive, or use vulgarities. If any individual proceeds in violation of these rules, I may interrupt the speaker to ask that they please continue in accordance with them. If a speaker continues to violate the rules, I reserve the right to end public comment at that point in time. So with that, as mentioned, we begin with Burlington residents who are here in person in City Hall. The first is Chris McGrath, who will be followed by Dave Marr. Chris.

Intent versus impact. That is the core of the debate around Burlington Forward. Every Burlingtonian I have talked to has had a different and nuanced understanding of what Burlington Forward means. To some, it is a positive step for the city, a step that makes them feel safer. To others, it is a negative step for the city, one full of constitutional infringement, classism, and discrimination. This is the crux of the issue. Even if it's yet to be adopted but revised form, Burlington Forward sets a poor precedent because it contains a lot of broad and interpretable language. It is not a precise document. English is a terrible language to write anything precise in because all of our individual words contain multiple different meanings. We must be extremely cognizant about our word choice when writing policy. I began to speak out about the Burlington Ford Resolution because, by my reading, it infringes upon my unalienable right to free speech, assembly, travel, and security of person. I have heard from the Democratic caucus in committee meetings that this is not their intent. I want to believe them. But there is a tremendous difference between intent and impact. I know this firsthand. I have been unintentionally racist. I have been unintentionally sexist. I have been unintentionally homophobic. It does not matter that those moments were unintentional. Their impact was severe and detrimental, fracturing relationships and hurting people that I care deeply about. These are moments of intense and lasting regret, but guilt does not heal and regret does not soothe. Only when we can take responsibility and, dare I say, accountability for our mistakes, can we actually move forward together. If the Democratic caucus continues to advance a policy that can so easily be construed as racist, discriminatory, and yes, even fascist, then we're at risk of being labeled as such. Table Burlington forward. take on the feedback from the committees in the community, and let's try again all together.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Dave Marr, who will be followed by Ambrose Moore.

Good evening. My name's Dave Marr. I live in Burlington, New North End. And I know everyone here likes data-driven solutions. So here's some data on the progress in addressing homelessness that Daniel Lurie, the new mayor of San Francisco, has made in a little over a year. He's achieved a 4% decrease in total homelessness, a 22% decrease in unsheltered homelessness, an 85% decrease in people living in tents, and a 54% reduction in youth homelessness. You know, my niece lives in San Francisco and she says it's amazing how much things have been turned around in a very short period of time. So how did Daniel Lurie accomplish this? Well, here's some of his strategies. He strictly enforced bans on illegal camping. He put the emphasis on treating addiction and mental illness rather than relying primarily on a housing first model. He strictly enforced laws against open drug use and open drug dealing. He made treatment and recovery a top priority rather than harm reduction. And he limited dispensing clean needles to those who agreed to counseling or treatment. So how can we implement these successful strategies in Burlington? Well, first would be obvious, we enforce the existing no camping ordinances. If need be, we could hire sheriff's deputies to help with that. We should ensure that all homeless shelters include treatment for mental illness and substance abuse. And we should redirect the proposed overdose prevention center and the needle exchange to focus on treatment and recovery rather than facilitating substance abuse. What better way to prevent overdoses than to stop taking drugs? I hope you'll look into these and other successful strategies that Daniel Lurie has implemented. If you want, you can give him a call. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Ambrose Moore, who will be followed by Vivan Boaspine.

Hello, I'm Ambrose Moore, a resident of Ward 8, and I actually wrote down that I'm speaking specifically about needle exchange because I, since fall of 23, I believe, I've been on specific medications that do require needles and syringes to be in use. And then I moved up to Burlington 2024, and I actually initially didn't know about where I could put my needles. And because I moved around a lot in my lifetime, I was always nervous how to dispose of needles. So what I ended up doing the fall of 24, which is when I first got here, I would actually collect all my needles. And when I went home to Illinois, whether that was flying or driving, I would bring all those needles all the way to Illinois, even if they're months worth because it's a weekly injection. And I would give it to my mother because she has health care. She has medical She has past medical experience and she is currently on other medications that require needles and syringes because of her arthritis. Which is very iffy, you know, how do I go six months with a big thing of needles that are used? It's not safe. And then I found out, because I was complaining about it to someone, I was complaining about it to actually a doctor. She suggested the needle exchange on Clark Street. And my first ask was, How far away is it? Because I was expecting it to be over yonder, and I cannot do that. I rely on public transit. I walk everywhere. And I found out it was on Clark Street. And part of the reasons I really appreciated its location is because it's well lit. It's in an area that I do see as safe. And I need my needles and their syringes, as well as the exchange program allows me to not have to figure out how to get them how to get more needles, because that has been an issue in the past whenever I go from Illinois to Vermont. And Clark Street, the needle exchange there, not recently, but was shut down, and it's kind of put in the other situation I was in to begin with of where I can dispose of my needles in a convenient way, as well as being safe and accessible for me. So I would really like if we could reopen and figure out city resources for needle exchanges. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Vavonne Bowes-Pine, who will be followed by Bridget Jewel.

Hey, y'all. Can you hear me? Yeah. I'll be pretty brief. I just wanted to kind of refocus some of the, how we locate the public discourse about this issue. I think there's a lot of sort of different complicated voices that might be difficult to try to understand what the jurisdiction of what's being talked about is about. I've recently been talking to a lot of unhoused comrades and I've also been talking to just like people who work on Church Street And it's just very interesting because I had one perception of what the people would be talking about with respect to Burlington Forge, which has gone very far. I think that it has reached the public discourse and the public ear, and the public does not like it. But I had an impression based on hearing all of these business owners and landlords talk that Burlington businesses must be really fearful of their unhoused neighbors. They must be having a really hard time. And when I was talking to the staff who actually work at these places and actually deal with the issues of homelessness on a day-to-day basis, they were not for Burlington Forwards. It seems like the property owners have one opinion, and it seems as if the people who work and live in Burlington have another opinion. And I think it's important to just try to relocate the discussion so that when you're making comments to justify different proposals that you have, that you're basing it not on some sort of implied impression of what the people think or what some group of people think, but on some actual sort of data-driven, evidence-driven strategies. I'm really glad to think about the longer timeline on proposals like this, because it allows time for people like the unhoused, who aren't able to make it to this space, have a little bit more of a chance to, and I am very curious to hear what they have to say about the issue, because it is, they are the prime target of these attacks. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Bridget Jewell, who will be followed by Andre Clark.

Hi, I'm Bridget.

I'm here to speak on behalf of the homeless community. I am homeless. I am an addict. I live in the park and have for almost three years. And I'm going to tell you something. You're not going to ordinance this problem out of existence. I have a lot of things to say to y'all because your policies look good on paper but don't play out very well, do they? There's a need for social services, there's a need to motivate people properly, and these people have been broken and treated so unkindly, and now you're trying to tell them that they're worthless, and hey, don't belong here too. Where do we go? What do we do? If it was your child or grandchild, you'd feel differently about it. Addiction does not discriminate, and then you contend with mental health on top of it, and a community that just treats you like Um, worse than cattle or, you know, like, at least cows get to go in a barn at night, right? This is unfair. Burlington forward, Burlington stuck. Y'all did this to yourselves with your policies that didn't work. I live outside. I don't know if any of you have had to sleep outside on a 29 to 25 degree night. But yeah, we're trying to get out of the wind and inside somewhere. So sorry to the businesses that maybe feel like we're out of pocket for being in their little spots. But when the wind's blowing on a 25 degree night, I can tell you it's terrible. When it's raining and you only have one set of clothing and you have to be cold and wet for the rest of the day, it hurts you. And you're hungry and you're upset because you can't go anywhere. What do we do? Nobody thinks about these things because they don't understand what it is. I understand that there's a need to properly motivate some of these people to stop leaving their trash and garbage and doing this. But simple problems need simple solutions. You don't want trash all over town? Put more trash cans around. Put needle. like around town where people are spending their time.

Thank you.

Please.

Thank you. We're at two minutes now.

So simple problems need simple solutions.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Andre Clark, who will be followed by Charlie Messing.

Hi everyone, my name is Andre Clark, Ward 2. I'm the founder of Street Cats Burlington, a person with lived experience of homelessness and a person in long-term recovery. I am here today to ask the council to table this version of Burlington forward and work together to create a truly collaborative vision for our city's future. I appreciate that the authors have taken the time to make minor edits based on feedback from the community, but the substance of the resolution has not changed. This resolution uses kinder language to come to the same end result. The focus is still on visible public safety presence, contracted police, vigilante public space response teams, cameras, encampment removal, and other punitive measures that have outsized impacts on historically marginalized communities. Burlington Forward does not do anything to address the actual challenges our community faces. Instead, it implies social service agencies mutual aid organizations, and neighbors helping neighbors are making our crisis worse. We know this isn't true. We know that neighbors building community and sharing resources with one another isn't a negative. It is actually what makes Burlington the special place it is. Our elected leaders should be focused on expanding the community that has been built amongst those marginalized by society. They should join us in the park. They should come talk to their neighbors without a stable residence. I have invited all members of this body out to the People's Potluck Tuesdays at 8 p.m. I have not seen many of you out there. If you want the solutions to homelessness, substance misuse, or public despair, talk to the people who are living it every day. Talk to the people in City Hall Park. Talk to the people at the shelters. Talk to the people who know what it's like to be disparaged for existing in a public space. We have had enough conversations about our neighbors. It's time to actually talk to them. We all need to talk to each other instead of at each other. The majority of this resolution could be deleted if councilors were willing to have conversations with each other, the mayor, and their constituents. And that includes our unhoused neighbors, our local businesses, and everyone else who loves this city.

Thank you.

I believe we all want the best for Burlington. I hope we can work together to make that happen.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Charlie Messing, who will be followed by the Reverend Mark Hughes.

Hello again. Good evening. Good evening all, if I may say so. I agree with a lot of things that have been said tonight. I wish to bring up again the motorcycles and the motorbikes. They are quite noisy and they proliferate. And the people riding Sometimes they seem very young. Have they had any driving lessons? I have no idea. It doesn't seem like it sometimes. But the people on Lake Street, I'm on College Street, we both get all that stuff, all the noise. There's some cars, too, that are way too noisy. It would be great to have a way to enforce a noise ordinance. Now, the fire engines are extremely loud, as you noticed, probably noticed. You see people holding their ears. They are quite loud enough. However, the crosswalks on Pine Street have lights that blink, and some of them have better bulbs than others. Some of them are in shadow, some of them are in blastingly bright sunlight at some points of the day, and are just about invisible. We have already had a casualty. I believe we should turn up the lights and turn down the sirens. As usual, I speak of that which no one else will speak tonight. I hope you are all well, and I hope we're getting somewhere where things forward, Arlington forward, I hope things go forward. Thank you very much, and have a good evening. Thank you, Charlie.

Our next speaker is Reverend Mark Hughes, who will be followed by Ed Baker.

Mr. Chair, City Council, Madam Mayor, Before I start, I wanted to just say on the record that I did bring the CNA report, because it's really hard to find. I also brought the Burlington's Racial Equity Strategic Roadmap, which is also very difficult to locate. And for some odd reason, so is the racial justice through economic and criminal justice resolution. It's really difficult to find. I brought it for you, so if all of these could be entered into the record. And I also brought the resolution of the declaration that racism is a public health emergency. So I brought all four of these documents. I would imagine that they would be on the agenda next meeting. So I just wanted to make sure that you had them for your records because they don't seem to be locatable anywhere right now. Thank you for that time. Good evening. I'm Reverend Mark Hughes. I'm the Executive Director of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance. It's good to be with you this evening. I don't like to have to come here. Sometimes I watch you from a distance, but tonight I want to leave you with just one central point in Burlington Forward. Please do not make a mistake, don't mistake the unfinished framework for failed work. Don't mistake the unfinished framework for failed work. Burlington already did the work of connecting racial justice to public safety. The racial justice through economic and criminal justice resolution, the declaration that racism is a public health emergency, all of these documents I've just shared with you, I've submitted. These documents, they might be difficult to find, but the city has committed to reducing the demand by investing upstream. Apparently the clock started a little earlier, so I'm just going to stop there, and you can just read our report, because I'm looking at five seconds now, and I can't get through a half a page in five seconds.

If you, Reverend Yates, I think it was about 45 seconds that you were introducing the materials there. I'd be happy to... give you another 45 seconds or so, or a minute. Sorry, the timer did start when you were just naming the materials that you had, so if you have another minute or so, I think I would provide that to you.

Thanks, that was kind of the point. So the documents, they're difficult to find, again, that's why I brought them. The city did commit to reducing the demand on policing by investing upstream. And today, black folks are experiencing record levels of police use of force, record levels. In 2025, black people were 28% of use of force subjects while representing only 4.6%, 4.7% of Burlington's population, record levels. Yet Burlington Forward proposes to add sworn contracted police give civilian response teams citation and trespass authority and place civil rights oversight, apparently place those responsibilities on the REIB, an internal city equity office, not an independent civil rights enforcement body. That takes us further downstream. While the upstream work remains remains unfinished. As much as we've talked about it over the last several years, the work remains unfinished. This is not failed framework.

I'll ask that you wrap up now, just in fairness to other speakers.

Okay. This is not a failed framework, counselors. This is unfinished work. Thank you. Address immediately public safety concerns.

Thank you.

And go back to the framework and let's finish the work that we started. You have my statement. Thank you.

Thank you. And we'll take the materials. Our next speaker is Ed Baker, who will be followed by Fareed.

All right, thank you. I'm Ed Baker. Most of you know me. I want to begin with a sincere and very deep thank you to you for the work you do. I believe that I have for you tonight, I have a golden opportunity for the Burlington City Council and the Burlington Mayor. Brendan Marshall, PhD, is the Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence in Epidemiology at Brown University School of Public Health, Rhode Island. Dr. Marshall has agreed to come to a full city council meeting and briefly present on his research into overdose and overdose prevention. and make himself available at that meeting to any and all questions that city councilors or the mayor's office may have for him. Just a little bit about his credentials. As the Scientific Director of Prevention Overdose Rhode Island, Rhode Island's Drug Overdose Surveillance and Information Dashboard, Dr. Marshall works closely with the Rhode Island Department of Health to track, measure, and evaluate efforts to address the state's opioid overdose epidemic. He also serves as an expert advisor to the Rhode Island Governor's Overdose Prevention and Intervention Task Force and serves as the chair of the Rhode Island Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee. Finally, Dr. Marshall serves as an associate editor of the International Journal of Drug Policy. To date, he has authored or co-authored over 400 peer-reviewed publications and two book chapters. He wants to come to Vermont because he knows overdose death has no boundaries. And I'm offering you, I'm offering you, Dr. Marshall, he's authorized me to do that, please consider it.

Our last Burlington resident here in City Hall is Fareed. We'll then turn to the Burlington resident signed up online, Sharon Busher. Fareed, go ahead.

Four years ago, we were here pleading to the City Council not to close down Sears Lane encampment without any solid plan. They went ahead and did it anyways. We warned you that this was going to happen, that people are going to end up in the city hall park, they're going to encamp there, they're going to start doing drugs openly on Church Street. And closing Sears Lane, it wasn't just about losing shelter for people, it was about losing community, and community is very important. Without the community, there can't be rehabilitation or or to get better if you are struggling with addiction. And Andre already invited you all, but I do believe that if we work together, people will feel heard and they will have the buy-in for any solutions to be successful. So please consider coming to the People's Potluck tomorrow, 8 o'clock at City Hall Park. Everybody's invited. Thank you.

Thank you for reading. We'll now turn to Burlington residents signed up online, Sharon Busher. Sharon, let me just share my screen here, and then as soon as you see the timer, you should be able to go ahead and unmute yourself. Go ahead.

Okay. Hi, good evening. Thank you. I'm going to talk about your work session regarding Tier 1 as a category for the city. I agree that there is redundancy between what we do internally with our of people, our staff, and what happens at the state level. But I am really concerned, as is stated in the slide presentation, around having adequate staff to carry a workload, an anticipated workload. So that's one of my primary concerns. The second concern is that I hope that everyone would agree that we have very qualified people that do the review, Act 250 review. However, the state has another level of qualification which we don't have access to. And so I'm concerned about losing that expertise. FOR CERTAIN AREAS. SO I'M HOPING THAT YOU LOOK AT WHAT IS BEING PROPOSED AND POTENTIALLY CONSIDER CARVING OUT SOME AREAS. FOR EXAMPLE, IF THERE WE NEED ADDED EXPERTISE FOR GEO TECHNICAL ISSUES REGARDING SLOPES AND I ALSO THINK WE NEED SOME EXPERTISE REGARDING WETLAND BUFFERS AND other issues with development that is in close proximity. Those are just two examples of where I don't feel we have the adequate knowledge base to deal with all of these issues. I'm not diminishing the staff. I respect Scott and Mary. And I can't remember the other person's name. He's relatively new. But I respect them all and value them. But I think the workload would be excessive. And I think that they also benefit, we as a community benefit from that level of expertise. So thank you for considering my comments. Appreciate it.

Thank you. I need to figure out how to stop sharing my screen now. I've lost the button.

There we go.

Okay, we have three non-Burlington residents who are signed up for public forum, two here in person, one online. We'll hear first from Chris Marash and then June Goodband. We'll then go online to Brian Clifford. So, Chris, whenever you're ready.

How are you all doing tonight? Well, since we last talked, I filed a petition with the town and the city clerk and I got over 1,200 signatures right now on the way to 1,582 plus some. This is slowly coming towards Burlington. There's been, I don't know if anybody's studied the history here in Burlington, but federal court cases have left us, and their decisions have left us where we are at today. So we either can take it back to court, we can do it this way, you guys can decide. I can go and file for an emergency injunction at the federal court for $405 to prove that there's overreach going on on our city streets with busking and art, which is clear as day. You ask Google, it can show you really quick where the overreach is. So when I first started playing my instrument up here, I got a cop who told me, threatened me to get a permit. He said, if I didn't get a permit, I wouldn't be able to ever get a permit. So I got a permit. And I never filed anything for the permit. I complained. I didn't sign nothing. I didn't do anything except complain. So I handed a guy $50. Andrew. Forget his last name, Bachelor. Gave him $50 on Church Street, and I started playing. Everybody loves it. Everybody knows it's great. I didn't invent it. So I moved on to other places where I can play my instrument. And I think that we need to look at these things from what we are at a standpoint of left with. with federal court cases like aggressive panhandling and freedom of speech. These are freedom of speeches in other places, but federal court cases have left us where we are today. So to move forward, I think we can all come together to know that this is better for our community to have community. Right now on our streets, we have no community. We have restaurants, some people that need help, and that's it. So if we want to have the in-between where we all can have a good time and see things going on, I think we should be able to do this. Thank you.

Thank you, Chris. Our next speaker is June Goodband, and we'll then turn online to Brian Clifford.

I didn't prepare remarks. I'm June Goodband, I'm a candidate for governor, and I've been looking at how homelessness has been created by federal and state policy, and how approaches to homelessness don't address the problem at all, and particularly this Burlington Forward policy doesn't address the problem that many people are living unhoused, that many, many more people have incomes that are too low and costs that are too high. And those policies also include situations that create mental health problems and substance abuse problems, which includes not investing in communities, not supporting people, having children raised in foster care or in very abusive homes and not having the wider support they need so that people are struggling very deeply. Substance abuse is an epidemic in our country but it's not limited to the unhoused. We have many more people with serious substance abuse problems who are housed and we're dealing with it in a way that treats it as a criminal problem when it's really a social and medical problem. We should have known from the 1920s that prohibiting a commonly used substance does not stop people from using it. What it does is it creates organized crime. Working with people, helping people find a way, helping people find worth in their life, community and belonging is really important. And the stability of a home, and particularly a home that meets the particular needs of that person, is what would really make the difference for everyone.

Thank you. Our last speaker, a non-Burlington resident signed up online, is Brian Clifford. Brian, I see as Brian C. If you could just give me one moment, when we close public forum, Mayor, either the next item up is Mayor General's City Affairs, or we had warned the City Council with Mayor presiding for 7 p.m., so I'll leave it to you to decide. Choose our own adventure. Excuse me, I'm sorry.

I believe my name was added to the staff earlier.

I just want to make sure I get an opportunity. I don't have your paper here, but certainly if we can come back to you once we go to Brian, and then if we don't have the paper, if you could fill it out before we leave just so we have your name, that would be great. Okay, Brian, if you could just wait until you see the timer, and then you should be able to go ahead once you see it.

Go ahead. Awesome. Thank you. I'm here to just mention that I feel like the city is alienating some of the best people in our community. It is tragic when you consider how difficult Burlington Forward will be to actually implement. We can't direct more people to social services that are being... defunded and are completely overwhelmed as it is. There are literally no more cops to put downtown. Chief Burke has over 90% of foot patrols happening downtown already. And we've seen more cops downtown for the last three years than any period in history. I believe we just paid Vermont State Police over $30,000 to make two arrests and issue three citations. Police Chief Burke says that state law and the Constitution make it extremely difficult to lock people up for participating in open drug markets. He attempted it anyway in August by arresting 11 people in City Hall Park, only to admit most were cited and immediately released, and also that such crackdowns aren't effective in stopping drug trafficking. The resolution aims to prevent harm, but its authors need to consider harm caused by police. BPD data shows criminalization of and police violence against Black neighbors stands at all-time highs right now. This is in spite of mass protests for police reform and commitments by the city leadership to prevent police violence against Black people. The city hasn't followed through. The city never did anything about BPD's assistance in illegal and violent ICE raid in March. It's done nothing to repair physical, emotional, or psychological harm done to the immigrant community on that day. I'm just not sure how black and brown people can feel safe calling the police at this point. And cops say community trust is necessary for effective policing. Prioritizing tough-on-crime policy in this historical moment damages the trust within populations already targeted by a fascist federal government, as well as among everybody moving in solidarity with them. Please value community trust along lines of race, across lines of race, class, gender, and ability, because there's a lot of people that aren't at the table right now. Thank you.

Thank you. So we will now come back to City Hall, where we have one additional speaker who has signed up, and that is Gwendolyn Henning.

It's Hageny.

Thank you for correcting me.

So I'm sure everyone's sick of seeing me here. I am here to speak on the Burlington Backward Plan. As a business owner, both in Burlington and Winooski, I have big feelings about what's going on, but I'd like to just talk on one point in particular, which is that we're already living in a police state. We have flock cameras everywhere. I had friends from out of town not that long ago, and I'm privileged enough that we can afford to go to Honey Road. But instead of being able to enjoy our meal, we were hovered over by state police that were doing literally nothing except for costing us money and making everyone feel uncomfortable. We saw on March 11th exactly what Burlington police are willing to do when they feel so inclined. There has been absolutely no accountability. The person who assaulted me and left me with a concussion and out of work at which I am still at limited capacity has experienced absolutely no disciplinary measures. I would like to remind everyone I am a white woman business owner with immense privilege. If that is what they're willing to do to me when they know they're being filmed by hundreds of people, imagine what they are doing to our black and brown neighbors who they think no one cares about, particularly those suffering from addiction. It is despicable that this plan is even being brought to citizens. And if you truly don't give a shit about people at all, I think fundamentally you should recognize that things like People's Kitchen are doing your job for you for free. These people deserve to eat. have no difference fundamentally from you and I, except for you and I have a safety net. I can't imagine there isn't a single person on this panel that hasn't had to move home or ask their parents for help or fall back on some sort of generational wealth. The only difference between me and the folks who are living on benches is that I have a safety net.

Thank you.

They deserve to be loved and treated with humanity, and the fact that this is even being considered is completely despicable.

Thank you. That concludes public forum at 7.06 p.m. Now, Mayor, would you like to recess and turn to City Council with Mayor presiding or Mayor General of City Affairs?

I think I'll take Mayor General of City Affairs first, and then we can recess.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much. Good evening, everyone. On tonight's agenda is a city council work session with community safety updates from my administration from the past six weeks or so. We will hear from our library director, Mary Danko, who has been appointed by my office to head up the hotspots working group. And we will also have updates from Chief Sean Burke and the BPD, and also Deputy Chief Troy Ruggles, who's standing in for Chief Curtin from our Burlington Fire Department. First, I think it's really important to express deep gratitude to our city team. Our community health and safety challenges demand so much every single day from our first responders, our city staff, and our community partners. This work is not easy and it asks more than any one city can solve on its own. Even so, our community safety team continues to innovate, strengthen our partnerships, and deliver exceptional service to our community while keeping people front of mind all the people of Burlington. The updates we'll hear tonight reflects the deep and ongoing work of my administration that my administration has been engaged in over the past two years to make headway on community safety, which has always been my top priority as mayor. And it also will focus on this summer season and our response to more activity in our downtown and the high concentration of activity which is a trend that we have seen over the last several years because when people have nowhere to go, they concentrate in the inner part of our city. This is why our hotspots and strategic use of BPD has been the focus of summer of 2024, summer 2025, and again, summer of 2026. A balance of prevention of the root causes for unlawful behavior and social suffering is critical with a balance of enforcement so that public spaces can be usable by everyone, and I emphasize everyone. In Vermont, the trifecta of homelessness, substance use, and untreated mental health conditions and trauma serves as a significant root cause to our community health and safety challenges here in Burlington. These often overlap and cluster within our most vulnerable neighbors, and their compounding effects lead to worse outcomes overall. Additionally, weak social safety net policies and a lack of social services turn these hardships into deep, lasting crises for individuals and their families. Police departments play a core role in responding to crime and emergencies, but they cannot and should not address the unmet health, social, and economic needs. To change the status quo, we need the right response for the right situation to get the right outcomes. Community safety is therefore not the work of any single program or policy. It requires consistent, coordinated efforts across many different entities. Our community safety work here in Burlington thus is comprehensive by design and informed by evidence and best practices. Our priorities continue to be immediate safety and emergency response from our police and fire departments and through regional coordination. Connecting people to support and fair accountability, which includes crisis intervention, service connection, community partnerships, restorative justice, and public health approaches. And finally, advancing regional and state solutions through advocacy, through stronger legislative and governor action. Our coordinated citywide efforts are resulting in more consistent and visible police presence, better coordination with our community partners, strategic and smart use of our very limited resources as a city, and targeted enforcement when needed. And tonight, we are focused on our relaunch of the hotspot strategy in terms of our work session again, which has been focused on implementing strategies to address cleanliness, crime, disorder, and the social suffering of folks in our city hall park. And we convened this hotspots inner city team in mid-July this summer. We're continuing to assess the impacts of these measures and develop additional strategies to provide relief to the park because everyone, and again, everyone in our community should be able to pass along our sidewalks and use our shared public spaces and exist in a public space. In the weeks to come, we will also be evaluating our other hotspot areas in the city that we need to focus on. Tonight, we'll also hear progress from the Burlington Police Department's recent drug enforcement operations, which are crucial to keeping our entire community safe. And we'll learn more about the important new community partnership from the Burlington Fire Department, which is from the UVM's Medical Center Street Medicine Team. Our city team is working hard under incredibly challenging circumstances, but much more is needed for sustained solutions, both at the regional and state levels. both the regular daily work of our team, and I want to also acknowledge the extra push that hotspot strategy requires to improve our use of public space for everyone, including the health and safety needs of those locations. I want to be clear yet again, and I think it's important to repeat this. The state is better equipped to address our intertwined crises of homelessness, substance use, and mental health than any one city or town in the state. This is because The state has far greater financial resources, including access to large federal grants for housing and health, as well as greater legal authority and health system oversight to coordinate regional solutions. The city has no Department of Health. It has no social service department. It is not equipped and has never been equipped with how the government is structured in the state of Vermont to handle these things alone. The city's resources are also finite. In 2024, we spent over $6 million of our local dollars, our local resources on a homelessness response and continue to spend much more each year because it is the right thing to do. However, this is not sustainable for a local community and why I've continued to call on the state for partnerships since I've become mayor. My team is still continuing to try to work with the governor's office to reconvene the group that met last fall around the 14-point plan to continue building our partnership with the state. As I have said, homelessness needs to be the top of this agenda. It was left out last year. And it needs to be the top of our agenda for regional collaboration as well. Our community health and safety challenges affects communities across Vermont, and it's starting to be reported on more and more. St. Johnsbury is just the most recent one with the Vermont Digger story last week. Every town and city should do its part, contribute what it can, and work together as a collective statewide response. Many of our neighbors experiencing homelessness indeed come from other parts of the state, and this is our collective responsibility to take care of each other. I continue to call on municipalities to join us in developing the regional solution here in Chittenden County to our shared challenges, including identifying a location for a 100-bed emergency shelter, which we desperately need and will make a significant difference on the unsheltered homelessness we see in bitterly cold months here in Vermont. Burlington will not end this advocacy, for this is the most tangible and actionable step we can take today. A similar proposal was asked of Burlington, and I think it was either 2022 or 2023, by the state and the governor at that time. And it's time to finally come together again and put the solution forward. What worked then under the governor's opinion should work again today. We have many more people, an unprecedented number more people now trying to live and survive outside. While on the topic of community safety work, I want to give a quick update on where we stand with our police chief search process, our permanent police chief search process. Selecting our next police chief is one of the most important decisions any city can make, because it will ensure that the BPD has the leadership needed to support its continued growth, uphold our values, meet the challenges ahead, and finish the unfinished business, which actually was addressed multiple times in public comment tonight. Our hiring committee interviewed four outstanding candidates this summer, and three advanced to the final stage, which included a two-day tour of Burlington, two hours of an interview with me, meeting with several diverse groups of stakeholders from across the city, including faith leaders, leaders from various businesses, leaders of community organizations like the Howard Center, school district, et cetera. We also had them sit down with our city unions that represent employees in the Burlington Police Department. They did a ride-along. They met with department heads. It was a comprehensive two days to make sure that multiple parts of our city were able to give feedback. We asked all those entities to send me feedback, which I read each one of them in terms of their impressions of each of these candidates. Soon we will be bringing this information in more depth to the council and our police commission as we finish this engagement process and make a decision very, very soon. So stay tuned for some final information and a selection of a candidate. A few other just brief city updates, moving off of community safety for a moment. At the Board of Finance tonight, we discussed our gross receipts numbers so far, or sorry, numbers for fiscal year 26, which closed at the end of June. They had a grand total of $7.2 million. This is an increase over from fiscal year 25, which was at about $6.9 million, and fiscal year 24, which is at $5.2 million. Despite the pressures on Burlington's economy, such as reduced Canadian visitors and street-level concerns, I want to emphasize the city's gross receipts, which is just one economic indicator, has been an upward trend since fiscal year 24. I am encouraged by these numbers. We have a long way to go, of course, but I want to make sure the community has updated figures in terms of measuring our progress so far. Fiscal year 27 numbers will be released as they are available. We try to do this on a quarterly basis, but there is a lag based on how gross receipts are collected between the state and local governments. And I hope that these upward trends are continuing as we continue to see growth in fiscal year 27 and the very conscious additional program we've put on since the beginning of the summer with the help of council with the million dollar investment in intentional programming, not only in the downtown, but also on the waterfront and elsewhere in the city. I'd like to also update you on a small but a very important initiative I've asked between our Burlington Police Department, Public Works, and Parks Department, which I've sort of coined the mini street cabinet for the city of Burlington. I've asked the street cabinet to convene because this is important in a response to the tragic accidents that have happened in our community in recent months involving bikes and vehicles. that is inspired by the work of Boston Mayor Wu, whose administration started to really look at critical crash sites and areas in certain intersections within the city of Boston. The goal of this group is to identify ways we can improve safety on our streets for pedestrians, bikers, and drivers. And I have asked this group to identify starting with some short number of problematic intersections, because again, our resources are limited, but we must take action to make sure that our streets are safer for everyone. And we are also partnering with our Burlington School District to find educational opportunities with families and students as well as other community partners to do education for bikers as well as drivers. We welcome more creative ideas from the community, but I wanted to make sure the council and the public knew that I've initiated this effort, because it's very important for us to be responsive and not sit idly when we have such tragedies in our community. Final couple things, next week I'll be holding a press conference to highlight the exciting progress we've made on my administration's housing work and our strategy we announced back in January. We have more details to come on this next week. It will be on Wednesday, so please tune in. And on behalf of our hardworking staff who program the downtown in the city and the city in general, I want to make sure folks are familiar with Winter in the City. It is a BCA-led project launching this initiative called Winter in the City in the coming months to highlight all of the wonderful events and activities we have planned now between November and March. You might remember Summer in the City. This is our attempt to move from stick season into the early days of, well, it's not really spring in March, but whatever, the end of winter. This program will function much like Summer in the City, with a landing page on Love Burlington's website, monthly ads in seven days, monthly collaborations on social media posts, and new versions of a printed booklet that will be coming out soon, much like we used for the summer. I'm already looking forward to a lot of intentional and strong programming over those months. Finally, some community highlights because it's important to acknowledge there's been a lot of vitality in the city recently. I'm gonna work backwards. Yesterday, we were able to host a very vibrant and joyful with lots of queer joy pride parade down Church Street here. We had hundreds of people in the parade, hundreds of people on the street, culminating in a festival at Battery Park on Sunday. Thank you to all the critical partners who brought this event back when the Pride Center had to be on pause for several months over the last summer or last year. It really went to its roots in terms of what Pride started as here in Burlington in the very 19 early 80s. And I'm so proud as the first out queer Bayer in the city's history to continue to support as a partner of the city of Burlington. this very important visibility event that the whole community can celebrate, love however it expresses itself and the identities of everyone in our community. It is such a critical thing needed in these times. Also overlapping this weekend was Art Hop, which had thousands of people in and throughout our South End. It's an annual date. I bring my daughter on, and we had to go at the very last hour, or at least I thought. And it was still hopping on Sunday at 4 o'clock. And I think that's great for our South End economic vitality, our artists, our musicians, everyone who participates. There were so many things still open on Sunday, even. So I really appreciate. SEBA's effort to lead that throughout this important weekend for the city. Last week, Burlington's Office of City Planning hosted a second community forum on the planned BTV New North End, a concept plan at the Miller Center. I think about 100 or so people attended. There's great attention to this important plan to really plan for the next 10 to 20 years of what kind of connectivity, housing, community space, public space do we want in that part of the city. There's two or three other areas of the city that already have plans. The New North End has never had one. So I appreciate people's participation and their feedback and ideas. On Labor Day, we hosted an event also in Battery Park. And I'm noting Battery Park intentionally because this is an area that is an area we hope to have more intentional programming with community partners and others. And it's taken a lot of effort by our parks team to make sure it's usable by everybody. And I appreciate folks' patience and partnership as we continue to have public spaces that can be multifunctional for everyone. Two weeks ago, REIB, through our trusted community voices, part-time staffers who are liaisons to our immigrant and refugee communities, hosted a very successful back-to-school event in this space to offer backpacks to a lot of our school-aged students in our community. And many of them had never been in City Hall before. It was a real delight to host them here and get them familiar with city government and be able to offer these free backpacks full of supplies to our young people and their families. About two weeks ago, just speaking about our vibrant open spaces, we celebrated the connection of our Wildways trails, which are a greenway throughout our entire city. You can actually, except for one crossing over North Avenue, explore nature and all these intentional trailways which have been connected over the last several years. throughout the city of Burlington. And it is a really wonderful thing to be able to navigate. There's signage up now. We celebrated at the Ethan Allen Homestead with the hard work of some of our conservation board members, as well as partnership with, of course, our Parks Department. And then finally, actually a couple more things, sorry. Our business leaders and downtown stakeholders held a meeting with me on August 28th in this room to do a deep listening session and give critical updates on our downtown situation. I was joined by Chief Burke, our CTO Director, Kara Al-Aswari, and Sam McGinnis, our Director of the Churchill Marketplace. I appreciated the civilness of the conversation. We have to be able to talk about difficult things while continuing to hear each other and get accurate information on what the city is challenged with, but also what we're doing. And I continue to look forward to making sure accurate information, we do our best to be transparent and push that out more, which is, again, one part why we're having a work session tonight. Finally, two other important things. UVM's president, Dr. Trump, held the first in a long time State of the University event. And I really continue to appreciate the partnership of Dr. Trump, the president, with the city about talking around our collective challenges is something that is a collective thing we're in together. And we're not here to turn away from each other or cast blame. It's really a collective problem solved together. And she's offered resources and insight and research and what they can do as a research institution and an academic institution and ways we continue to think about Burlington's challenge as a community from a public health lens, which I think is such an important and powerful one to remember as we grapple this work. And finally, on a very good note, I know my kids have had a great start to the Burlington school year. I hope everyone else has had a smooth start. We started middle school, y'all, and that's a rough time sometimes, but it's been going well, and I wish well for everyone's kids that it's a successful year, and I really appreciate the school district for always being a strong partner with the city. getting our kids and our faculty and our families to school back and forth safely every day and running a good year for the benefit of all of our families and youth. So with that, I will briefly pass it back to you and then you can ping pong it back.

Thank you, Mayor. So we will recess the city council meeting at 7.24 p.m. And now back to you, Mayor, to call the order of a city council with Mayor presiding, which we also warn the Board of Civil Authority at 7.15 p.m. So if it makes sense to you, Mayor, perhaps we do them back to back.

Yes, I will start first with, I will call to order the City Council of Mayor presiding on Monday, September 14th at 7.25 p.m. And our first item is our agenda. Is there a motion on the agenda?

So moved.

Moved by Councillor Travers. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Councillor Schachter. Thank you. Any discussion on the agenda before I call the vote? Seeing none, all in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously. Our next agenda item is our consent agenda. Is there a motion on the consent agenda?

Move to adopt the consent agenda.

Thank you, Councillor Travers. Is there a second?

Second.

Seconded by Councillor Litwin. Any discussion on this item before we vote? Seeing none, all in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay.

Motion carries unanimously.

On to our deliberative items, which are appointments of a few vacancies of boards and city commissions that we have sort of mid-year here. And a quick primer to remind, really, council knows this by heart at this point, I hope, but just for our process for anyone who's here watching. The nominations process is one where we take first nominations from the floor. A reminder to counselors that you get one affirmative vote on any particular open position and you are welcome to abstain or vote no if there's more than one nomination. After we take nominations, I'll give an opportunity to anyone who's here in person or online who's been nominated to address the council with Mayor presiding. to say a few words to introduce yourself before we open up for discussion on the nominations, and then I will call the nomination, the question or the vote on each nomination based on the order of the nomination given from the floor. And then we'll see who prevails with seven votes, although tonight we are down a couple of councillors, so the I will figure out that number before we get there. Sorry, I'm recovering from a cold, so math is hard. But we'll figure that out. And then when the person needs to have the majority of votes of those members present. And then if that person receives the, I believe it will be six votes tonight, or it will be seven votes tonight, we will then close nominations because a person will have prevailed at that point. And then we will move on to the next open position. Has everyone got what we're doing? Great. Thanks. If there are no questions from the council, we move on first to our first opening, which is item 3.1, a opening for our design advisory board. It is an alternate position with a term expiring of June 30th, 2029. Are there any nominations? Councillor Carpenter.

I would move to appoint Joel Banner Baird as the alternate for the design advisory board.

Thank you, let me get into my calendar so I can follow along with everyone's nominations here. Sorry about this. So, Council Carpenter, you nominated Joel Banner Barrett, thank you. Are there any other nominations? I have to repeat, just for the record. Are there any other nominations? Okay, seeing none, do we have Joel online or is Joel in person? like to address. They don't have to be, just for the record. Okay. Councillor Carpenter, would you like the floor back to start discussion on this, just to introduce the candidate?

Sure. Joel has been serving as the alternate and has filled in a number of times. Many of you may know Joel for his work with the Free Press. So he's been an active community member for a number of years. really engages in a whole variety of community activities. And through his, again, work in the press, he's followed the development process on a fair number of projects, so he really understands how the process works and would make a great member.

Thank you very much, Councilor Carpenter. Is there any further discussion on the nomination of Joel Banner-Baird for the Design Advisory Board alternate positions?

I just have a point of information. Yes, Councillor McKnight. I was wondering if the city attorney could walk us through the proper vote counts, because in the past we've had discussion on whether it's the people here or the seats on the council.

City Attorney Brown, are you able to speak to the majority needed for current configuration of the council tonight?

was not informed ahead of time that there would be absent councillors, so I have not thought about this specifically with relation to city council with mayor presiding, but So, I mean, I believe that it is the majority of votes here in the room, if you want to, which would be, I think we're at 11, including the mayor, so, seven. Yep, six, six, six, five, 11, yep, six. So, I can continue to look and just confirm that that's accurate, but if you want to Keep going I don't think that it is so if it was Well if it was 13 it would be 7 but I think it's the just majority of votes in the room But council president Travers may have a different

No, I just agree with you, and sorry to put you on the spot with that one, City Attorney Brown. But Rule 8 of the Council Rules provides that for both the Council and the Council with Mayor presiding, when one candidate for an office receives the vote of a majority of the Council present and voting at the meeting, that candidate is declared the winner. So I think that Rule 8 answers the question.

Thank you, Councillor Traverson. Thank you, City Attorney Brown. So just to clarify, we need six to get to an appointment tonight. Okay, thank you for the question. With that, is there any further discussion on the nomination on the floor, which is for our Design Advisory Board alternate position? The one nomination at this point is Joel Banner Baird. And since we have no one online tonight, well, since we have no one online tonight, can we try a voice vote? That's so exciting. Okay, so with that, I will call the question. All in favor of the nomination of Joel Banner-Baird, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously. On to item, thank you. And thank you, Joel, for serving the city. Item 3.2 is design advisory board alternate position with a term expiring on June 30th of 2029. We have two of them. Are there any nominations for this second role on our design advisory board? Councilor Travers.

I would nominate Alice Lissarae.

Thank you, this is a nomination for Alice Lissarae. Are there any other nominations from the floor for this position? Are there any other nominations? Okay, seeing none, is Alice online or present and would like to address the council? Seeing, again, not required. We will then go to discussion. Councillor Travers, is there anything you would like to say further with that nomination?

No. I... All I know about the applicant is their application here. They come at the recommendation of a city staff member, have experience that's relevant to the work of the design advisory board, and I think is deserving of consideration here.

Thank you, Councillor Chavarro. Any further discussion, Councillor Schachter?

I'll just ask a point of information, which is that I don't believe they're a Burlington resident. Are they still eligible to serve on this commission or board?

That is a great question. I am going to ask City Attorney Brown to check that for us. And while we're doing that, unless there is objection, I might move us on to our next item because I imagine that might take her a minute to look at. Is that okay to do?

This is for, can you just repeat which?

Design Advisory Board. And it's the alternate position, if that matters here. Because I do not know the answer to that myself. So while she looks that up, unless there's objection, because our next item also right now only has one nominee, I'm going to move us, we'll just pause on item 3.2 and go to item 3.3.

Actually, I just looked it up, if it's helpful.

Councilor Litwin, I'm going to let the city attorney just answer it. Sure. Thank you.

Do you need a little bit more time? I do.

Okay, I'm going to go to item 3.3. Our city attorney's got it. Thank you, though, Councillor Litwin. So I'm going to go to item 3.3, which is our Development Review Board with a term expiring June 30th of 2027. And with that, are there any nominations for this role for the Development Review Board? Counselor Travers.

I'll appoint Marina Campbell Laughlin.

Thank you for that nomination. There's a nomination. Excuse me.

I said I appoint. I nominate.

Yes, nomination. Thank you for Marina Campbell. How did you say her last name? Laughlin? Laughlin. Laughlin. Thank you. Laughlin. Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Yes. Is Marina here online or in person? We're not seeing that. Again, totally fine. Councillor Travers, would you like to speak to this particular nomination for the Development Review Board position?

My understanding is that this applicant is an individual who has been serving in the alternate capacity on the DRB for some time, comes with the experience having served on that board previously and is deserving of the council's consideration. I do believe that if we were to appoint this applicant to the position that we would have to then repost the alternate position for the DRB which this applicant currently holds.

Thank you, Councillor Travers. Is there further discussion on this nomination? Okay, then I'm going to call the vote. And again, no one online, so we're going to try a voice vote. All in favor of the nomination of Marina Campbell Laughlin for the Development Review Board position term expiring June 30th of 2027, indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Are we able to go back to item 3.2? Yes. City Attorney Brown.

So the information is conveniently on the city's webpage for specifically the design advisory board, which says that members of the board must meet the following criteria, including, quote, should be residents of Burlington, unquote, but at least a majority of the board must be Burlington residents, and that's from state statute.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

So with that answered, we have, back to item 3.2, a nomination of Alice Listerage. I forgot how we said that already. Listerage? Sure. I apologize, Alice. This is not my strength area. Okay. So we have a nomination of Alice. Is there any further discussion on this nomination before I call the question?

Yes.

Councilor Litwin.

Thank you. Additionally on that section, it says a majority of the members shall be professionals from any of the following fields. It lists those out and I'm not sure that that is being met with the information that's accessible to me online. And so that's certainly a concern I have moving forward with the vote. Thank you.

Is there any further discussion on this nomination? Seeing none, I'm going to call the question. All in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Hold on. I was going to call because there was no further discussion on this item. And Alice is not here. I was calling the question on the vote. So all in favor. I just want to make sure that I'm hearing this correctly. So all in favor indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed nay.

Nay.

Nay. I don't think everyone voted, so I'm going to call roll. Sorry, y'all, but I need people to participate so we can keep moving.

Would a motion be in order to postpone this item until our next meeting?

Well, we were in the middle of a vote at that point, so I would have appreciated a motion before we were in the middle of an active vote, so I would have... I am encouraging folks to follow along here with the agenda item. We were in the middle of a vote, so I don't think we can retract that and go backwards. I think it was at this point. Questions that were raised by the council could have been flagged earlier. I also just want to acknowledge that we, just for all the other businesses, we've got to keep moving at this point.

We can abstain though, right?

Yep, that's always been an option. Yep. So I can also call that as the third option. So I'm going to recall the vote because we are actively in voting. So I have two currently in favor of this nomination. I am going to call the no vote again because I only heard two, I believe. So all opposed, nay?

Nay.

Can you raise your hand so I can just see? Now I see three. OK. And any abstentions? One, two, three, four, five. Okay, so I believe the count is two in favor, three opposed, and what did I just say? Five, sorry. And actually, my vote would be in favor, just for the record. Lori, thank you very much. So three in favor. Okay, and with that, the nominee did not get enough support for the six vote threshold we needed, and so we will repost that position, and we'll move on now to our last deliberative item. which is item 3.4, a Public Works Commission position, term expiring June 30th of 2027. Again, our process first is to ask for nominations from the floor. Are there any nominations? Councilor Litwin.

Yes, I'd like to nominate John Benoit.

Nomination of Jonathan Benoit. Are there any other nominations? Councilor Broderick.

I'd like to nominate Clayton Dykstra.

Nomination of Clayton Dykstra.

Are there any other nominations?

Are there any other nominations? Seeing none, are Jonathan or Clayton online or in person? Both of you are, great. Do you wanna take turns coming up? Which one would? Look at that Burlington friendliness. Come on up and then introduce yourself please. We'll give you just a couple minutes or so each. Okay, welcome.

Appreciate it. Hi everyone and thank you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight. My name is John Benoit. I'm a resident of the New North End where I've lived the last four years. Before I was lucky enough to find a house in the New North End, I was a renter first in the South End, then in the Old North End where I lived for nearly a decade. My family history in Burlington actually reaches all the way back to the 1860s when my great-great-grandparents emigrated from Canada. I think that my great-granduncle Remy, who, as the newspaper reported at the time, fell into an unmarked hole on South Winooski Avenue in 1896, would be proud that I'm applying to the Public Works Commission today. He was fine, by the way. But that's not really why I'm applying. I've been looking for an opportunity to serve Burlington that aligns with my skills and interests, and the Public Works Commission aligns well with both. I'm a runner, a cyclist, and I commute to work in South Burlington, so I experience almost all of the transportation options that Burlington has to offer. In fact, I've done at least one run on every street in Burlington, which has afforded me a deeper understanding of what life is like as a pedestrian in our city. In my spare time, I enjoy reading about good street design and how sidewalks, bike lanes, and effective transportation options can help build community while making us healthier and more climate resilient. As a resident of the New North End, I've noticed that there are unique needs and challenges that my neighbors face, and I'd like to represent those needs on the commission. As someone that commutes by both car and bike, I know that we have more work to do to make a safe, efficient, enjoyable city that meets all of our citizens' needs. In my career, I have been a process engineer for nearly a decade, and this experience has helped me to become a better consensus builder and communicator. A process engineer's job is to find efficient ways to do work and imagine creative solutions to problems, often with limited time or budget to work with. Snow removal, wastewater treatment, and parking are all interesting engineering challenges. Having watched the commission meetings over the past year, I know the DPW tackles these subjects all the time, and I'd love to lend my experience to that process. Thank you for your consideration. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, John. And Benoit, is that how you say the last name? Yes, thank you. Thank you for that correction. I appreciate that. Thank you, John. And we will invite up. Thank you. And we'll have some discussion if there happens to be a question. We'll bring you right back. Thank you for that. And Clayton, come on up, Clayton. Thanks for being here.

Hello, Council, Mayor. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you for the nomination. I did not prepare anything, so I'm just going to go off the fly here. Bear with me. I grew up in Tennessee for most of my life, went to school in Virginia, lived in Boston for three years prior to here, and I'm going on three years living here in Burlington. I went from very small towns with one street light in the entire municipality to to Boston and then to here and I feel like I've gotten the range of municipalities and transportation and all those sorts of things. My time in Boston is what kind of threw me into, it got me an interest in civil engineering and transportation and since then I've educated myself in a number of ways and got involved in advocacy in this area while living in Boston. be playing a part in making a Green New Deal for the city of Somerville with the Sunrise Movement. And my corner of this Green New Deal was things like single use waste, lighting, transportation, public transit, bike lanes, walk, roll infrastructure, that sort of thing. And I spoke before a class at UMass Boston about this work and our success in it and became a and advisory for Mayor Wu's Green New Deal team as well. And moving here, before I even moved here, I quickly got involved once I had my site set on Burlington as a place I wanted to live, having visited and just fell in love with the place for a number of reasons, one of which was the walkability and the vibrancy and getting to see people on the streets and just the liveliness and the vibrancy of the place. It just felt like home to me, and it has since ever since I've been here. But I got involved with advocacy groups here in the same way. Today, I live right in between the old New North Ends, Ward 7, Cambrian Rise, and I'm a year-round cyclist still. I do have a car, I drive, I take transit, I walk, I roll, I do all the things. And while living here most of this time, I've served for a nonprofit, working with people who are unhoused and precariously housed, to find and secure permanent housing. It's been eye-opening in a number of ways, but I did note that during my time with my team, nearly a third of the daily trips that we took to serve a number of our clients or merely just for transportation because our clients were unable to transport themselves. A lot of the services they needed were either downtown or in South Burlington, and they could not afford to live in those places. And a third came out to our daily trips that we were making. A third were just to either pick up clients, transport clients, or deliver them things. These are things that I believe people should be able to do. Only two-thirds of adult Americans are able to drive. It's a huge portion of our population that we're leaving out by being car-centric in our design. We have good bones here. We have great walkability and density, and we have a lot of good things here that we could do better to serve people. And I want to bring that perspective in the various places I've lived and people I've worked with and think about the people who are most vulnerable and be a voice for those folks in an official way.

Thank you. Thank you, Clayton. All right, Council, so back to us. Discussion on the nominations. Councillor Litwin.

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to, I think, John Benoit, excuse me, I went with the old Vermont-y pronunciation. And excuse my voice, it was a busy weekend of talking to a lot of folks. from all our great events. But I appreciated John's application, and one of the things he, I don't know if he shared, aside from a very funny joke, was that he has roughly 15 years of experience in engineering, process improvement experience, and for some of our kind of strong local employers. He's a forward deployed engineering product coordinator, which sounds, I think I got that right, it sounds very fancy, and has worked for, in ways which I think probably a lot of expertise from your work will be able to be applicable to the council. I also find myself in the same situation that we often find ourselves in, which is we live in a wonderful city where folks come up and apply, and there's only one seat, and we have amazing people applying to serve our community. So I always appreciate that, but it does make things difficult. difficult, and I do appreciate also John's real understanding of all the different ways in which people move around in our city. And I don't know if anyone has run on every street in the city, but that is an amazing feat. So I'll leave that there. He did an excellent job introducing himself, and thank you for the time.

Thank you, Councillor Litwin. Further discussion? Councillor Bradwick.

Thank you. And thank you to both applicants. I second Councillor Litwin's comments. I nominated and support Clayton for the reasons that Clayton has just laid out. And I am especially interested in and excited to potentially have somebody on our DPW commission with experience specifically in Green New Deal policy in Somerville and in Boston. Because not only is DPW where our infrastructure lies in terms of transportation, it's by virtue of our city owning its electricity and its water, we play a massive role, DBW does, in our climate policy. So that's why I would encourage people to support Clayton. But yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Brodrick. Any further discussion on the nominations? Councillor Grant.

Thank you and thank you to the applicants for applying. It's really important at this time that more individuals get involved in government and service and the boards and the commissions that are really the ones that look at some of the nitty gritty of what's going down. I would add my support for Clayton Dykstra for similar reasons. I think the fact that there was addressing the issues around climate change. We're not talking about it the way that we need to be. There's been frightening reports that have come out recently that I'm sure a lot of people are aware and there's a lot of questions as to is it already too late or can we still do something and this particular there are things that could be brought up with regards to what the city is doing infrastructure wise that can affect that. So that is why I would lend my support. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Grant. Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson.

I just wanted to say thank you to both of you for coming out. I was having a difficult time just seeing the applications, and so I just really appreciate you bringing your experiences to life. You both bring distinct experiences, and I appreciate hearing from both of you. I will be supporting Clayton because I believe that part of this commission or the work of commissions is also engaging the public. And I think that the advocacy piece of it is something that really stood out to me. Um, but again, both really strong candidates. Um, and I appreciate you both, um, you know, coming forward to do this.

Thank you. Counselor Sanchez Parkinson. Anyone else like to weigh in before we call the vote? Seeing none, because we have two nominations, I am going to call, ask for the roll to be called on the first nomination which we received, which is for John Benway. Benwah. I always thought I should learn French for this job. Okay. So, Lori, would you mind calling roll for the first nomination of John Benwah?

Councilor Broderick?

Abstain.

Councilor Carpenter?

Yes.

Councilor Grant?

Abstain.

Councillor Litwin?

Yes.

Councillor McKnight? Yes. Councillor Newbeeser?

Abstain.

Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson? Abstain. Councillor Schachter? Yes. Councillor Singh?

Yes.

City Council President Travers?

Yes.

Mayor Mulvaney-Stanek?

Yes.

Seven ayes, two absent, and four abstentions.

Thank you. And with that, John Benoit has enough votes with the six we need tonight to prevail. So congratulations. And Clayton, thank you very much for applying. We have mid-year openings all the time. So we look forward to your service for the city in another way. And congratulations to the nominations. All right. And with that, friends, we have made it to adjournment with no more business for City Council with Mayor presiding. So I will adjourn this meeting at 7.53 p.m. And hopefully we're moving on to the world's fastest meeting. I will call to order the City of Burlington's Board of Civil Authority meeting at 7.53 p.m. on Monday, September 14th, 2026. And our first agenda item is the agenda. Is there a motion?

So moved.

Moved by Councillor Travers. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Carpenter. Thank you. Any discussion on the agenda? Seeing none, all in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously. On to our only item, which is our consent agenda. Is there a motion?

Move to adopt the consent agenda.

Moved by Councillor Travers. Seconded by Councillor Carpenter. Thank you very much. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor indicate by saying aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously, and we have no further items, so we are adjourning at 7.53 p.m. And back to you, President Travers.

Thank you, Mayor. So we'll resume the City Council meeting at 7.54 p.m. The next item on our agenda here is committee reports. I am mindful of the fact that we do have some deliberative agenda items that focus on committee reports, and so would ask that these committee reports be limited to those items that would not be brought up later in the agenda. Are there any councillors with a committee report? Councillor McKnight.

Yes, the Charter Change Committee is meeting this Thursday at noon to discuss changes to the boards and commissions appointment process. Very relevant to tonight's discussion. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there any other councillor with a committee report? Yes, Councillor Grant and then Councillor Newbeeser.

Thank you. I did hear what you said, but I do feel that I have right to speak given the amount of time that has been spent in extra meetings with regards to the Public Safety Committee and the REIB Committee with the discussions of the Burlington Forward Resolution. I do want to say that the need for outreach and engagement, I will acknowledge that when I have mentioned what was lacking, I've probably been putting things in the wrong order And the original order has been starting with the mayor, department heads, city employees, on the front line, social service agencies, mutual aid groups and volunteers, and people with lived experiences. As we've gotten deeper in this process, it's been really important that we are actually needing to prioritize people with lived experiences in a way that we have not been. We've been failing. And with regards to a person who spoke during public forum, she was correct. All of this bypasses what people are actually going through. And I have been profoundly disappointed because we're making such fundamental mistakes because some of us have not really learned what the situation is on the ground. And we on the committees as we have discussed this have been making mistakes and that's a valid thing to bring up with regards to how our committees have been operating. how do we change that so that we're actually more effective for the people most affected? And that includes our homeless neighbors, that includes our residents, as well as the people who live in our city, in all areas, the continued idea that we attempt to do policy for just a few blocks and expect that that will resolve all of our problems is a mistake, it's a failure, and we keep failing. I wanna thank the REIB department for their work on doing a full equity analysis. I wanna thank all the individuals that participated in the REIB committee, as mentioned in the memo from the chair of the committee, Councilor Sanchez-Parkinson. I think those discussions were very important and I think extremely robust. Thank you.

Is there any other councilor with a committee report? Yes, right, Councilor Newby's here.

Yeah, two quick ones. One, we've been doing a bunch of work in the special committee to review tax policy. And so we are holding three public forums coming up in October and November to discuss some of the ideas that the committees collectively come up with. Those are going to be on October 1st. October 19th, November 2nd, and November 16th at 6 o'clock here in Contois Auditorium. Tentatively, it'll be an opportunity for the public to come together, the committee to come together, folks from the city, and talk about how we're going to move our tax policy here at the local level, hopefully toward the direction of raising more revenue from folks who can afford it and giving folks in the city who needed a break. So excited for those, excited that we have some ideas as a group to present. I think something really productive hopefully will come out of that committee. And then second, I just want to celebrate folks at the library. We talked a little bit about it at a recent PAC meeting. But folks from the library, Mary in particular from the library, presented on the impact of the social work position that's under the Howard Center. and the additional security that the council approved funding for in the last few years. That seems to be really moving the needle and addressing some of the issues that have come up at the library over recent years and that we've discussed at this council and discussed as a community. And those two positions, from what they reported, are working really, really closely and more effectively connecting folks to services and making the library a space where we can all enjoy it and our families can enjoy it. So I think it was a small success. I think there was general agreement among the committee that that was a success and that we ought to continue to look at that for other parts of the city as well. So that's all I got. I'll give it back to you, Council President.

Thank you, Councilor Newby, sir. Any other councillors with a committee report? Councillor Litwin.

Thanks. I'll be brief because we provided a memo for CD&R that I believe may be part of later this evening's conversation. But I did want to mention that the CD&R, which is the Community Development Neighborhood Revitalization Committee, will meet again this week during our normal time on Wednesday, And you can find the agenda in civic clerk, and we're also going to be having a presentation from Cito and I was trying to find that it's on the consolidated annual performance and evaluation riveting name But the acronym is caper so maybe that's more exciting and we'll continue to discuss the syringe litter report And hopefully be able to move on from that after that. Thank you so much

Thank you.

Councillor Schachter.

Thank you. I will follow Councillor Litwin's lead here, knowing that there will be some additional time to dig into recent conversations we've had at the Parks, Arts and Culture Committee later in this meeting. But I did just want to name and express appreciation for the speaker who is here this evening regarding busking and street artists. And that's very aligned with the work PAC is doing. I've already been in touch with that individual to try and link up some of those conversations with PAC's commitment to really exploring how we can do even more around arts and culture and programming in our civic spaces. So I will use this time to put in a plug for our next meeting on October, or I think it's Tuesday, October 6th, the first Tuesday of October at noon at the library where we'll be diving into some of those topics. Honestly kind of fun and uplifting and generative conversations that I think can can really help Raise spirits here in our city, and I'll save more for later on this meeting.

Thanks Thank you If there are no other committee report. Oh, excuse me councillor Sanchez Parkins.

I

Thank you. I will focus more on our process and less on the content of the racial equity inclusion and belonging committee from the last month. In the last month, we have met four times. One meeting was a planning meeting and three were special meetings. where we've engaged over 50 community members who have offered detailed feedback to the Burlington Forward Resolution. So I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the amount of work that has gone into this process. deeply, deeply grateful for the community engagement through this committee. I also want to acknowledge the difficult conversations that we experienced through that committee. We engaged across difference like deeply. And when we do that, I want to acknowledge the amount of emotional labor that goes into that. When we engage as a community with content that can sometimes feel like it's attacking our community, it can be emotionally draining. And so I just want to acknowledge the amount of not only physical, mental work, but also emotional work that went into this process. I want to just, I feel like it's necessary to give a public thank you to the REIB committee and also the staff. particularly Vicky, who has really worked hard to ensure that all of our meetings were scheduled, that we had a place, that we had food. I just, again, just really want to thank the staff who really stepped up in this past month to offer these four additional meetings that we held. And then I also want to specifically call out some names, because I think it's important. Chris, who's here, Andre, who's here, Ed, who was here, Bella have all attended every single one of our REIB committees. Some of you have attended other committees. So again, thank you to our community members for engaging in this process. And we'll talk more about the content later on. Thank you.

All right. If there's no other counselor with a committee report, I think we will turn to our consent agenda. Is there a motion to adopt our consent agenda and take the actions indicated?

So moved.

Thank you, Councillor Schachter. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Councillor Singh. Is there any discussion? All in favor, then please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? That carries unanimously, which now takes us to our deliberative agenda. The first few items on our deliberative agenda are entertainment permits. Councillor Broderick again has Chair of our License Committee, could I ask you to make motions on each of these entertainment permit applications? 7.1 first.

I move to approve the two-day only special event outdoor entertainment permit application for Oktoberfest Burlington LLC, 377 Pine Street, September 18th through 19th, 2026.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Councillor Singh. If there's no discussion on that item, we will go to a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. Councillor Broderick, could I ask you for a motion on item 7.2?

I move to approve the one-day-only special event outdoor entertainment permit application for Mojo Burlington Waterfront Park, September 26, 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Councillor Singh. Any discussion on this item? All in favor, then, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That is unanimous. And then item 7.3, Councilor Broderick.

I move to approve the 2026-2027 Indoor Entertainment Permit Application for Jamaican Taste, 177 Church Street, with all standard conditions.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Councilor Singh. If there is no discussion, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That is unanimous. And now item 7.4.

I move to approve the 2026-2027 Indoor Entertainment Permit Application for Community of Sound Corp. 1 Main Street, Box 14, with all standard conditions.

Thank you. Is there a second to this item?

Second.

Thank you, Councillor Singh. Councillor Litwin? I just have a question about this application. When I was reading it, I wasn't entirely clear on what it was, and also it The mail goes to a box, but it doesn't indicate where the physical location of the event would be. I know the box is at 1 Main Street, which is Main Street Landing, so I am assuming that that is the case. You might be the person to answer that question.

Do we have someone here from... Are you the applicant? Oh, great. Well, that worked out. Come here to the table. That would be fine. Thank you for being here.

Hi, I'm Steve Scuderi, and... the secretary on the board of Committee of Sound. Thank you for having, the box is in front of one main. So the venue is around the side next to the train station. So we're the North Pie facing into the parking lot. Whereas South Pie was like, that's where Doug Napa is. So we're on the other side.

Like facing the skinny pancake. And is this an art space or?

Yeah, we're a non-profit for music and performance arts. Great, thank you. We have dance and stuff like that, too. Sounds fantastic. I appreciate it. Yeah, so it's kind of like a hidden thing. Not very many people know about it. We started as a music listening series and turned into a music studio for experimental jazz and that kind of stuff. So we've been established in 2019, so... It's been a while that we've just kind of been undercover, just kind of low profile. This is an effort. We had the fire marshal come, and they said that we have like 49 person capacity. And so they saw the space. They said, oh, you've got to go apply for your license. So I was like, okay, I'll do that.

Great.

Thank you. Just to be completely 100% legit. That sounds great.

Thanks for answering my question.

Thank you.

Any other councillors with questions or comments? All right. Appreciate the applicant being here. If there's no other comment, we'll go to a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That is unanimous. Thank you.

Thank you, guys. Thanks.

That now brings us to item 7.5. It's a resolution recognizing the contributions of Burlington's Latin American community and supporting cultural festivals. Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson, you are the main sponsor of this item and would welcome a motion from you and then would be happy to give you the floor if you'd like.

I waive the reading and adopt the resolution.

Thank you. Is there a second to that motion?

Second.

Thank you, Councillor Schachter. And Councilor Sanchez-Parkinson, happy to give the floor back to you now.

Thank you. So I feel like I might be shifting gears a little bit from our agenda, so bear with me. Before coming here, I read my statement of the introduction of this resolution to my 8-year-old and my 10-year-old Afro-Latinos children, and my son had a big smile on his face the whole time, and at the end he said, that's my mama. And I felt like that was my job. So you will get the second reading here. Growing up, there was a common saying in our community that goes like this, I'm not from here or from there, describing the feeling of not fully belonging to either one's home country or the country in which we adopted. Early on, my parents countered this phrase and instilled in me a different phrase. Tú eres de aquí y también eres de allá. You are from here and you are from there too. This dual sense of belonging being multilingual and multicultural is something that I've embodied and something that I'm proud of. Today, I'm honored to be representing the city of Burlington community, many who experience the sense of dual belonging. Today, I'm also thrilled to introduce this resolution recognizing the contributions of Burlington's Latin American community in supporting cultural festivals. This resolution is both symbolic as well as a call for our residents and our leaders to see the duality, the strength, and the contributions that we are having in our city. I first want to acknowledge the work and the workers in the shadows, the invisible labor that some in our Latin American community is having across sectors in our city. I see you and your work is noticed. For me and for those who can more publicly work, I too carry that responsibility to ensure that we foster a city where policies, services, and resources are equitably distributed in our community. I know the responsibility that we carry as translators, as community builders, as leaders creating new paths that have never been touched by people like us in this city. This too is our city. Our children attend the Burlington schools. They are strengthening the learning environments for other students. They are bringing vibrancy to the classrooms and the playgrounds. Our families are enjoying our parks in Lake Champlain, stewarding the land of our ancestors. We are contributing to local economy by creating new businesses, enhancing local performing arts, and putting our financial resources back into the city. This too is our city. We deserve a community safety infrastructure that truly serves and protects us all. We deserve a police department that will not collaborate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain our neighbors and separate families. We deserve housing and rental properties that are well maintained and affordable. We deserve to have fun, to be happy, and to be our whole selves. We should not lose our dual sense of belonging. We should have spaces to celebrate and embrace our multiculturalism and to share that with our broader community. This year is the second Latin American Connection Celebration, a festival designed by our community for the city of Burlington. Just like many other cultural festivities, the city has supported in an ad hoc basis, creating uncertainties each year about whether they will happen. I want to thank the mayor and the department directors from the Office of Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, Burlington City Arts, and the Community and Economic Development Office. And together, we'll be working together to develop a coordinated strategy that aligns city resources with a longer-term vision, embracing Burlington's multicultural community and strengthening our identity as a cultural hub. I believe that this process will not only support the long-term success of that Latin American celebration, but also create a stronger foundation for cultural events across our city. This Hispanic Heritage Month, which starts tomorrow, I invite us all to join us in learning and celebrating our community. I invite you to the Latin American Connection celebration next Saturday, September 19th. Finally, I want to thank my fellow counselors who have sponsored this resolution. Thank you all.

Thank you, Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson, for that introduction and your work on this resolution. Are there any other councillors with questions or comments on this item? All right. Yeah, Mayor, please go ahead.

Thank you. I just wanted to just briefly both appreciate Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson, who's my councillor, for bringing this forward. This, to me, really represents when we have greater diversity on an elected body like City Council, the kind of thinking and articulation that identity matters and being able to name and give face to the full diversity of our community. This is really important to do, so both not only codify it in resolution, but to continue to help push the city in making sure we have more formalized partnerships to really celebrate the full cultural diversity of our community. So I also appreciate our REIB department and how we can continue to make sure this is integrated within all of our departments, BCA, parks, and other entities, so we can find ways we can resource within our means, but also support all the residents of Burlington. So thank you very much for your leadership on this.

Thank you, Mayor. If there are no other comments, we'll go to a vote. All in favor of the resolution, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That is unanimous. That brings us now to Item 7.6, Aging Council FY27 Appointments. On this item, I would turn to Councillor Carpenter, please, for a motion.

Thank you. I would move to approve recommended appointees for the Aging Council for Fiscal Year 27 as we've presented on Civic Clerk.

Thank you, Councillor Carpenter. Is there a second to that motion?

Second.

Thank you, Councillor Schachter. Councillor Carpenter, did you want to speak to your motion further?

Just quickly, you see the memo before you. I'm very pleased to announce these applicants that We've had a little lull in our activity, but if you'll remember last year, the council, which was a big council and really did a lot of good work, came together with an age-strong Burlington-Vermont plan, and there's a lot of work in that to set guidance as part of that. There was a recommendation to reinstate a sort of smaller working group council, and I'm pleased that we've been able to get this slate of folks to work. These are all hard workers with huge interest in aging strategies, and I think will take us forward in reaching out to our older citizens.

Thank you, Councillor Carpenter. Is there any other councillor that wants to be recognized on this item? All right, we'll go to a vote then. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? That carries unanimously. Which brings us now to item 7.7. This is a work session regarding Act 181, the city's Tier 1A application on this item. I know we're joined by Planning Director Charles Dillard, Principal Planner Sarah Morgan, and Director Dillard. If you are leading this off, happy to turn the floor to you when you're ready. Thank you.

Let me just get my slides up here, if I can find it. All right. Thank you for your patience. All right, we are live. Okay, this is a work session to inform the city's application for Tier 1A status, which comes out of Act 181, some pieces of legislation that came out a couple years ago from Montpelier. Specifically, this deals with exemptions for Act 250 for certain areas in the city. I will also preface this by saying that this is all in advance of a request for a resolution at your next meeting or on the 28th at least, which is a required step as part of any municipality's Tier 1A application to have a resolution adopted authorizing the city to move forward with that application. So we will be bringing that back to you in a couple weeks. So tonight, Sarah and I are going to give you some background on Act 47 and Act 181. We're going to talk a little bit about alignment between the regional plan and our own municipal plan, which is Plan BTV right now in 2050, which is in progress. We're going to talk about the designation structure for the Community Investment Program, which is a really important and critical set of economic development programs and benefits for Vermont's municipalities. And then finally we're going to talk about what the Act 250 exemptions are and what they mean for Burlington before we make the proposal again that will inform hopefully your resolution in a couple weeks. So again, Act 47, this is important context for all of this Act 181 content. So this is the law that created the state's housing targets, which then filtered down to regional housing targets and on down to Burlington's own housing target. You'll recall that our target is just under 7,000 units by 2050. Every municipality in Chittenden County and every town and city in Vermont has its own housing target. We're sharing a graph here just to impress upon the council that hitting this target will require really accelerating the pace of our housing construction, which is ultimately the foundation for the extent of our proposal for Tier 1A. Ultimately, the goal of Tier 1A is to facilitate the creation of housing in areas that are planned for growth and that are served by infrastructure. So there's really three steps to Act 181's process. The first is that alignment between the municipal plan and the regional plan, which I spoke about just a moment ago. All of the regional plans in Vermont use these land use categories that you see on the top row of this diagram here. So everything from downtown center at the most intensive on down to the set of four rural categories which include rural conservation and a few others. Then gonna just summarize what those community investment program simplifications are and what that will mean for Burlington and what it means for the Tier 1A status and Act 250 exemptions. So land use planning alignment. The Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission ECOS regional plan includes a future land use map like this for each county municipality. CCRPC staff has worked diligently with staff from every municipality on their own future land use map over the last sort of year and a half, I would say. Staff attended several Planning Commission meetings and conducted several community engagement events over that time as well to inform this map. And again, Plan BTV 2050, which is in progress, has to be consistent with this future land use map. It doesn't have to be the same map. Our map will likely have different sort of categories, but ultimately in terms of areas planned for growth and areas plan for conservation, this map needs to be our guiding light. So the simplified designation structure under Act 21 reorganizes the five legacy designations into two categories. This is a simplification. And so rather than having these five, we've now got centers and neighborhoods surrounding them. And these are all areas planned for growth. The designation structure is updated. You see here on the right some benefits of the center designation. The goal of all of these is to support revitalization efforts through financial incentives, training, and technical assistance, and to address diversity of economic development interests, including things like historic preservation, walkability, housing, and investment. Burlington has benefited tremendously from several of these benefits, and one of the goals of our new Future Land Use Map and the Tier 1A designation is to further diversify the areas of the city that can access these benefits. So these are for the centers, and I'll show you our Future Land Use Map in just a moment to show you where these benefits might be available. There's benefits for neighborhoods as well. There are not as many, but they are important for those areas that are planned for growth that are just outside of our most intensive areas planned for growth. So Act 250 exemptions, Act 181 really culminated in a multi-year effort to address Act 250 impacts on the housing crisis in Burlington, specifically housing creation and development review redundancy between the state and municipal regulations. There's three tier structures, there's tiers Tier 1, which includes the sub-tiers of 1A and 1B. Tier 3, which applies enhanced Act 250 protections for critical resource areas. And then Tier 2, which is everything else. Tier B is applied via a municipal opt-in. Just about this time last year, you all did opt-in to Tier 1B. So in the map that I'm going to show you on the next screen, you'll see All of the areas that are pink and blue are already Tier 1B. And Tier 1A is applied via application. This is sort of our first step in that Tier 1A application. We will be seeking the resolution from you in a couple weeks. We do have a zoning amendment in process to fill one of the regulatory gaps that's mentioned in the memo and that Principal Planner Morgan can share more details on if you'd like. And then there's a whole two-month long application review process that includes a visit by the State Land Use Review Board and several other important steps. I will say that Rutland has volunteered to go first in the Tier 1A application. I think they're nearly through the process. South Burlington will be second and Burlington will be third in the state in this process. I should say that the Land Use Review Board is itself, I think, stretched thin in terms of capacity. And so we've all been working across the state to make sure that we're creating a reasonable queue for applications for Tier 1A status. So this is the land use map that is in the adopted ECOS regional plan from the Regional Planning Commission. So all of these pink and purple or mauve, magenta and plum colored areas are already designated Tier 1b. The centers that I talked about earlier are the plum and magenta areas. Downtown is currently our center the south and innovation district is currently a neighborhood development area that designation is going away and we have worked with the regional planning commission to Create that as a new center that is contiguous with our current downtown creating one Center in Burlington that stretches from downtown to include the south and innovation district the other center in Burlington is on North Avenue or the Ethan Allen Shopping Center and adjacent areas. So these are the areas where the most intensive growth are planned and where those center benefits are available. All the other mauve colored or lighter purple colored areas, those are the neighborhoods. So they will have the neighborhood benefits available to them. All of these areas are eligible to be Tier 1A. And so that's going to be our proposal to essentially move all of these areas that are planned for growth that are already served by infrastructure from Tier 1B status to Tier 1A. That would confer full Act 250 exemption on them. All of the green areas on this map, and there's a lavender area just in the intervale that you'll see, Those are tier three, and those actually have now enhanced Act 250 protections as part of Act 181. Just a little bit of background. So the city has been working on sort of Act 250 redundancy for several years. In 2023, the legislature requested a report by VAPTA, which is the Association of Vermont Planning, directors and associations to understand the extent of redundancy in state and municipal regulations. And that report concluded that essentially in the communities that were participating, and this was Burlington, South Burlington, St. Albans, Winooski, and I want to say one other They found that 90% to 95% of issues covered by Act 250 were already addressed in those towns, and that is true for Burlington as well. Included in your packet was a pretty detailed spreadsheet that documents the redundancy across those regulations. Like I said earlier, we are proceeding with a zoning amendment related to significant natural communities and rare threatened and endangered species. to our understanding and the state's understanding the only sort of gap between Act 250 regulations in Burlington's own that was that was identified in that spreadsheet as well. I will say also that state staff from A&R have been working with our colleagues in South Burlington on model ordinance language related to this regulation. We've been working following that with South Burlington staff as well to understand what this is and what it means. And so essentially our ordinance amendment is using the state's boilerplate language. They're actually hoping that every municipality that needs this new regulation will use this exact same language. And so that zoning amendment is going to the planning commission tomorrow and will likely be in front of you within the next couple months. The greatest unknown, however, and this is at the end of your memo, is staff capacity. And former counselor Busher called in about this earlier, to administer and enforce existing Act 250 permit conditions. That is still the rule. So if a development proposal comes forward, if you do pass the resolution allowing us to, or calling for us to apply for Tier 1A status for all the areas that we do, and our application is successful, And then next year, somebody brings forward a development proposal on a property on which there's an existing Act 250 permit. The state will then give us that permit with those conditions and staff from permanent inspections will be responsible for administering and enforcing those conditions. If there are conditions, they will have to be carried forward into any new municipal permit. So that's really meant to be the safeguard for existing Act 250 conditions. But again, we cannot know whether or not the development activity in the future is going to be supportable by current staff capacity. I think I would just urge all of us to monitor development activity and to really understand if DPI is adequately staffed to review all the applications. And with that, I'll just close and take any questions. And again, if you have any questions about the zoning amendment, Sarah's able to answer those.

Great. Thank you very much for the presentation. We'll open the floor now to any questions or feedback from counselors. Does anyone want to get in queue on this item? Yep. Counselor Schachter and then Carpenter.

Thank you so much, President Travers, and thank you, Charles, Sarah, and your team for this presentation. I Mostly following, it's highly technical. Very much appreciate the work session and the lead up to when we need to take action on this, just to help us all wrap our heads around this. And I'm really excited to think about ways that we can accelerate the pace of building more homes in our community. So I think this all feels like a really important conversation. Just two questions with my limited technical ability to fully absorb all this now. The green areas that are exempt, those seem to be like very nature heavy parts of the city where we don't have as much development. And I'm sure that's intentional protecting our wetlands and our ecological areas. I just want to make sure I'm following that correctly.

Yeah, that's right. Those are permanently conserved areas. Great. Yeah.

And then regarding the staffing concerns, can you just reiterate the timeline for when, if we move forward with this application and are approved, at what point we would become responsible for managing those Act 250 permits? And I guess my sub-question in there, as we're just thinking about budget and staffing and what that might mean, is approximately... How much work is that? How many heads might we be talking if we need to sort of build the capacity internally to deliver on this?

That's a good question. Time-wise, so the state by law is actually required to process any Tier 1A application within two months. There's a pre-application process, and the state is required to spend no more than one month reviewing the pre-application. After that pre-application, a municipality can then submit the official application. And there's a one-month review process for that as well. So we're looking at two months from probably early October. So that would, in theory, get 1A status on our maps by December. The second question, it's really impossible to tell unfortunately. We have had several calls with staff from the state to try and understand the existing sort of Act 250 permit landscape in Burlington and unfortunately that itself is fairly opaque. We know there are hundreds of Act 250 permits in Burlington. Seeing the conditions, it's been tough to get the data on those. Thankfully, I think the legislature acknowledged some of the difficulty in transferring data to municipalities and S325, which became law earlier this year, they did clarify the process that rather than, I think, what was previously assumed the state would dump all existing Act 250 permits on a municipality at once and say, here, they're yours to comb through. Now they're going to hold on to all Act 250 permits until the point at which a development application is proposed. So again, let's say there's a parcel that has an existing 250 permit. Somebody applies for a development project there. The state would then pull that Act 250 permit, transfer that to our staff, who would then have those conditions to deal with in any municipal permit. There's Act 250 permits all over Burlington, unsurprisingly. We're one of the oldest communities and by far the most intensively built up, and so there are several. So it's really hard to say, and there's all kinds of conditions, and so we simply can't know where the development activity's going to occur.

And the existing permits are for work that's already been done or developments that have already been completed or like a lot of that work we would be carrying forward taking on ourselves and be managing the new ones that are coming. We don't know yet.

I just kind of adding on to what Charles had just mentioned. It's really it is a almost permit by permit or site by site search in the Act 250 online database they have limitations and not really though their public information team is great we have not been able to kind of crack the best filtering so it's hard to know the different types but I will say there are several applications even just from us spot checking in ways that we can in which work has not happened or Act 250 permits remain on that property but never came to fruition or never went through.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Councillor Schachter. We'll go to Councillor Carpenter, and then Litwin, and then McKnight.

Thanks, Secretary. I was going to ask some similar questions to Councillor Schachter. Just a couple of thoughts I was going to ask. One observation is that for some number of years, there has been redundancy, so if a property has an existing permit, they may have a similar permit with the city, so I hope in a lot of cases you're not doing additional compliance. It's whatever we required is mocking or the same as the 250 permit. I know in some cases there's additional permit requirements, but I'm an out of the loop from development, but found Burlington to be more rigorous than Act 250 so you were already doing that work, I hope, in some cases, or most cases. One question I was going to ask, though, is about fees, because as a former person of development, it was always a little irksome to have to pay an Act 250 fee and a Burlington fee for redundant work. How do we measure what we should be charging, basically for additional fees, or will we be recharging additional fees?

on your first question about or comment about redundancy in municipal regulation. So S325 also clarified some conditions that pertain to existing permits. And so one of those is, you know, the state passes on the existing conditions If that condition addresses a topic that is already addressed by municipal regulations and the project meets those standards, then the Act 250 condition can go away and that new municipal standard just takes its place. On fees, we haven't contemplated any new fees as part of this process. I think though, to Councilor Schachter's previous point about our own capacity, I think that's just something that we will need to monitor as we move forward. and just make sure that we are sort of adequately staffed and resourced to review all of these new conditions.

Okay, thanks.

Thank you, Councillor Carpenter. Councillor Litwin? Thanks very much, and I appreciate all the work that you're doing right now. It just feels like I see you everywhere, and thank you for all that hard work. And it's a lot of evening work. When I look at the map, that you have the map with all the colors, 181 tier 1A proposal. And I zoom in on the new north end. One of the concerns that kind of pops out at me right away is that the Ethan Allen Park section that we've been in very deep community level discussions with and Star Farm Park is not Protected I realized that the larger green swath Which is the vast majority of the walking trails is but we know from the community meetings that we've had recently Including the one from last week that there was broad can fairly broad consensus that folks do not want to see that Developed so what do we need to do? It's not in lavender and It's not in green. So what do we need to do to make sure that we're not making it easier to develop on a place that the community has resoundingly said they don't want to see development on?

Yeah. So just to make one point clear is that All municipal parks across Chittenden County that are not permanently conserved were not depicted as green on these maps. So that's the same in Winooski, that's the same in South Burlington. Just to reassure folks that there wasn't an intentional sort of coloring of all of Burlington's parks in purple. That's just CCRPC's process throughout this. Regarding Ethan Allen Park, the little front triangular lawn area, yeah, that's an area that could be mapped as green if we would like it, or just simply left as is, but not included as a Tier 1A area. A couple ways to do that. Star Farm Park is not permanently conserved. I do believe the Flint estate does allow senior housing, at least on that site today, and potentially estates can change. And so for that reason, we've left Star Farm Park, just like all the other city parks that are not permanently conserved as planned growth area.

What I foresee, so we made a lot of progress together and the administration was fantastic and everybody took everybody's feedback really well. But what I foresee based on the meeting that we all attended was there was a big feeling of concern around transparency and trust issues that still are there. That doesn't mean you didn't do outreach. It doesn't mean that there weren't plenty of opportunities for folks to be engaged. But I worry about leaving this colored as is in as representative of Ward 7 I I have a lot of concern around just sort of trusting the process And I have a feeling that I would receive Quite a bit of feedback that they would be concerned about leaving that even just moving it to lavender or something to indicate and counselor Carpenter is more familiar with what's going on with Star Farm because it's in her ward and I've been more focused on Ethan Allen Park, but is there a way to make sure that we're maybe going back to that group of folks that we have all their email addresses for now and seeing, making sure that folks feel engaged, opportunity to be heard, and that they feel comfortable with whatever the answer is going forward before I have to take a vote on it.

I just want to respond to that with some additional clarification. So in terms of the regional plans future land use categories, I think we're having some Wi-Fi issues or you would see it on the screen. There is not a category created by the state that has something like community facilities or city parks or anything of that nature. I think the closest would be the rural conservation and that green or those permanently conserved areas. We had discussions about this with CCRPC at the adoption of the future land use map. We had several folks call in with similar concerns and just requests for clarity there and I think what we've identified as the best kind of way to explain this as the planned growth neighbor areas which are mainly the neighborhoods are all encompassing of the amenities and community facilities within that neighborhood itself and they do not supersede any of our existing zoning or restrictions in that way too. So I just wanted to provide, we've shared with CCRPC similar questions and concerns, but we are unfortunately working with a limited number of statewide future land use categories.

All right, thank you, Councilor Litwin. Councilor McKnight.

Thank you for all this. This is exciting work to make sure we get all the housing that we need here. I was just curious if you could kind of speak in lay terms. You know, you're talking about classifying all of the existing Tier 1B as Tier 1A, and I mean, I'm like barely following along, but I'm trying my best. But I was just wondering if you could speak to, you know, what, if I'm an average citizen in Burlington and we go ahead and make this change, What will I notice other than more housing is being built, hopefully, and more people might live in my neighborhood? Are there going to be noticeable impacts for folks, or is this primarily going to be kind of in the background in the permitting kind of administration side?

Yeah, given that Burlington standards are already more rigorous in 95% of cases, I don't think Burlington residents can expect any sort of loosening of any regulations around development. If anything, I think that tier 1A status will just facilitate and accelerate any housing creation and just remove some of the barriers that several projects have encountered over previous years.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor McKnight. Councilor Carpenter, I saw you had your hand raised again, but Is there any other councillor that has not been heard on this item who would like to be? Councillor Singh.

Yeah, and to Councillor McKnight's question, you know, so the greatest streamlining that we feel that we see here is where the state will be somewhat out of the equation, right? Is that basically, you know, for the layman's terms of... for the people of Burlington is because our regulations being 1A are more strict than Act 250, they hand that administrative portion on to us and we just do our thing And the state is out of it at that point. And that's just for clarification.

Yeah, that's right. For anybody who participated in an existing or a previously existing Act 250 appeals process, they can be reassured that those Act 250 conditions will be carried forward unless one of those five conditions from S325 are met.

All right. Thank you. That's great. Thank you, Councillor Seng. If there's, yes, we'll go to you. Mary, do you want us to go back to Councillor Carpenter or we'll go to you first?

Oh, I'm sorry. Councillor Carpenter.

Okay.

Just two quick things. Again, I'm out of the loop of development, but when I was doing development, it really was a redundant process. I can't stress that enough. From the developer side, you just have to go through a lot of things twice. I see this as a great advance forward in moving at the city's pace, which will be better. Just referring back to Councilor Litwin's thing, I do think Even if it's for presentation only, if you could demark the parks, it would be helpful. Give them another color just so people understand that that land is owned by the city and it's already exempt really because we own it. I just think it'll be clarifying for people even if it has to be a little bit separate than what you submit.

Sure, we can do that. Thank you, Councillor Carpenter. Councillor Grant?

So having just said that, does that really mean we can't develop them in the future? I think that's what people are concerned about, is the possibility of that.

Well, so like Principal Planner Morgan said, the state's land use categories are limited to what they are, so they would still be that planned growth area. We will, for presentation purposes, denote what those parks are by bordering them, I would say. They'll still remain on the regional plan, shown as planned growth areas. our own future land use map and plan BTV 2050 can be more detailed and it can call out different properties in different ways as long as that plan is consistent with the regional plans framework. If the community decided and decides that they never want to see anything happen in a park, then there's many ways that could happen. this land use planning process is really not that, not the venue to do that in though. That would be more through the zoning process or the land use process in our comprehensive plan. Does that answer your question?

It does, but I guess I understand why people are concerned about that, right? Because they're not necessarily protected at this time. Right. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Grant. If there's no other Councillor that wants to get in, Mayor, happy to turn to you.

Thank you. I just want to underscore a few things that our team has said because there have been active conversations happening in the New North End. I mentioned this a little bit in my Mayor update. The New North End has never had a plan for its fully integrated use. And I want to remind folks that Plan B to the New North End is a conceptual plan around how we want the entire neighbourhood to exist and be over the next 10, 20 years, to guide our local, hyper-local zoning and planning purposes well beyond housing, but integration of green space and throwaways that get people across the avenue out in the New North End. This guidance does not exist. I also would caution us as elected leaders to make sure that we do our part around education and making sure constituents have accurate information. Having been working with our planning team, it's really important that folks are understanding the layers of this. This is something that's been brewing for many years, even back when I was in the legislature, around many reform, rolling over reforms for Act 250. that's coming from the state on down to the local level. So we are constrained on these categories, and I think that's a really important education component that I would hope counselors in the New North End could help us as the administration make sure we're getting clear and clean information to folks. People are concerned about open spaces, but it is our responsibility to explain how these things layer. And then again, because we are Burlington, unlike much more rural areas that don't have a formal planning process or any zoning, I was driving through parts of northern Franklin County over the weekend. Things can be built literally anywhere in the middle of an open farm field. That is not Burlington. Burlington has these very intentional plans, not only the one we're trying to build at the new north end, but our much larger comprehensive, I call it the umbrella plan, but the 2050 plan. So I would just ask counselors to continue to help make sure you feel as educated as possible so that our residents can really understand how many guideposts there are for Burlington And what this is versus what it's not. And really, again, the categories that the state requires comes from years of different legislation at this point for which we're trying to really plug Burlington into a review process. And I don't want to mislead our residents that we can change state categories that have been already under state statute now for at least a couple sessions. So with that, I really hope. that, again, New North End folks here, at least for me, again, I was there on Thursday night, or Wednesday, whatever night that was, with our team, is that we are removing parks from our plan BTV New North End. We did hear people, and I think any time we bring anything up that might indicate that we aren't doing that does not help build trust, so I want to be very clear and on the record that we're working really diligently as a team, making sure everything is tight and clean when the Planning Commission takes this up. You will have an opportunity to debate this when it comes to council in a few more weeks. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Are there any other counselors with feedback or questions on this item?

Council President Travers? Yes. Principal Planner Morgan would just like to say something. Yeah, sure.

Great. Thank you. I just want to make one additional clarification when we talk about protections around natural areas and really just also emphasize that I don't want to spoil it too much, but we do have a zoning amendment coming, like Director Dillard had said, before Planning Commission and likely before you all. shortly related to enhancing our natural communities and rare and endangered species regulations. And we also have a very comprehensive natural resource protection overlay district in our zoning ordinance that covers the riparian conservation zone, wetland conservation zones, a general natural area zone, and special flood hazard areas. So really looking very diligently at the protections that are needed and the impact that any development or proposals have on these spaces. Though we have this overlay district, many of the amendments that we are doing are referencing additional maps done at the state level really to expand potential areas where these same requirements and same review processes would need to be replicated. So really just want to emphasize that there are a number of protections for Burlington's natural areas and additional ones will be before you shortly. Thanks.

Thank you. Just on this work session, I just have a couple of technical questions. One is, to confirm, have you already had a pre-application meeting with the Land Use Review Board? No, we've not. OK. I'm curious, just in terms of timing, is it possible to have the pre-application meeting prior to the council taking formal action on it, particularly to the end of receiving some preliminary feedback from the state on its opinion on whether or not you'll check the box with respect to the city having the bandwidth to take this on.

Yes. So the pre-application, the one month pre-application review process includes a review of our own staff capacity, but that's the resolution that you're being asked to endorse has to state that the legislative body feels confident that the municipality does have the staff resources to administer and enforce the Tier 1A areas as outlined. Again, it's kind of hard to know and possible to know even if if that is true. But that's certainly something that we monitor. And Scott Gustin couldn't be here tonight. He's at the Conservation Board. But we've been talking with Scott over the last year about this process. And ultimately, he feels comfortable that moving forward with this Tier 1A application extent is the right thing to do from a policy perspective and something that his staff can support at this time. I think that was most... Yeah, it does.

I mean, I'll just say just one last thing on it, which is that I certainly know that you all have the technical expertise to take this on quite adequately. My concern is your bandwidth, the time, and just the number of people that we have working in this office. And so to the extent the council is being asked basically to attest to your office's bandwidth to be able to take this on, and as of right now, we're sort of hearing... well, I don't know, there's a lot of unknowns and it's difficult to actually tell. It would be helpful from my perspective if we could get just an additional level of confidence that your office is able to take this on if we're being asked to basically formally attest to that in the resolution. Or, you know, if that level of confidence is not there, some plan as to know worst case scenario if we find it out find it find out it's it's that way uh what steps we would need to take yeah sure we can we'll do that work over the coming couple weeks and um bring that information to you great thank you any further comments from counselors all right that was very informative and i really appreciate your coming here thank you Okay, that brings us now to item 7.8. We have three items here coming up, 7.8, 7.9, 7.10, all somewhat related in one way or another to each other. But the first item is item 7.8. It's a community safety work session. We are joined by Library Director Mary Danko, Police Chief Burke, and Deputy Chief Ruggles. If you all want to come forward here to the table for the purpose of this work session, would welcome your kicking us off. Or Mayor, I don't know if you're going to begin here.

Our amazing director of the library and point person on hotspots, Mary Danko, who I am filibustering while she walks up there, is likely going to kick us off and then be supported by our chief and our deputy chief, battalion chief. I always forget there's a different term there in our fire department. Thank you all three for being here tonight. Are you ready, Mary? Okay. Okay.

And thank you for your patience. But no time like the present.

Thanks. And we have some slides to get us kicked off. And Lisa is the technology guru on this slideshow. So I'll have her move along. So as you know, the mayor has asked me to... lead up hotspots, and the purpose, there is a, I would say, a very discrete scope of what this work is supposed to be, and that is to just think about quick, innovative things that we can do around hotspots that she wants us to focus on, to We're calling it Hot Spots, and the idea is to bring the temperature down and to bring all these different departments together. I don't want to forget anybody. We've got BPD, BFD, CETO, BPRW, DPW, CAO, CJC, Permitting and Inspections, and the Mayor's Office. And we also have brought in other partners as needed as we go through our different ideas, or maybe sometimes we need to get a little bit more understanding about something that we're we're thinking about embarking on. So it's been really great to have all these wonderful brains in the room and there's been a really great openness, I think, to sharing and this idea that we might try things and that some things might not work. And I think that was something that we really wanted to be intentional about, that when we try things, that we might have some failures. We also might have some things that work or maybe slightly work and then we want to build off those. So kind of really bringing that spirit of innovation, innovative thinking was really important with this group. And I have to say that's been happening It feels very exciting for me to be in a room with all these individuals who are bringing that spirit. And I would also want to add they're bringing the spirit of the love of Burlington. All these folks really care about the city and want all these spaces to be open and welcoming for everybody. And so that's been really, for me especially, to be a really gratifying environment to be in. We meet weekly and like I said we talk about different strategies and I would say probably after a meeting we have 10 different people running off in 10 different directions to chase down ideas and then bring them back. The other thing of course that we have to think about too with these ideas is funding and been working very carefully, been working with CAO Shad very concertedly I guess is the word I was looking for on how we can move some of these ideas forward. And we did, you know, back in 2024 at the library, we had some challenges there and we had some things that we did there that I think made a big difference. And I think Councilor Newbezier brought up the presentation that I've done both at PAC and at the Public Safety Committee really spoke more directly to some of those investments that the mayor allowed us to do at the library that made some impacts there. But all of this is in the spirit of let's think innovatively about what we can do.

And thanks, Lisa, if you don't mind.

So here are some of the things that maybe you have seen as you have been going around City Hall Park. We've tried different ideas around how do we temporarily disrupt some of the parking spaces around City Hall Park. That's had some different iterations that you might have noticed. And I would say it was quasi successful and we're still working through some things there. We have closed the bathroom at City Hall Park, sometimes known as the Portland Loo, and we've added two ADA compliant portable toilets. I learned so much in this process too. They are ADA portable toilets because those are less likely to tip over. And the other thing that we've actually, this has just come up recently, by even having two toilets in City Hall Park, we've noticed there's been a reduction in friction because there's two that are available as opposed to one. We had some areas in the park that were, the ground was just very, very compacted because it was getting such heavy use that it was not intended for as part of the design. So we have had to kind of partition those off. You probably have seen the metal barriers. There's a reason why we have to use those. We can't put stakes in the ground in City Hall Park because of the irrigation there. So we've got those type of barriers up. There is signage that's explaining we're trying to do some reseeding. Again, this is a time to probably stress these are temporary things that we're doing. Parks is going to look at this further down the road as far as longer term things that might be done in those areas. Again, thinking about how the park is being used and what are the best plantings or grass that needs to go into it. That's Phil's wheelhouse and he's been doing a great job of Working on that when we've had a wonderful sidewalk cleaning That has happened on both the on that College Street corridor And I'm so grateful to so many departments that came together to do that We also coordinated closely with safe outdoor spaces which is another group and they work with encampments in the city and they know all the regulations as far as following a OUR CITY POLICIES IN DOING THAT AS WELL AS MAKING SURE IF WE'VE HAD TO MOVE SOMEONE ALONG TAKING CARE OF THEIR BELONGINGS. SO JEN HAS BEEN HELPFUL IN THAT REGARD. AND I'M GOING TO LET THE CHIEF TALK WHEN HIS TURN COMES UP TO TALK ABOUT THE MOBILE CAMERA DEPLOYMENT. I'M SO GRATEFUL FOR THE CHIEF'S ENGAGEMENT ON THIS AND THIS IDEA. that he has come up with and we're very excited about that. I will just add as we were talking about this through at hotspots is we do have our CSLs with us there and they really talked about how the folks that they engage with at the park are positive about having a camera there for those folks that helps them feel safer. And that was a really, I think, important piece of information that we talked about as a group as we decided to go forward with this piece. Music in the park is something that I've been working with Zach Williamson at BCA on, and this idea that music can have a calming effect on people. I was inspired by, I was at the Adirondack Wildlife Park there, and they use music in one of their parks, And also, I don't know if any of you are familiar with Brian Eno, and he has developed music for airports. And the thinking is that, I'll just tell you the quick story behind it, because I think it's rather cute. When Brian Eno was at a German airport, he was hearing disco music. And he's like, that is such a disconnect. So the idea being, think about the place that you're in and the kind of music that you want to hear. but we're also mindful that we're going to have some quiet areas to the park as well because not everybody wants music. And finally, one of the things that we're still in the process of thinking about is this idea of having sheriffs come and be a presence in the park as well. There's a lot of different layers that we're still working through on that. Jen, I think there might be a part for Chief. And I don't know, Chief, if you want to talk a little more about the camera at all.

Sure, I can leave that in.

And Chief, before you get into the data, can I go back one slide? I just want to talk about the financing part of this, if I may, just very briefly. And I think this is important because one might ask, how are we possibly funding this when we've been through a really challenging budget cycle for three years in a row? And just very briefly, I want to say we are trying to be as frugal and pragmatic as possible because our resources are not unlimited. And we are trying to be very strategic around what I thought were state-level resources that we advocated for as a city, as a municipality, and alongside the VLCT, which is the Vermont League of City and Towns, to earmark half a million dollars for all municipalities who have a disproportional amount of unhoused individuals we're trying to support. Burlington has long been in this position. I am a bit perplexed to report that those guidelines were just released by the state and there seems to be a real disconnect between legislative intent by the legislature in that budgeting process and the administration, meaning the governor's administration implementation of that money. It's very constricted. We are doubling back on that with partners because it is not going to free up the resources that Burlington, St. Johnsbury, White River Junction, there's a growing list of communities that really need additional resources year round and not just during extreme cold weather parts of the year, which is one example of how this criteria rolled out. In the time being, we do have the ability to use our local opioid funds. Thank you from prior administrations and councils for being able to queue that up. So we are pivoting there, but I just wanted to flag the fact that as we try our strategies as an administration and anything else the council generates in your committee processes we have to be really mindful and pragmatic where those funds may not be something that is are as easily readily available as they should be frankly until the legislative session comes back in if that point of clarification needs to happen. Thank you for that fiscal commercial.

Thank you mayor. So this illustration is simply calls from the public to BPD for incidents that are occurring in City Hall Park itself. What's removed here are all of our proactive efforts. So foot patrols, directed patrols, anything officer initiated is removed here. And as you can see, as the spaghetti chart lays out, that 2026 has been a busy year in terms of reported incidents, but it has not reached the levels that we experienced in 2025, but more consistent with what was seen in 2023. I say this not to say that we're comfortable with what's going on in the park, but rather this is what the data is showing us month to month that we watch. The next slide is zoomed out about one block, so it's the vicinity of the area of the park. Why do we look at this? We know that our enforcement efforts or even our presence in the park can displace this activity, and you'll see just a similar trend line there. Move on to the next slide, please. This is drug-related arrests, 2023 to date, and you'll see 23 and 24 rather static, more robust enforcement activity in 25, and not quite as great of an enforcement year in 2026, but not lacking whatsoever when you think about the number of officers that we have available for assignment. Next slide, please. This chart shows the median sworn officer response by count by month. And what I like to highlight here in 2017, that number is 48. When you look where we're at in 2026, that number is 90. Double the amount of calls for service. This is simply reflective of the size of the police department We've got 55 sworn officers on the books currently 44 of us are available for assignment and this is how this is shaking out for the officers in the field and the next slide is Is a bit more granular this chart shows similar, but the number of sworn officers responding to greater than 100 calls. By the month and you'll see back in 2017 a rate of 15 officers going to 100 calls or greater now in 2025 and 2026 we've got numbers of 22 and 23. Just to kind of level set, what does that mean? We actually only have 20 officers assigned to uniformed services downtown. So the three extra or the two extra, those are typically a handful of detectives that work a ton of overtime after their regularly scheduled shift. They cover half of the evening shift every night. But that workload is, it's stressful. It's a lot for our officers to handle, and what it doesn't really reflect is the reporting that goes on behind that. So for every incident, there's a report that goes with that, and there's a body-worn camera video that needs to be categorized. For every arrest, that work is exponentially greater when you think about preparing an affidavit of probable cause, processing evidence, processing defendants, and preparing a case ultimately for prosecution. So I will double back. We did explore the idea of a camera trailer downtown. So similar to what you see in front of a Hannaford's or UVM has one. It is a company that is Utah based. This is not flock technology. The data is strictly held by the city. The company does have access to the data in terms of the ability to delete it after a year has passed. And the camera has essentially like three heads on it, which is quite advantageous when you think about a lot of the complaints that we get from the public are drug trafficking related. So we can actually look at the camera remotely, zoom in, zoom out, pull down evidentiary data. The camera trailer itself also has four or five blue LED lamps that will flash as a deterrent And it also has the ability, and it's got a loud speaker on it where we can have a pre-recorded message to say things like the park is closed during certain hours. It does also have the capability where it can play classical music as a deterrent for hanging around in an area. So that camera trailer will be delivered on Thursday. It'll be operational by Friday. I anticipate a couple of days of working the bugs out of it, and then we can report back on the success. of that endeavor.

So unfortunately, Chief Curtin wasn't able to be here, so I'm filling in for him. And these are not specific stats specific to City Hall Park. These are in general, and I'll narrow some down to a little bit more specific to some of the concerns that we have. Overall, our call volume is consistent with 2025. We haven't seen a decrease or an increase in that. The call types or the categories that have brought us concern have again remained consistent. We haven't seen an increase or a decrease specifically in any one particular area. Even though our call volume was up in the month of August, what was noted is that our substance abuse events for August were the lowest that they have been since 2021. So that is an interesting note to make there. Our overdose abuse and, pardon me, overdose abuse, mental health conditions continue to remain consistent. Again, no major increases or decreases there. For our unhoused population, they still run of about 20% of our patients that we deal with on a day-to-day basis. We have, as has been described for the council over the years, a cohort, which is a group of individuals that make up a certain percentage of our call volume, and that cohort group is responsible for about 18 to 19 percent of the total call volume that we are responding to. Some of the proactive things that have occurred is the involvement of UVM in their street medicine program and we have, I spoke with them this morning and got some updated statistics from them they've been operating since august 15th and they have dealt with nearing 120 individuals they have been spending multiple days in the field at six different locations and i can i can read those off to you if you would so like of those 100 plus people that they've dealt with, 12 of them have been diverted from going to the ER. In other words, they have been able to treat them in the field, prevented them from populating the ER, and they did find one patient that needed a surgical procedure for a serious life condition. So they are operating. They will be operating until about October, the end of October, because they can't operate in the cold weather. So the current vehicle they have isn't set up for the cold weather operations, so they'll be looking for a place to go inside. And one of the things they wanted me to mention is that Dr. Sickett, who oversees the program, would love to be able to come and speak to you and give you more in-depth detail on the information they have collected as they continue to grow. So the ideal thing would be that if they're able to treat proactively, it would help reduce the reactive of calls being placed to 911, reducing the burden on the system.

All right. Thank you very much for the detailed presentation. We're happy now to open the floor to counselors for any feedback or questions they may have. Does anyone want to get in the queue on this item? Councillor Carpenter. And then Sanchez-Parkinson.

Thank you. This is really interesting. And I don't know if, Mary, you can answer this or maybe the Mayor, but one of my observations is we still desperately need a place for people to put their stuff. And I think that's problematic if you want to move somebody along and they won't leave their stuff becomes a problem. And I think some of the issues we have in a couple of other parts of the city where people basically sit with their stuff that that's a problem. So have we made any headway on that?

It's a great question. It's one of those that has kind of been three steps forward, four steps back, I might say. We thought we had a place that was identified that we could use and then when we dug down it was not suitable for it. Now we're trying to find a place. But the other piece that is been a challenge is where to place it and the staffing for it. So it's not totally off of our radar, but it has proven to be one of the more challenging things that we've been working on.

Okay. Thanks. I do think it's important. I appreciate the thumbs. I had one other actually question for the part about when you talked about the UVM street program and their need in the winter for a place. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

Yeah, they currently are operating out of a van and that van isn't insulated so that they can be in it in the cold weather. I believe they have one. I don't want to speak on their behalf as to what that location is, but the way they spoke this morning was they would be moving inside is what he told me. So essentially they wouldn't be as mobile as what they currently are.

Okay, thanks.

Thank you, Councilor Carpenter. We'll go to Councilor Sanchez-Parkinson, and then Councilor McKnight.

Thank you.

Roderick Singh. Go ahead.

Director Mary Danko, you know I'm a fan of all of your work, and we've been back and forth on some of the work you've been doing with Hotspot, so I will try to focus my questions. There was a number of, well, one, I wanted to just thank you all for the thoughtfulness you have around the camera usage. I think that that is something that our community continues to be very much wanting to make sure that anything that we develop across our community, that it's well tested. And I appreciate you all giving sort of like that background information and the research you all have conducted in the ways that it will be supporting the community. I wanted to also ask a broader question, and this could be for both fire and police. I find it very interesting the ways that you've shared data and the disconnect between our data in our public discourse, particularly among our business community. You all have been doing this for a long time. I wonder if you could give more insight into why the disconnect? Is there something around the current incidents that people are experiencing more heavily or what's the disconnect between the data that you're showing clearly as distinct from last year even and some of the discourse that's been happening in our community.

I appreciate the question and your compliments as well. I think there's an argument to be made and there's speculation in this, but is there a degree of underreporting? Yes. Is there a degree of what a person may perceive as a drug deal, which isn't? That's oftentimes what we will be confronted with. They're passing a cigarette as opposed to a controlled substance, things of that nature. There could also be some fatigue. Are the police actually going to come? That's been my experience since I've been back in urging members of the public. We also encourage members of the public in a lot of different forums to report drug activity online. And we know that we receive those fairly frequently. So I think it's kind of a combination of all those factors.

I don't think I do now. I'm sorry.

Thank you. And I guess, you know, Councilor Singh brought forward a draft resolution related to the deployment of sheriff department. And so I, we've missed you at the Public Safety Committee. And would love to if you have initial thoughts to inform the ways that the deployment Could happen or the resources that could be utilized for that Would be helpful as we consider continue to consider that resolution We've had very baseline conversations about the sheriff so currently there's a sheriff's contract and the deputy is in the garage in the parking garage and

And would it be more effective now that we have less activity in the garage to potentially explore using that resource in the park? But along with that thought process, we also have to be mindful of the collective bargaining agreement and what is BPOA work. So we need to kind of think about that. We also need to think about even the sheriff's department bandwidth and then ultimately how to make them as an effective partner. Because oftentimes we hear even, you know, the Burlington police, yes, you're here, but you're not enforcing anything. Or the state police, you were here and you're not enforcing anything. There is specific power that is granted to commission Burlington police officers in terms of enforcing the ordinances. which really kind of govern a lot of the low-level disorder that we get a lot of negative feedback from the public. And we would have to be thoughtful if we are going to use another partner agency, how can we make sure that they are commissioned with that authority and we use them effectively if that's a path forward.

Thank you for that.

Thank you, Counselor. We'll go to Counselor McKnight and then Broderick and then Seng.

Great. Thank you all so much. Mary, I remember very clearly the meeting that we had in PAC a few months ago when you did this presentation, and my first thought was, wow, this is so effective, and how can we roll this out to other areas of the city and that I just want to be seeing that more often. So I'm so glad that we are. And then Chief Burke, I had similar questions to my colleague on your thoughts on the sheriffs. It's awesome to hear that things are getting better in the parking garage. So you're thinking about maybe moving that share of capacity to City Hall Park but also I completely agree with you in terms of you know what I think I just heard was a preference to using our own officers of course whenever possible so on the one hand you know we of course need to recruit more but on the other hand in the interim obviously that's still going to take years I'm just so glad that you all are open to kind of figuring out a flexible solution because to me it seems clear that that's what we're gonna need to do. And that issue of watching either the state police or the sheriffs be around and then that perception that they're not taking that action has been a constant refrain that I've heard from folks downtown. And so again, just grateful to hear you thinking along the same lines as so much of the public feedback that I hear. And in general, I just want to appreciate the just incredibly difficult and onerous level of work that all of your staff and of course staff from other departments are doing out there. The city appreciates you. My one question that I have on that has just been sort of percolating in the back of my mind as I listen to all of this though is, and also looking at your stats, Chief, from the past year or so, and this question might be better suited for the administration, but it's, I think I'm left wondering why we kind of waited till the end of the summer to implement this strategy and if or how we can be more proactive in future years, because the trend is clear, really, in May, things pick up, right? There's a big jump, and I definitely saw a one-year chief where I thought of, your comments in our conversations in the past that you've had about weather. I was thinking, hey, 2025, it looks like it's probably pretty warm in May because we saw that spike really early on there. But just given the seasonality and the fact that we all know this crisis is just not going anywhere, do we have plans, can we have plans to take what you've already learned and move it away from being a hotspot strategy to more of a continuous proactive strategy that ideally in the future could maybe not take so much work if we were able to kind of catch it earlier. So if you have thoughts on that, I'd be curious. I'd also welcome any thoughts from the mayor if you care to share yours.

I'll take the first attempt at this. So when I became mayor in 2024, we started hotspots that summer. That was under a different police chief leadership at the time, as folks will remember, and we were doing it comprehensively because, as I call the OG hotspot, which probably no one says anymore, OG, but whatever, the original hotspot being the library and our parking garage and then Buell Street and the spillover, as folks remember, there was a need for better and stronger cross-city department coordination. So that's where this was born out of. We ran that actually into the winter up until just about when Chief Burke began with us in March of 2025. We actually paused that a couple months into late winter 2025 because when the Chief came on board, there was strategic redeployment and better activation of our non-sworn professional, sorry it's late, like our K program and the folks at CSLs and CSOs. So by the end of that summer, we were First of all, more officers able to be deployed. We were doing proactive engagement downtown on foot patrols that had not been happening in 2024. And we had, I'll just say, frankly, better strategic use of our existing personnel within BPD throughout 2025. So it helped stabilize a lot of places in 2025 in new ways. Rounding the corner into this year, part of the challenge has been the lower head count for officers during retirements, babies, injuries, etc., most of which are outside the control of the police department as we continue to do recruitment. And it became clear as we were getting into the warmer months at the end of June, bringing this back, and I consulted with the chief at the time, would be helpful to supplement and augment what the police department was able to do. The reason why we don't necessarily put this on repeat, although some of these are predictable patterns, as council has done in great partnership is we continue to need, we continue to push the state to better show up with some of the very predictable natures of it. For long predating my time as mayor, this has been going on during these seasons. When people have nowhere to go, they have nowhere to go for sheltering. So I guess it's through the ever optimism that the state will come to the table as partners that by this time next year, we will have 100 bed shelter on board and we will have less places, sorry, more places for people to have shelter versus being in a park or an urban reserve or other places within our city. And I don't want to settle that this is the only thing we can do because it requires so much more regional and state partnership and we need to keep the pressure and focus there. Thank you for the question.

And I'll just add again, like again, our scope is just the quick things, but in our meetings, some longer term ideas have been batted around a little bit. And so I think every department that has some portion of the park. Again, I'll go back to the areas that we've seen the large amounts of compaction in the earth. I think we're looking at some longer-term solutions, and those might happen in the spring. We're also engaging with Burlington City Arts. Are there different ways we can use art in the park, whether they're temporary installations or could this be another public art piece? those conversations are happening. I wish I could tell you more, but it's ongoing work. So yes, I would say some of the temporary work is leading to some really, I think, creative and innovative ideas about some more permanent things that can happen.

Great. Thank you. We'll go to Councillor Broderick and then Councillor Singh.

Thank you. I have a question because I probably missed it about the music in the park, the speakers or whatever. I wasn't there to say what it was either, but can you just reiterate when will it be played, what situations or times, and how loud will it be?

So I should have also mentioned that we've had music in the park before during the holiday season. So there's actually some speakers that are up already. So Zach Williamson is in charge of that. He is wonderful with all things music and volume and matching the music to what we want it to be in the park. So I don't have exact hours, but I do want to say that there will be some quiet spaces as well. Again, the idea of this music in the park, the idea around having music in the park is to be something that is calming for people, that makes the park enjoyable for everyone to use. But we acknowledge everybody doesn't want music sometimes in the park. They might want to read a book and have quiet and not have a distraction, so there'll be some quiet areas too.

Thank you. And it'll just be played during normal park operating hours, like in the day?

Yes, I believe so. We haven't gotten to that granular level, but that's the idea that we're thinking.

Okay, thank you. I guess just like... And now I'm just gonna like get off my chest, get this off my chest a little bit. I really do, I appreciate the work and I appreciate the mayor implementing the hotspots program and continuing it. And I think a lot of good is clearly in the works here. But the more that I'm out there and I'm talking to people who are in these hotspots, I'm just continually, what's told to me continuously is that the reasons that people congregate in places is because those are the places that make them feel safe. Those are the places where they have community with each other, especially people who have nowhere else to go. And I know not everything in here is, is about breaking those up specifically and simply doing that. There is more here than that. That's why I preface to say I appreciate the work. But as I had said way back when, what feels like years ago, when we had the City Hall Park Ordinance that we voted on, is that there's a reason that folks are in places like the park, is that that's where they feel safe. And when we force them to go somewhere else, they are going to places where they may not be as safe as as a place like the park. And I appreciate the mayor talking about the 100-bed shelter. I'm probably going to talk about it myself later on in this meeting. But yeah, this is just something that has continued to trouble me. But yes, thank you.

And I'll just add, maybe I wasn't clear enough in the beginning, but when we got the hotspot group together in the very beginning and we sat together as a group, one of the things we talked about is what are we wanting for this to be? And this is about having the park be able to be used by everyone. Everyone. You know, it's kind of like at the library. We don't know who comes through the doors. We don't know what their socioeconomic status is. We don't know any of those things. But we have an expectation that People can behave in ways so everybody can be there so nobody feels like they're pushed out. And we talked about all those different things and what it means to be in a public park and being able to enjoy it all together. And so those are the specific strategies that we've focused on that should, I really truly believe in my heart, are not targeting any individual, any type of individual, but really just about for everyone to feel like I can be in this park in this moment because we're all behaving in this way. And these ideas are just to kind of help people remember that and be together in a way that is pleasant and peaceful.

And Mary, if I may add on, Councilor Broderick, just briefly, if I if I may just briefly to this point, when we were talking about, for example, the camera, and just to show the level of nuance that we were trying to get in around engaging the most impacted people, our CAPE team engages regularly with our unhoused individuals and the folks using the park for extended periods of time, and we have to remember the vulnerabilities for which these folks are facing while living on the street. For some, I'm not gonna speak like they're not a monolith of people, there are their own safety concerns they're having. That is why often people are located in the more central parts of town, while we're well lit, the stairs of churches, et cetera. I've heard many of these stories. And so when we were exploring the cameras, some of the feedback we received from some of our unhoused residents was that a camera would help them feel safer in that area in terms of having some level of extra, I don't know if it's a camera, but eyes on that area to help with some of the other safety concerns for those individuals when they're living outside and being vulnerable. Again, not a monolith of people, but just trying to be as thoughtful and careful as possible.

Thank you. Thank you. We will turn now to Councilor Singh and then Newbeezer.

Thank you very much, Council President Travers. Thank you, Director Danko, Chief Burke, Deputy Chief Ruggles for being here. Really appreciate the hard work and the presentation on this. I definitely want to speak to both BPD and to fire that really appreciate the response that you've given to this community, given the resources that you have at the moment. I really want to commend your staff. The one thing that really jumps out to me about this data here is it's showing how much more we are doing with much less at this moment, how much arrests are up, you know, and how many related calls each officer is going to. It's just a commending for the staffing levels to be where they are and seeing that is remarkable. One of the data points I wanted to speak to, Chief Burke, was the incidents in City Hall Park, you know, that we see it going, leveling off in 2026 here. Do directed patrols play a role in seeing the incident calls go down? Because we have now police who are on foot patrol and proactively dealing with incidents rather than a reactive call.

Thank you for the kind remarks regarding our staff and their hard work. And to answer your question, I should have been more clear about this before. That's not simply sworn officers that are responding to those incidents on the two charts, the two spaghetti charts. So there's obvious, we get obvious deterrence when we have uniformed personnel in the park, but it's also very impactful to have our community service officers. We get deterrence there. Community knows that they can enforce ordinances, but also when we're partnering with our CSLs in street outreach, because their work is really helping folks to Mary's last point about regulating behavior so they can enjoy community in the space along with the rest of the broader community can all enjoy the park. So I don't want that leveling, if you will, to be attributed solely to swarm police, although extraordinarily effective, but also our social service partners that are out there day in and day out with us.

Appreciate that. I also wanted to speak to you. You've sent many press releases, and it's been in the press, you know, the 11 folks who were, you know, on drug charges. And I wanted to ask you and speak to the how we treat, you know, drug trafficking as a misdemeanor here and how it limits the effectiveness. You know, when I read the reports that you've been sending us, the last paragraph is, This person has 20 other incidents. I think the one today was 20-something, including drugs, disorderly conduct, and things like that. Could you speak to the ineffectiveness, even with more arrests on that front?

Certainly. So in terms of how we changed our posture in August, I had a media outlet kind of confront me with they thought I engineered this because of the midterm elections. I laughed at that. What happened was our drug unit supervisor, who not only supervises the drug detectives, but we do a part-time on overtime street crimes unit operation. We still do that with volunteer officers. He was away on some leave in the first half of the summer and came back in August. So he was able to pick up his work and get focused on the park, which was our goal the entire summer. What those level of investigations really involve is static surveillance of the park and the blocks to see what's going on. And then when officers have reasonable suspicion or probable cause that a drug crime is afoot, they intervene in that. And oftentimes those cases are misdemeanors simply because the sale can't potentially be proven, but there is a misdemeanor possession. It's effective in terms of it disrupts their comfort level of selling drugs openly on the street corner or in a park. But in terms of prosecution, it is a misdemeanor. And just by way of criminal procedure, misdemeanors in this state are typically issued citations to appear. And then there was some legislative work done in 2018 that changed fundamentally the bail law structure that we have in place. And things that typically a person might be jailed for, like a history for failure to appear, can no longer be contemplated. That isn't akin to trying to flee prosecution. That was explicit in the legislative change in 2018, as well as immediately being eligible for bail for violating conditions of release related to contact with a person or a property or travel. And it took a few years for this to really be sown seeds to grown into what we have before us today. But this is the revolving door of the criminal legal system that we hear a lot about at the police department. But I do appreciate the mayor convening the business community because that was an excellent opportunity to talk with the business community about the limitations that we have on us in terms of just the legal framework that the criminal legal system operates within.

And one, do I start? Sorry, we're out of time. Okay.

Yep. Thank you. But we have two other related agenda items, so hold on to it. We could be here late. Councilor Newbezer, and then, sorry, do you have your hand up, Councilor Grant? Okay, then Councilor Grant.

Thank you, Council President, and I really appreciate all of yours, all work, the presentation, the information shared. And all these, I didn't send my questions in advance, so I wasn't on my game today. So feel free to follow up and don't want to put folks on the spot at all. But I do have a few questions. One, I mean, is just more of a note, which is I am really concerned about this piece around volume for staff at BPD, like per person taking on that much over and over and over and over. I think, you know, I've talked a lot about and have long had interest in making sure that we have real police oversight and real police reform in Burlington, and... officers are going to be less equipped to have effective interactions with community members if they are exhausted. So no worker should be put through that, and I know that's not something we can solve immediately and has to do with recruitment and retention, et cetera, and hiring, but is something I'm paying attention to. I wonder if you could speak, I have a question then a comment, I wonder if you could speak more to the usage of cameras and your thinking there with this mobile camera deployment. And I think I, you know, like the Hannaford's parking lot has one of those like mobile units, so seems to me that's what we're talking about here. I am really concerned and really skeptical about the use of cameras in general. And from a variety of angles, but mainly a civil liberties perspective. And so I'm wondering how the data is stored. What does that setup look like? You spoke a little bit to this, but I want to understand that better.

Sure. Just on the data piece first. So it's in a secure CJIS compliant cloud that only the Burlington Police Department has access to. So the company again has access in terms of they delete it after it's existed for 365 days. And the camera technology does not involve facial recognition or license plate reader technology whatsoever. And what I think the difference is, is the camera a surveillance agent or is it an investigative aid and a deterrent? And I find it as the latter. And the value of cameras, which there is a broad network of cameras in the city currently, is invaluable and in fact the homicide that we had in August here right on Main Street Detectives solve that by use of ambient video. So following up with a purpose, looking to solve a crime. The idea of the mobile trailer is just that. We know that we displace a lot of this behavior when we begin to enforce or to be more present in spaces. So the camera trailer seemed logical as opposed to trying to add to the camera infrastructure, which is very, very expensive. And it also has the deterrence of It is different. It will have a blue flashing light on it. And what we're looking to do is to deter the behavior. So again, back to my observation about this is not an overt surveillance operation being run by the government, but a deterrence and an aid in criminal investigation.

And can I just add from, again, the hotspot perspective is it's also mobile. So why you know we'll see what part of our hotspot strategy is to look at what is the effectiveness of something that we deploy and look at that and then we might iterate and it might change and then chief might say you know what it's time to move the camera here and so it gives us some flexibility for him to have that as that investigative aid where he wants he thinks he needs it to be.

Thank you. Yeah, I am concerned. I continue to be. I hear the thinking behind it, and I think that's fair enough to some degree. I think in general, I feel like this might sound like far-fetched or sort of like science fiction, but I am becoming really increasingly concerned with the rapid development of AI and how we're approaching like, what is it, AGI, artificial general intelligence, and so essentially like super computers out of the movies. And so I do think we need to start taking seriously as a city and sort of government at whatever level, thinking through like how can these technologies be abused, because I think we're approaching in the next few years, a time where even the best IT folks we can hire can't realistically protect data we collect or have on hand, or the tech that we're using is not necessarily secure in a way that maybe would have been the case in previous years. So I do want us to start taking that lens to this work. A little bit of a side note, but I do appreciate all this, and thanks for the time.

Thank you, Councillor Newby, sir. And I have everyone in queue, so we'll go to, I think, Councillor Schachter next, if that's okay, and then...

I think Councillor Grant may have had her hand up first, if she'd like to go first.

I'm trying to, under our rules, do a little this side, that side. So, Councillor Schachter, if I could turn to you first, and then we'll go to Councillor Grant, and then we'll go to Councillor Litwin.

Great. Mostly, I just wanted to say thank you. This is a very challenging moment, I think, for so many in and all across our city. And I'm just so appreciative of your leadership, your care, your thoughtfulness, your collaboration, your expansive thinking, the willingness to sort of dig in and really try and test some new strategies with the limited resources we have. And to do it In alignment, it feels, while there's some strategies that folks have varying levels of comfort with, it really does feel to me aligned with our values as a city, and I'm just really grateful. So thank you, and thank you for being here, and Mary, I know, I'll speak to this a little with the PAC committee update that's yet to come, but your presentation to PAC, the hotspot strategy, and what you've done at Fletcher Free, it really is such an important and amazing model how we can really address some of the challenges in our city. So I just want to say thank you, but also in the spirit of how Councilor McKnight was mentioning proactivity and how we can be thinking now about what efforts we want to put into place knowing we are very likely going to be facing some variation of this next spring and summer as well. Chief Burke, I'm quite interested in like where we have some sort of policy shortcomings or challenges that make some of some enforcement activities particularly around drug trafficking and drug activity challenging and if there's opportunity I just wanted to express an open invitation for my I'm willing to do this conversation but I think that could be a really important conversation to have in some configuration this fall going into the next legislative session and if we need to be calling in some of our state level delegation to be in that conversation with us and potentially moving some policy forward in the next session. I just kind of want to name that I feel like that's an opportunity again where we could potentially be proactive Advocating for some of our needs along with needing more state support in all sorts of ways but it just I'm wondering if there's an opportunity there as well and I'm sure there's many other examples of ways we could take some to some steps this fall Sort of as this the height of things are winding down and as we know, you know We're gearing up for next summer. Like what can we do some things?

Thank You councillor Shaker councillor grant

Things don't actually wind down, they move. And what we see during the winter are regretfully more break-ins. We see different spaces being used, so if we do make a decision to, depending on what the Sheriff's Department says they can and cannot do, depending on how we look at our agreements, our union agreements, the garages are sheltered during the winters, right? they crowd up, so nothing winds down. And some individuals may still be eligible for having some days at the hotel motels. So there's things that change, but there are things that really don't change, because very often if people don't have permanent housing, if they don't have resources that they need, It doesn't wind down, so I just, that statement really concerns me. Policy shortcomings and challenges, we just talked about it. One of the things that frustrates me the most is that people, it's been talked about a lot about our legal system. Not only does our police department have limitations related to the legal framework that you just talked about, our state's attorney has those same legal and our judges have those same legal limitations and where we have to look to is our legislature to look at how we treat crimes around trafficking and distribution of drugs because it's not going to be effectual to try to Oh, my goodness. You know, when we go and we say, oh, someone's openly using drugs, by the time someone gets there, the evidence is gone, right? And it's not a, again, quote, unquote, major crime. People are not going to be held. And even if they could be held, we are understaffed and overpopulated in the correctional center, and we're spending millions of dollars to export drugs people to Mississippi to a core civic facility, which is a conversation for a whole other day. So we do need more assistance at the state level. We need assistance at the federal level, because the federal laws are different from the state laws. That's another conversation for the day. I would like more of us in the community to be paying attention to these conversations because they've been held many times that people still don't understand. And the fact that some people, just their very appearance, just sitting with their stuff, that's not illegal yet. We see the conversations that are being held around our state, a conversation in Hartford about where people should be allowed to park. And that's deeply concerning because we have a fair amount of people across the entire state who live out of their cars. They live out of their vehicles. So what do we do about that? I... I am curious about a discussion on sheriffs, so I look forward to that. I hope that will be allowed in a public safety. committee meeting, I was quite frankly alarmed that resolution was being proposed for tonight and you had not even received a copy of it. That was really concerning and there was no feedback from the mayor's office. We have to stop doing things that way. Like everyone else, I greatly appreciate the work that you're all doing. With the fire department, the data and discussion around cohorts is so important um and chief the way that you also track the people that are responsible for the most incidents and i have just one quick question for you is could you describe the top three incidents that come out of city hall park in the surrounding area off the top of my head i know trespass is the top i think suspicious incident is

The second, which is a murky, you've heard me talk about this, it's a murky bucket. And welfare check or something very similar is, I think, the third. But when I do my report for the commission and public safety committee, I'll refresh that recollection.

Thank you. I appreciate it. And I knew those answers, but I just wanted the public and the council to hear because those are not major crimes that people get held for. So that's important to note. They're just not, no matter how many times they do it. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Grant. Councillor Litwin, we will finish with you, at least, with respect to council comments.

Thanks. I appreciate it. Appreciate you being here late with us. And Chief taking you away, particularly, well, both Chiefs, or DC, away from our force that is not enough folks. So I know we have a... Recruitment crisis, which is what I think our Public Safety Committee could really be putting a lot more of our effort into hopefully in the future in terms of the situation downtown, you know, I really appreciate the thinking and the conceptualization that's recently been explored but even just on my walk-in at 530 to come to this meeting the parking spots are weren't blocked off. There was for sure behavior happening in those cars that I wasn't comfortable with. And the barriers that we have, nobody cares. They were three people behind the barriers at the time that I walked in. It's not your responsibility to be there to constantly enforce it. I recognize that there are attempts at low cost deterrence um but i think that's kind of where the frustration lies for some folks and for me is like you know folks are going to do what they do and there there's a lot of folks that just don't comply and won't comply the folks around st paul street and ssp are really begging for help over there that's really become to me, even more of a hotspot than City Hall Park in a lot of respects. And even local folks over there had even approached me about renting one of these things. And I said, I don't know how much these cost. I don't know what the impact would be on people who rent the apartments above some of those two-story homes and, you know, like Single Pebble is in and stuff. And so I'm glad to hear that we're bringing this resource here, a mobile resource, and I'm hopeful that we can use it on St. Paul Street as well because it's so dark and there's so much activity happening there, especially in the evening. And there is a relationship between City Hall Park and St. Paul Street and the pathways that connect with VCRJ and Vermont Cares. And that has kind of created a more spread out hotspot. But at the same time, I'm well aware of how understaffed our police are and how ground down they are, which is really very concerning to me. I also just wanted to mention when we had the business meeting, when the administration had the business meeting here in Contoys, it was full. And we heard folks, one manager of CVS, say I need a way to be able to report retail theft online because we would be calling the police over 7,000 times a year if we wanted to actually document the scale of retail theft at our one store. And that was alarming to me, so I'm hopeful that we can have some way for folks to really easily report if what we really want is to collect the data. Because as is pointed out, the data is only the information that we have. Excuse my voice. And I really appreciate the extra effort that's been put into City Hall Park and adjacent areas, I think folks are seeing it. The cameras make, I think will make most folks feel more comfortable. These are not flock cameras and they are instrumental in solving crime and bringing closure, including sexual assault victim, unhoused sexual assault victim that was assaulted outside of City Hall Park just a month or two ago. So when we talk about our fear of cameras, I hope that we can think about the privilege we hold when we talk about it and may not be, have ever been, a victim of violent crime. And so I'll leave that there, but I offer you, if you feel like chiming in, it wasn't really questions, but if there's anything you want to add, thank you.

Certainly, and thank you for your kind remarks. We do spend a great deal of time watching the migration from the northern part of St. Paul Street to the park and then back. And, in fact, I was spending some time there today, and the former adjutant general of the Vermont Guard was leaving a meeting on Bank Street, and he was like, what are you doing out here with your blue lights on? Are you lost? And I'm like, no, this is what we do. We are in tune with that and we could probably do some more granular data extraction and analyses, but I will tell you it involves the same same population in terms of ways in which. the business community or others could report more easily things like retail theft. I did bring the idea back to my team of establishing two categories for online reporting, which would be explicit non-investigated retail theft, non-investigated larceny. So the people that actually do this work day in and day out in terms of because we have supervisors that look at these incidents that come in online. They're going to think about that really critically to make sure that we're not setting ourselves up for failure and the community up for disappointment if we take these reports, and then in turn nothing happens. I think the title alone is very descriptive of what may happen, but we also know that we'll have to scrutinize that because if there are felony levels of theft with suspects, we'll want to follow up on those things. So more to come on that front.

I'll add a couple things. Thank you for telling me about the barriers. I try and go through City Hall Park when I can a few times a week, but that kind of feedback is helpful. I'll take it back to the team. I do want to say also at the library when we were having our challenges, there is a drug tip line that does get used, and we just kept putting in that information. We put in that information, and then it's up to the wonderful guys at BPD to figure out what they can go through. Again, like what we might be seeing, we don't know if it actually is a drug exchange or not, but if we're suspicious, we put it in. And We've had great conversations with the folks there, and they're grateful for it. We Are Not Safe Outdoor Spaces, that is another group, and I think someday I'm sure they'll give you their report and their work too, but just a couple things I do wanna point out is that because there's been just another recent exodus from the hotel program, that has had impacts. I also don't know if you all know that as of September 1st, 211 will not be taking calls as far as when emergency shelter is needed and that is moved over to DCF. that will take calls from 745 to 430, I think five days a week, but again, you can check me on that. So we're also seeing things that are coming down the line that we are anticipating that are gonna have some other impacts that are really out of our control. And again, you've heard it here a few times tonight. We're all very well aware that without 100 bed shelter, that is going to have absolute impacts as well.

All right. Well, that was a lengthy but very important and timely discussion. So I appreciate your patience staying with us late into the evening here. And anything further from any one of you or Mayor?

Okay.

Well, again, deeply grateful and Chief Burke, Deputy Chief Ruggles, I know that a number of our first responders made their way down to New York City this past weekend to observe the anniversary of 9-11. I think particularly this weekend, but really throughout the year, want to extend our gratitude for your service to our city. So thank you for being here this evening. All right. Rachel, I think I told Cara that we might get to you at 7.30. And here we are at 10.07. I said no earlier than 7.30. But we now turn to item 7.9, City Circle. And we have Rachel Jolly from the Community Justice Center here. And Rachel, I'm grateful for the memo and your being here and happy to turn the floor to you to provide an update on the status of the initiative.

Yeah, I hope that my memo answered the kind of predictable questions. I'm happy to answer others, but I can give you the brief synopsis, which is this was a pilot that was originally funded by the AGO starting in January of this calendar year. It was with the spirit of covering criminal municipal violations that would be in line with Act 180, the kind of pre-charge initiative that they had spread statewide and so they were willing to kind of go a little further with the civil criminal violations. And we are also working with the mayor's office to try and do something creative around more enforcement of civil violations when people could theoretically get tickets for any kind of violation. This was giving a non-punitive option if people were going to take it for a restorative process. So we had this concept back in January. I ran it for six months. I did get a call in June from the AGO letting them know that, letting me know that they had decided not to fund it beyond fiscal year 26 and into fiscal year 27. I acted prematurely in getting the word out immediately to the mayor's office and police and some of the partners around this decision. In hindsight, that was a mistake in that we didn't have another plan at that time. Stopping the funding wasn't the be-all, end-all of this program. We still have the ability to continue it on. Immediate communication without the backup plan led to further confusion and I apologize about that. So the short story is that we plan to continue to take civil tickets if and when the police issue them and refer them to us. We now know that just dedicating so many resources just to these civil violations really is not an appropriate use of resources given the way the CJC is set up for all kinds of REFERRALS ACROSS THE CONTINUUM FROM PRECHARGE ALL THE WAY THROUGH REPARATIVE OR A COURT ORDERED AND USING OUR VOLUNTEERS IN THAT WAY TO KIND OF COVER BY LOCALITY RATHER THAN TYPE OF REFERRAL. THAT MAKES MORE SENSE. SO IN TERMS OF GOING FORWARD IN THE FUTURE, AGAIN, WE HAVE SOME GENERAL FUND MONEY THAT WE THINK CAN BE APPLIED FOR THIS PROGRAM. WE PLAN TO CONTINUE IT. And what the data shows is that for the 154 tickets, or I think, this wasn't seen as a highly successful program. It was about 25, 28% successful in terms of the percentage of folks who actually showed up and went through a process. The main reason for unsuccessful was lack of showing up. It was a no show. And so I think what we see with the, you know, again, it's a relatively small end given that the program just ran January through June as that official pilot. But what we saw with the demographics and the folks who didn't show is that these are some of the community members that we're most concerned about, that we know are most vulnerable, are struggling with homelessness or substance abuse and or mental health issues. And for a variety of reasons, it's not equating to them showing up in a timely way for this specific program. Again, across the continuum, we are confident that we're interacting with these folks in different programs, farther downstream perhaps. So again, I don't feel like there's any news flash of anything ended. This was a useful... We learned some things. For those who did show, it seemed like it was successful in terms of decreasing their contact rate with police in the six months after, or three to six months after. So although the pilot with the AGO funding is ending, we're not planning on ending this type of referral. I think that's the kind of top level, but I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. Director Jolly?

President Chavez, can I just ask Rachel just to prompt one more thing? Can you just talk about the volunteers and how we're also using these folks who've really invested a lot of interest and training with downtown Folks, just one more problem, thank you.

Yeah, so from the beginning, we had six interested volunteers who signed right up, went through a training, and have been really committed, dedicated volunteers to this program. They really want to be of service to the community. All of them have some connection to the downtown core specifically, either through where they live or where they work. So we want to continue with them. And just again, I mentioned localized volunteers. So now that we've spread to the county, we have our Colchester volunteers, our Milton volunteers, our et cetera, Williston, South Burlington, et cetera. So Burlington volunteers, we want to send them Burlington cases, cases where incidents have taken place in Burlington. And so these volunteers really want to continue. And that's a great way. And they're actually partners with us in trying to think collaboratively when, you know, other opportunities come up, they really want to be of service. And so it's great that we inherited six new volunteers because of this program.

Great. Thank you very much. We'll turn to the council now for any questions or comments they have. Does anyone want to get in the queue on this item? Yes, Councillor Singh.

Thank you, Director Jolly, for being here this evening. And you come to the Public Safety Committee meeting on the 27th of August. So I want to direct the public, if you want to go back to those notes, the slides more specifically on this program are in that, in Civic Clerk. You know, in this public's not seen here, I was just wondering, we had asked there, and I don't know if you know it now, and I should have asked you, beforehand and I apologize. What's the most frequently cited ordinances that we saw coming through here? I know just for the public's, you know, some could be dog with rabies vaccine, unregistered dog, trespassing, noise, disorderly conduct, littering, smoking, public drug use, public urination, et cetera. So I was just wondering if you had that data handy.

I do actually. Yeah, open container was the top most common ticket type. So we had a total of 43 of the tickets going to that, 41 sorry, with 14 of those being successful. The next most common was drug possession and then just followed by disorderly conduct. Alcohol possession, smoking, urination, public urination or defecation, the nine-foot rule about church street, and unlawful trespass all followed those in terms of the most common.

And then through our discussion there, so I feel like I'm going off topic of the memo here, was We talked about that there is a small number of ordinance violations that allow for criminal court prosecution. Did we see any of those referred back to the Judicial Bureau on those particular cases?

We didn't in the time of the pilot, as Jessica Brown, Attorney Brown, was talking about that night. That has to do, too, with the amount of tickets that are received in a certain amount of time, which make them eligible to send on to the Judicial Bureau or not. And so as Jessica Brown was saying that evening, we're just at the section, I think the session, you know, six months in, that was when maybe there would be data enough to have saying, because a lot of the, I think the time periods were six month periods. So we were just starting to see that kind of data that could give us a larger picture. So again, if this continues, again, the civil tickets keep coming in, we plan to continue to work with the attorney's office to pursue that kind of enforcement. I'm happy to share the mic too with Attorney Brown if you have anything to add.

I will add, because I I believe I said it at the Public Safety Committee meeting that we're referencing that my attorneys in my office have also worked on sort of based on the violations that we were seeing most commonly come through City Circle based on the data that Rachel's team collected. We've been working on drafting proposed amendments to ordinances to kind of give the city attorney's office more flexibility slash authority to enforce or prosecute violations kind of more rapidly. at the court level than we currently have because the Judicial Bureau process is pretty slow and without, I think what Rachel was referencing was my explanation that to elevate an offense to a higher level of to an increased sentence, for example, whether that's an increased fine or some other penalty, requires that the previous violation for the similar conduct be adjudicated, which makes sense, right? Like, if I haven't been found guilty of something, then you can't charge me with a second offense when I haven't been found guilty of the first offense, right? So we are prepared to bring to the ordinance committee some proposed ordinance changes for consideration, which I think will sort of complement or give us more tools, I guess, to complement the work of City Circle.

Okay. Thank you. I look forward to getting what ordinances we can update to kind of make this process move a bit quicker here. So thank you. And be more effective.

Thank you, Councillor Singh. We'll go to Councillor Grant and then Sanchez-Parkinson.

Hi. Thank you. Open container. How many of the 43 were college students?

I don't have the data for right here yeah I probably could get that but a minority of our overall ticket ticket receivers were college students but certainly somewhere for those open containers and could you give us a couple of examples of what fell under quote unquote disorderly conduct. I probably cannot. I'm guessing that would... You know, I shouldn't even guess. I didn't ask Bessie, who runs the program, that kind of detail before I came. I'm sorry. I can get that.

No, that's okay. If you can get that, I think that would be very interesting. Disorderly conduct is really a term that is rife with all kinds of disparities because it really... you know, what does it mean, right? And it's a constant issue when used to detain people by not being as specific as people. would like to know, like why are you stopping me? Why are you detaining me? Why are you like, well, disorderly conduct. So it is a term that people who care about oversight and accountability and kind of modernizing the language that we use in policing and law enforcement to be more specific. And I think when we take a look at all the problems that we have in our city, we do need to be more specific. to get away from disorder. What is the disorder? What are we actually talking about? Because if we don't know what we're actually talking about, then we can't really look at the root causes and what we need to work on as a city and as a state and as a country, quite frankly, because as we all understand, what the federal government is doing is affecting the state, which is affecting us at the city level in terms of access to money and programs that would assist us. So this term disorder, it's really, it's just very out of date and not completely So if we can get away from that so that, and I know that depends on what is filed at the incident, right? What is how it's written up and then referred to you. But if you can offer that feedback so we can be more specific with what people are doing. I would venture to imagine that the individuals that were the most non-responsive might have had been the ones with the most issues around substance use that caused them to have the incidents that they did. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Appreciate the work. And I do appreciate your previous presentation.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor Grant. Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson.

Just wanted to say thank you for engaging in the last month and a number of conversations. I think the only comment and also welcome future engagements. Throughout the REIB committee discussions, we talked quite a bit around the upstream downstream model. And I think that your work particularly worked on the downstream. And we talked about what it means for particularly young people to be finding themselves so early in their lives in the downstream. And so I would welcome if you or your team have thoughts as we think about elevating what we have in our city that supports our young people earlier so that they don't find themselves downstream and so that our city doesn't only interact with them when they're in a downstream position. Thanks.

Thank you. Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson, are there any other councillors that wish to be recognized? We'll go to Councillor Litwin and then Schachter.

Thanks so much, and I had the privilege of getting the full presentation on the Public Safety Committee, so I won't be laborious at this hour. But I do, I was hoping you could remind me, I think we brought this up, but the tickets for drug either possession or use, I cannot recall, I think it was possession, you said were misdemeanor, right? And so I guess I'm curious, how does that dovetail with the state laws? I know we talked about this, and I am just spacing at this hour.

And just to clarify, these are all civil tickets, so misdemeanor wouldn't be the phrase that I use. We do get in pre-charge, which I think we did talk about that evening, the pre-charge program, which is kind of one step, like the next step. This is a form of pre-charge, because it's before a charge that would be through a different kind of court, the Judicial Bureau, rather than our county court. So just to clarify that, you can have some buckets of categories, even disorderly conduct, that could be a misdemeanor. It could have gone through pre-charge. It would have gone to the state's attorney had it not been successfully resolved with us, whereas this wouldn't go to the state's attorney. It would go to the Judicial Bureau. Well, first, our... you know, our city's court, city's legal office, and then perhaps the judicial bureau. So now I've lost track of your request. That's okay. I just wanted to make that clarification.

I think it was fine. And so are those folks who are getting those tickets, if they're not participating in the city circle process, are they getting pipelined to the drug court so that they can get the access and the structure that's needed to intervene?

Not through this program solely, but that is, I think, the beauty of the CJC in terms of staff who work across the continuum. And if they are already being seen in a more downstream program, then they likely would be. And so our staff are talking to one another, obviously, and sharing information. Oh, like somebody who's being seen down here in Tamarack or pretrial services program, they also just got a civil violation. So we can share that information and continue that individual can still work with the same person. Maybe drug court might be an option, or maybe other of our case coordinators hooking them up with services, and at some point trying to address all the violations that are coming our way so accountability can be talked about. But generally, if somebody's struggling with those mental health and substance use issues, that's the first priority, is linking them up with services so that they can... Yeah, that's great, and thank you for sharing that.

And I think the last thing I'll just say, since we were talking about disorderly conduct, my understanding would be that the interceding officer, whether that's a police officer or a CSO or even a parks ranger, would be the person who's writing the ticket and determining, you know, the behavior that I'm encountering and they're not heeding my warning, so I'm going to issue them a ticket for disorderly conduct. So we leave that up to the folks who we are hired and trained by our city in the various different public safety spheres that we have all just agreed is wonderful work that's happening across many departments in the city. Is there, you know, Do you have any concern about these disorderly conduct tickets that are being sent to you?

Again, without knowing the specifics like Councillor Grant was asking about, I wouldn't be able to give a blanket response to that. We know that in general in policing, there is a lot of discretion that's allowed. They do have to meet a certain requirement to be able to write up a certain kind of ticket. Civil violations have the lowest I think, bar for that compared to anything farther down. But even with pre-charge or at the state's attorney's office herself, like that office, there's discretion all along the way. So the law enforcement officer has sometimes the discretion whether to give a warning or to cite, that kind of thing.

And those folks have the opportunity to contest that and to plead their case that they were not being disorderly.

Absolutely. Anything that's referred to us, we're going to be asking about responsibility taking. If they're denying it and saying this was unfairly given, then the CJC is not the right referral. That's when it should go to the courts, perhaps.

Thanks. That's really helpful. I just think it's certainly something I want to leave to the experts that are out there determining when conduct rises to that level. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Litwin. I saw Councillor Schachter. Can I get a sense of how many other councillors? And we will only do one round on this item. Can I get a sense as to how many other councillors would like to speak on this item?

Okay.

So with Councillor Schachter and New Beezer, it is 1028 p.m. So what I think I will do here is that we'll go to Councillor Schachter and then New Beezer We'll conclude this item, and then in order for us to continue the meeting, we would have to suspend our rules. Councillor Schachter, we'll go to you first.

I'll keep this very brief. I want to echo Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson's thank you, and thank you also, Attorney Brown, to you and your team for piloting this program and being able to come and report back to us what's worked, what hasn't. I really love the volunteer engagement model that's part of this program. And I think there's a lot here to just continue to kind of think about as the program evolves and sort of what comes next from it. And I just wanted to call out the last paragraph of your memo, which was also about going to, like meeting folks where they're at, and you named City Hall Park specifically, and collaboration with our CSLs and the street outreach team, and I just sort of wanted to say out loud as we're thinking about some of the hot spots in our community, the hot spot strategy, what's worked, what's worked at Fletcher Free, and we're thinking about how to apply that to some other parts of the city. I just think it's a really great call out that the CJC has a real role to play in being that sort of like how are we pairing accountability and enforcement with connection to community resources and meeting folks where they're at. And I just really appreciated that call out and that you were willing to sort of test some new ways of connecting with people. And I think I just kind of wanted to say it out loud so that all of us as we're having these conversations can kind of be holding that as I think an important part of what you all saw work. So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Schachter. What about Councilor Newbeeser?

Yeah, no, I just want to say thank you so much. This is really both helpful information and it's also reassuring to know that this is going to continue on and that we've sort of have the capacity within Yeah, within the department to be able to do this moving forward. And I just want to highlight briefly, one of my really, really good friends is not one of those six volunteers in this particular program, but took part in, yeah, this was years ago now, but was volunteering, I believe, through you all with, I think it's circles of accountability and support. So helping folks reintegrate into the community and... I just think it's, you know, from everything my friend described going through this at the time, it really is obviously really important for the community and smooth transition, et cetera, but really transformational for him at the time. And so there's just all these layers of benefits to the work you're describing, the work we're doing with City Circles. Yeah, and I just, I'm really excited by this. I think it's a really good step in the right direction, so thank you.

Thank you. To your point and to Councillor Schachter's point, really a continued thread between all 12 of our programs in terms of evaluating success is increased connection to community. If we can find that way for folks to increase the connection to community, especially by somebody who's not paid to do so, it's going to be a bonus. I think it's making the community more safe with every connection.

All right. Well, thank you very much, Director Jolly, for being here late in the evening. Again, another important topic, and we'll look forward to staying in touch on it.

Thank you.

It is now 10.32 p.m., and in order for us to continue with our business, a motion to suspend our rules would be in order.

I'll make a motion to suspend our rules so that we can complete deliberative agenda only past 1030.

Okay. That is item 7.10 and 7.11. Is there a second to that motion to suspend our rules to complete our deliberative agenda?

Second.

Thank you, Councillor Schachter. Is there any... Well, if there's no discussion on the item, I think we'll go to a vote. All in favour, please say aye. Aye. Are any opposed? That carries unanimously, requires two-thirds. Okay, so we now turn to item 7.10. This is not an action item. It's a discussion item regarding Burlington Forward committee updates. I know the resolution that was sent along to committees in the first week of August has been reviewed by our REIB committee, our CDNR committee, our PAC committee, and our Public Safety Committee. There are a number of attachments now posted to Civic Clerk, including some excellent committee reports from our committee chairs, as well as some related documents. I know that this is a topic of great interest. I'm also mindful of the time and aware that folks may need to try to get out of here in the next half hour or so. So I will continue to allow for five minutes from each councillor on the topic, but would ask that councillors please be mindful of that on this item. I'm going to turn first to Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson for an update at her request. And we'll then turn to the other committee chairs who submitted reports, and then we'll open the floor to other councillors for their comments or questions. So Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson, happy to turn the floor to you.

Thank you. Can I just really quick interject? I just had a point of order on the item before we get into it, if that's OK.

Yes.

Well, I appreciate that we're not taking action on this. I'm looking at the materials I've posted to the agenda. One of those attachments under the item is a series of amendments. It seems like to the original resolution it's red marked. My understanding is that this was referred to committees in order to develop amendments and feedback, et cetera. at least in the two committees that I'm a part of, no votes were taken on amendments. So I just, I want to clarify, I guess the intent behind that document and just get on the same page collectively that around process in terms of amending this or sending formal feedback because it feels really important to do so.

Correct. Understood that among the attachments is a proposed amended version of the original resolution. I will note for the sake of clarity that that is not a version that any committee has voted on. That is a document that was sent to me. by Councillor Schachter. My understanding is that it's a version of the document that incorporates feedback that had been received by a number of folks, including the RAIB department, and that it's a version of the document that had been posted to a number of our committees. I'm not sure if it was one of your committees, Councillor Newbeeser, but it's my understanding that a number of committees had been uh had this document posted and it was posted here for information purposes only um not to indicate in any way that that is the state of the resolution as it is right now all right thank you counselor new visa counselors yes counselor grant so point of information should we not indicate it

as a potential draft that's not been voted on by anyone, and I strongly believe we should have a copy of the original resolution.

It's been problematic how this is... Sure, the comments are out of order, but I will say that I'm happy to update the title here. There's a number of other documents related to feedback from the Office of REIB, feedback from the Streetcats, feedback from the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance. This is a document that's also reflective of other feedback that has been received, and so we will update the title of the document. I will ask Councillor Schachter to provide a suggested title to indicate that it is not an official version of the document that has been voted on in any capacity, and we'll also ask for the sake of posterity in the agenda that the original version of the resolution also be posted to our agenda. But Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson, thank you. We'll turn to you now.

Thank you. And in that vein, I will, I guess in that topic, I will note that I was urged by Councillor Schachter and Councillor Carpenter to begin using the revised version. I was told that that was a version that was started to be circulated by other people, which no other committee had been circulating that resolution. So I just wanted to apologize to the community and those who I caused confusion because I did in fact start to post that version. And so even up until earlier today, people were asking me if that revised version was from the RIB office. And so I just wanted to note the confusion that was created because of that draft and adding sort of like a title or more clarity to it, that would be helpful. I think just continuing in that vein, I think that what I have taken throughout the REIB committee is the level of confusion that was caused by this resolution. I did appreciate the number of folks who again came out to the REIB committee to really express their concerns, but also to really critically engage with this document. I think that there was a level of not only critical thinking, but expertise that elevated through this process. I really appreciated the health professionals, the housing professionals, and other social services that showed up that really were able to provide their informed feedback. And I really do hope that the authors of this resolution take all of this feedback seriously. I also wanted to particularly elevate the work of the REIB committee in the REIB office as well as the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance for their particular work feedback related to an equity framework offering it to the resolution. I wanted to point out that in my memo from the REB committee, I want to name that that memo went through our committee. We reviewed it at two different meetings and it was approved by the committee. I want to distinguish my memo from the other memos that were submitted earlier today. around 3 and 4 p.m. I'm part of two other committees, the CDNR and the Public Safety Committee, and I have not reviewed those memos. And so I just wanted to point out, again, a process in which I think it would be valuable to ensure that all committee members are able to see what comes out in the memos that are provided. So the approach that we took with our memo is, one, to be able to summarize what occurred across all of the meetings, And also particularly elevate three high level considerations. I think that the reason why offering the high level considerations is important is because there is so much to dive into. And so those can be reviewed in the memo, but overall really thinking about the structure and the framing of this resolution in making sure that we engage the right individuals to offer feedback throughout. As part of that memo, there are three attachments which offer much more detail into what can be considered for this resolution. The last thing that I just wanted to point out is one, I think that across the board, it was important to note the capacity and the resources that were noted throughout the resolution. And I want to make sure that if this resolution continues to move forward, there is a critical consideration for the capacity of our city staff and for the resources of our community. just watching our time, and I'll stop there.

Thank you, Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson. Thanks for the work so far by the REIB committee on this item. We'll go to Councillor Schachter next as chair of the PAC committee.

Thank you so much, President Travers. Just a couple comments. I'll speak to the memo here, which I submitted sort of as chair and totally hear the feedback that the whole committee hadn't reviewed it. But I really tried to frame it as just a summary of what we discussed and not any necessarily proposed revisions yet. We've yet to sort of dive in at that level on the committee and have any new language emerge. I ALSO JUST WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE SORT OF REVISED VERSION. SO I MENTIONED THAT VERSION I THINK AT OUR LAST COUNCIL MEETING AT THE END OF AUGUST THAT, YOU KNOW, I know President Travers and I met with the REIB staff to really download their feedback, met with other key community stakeholders, and sort of wanted to just show in good faith that a lot of feedback was already being taken and implemented, and that we could continue to just go through the revision process, but show that some key feedback had been in place, and it was posted, I believe, to the Public Safety Committee meeting, I can speak for sure it was posted to Parks Arts and Culture in addition to it being attached to REIB. I can't totally speak to CDNR, I'm not positive, but it was just really just out there to show like changes are afoot and we're listening and the work continues and to show that some of that feedback was immediately being incorporated. Also to try to minimize duplication of efforts when these conversations were underway and there were some actionable things immediately coming from it. So sorry if that caused any confusion, but this is all very much still a working draft with additional feedback yet to come and language to be voted on through committee process and all of that. So just to give a quick update on what the actions of PAC in the last few weeks. We specifically reviewed sections 2.03 about activating our public spaces and 3.04 and 3.05 which are around our sheltering on public lands policy emergency housing response, sanction camping, things like that. We also received a really great presentation from Mary Danko from the library, who was just here, and Jeff Nicholson, who is one of the city's data gurus on the Fletcher Free Library's hotspot strategy. And I think, as I've said now a couple times this evening, I think there's a really interesting potential to keep exploring about how we can replicate elements of this model, pairing consistent public safety presence with staff highly trained in de-escalation, trauma-informed care, in building trusting relationships, and making immediate connections to community resources. I think the kind of co-embeddement of, that's not a word, but of onsite security with the Howard Center Street Outreach staff working in the library is a really compelling model. It's been highly effective based on the data that was shared at PAC and I just, I sort of want to elevate that. PAC continues the work around ways to minimize barriers to groups activating our public spaces in new and interesting ways. That includes everything from buskers and street artists on Church Street to parties in our parks all across the city. We are grateful for the city's recent launch of OpenGov as a way for outside groups to be able to more easily book our city spaces and get the requisite permits that are needed. And PAC is continuing to dig in and make some formal recommendations in partnership with staff across multiple city departments who touch our events. I think it's every department in the city to really think about where we have some operational challenges and what we might be able to do to eliminate those. And then we also had Attorney Wood from our city attorney's office spend a really remarkable amount of time with us at our last meeting to really understand our sheltering on public lands policy, how it works in practice, the implications of our 2019 settlement with the ACLU. We had city staff weighing in on all of the considerations and challenges around sort of the current state of folks seeking shelter in our city, our sheltering on public lands policy, as I said, and sort of where to go from here. So it was just really informative, a really important dialogue. I look forward to thinking about how we then translate that into potential amendments and updates in the Burlington Forward Resolution, which PAC will be continuing to take up. I hope that we can really dive into some specific edits at our next meeting. And the last thing I wanted to say, oh, okay, four seconds. Okay, I'm out of time.

I think I shaved off. I think I shaved off. If you have 15 seconds.

15 seconds, which is, I just wanna name that I think there's been a lot of us versus them, black and white narratives brought forward about Burlington Forward. I have been speaking with folks across so many different communities in this city, from our employees, our residents, our folks seeking services in this community, folks in the recovery community, service providers. There are so many diverse perspectives and opinions on what our city needs moving forward. And I just want to say that that diverse input is the work right now. It's how our democracy stays healthy and strong. And so I just want to put forward a continued invitation that folks engage with this, reach out one-on-one if you can't make the committee meetings. I think we're in this together. Thanks.

Thank you. Councillor Litwin, could I turn to you next, and then Councillor Singh?

Sure. I won't need the full five minutes, but given the late hour, I actually, and given the shortness of the memo that I provided for CDNR, I would just really encourage members of the public to take a look at Section 10 on the deliberative agenda, where you can read it. It's, I believe, a page and a half. Essentially, the nutshell is that we're continuing our work on looking at public defacement and graffiti, it got more complex than I thought. So need to continue working with some of our directors. And also there's a real desire from the community to have simpler solutions as well. So we need to balance both the needs of the directors and the departments and also finding the ways for community to have that agency and the support they need to have that agency. In addition, we revisited the syringe service litter operations report from last fall. I want to name that Councilor Sanchez-Parkinson was not a member of CDNR at the time, so this is a relatively new document to her, and these were not recommendations that she would have had any part in. I did name that in the memo. We met a special meeting on 9-3, and I think at that point, my recommendation to my colleagues on the committee was to spend some time reading the recommendations and come back at any point, but especially at our upcoming meeting on Wednesday with any suggestions, excuse me, that they would like to make that either bring these up to kind of where we are now, because a lot of those were specific to the Howard Center Safe Recovery site on Clark Street, which chose to cease operations in June, and then that grant was awarded to Vermont Cares. The reason that happened was because the State Department of Health said that they were the only ones receiving state money, although there has been some confusion around that, so I'm still looking into that, to operate an SSP program. Ultimately, I think... My hope is that what we can do is just reignite those recommendations and find where we can find balance together, and we may or may not be able to get there. But I certainly do not intend to spend the next two or three months revisiting the report that took us four to six months to work on last year. that's that's that but I look forward to public comment and I look forward to my I think we've had very productive dialogue in that space but I'd like to get more substantive on Wednesday and then hopefully we'll have something more for you in the coming weeks thank you great Thank You councillor let when I do know that I was sent councillor Sanchez Parkinson had let me know that she needed to leave by 11

But I'm sure many of us are of a similar mindset here, whether we need to or not. So I would ask, again, that councillors keep that in mind. And so, Councillor Singh, could I turn to you now?

Yeah. And to Councillor Litwin's point, this is posted to Civic Clerk, this memo. I just want to give the public context. You know, I took this memo as a report from the chair of the ongoing work of the committee and that it was not a voting item. I want to let people know, you know, in the document there are links to our meetings, and I really encourage the public to look at the meeting materials and watch the meetings for a more in-depth understanding of the discussions that went on in committee. I want people to know that this memo is not meant as an endorsement of a potential direction, directions on parts of the resolution or the whole bones before, but as a recap of the meeting. In my report, I chose to focus on three areas. I felt like there was somewhat consensus, though not full consensus, with regards to drug enforcement, the use of public safety cameras, and again, as people have mentioned here before, the embedded social service model that has been modeled at Fletcher Free Library. I just want people, you know, to focus, you know, those are the main focuses where I felt like there was a lot of agreement in committee or more consensus. I won't say agreement. I would like to flag for the public there was a lot of disagreement over language and intent. And I encourage people to watch the meeting to understand the context of that. You know, I did not want to put in a lot of details and, you know, Quoting people they said he said, those type of things. I really think that we should be, both the committee and caucuses should be given more opportunity to edit the language before the committee takes this up again. and routed through the caucus chairs and appropriate city staff and impacted social services and that we could bring this resolution back at some point with all those inputs in there. So thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Singh. We will open the floor now to any other councillors that wish to comment on this item. Any other councillors wish to get in the queue? Councillor Newbeeser.

Yeah, thank you, Council President. I'll just say from a process perspective, I do think it's important that we get clarity before this is brought back around the fact that any of these amendments need to be voted on by committees, passed out of committee, because we referred this item to those committees. I think that's an important piece and it is I'll say it's confusing I think from the public from folks I've talked to but also on this council as well as a member it was also again I don't want to be a process stickler and I would welcome chairs reporting back on their perspective from their committees to the full council for the public's knowledge but I'm on PAC and CDNR and I wasn't aware until i was sitting in this meeting that a memo from those committees would even be referenced in this item i also will just say that again i only know about cdnr and pac but burlington ford has not been agendized in either of those meetings in fact the first pac meeting we had um point of order

Sorry, excuse me. Sorry, just a moment. There's a point of order that's pending. So excuse me, Councilor Newbeeser, I'll pause the timer. Yes, Councilor Schachter.

I just wanted to say if you look at the PAC meeting agenda, the agenda items say Burlington forward colon and then the topic that we're discussing.

Okay. I appreciate that. Not a proper point of order, but we'll start the timer again and we'll give it back to Councilor Newbeeser here.

I encourage folks to go watch the PAC meetings since this item was referred to those. In fact, we had discussion about specifically how the agenda items we were discussing predated Burlington Forward, but now are being described as informing the recommendations which we haven't voted on on a resolution. And again, I don't want to bring that up to be a stickler. It just speaks to you know, why some on this council and why many in the community think this is a divisive topic or that this topic has become more divisive by the actions of the council. Putting that aside, I do want to speak to the substance. I've got three minutes here. I want to acknowledge that our city is obviously dealing with a number of challenges that we are making steady progress on, and obviously we have a long way to go. I do want to celebrate some of the wins, even though we're dealing with these statewide and national issues here at the city level. We've increased, since I've been on the council, the number of shelter beds we're able to provide and the frequency at which we're able to house folks in extreme weather conditions. Folks are working really hard right now in the city to help place this 100-bed shelter, which is going to be critical to getting folks off the street into safe, secure housing. We've seen a variety of people and groups in our community step up since I've been serving on the council to feed and clothe folks who need it. We've seen groups like the BTV Cleanup Crew who have really brought the community together in productive and inspiring ways, going out and cleaning up our downtown to make sure it's safe and healthy and livable for everybody in our community. We've tripled funding, and we've talked a lot about the success at the library, the social support position that is operating at the library as part of the Howard Center's Street Outreach Program, and we've tripled funding. in recent budgets for that program. We've increased funding for public health and public safety initiatives, both preventative and on the enforcement side. to the tune of millions of dollars locally in every budget that I've voted on so far since being on this council. We've reorganized, and we had a presentation which spoke to this a bit, but we've reorganized at BPD how we deploy our limited law enforcement resources. And as a result, we're seeing drastically more police visibility downtown, directed patrols, et cetera, which are evidence-based and clearly showing results. And then I do just want to highlight and celebrate the fact that although I think the governor has done very little compared to what the state needs to be doing on these issues, we have moved them to do some for our community. And most recently we had a bipartisan resolution that was pressuring the state in coordination with the leadership of the administration to step up as well. All of that is really good work. It's worth celebrating. It's worth highlighting. But I also want to be clear, and I've been talking about this in some of the committee discussions, that all of these different buckets of work as it relates to community safety and public safety in our community really do rely on It is just true that we need more resources overall. And so we're not gonna solve that just as a city. We need the state to step up and tax the wealthy if we are going to invest the kind of resources that are needed in order to see real tangible change that I think folks are desperately asking for, both community members, businesses, and social service leaders. So with that, I'll pass it back to you, Council President. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Newby. Are there any other councillors that wish to be recognized on this item? Councillor Grant and then Carpenter.

Thank you. First of all, I really feel the need to remind people of my experience and expertise once again. I first started in public service when I applied to be part of a special committee to review policing policies when major issues were being discussed in the city related to multiple lawsuits, related to traffic stop data that showed during searches that BIPOC individuals are more likely to be searched but less likely to have contraband and other issues that were going on in our police department. And then after that was done, I felt that It was a check the box from the council at the time and that there was more work to be done. And then I applied for the police commission, which I was accepted. And I did just under three years on the police commission. And then I ran for city council and I've been serving on the public safety committee despite attempts to completely remove me for reasons that I feel are biased. I'm an expert. I'm an expert. I may not be a person that you like. Right? I have to deal with the whole uppity black woman thing. I have to deal with when I call people out. for their discrimination. I'm accused of making myself look like a victim. I'm told things like, well, I voted for Zariah Hightower. I would vote for Zeron. I would joyfully vote for AOC. My family marched in 2020. And then while that's going on, I wait to see, will they then say, Yeah, and I have a black friend, so I am an expert. I will send over an article about the use of disorder and how dangerous it is. And my earlier comments were valid, and the response to those columns is symptomatic of the process by which Burlington Forward was thrown upon the council, thrown upon the committee, how different groups in our city have or have not been engaged. The more marginalized the group, the less likely they were engaged. And even how we've done these memos. First I want to thank Councilor Sanchez-Parkinson for her memo describing the work of the REIB committee because clearly based on all the last minute memos that were posted not by the deadline of the meeting but her memo served to be the template by which the other committee chairs use. That's great but let's give her credit for her work in terms of how she organized her memo. I am disappointed in the memo that came from the Public Safety Committee because even though it wasn't a voting item, we should have had the opportunity to review it. I was concerned about an email of an initial draft because I did not feel that it adequately conveyed what was being discussed and it did not adequately convey the concerns that were in the document. It was mentioned several times at multiple meetings that the revised draft was being used and being pushed upon the committees and the public even though the changes hadn't been voted on yet. And when asked to make sure that the original copy was uploaded, and I still have to go back and check all those committee links, it wasn't being done. And agendas weren't being updated in a timely basis so people knew what was going to be discussed when. And that was a concern. And then the attempt to put on a brand new resolution before any proper engagement, even with our department heads. On the Public Safety Committee, we didn't hear from police or fire, and that was a huge concern and a major oversight. Thank you.

Thank you. I do just, before turning to Councillor Carpenter, I do just want to be clear that every committee chair who submitted a report submitted it after the deadline for materials for this meeting. When I agreed to post Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson's memo on Friday, I offered the same opportunity to all the other committee chairs to also draft a memo over the weekend for posting. So I do just want to be clear about that item for the record. Councillor Carpenter, we'll go to you, and then Councillor Broderick.

Thanks. I just wanted to note, and I have not had a chance to talk to Councillor Parkinson-Sanchez. There were a few edits to this that I don't think got reflected, but I just want to mention them quickly, which is going back to the original resolution, the focus really was intended to be on public spaces. The resolution does not purport to solve all the problems for the unhoused. It was focused on how do we manage our public spaces better. The solutions should be focused on our public safety in public spaces. It's not a be all and end all for all of the city problems that we have. And I think we just need to be cautious that we're not conflating the resolution's focus on public spaces with what we have as a much larger problem. The other issue that got lots of complaints was why wasn't more folks engaged prior to the submission of the resolution? And it is a sort of a circular problem There was engagement. Members that were involved with drafting have spoken to a lot of people offline, but it was a decision made that the best way to get more direct input from more people would be to do it through the committee process rather than doing it before. There was a statement made about council, the council as a whole, or maybe the committees as a whole, should discuss that because I don't think it's realistic on any resolution to do all that work necessarily before you come to resolutions by definition are often in a work in progress and I think just reaffirming that this is a work in progress it wasn't a fully done deal it is not a fully done deal and it's important for the committees to get the input they want. And then the final comment I have is really something that Councilor Grant said is we didn't have a great way of getting input from all the individual people of all varieties that have written letters to us and communicated with us over the last number of months and we need to think about how do we get that input. The mayor's meeting with the business community was one way to get input, and that isn't necessarily reflected in any of the committee work. So we should think more about how do we get input from sort of individual people. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor Carpenter. We'll go to Councillor Broderick and then try to wrap up this item. We're going to do one round, Councillor Leblanc. All right, well, let's see where we're at after Councillor Broderick goes. Councillor McKnight, did you want to be heard on this item? Okay, so we'll go to Councillor Broderick.

Thank you. I am not on any of the committees of jurisdiction, but I've tried to watch as many of the meetings as I can. And I guess I will use my time to... acknowledge and uplift the people of Burlington and the Burlington community that has organized itself to speak out against the Burlington Forward Resolution and especially the process points behind it, whether it's attending council meetings, attending committee meetings, and creating their own spaces to make their voices heard. and especially the voices of those whose personal safety is most at risk and often the most forgotten, those with substance use disorder who are at risk of overdose and infections from not having access to clean needles or a space to safely use, those who rely on food and essentials for mutual aid, those who are at risk every single day of their stuff being stolen, being assaulted, or dying of exposure, and people of color who are now and are always under our current system disproportionately harmed by increased policing and public surveillance. In these spaces, whether in committees, in this chamber, or elsewhere, people aren't just saying to give up on this issue and just end the conversation. They're saying to start over. And what that means is restart this process from scratch and actually work with the community from the beginning in order to build something that works for everyone. I disagree with the comments that were made that say that is impossible or hard, really hard to do before something is brought forward. I don't think that dropping a 20-page list of policy proposals is the correct way of doing things if that's what you want to accomplish. How can Burlingtonians be involved in any sort of public process when they must work within the framework of policies that we are setting beforehand, no matter how harmful that framework is to them? And the whole committee structure, the committee discussion process and the time-limited public forums that do not allow for dialogue, back-and-forth discussion, or the ability for someone to provide their input in full. I simply just don't believe that is enough. But I do believe that it is possible that if we scrap this and start anew, that we can engage the public in the drafting process and in the subsequent processes from within City Hall. Just as an example, Burlington Forward was referred to committee, the Progressive Caucus immediately started reaching out to groups to see how we can get subject matter experts and people with lived experience in rooms to talk. And that happened. There was a panel on Thursday collaborating between, sponsored by the Progressive Caucus and the and Vermont made a strong coalition. That's something that could happen before a 20-page policy manifesto is dropped on our laps. So yes, I do think that it is possible that we can go to the community and say, we know that you want to tackle this issue, we want to tackle this issue, and let's work together from the ground up from the people up to the people who represent them. That's what I've heard most of all from people, because people are suffering now, and people do want change, but they're not seeing change that will benefit them from this, and they want to be heard. They simply want to be heard. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Broderick. I will permit if any one of the committee chairs, because they limited their remarks just to a factual update as to what the committee said, if any one of them wants one additional minute to wrap up this item, we'd be happy to turn to you, Councillor Litwin. You had asked for additional time, so we'll provide you one additional minute.

I appreciate that. Thank you. A bunch of things came up this evening. You know, I'm not sure why... We need to get bogged down in the process of, well, we have to vote this out. We have to do this. We haven't had time to do that. This has been out here for six weeks. It's been going through process. And everybody can send an email to anyone else that says, I don't like this paragraph. I don't like this sentence. Here's some suggestions I have. It's the process we have used for years, and yet I have received no such emails. And in fact, in most of the hours of committee meetings I have attended, I think the only substantive change that I've been asked to do is remove the word orderly from one section. So I welcome some actual work and some actual suggestions to make this more palatable for the folks who are not supportive of it. It's not going to be erased and started over. And to suggest that the public doesn't support it erases the many, many, many comments of hundreds of people who have urged, including people tonight.

Point of order. Yes, Counselor. I think Counselor Lewin is... What is the phrase that we love to use? Impugning my motives. No, I don't think he is. I move to appeal the ruling of the chair. Okay.

Okay. There's a motion to appeal the ruling of the chair on the point of order. City Attorney Brown, I don't have my... rules right in front of me here on this one in terms of whether or not that requires a second and what the threshold would be the two-thirds majority so it doesn't need a second oh sorry um oh appeal of president's ruling needs a second okay there's a motion to appeal the ruling of the president then Counselor Litwin's comment on the hundreds of emails he received were not out of order. Is there a second to that motion? All right. There's a second to that motion. Requires two-thirds vote. City Attorney Brown?

Point of information, I was not commenting on the hundreds of emails. I was commenting on the line, me saying that the majority of I never said that the majority of people are against the resolution. I never said that, and I have no idea if that's true or not.

Okay. Well, if that's what it's in reference to, my ruling stands. I don't think that that's impugning anyone's motives. But is there still the pending appeal seconded by Councilor Newbezer? Okay. All in favor, say aye. All opposed? No. Okay.

And to be clear, it requires a majority, not two-thirds.

Okay. Well, my count is that the ruling is two in favor and six against. So the appeal fails. And, Counselor, you were at time, so I did reset the timer here. I don't know if you have one or two more sentences to complete what you were saying.

Ultimately, I welcome any feedback to make this more constructive and palatable to anyone, and that also means making a strong effort to attend the committee meetings that people are on. Thank you.

Okay.

All right. I offer this to Councillor Litwin. You certainly don't have to take it, Councillor Schacht or Councillor Singh. Do you want to be heard on the item? Okay. We will then wrap that item, if there's no one else who wants to be heard on it. And now complete with item 7.11. This is a proposed ordinance, BCO Chapter 21, Offenses and Miscellaneous Provisions, Section 2145A, Section F3, Trespass and City Property, Appeal, Hearing, Scheduling, Timeline. Counselor Singh, you are the main sponsor of this resolution. I will note that I did confer with City Attorney Brown on this, and even though the recommended action on it is a first reading and the suspension of the rules to waive the reading and referring it to the Ordinance Committee, That is our rule, right? We read it first and it's sent to the ordinance committee. So this does not require a rule suspension. So the motion that would be in order is one to waive the first reading and refer to the ordinance committee.

I'll make the motion to waive the first reading and refer to ordinance committee. Second.

Is there a second? Second by Councillor Litwin. Councilor Seng, again, it is limited to a referral item to the Ordinance Committee, but did you have anything that you wanted to say with respect to what this is?

I'll say quickly, given the late hour, there's a memo in the file that details the Public Safety Committee's discussions on this. It's basically what's been happening is we've had an unprecedented number of trespasses that require us to review body cam footage, video footage, Trespass reports audio reports that takes a lot of time for city staff to compile And then we only have 10 days to schedule the hearing after they compile it then the committee members Who sit on the appeal committee have to review that footage so and oftentimes were were very? pressed for time I just wanted to you know state that I yeah, this will give us the opportunity to have more time to do a more thorough job with these appeal hearings. I just want to acknowledge that the city continues to work to balance the accessibility for folks to visit here in city hall to pay their taxes check with planning zoning meet with city staff and even use the bathrooms, while recognizing the city staff also works here and their safety. We've you know, we'd love to see more encouragement of environmental design, which I see the city's taking up But this is more along the lines of giving us more time to hear an appeal and see all the appropriate evidence Thank You councillor saying is there anyone else that wants to be heard on this item All right, we'll go to a vote then excuse me council brother I

Thank you. And thank you to the Public Safety Committee and city staff for going through these. And I certainly agree that with the amount of trespasses and appeals that have been coming, that 10 days is certainly not a lot of time. And I will be voting to send this to the Ordinance Committee. But I would just ask that the Ordinance Committee consider as they look through this. Like I said, I think 10 days is an incredibly short amount of time. But I start to become concerned about the prospect of more than 30 days, which I know it says no more than 30 days, but it could be extended by reasonable request of either party. I get worried about the due process implications if we're waiting longer than a month. But again, I agree that it should be longer. And I'm sending it to the ordinance committee. Just want that to be considered. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Broderick.

Yeah, just as a member of the committee who has had to go through these, hopefully maybe this will address some of the concerns that Councillor Broderick has. I thought. the intention around that language was because a lot of the times it's the individuals who are requesting more and more and more information, not so much, you know, attorney Brown's office requesting to drag these out. It's that they want hours of security camera footage and body camera footage and a variety of other things. And then sometimes they, amend their request for documents that then the city staff, unfortunately, have to then go and spend many more hours searching for. But I personally take your concern seriously, and maybe we can make sure that that's clear in the language and the ordinance process. Thank you.

I appreciate the insight.

Okay. Thank you, Councillor Litwin. Thank you, Councillor Broderick. If there's no one else, We'll go to a vote. The motion is on waiving the reading and referring to the ordinance committee. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? That carries unanimously. Our rules were suspended to finish our deliberative agenda, which we have done. So we will now adjourn the meeting at 11.23 p.m. Thank you.