item four point twelve a special event out during a time and permit commandeer block party along the street saturday september twenty ninth twenty eighteen purse organizer sarah b two point so i four point one thousand is staying on consent so i move on to four point twenty consent i am a communication from cindy why it is getting removed to move to remove that from the consent agenda this is the the communication about the old north and community center sub leases node an updated page three for consented item four point two five a communication from friedman c p a and gene richards regarding burlington international airport budget agreement for fiscal year twenty eight for nick longo no code enforcement director ward's communication for consent to gen item four point twenty eight ordinance housing fees code enforcement office board of finance revised version for consented gen the item four point three one resolution reorganization update staffing structure of parks and recreation department board of finance the attorney's office pr counselor bush or the checklist and final memo to consent agenda item four point three two a resolution authorization for reimbursement reimbursement from public improvement bonds for cit note updated version of agenda item four five point zero four resolution annual tax assessments on the property groundless of the city for fiscal year beginning july one hundred eighteen mayor and board of finance no written material for agenda item happening late yes and so that underscores if everything happens on time and earlier in the week before our meeting then everything really is much more clear and we don't have such a long motion at the very beginning of our meeting yes agreed we need to we need to get together on that that was a little a little excessive for sure i think the point yes or no doubt all those in favor of approving the agenda as amended unless or other police say i i i opposed we have our agenda i would also like to now at seven twenty four recess the regular city council meeting and go to the liquor control commission meeting  will turn that meeting over to mayor all right sorry you're correct i gave you i took one of them is a way lot of previous meeting and i'm trying to give you one of mine so the first item on the agenda is the agenda mr chairman chairman dean thank you commissioner right  point zero one is the consent to gender move to adopt the consent of jenna taking the actions as indicated motion made to adopt the consent of janet takes the actions indicate any discussion hearing none of those in favor of that motion please  opposed we have approved the consent agenda back to you for item number three outside consumption permit application  don't three point zero one i would like to move the approval of the two thousand eight hundred two thousand one hundred first class restaurant bar liquor license application for v d c l l c doing business as pizza forty four seven zero three pine street with the following conditions all city permits need to be closed out contingent on fire marshal approval with all standard conditions and after a second request for back second  he roof back to you commissioner dean thank you commissioner writing by excuse me commissioner roof so this is an application for pizza forty four seven zero three pine street which is in the same building as queen city brewery we have a trusted owner and manager in tim williams who currently owns and operates our cheese grill in shop in vermont he served alcohol there for three years without incident and he plans to use a similar approach with this new establishment six employees twelve hundred square feet of parks in the sixty seats sunday through thursday eleven thirty to ten and friday and saturday eleven thirty am to eleven pm great menu of pizza a great addition to the pine street corridor and the committee unanimously recommended your approval ok any any further discussion cancer bush or commissioner bush or thank you so the only thing i wanted to ask was do you really give any kind of what kind of precautions will you take to prevent under age sales and he's in shelburne burlington for very different communities so we you know we did not see any any you know red flags that when in case there was any concern that we have any additional concern about his ability to operate the the establishment i just want to know if there were any kind of that passes unanimously item three point zero two is an outside move the approval of an outside consumption per minute for two thousand and eighteen two thousand and nineteen application for delhi one twenty six one twenty six college street and after a second request the floor back in motion is made by commissioner dean second by commissioner roof you have the floor by commissioner dean thank you commissioner right so this is delhi one twenty six for an outside consumption permit on approximately one hundred forty square feet of college street sidewalk this is a property that's are actually jason to be strong margot which also has outside consumption and also right next to vermont public brewery they are asking for space for about sixty eight patron patrons sitting at two picnic tables and occasional use my may through october from four pm to midnight and we thought no reason to stay in and this is a great advocate and in another  good business that we'd like to see thrive on college thank you commissioner dean is there any discussion on this motion hearing none of those in favor please say i opposed passes  and so item three point zero three move the approval of the two thousand and eighteen two thousand and nineteen outside consumption permit application for drink one thirty five st paul street and after second request street from american flatbread one hundred square feet of sidewalk at the west side of st paul for tables and chairs very again another wonderful addition to having eyes on the eyes on the right i don't have objection to this i just want to sort of note to the council that you know sort of seems like the last couple weeks there is a variety of between toast drink deli one twenty six you know we're just there a lot of this is till two a so you know i don't have any objection specifically to this one but i want us just to be cognizant going forward that particular license committee we may be hearing because this is a pretty dramatic change from what exists pretty much on just on church street right now so i just want to be mindful you know going forward thank you commissioner mason anyone else yes question tracy this was something that did come up as a concern within the context of the committee especially being requested in the seats above and beyond the eight seats and so we brought that down to the requirements specified that so it is something that we're tracking and will continue to do so but just want you to know that we did bring down from the original request thank you for that clarification the regular meeting of the city council at seven thirty two we will move past we have to presentations coming up but we will move past those and come back to those because we have the item number three times certain public forum so i will open the public forum we have just three people signed up so far if anyone else is interested in speaking to the city council there are sheets over here in the corner please sign and bring them over here to the corner to the city clerk's office numbering them up to me  you have three minutes to speak and you have the like system in front of you the first lady tells you you're getting close a minute or so and the red light tells you you need to conclude your remarks joanne hunt is up first come on down welcome old toy poodle teddy bear and i took teddy to the dog park on june eighth and we were having a great time and all of a sudden we saw this rather unusual animal walking in and a came over picked teddy up and ran off with him behind a bench he was going to have his dinner the owner of the job a wasn't around at the time and then could not control her animal he's a one year old wolf which is the time which will reach sexual maturity and he was acting like nature had told him he should do that wolf does not belong in the dog park i had to fight and tug of war with the wolf i was trying to pull my dog's body out of his mouth that was a no go we ended up i ended up kicking the dog i had read an article that said if you kick an animal if you try to break up a dog fight kick the animal or stand on their feet and that will distract them enough the animal i kicked him and he dropped for minute and i was able to get teddy but then the wolf lunged at us and grabbed onto one of  legs at which point i then had to try to pull that out of teddy out of the wolf's mouth without tearing his leg off or dislocating his hip or breaking a bone i ended up at the emergency room teddy ended up at the emergency vet we did call the police this woman is crazy she's a very small young twenty two something probably and i think she thinks she's a pardon my french but a bad ass because she owns a wolf and she lives in burlington and she said she would never bring this to the dog park again well on my way here down north avenue and past battery park there she is in the park with her wolf and two children this this animal i mean can't fight genetics with these things this dog wolf whatever shouldn't be allowed to live in the city of burlington it's unfortunate that people have gone ahead and have decided to breed these animals and it's really unfortunate for the animals you can't teach a wolf not to eat and nature has told him what he should be eating and that's what he went for i'm still on antibiotics my dog is still sick the risk of  infection from a dog by is very high and i'm still watching for that and thank you i hope to be working with somebody to write an ordinance to outlaw these dogs in the city burlington and i  sullivan and it's very scary and glad you're able to save your dog or so donna walters is a final speaker tonight good evening ms walters welcome thank you i'm here to give you a report on the outcome of the city hall park ad hoc committee the work of the committee saved five trees and added three new things to be planted to provide more shade on the hard skate saving these five trees means that the city will still be cutting down half of the trees in the park down from nearly sixty percent that would have been cut before keep the park into intervened on behalf of the public five trees were removed this spring twenty two more trees w will be removed next spring before construction starts of those twenty two trees half of them are healthy and in good condition we want to save seven more of these healthy trees during the committee meetings keep the park green made a motion to save seven more healthy trees none none of our recommendations were approved why because the majority of the city council voted against making any design changes saving five trees is not nearly enough it's not a win win compromise we ask you the city council to reconsider your stance and approved design modifications to save another seven trees before modifying the design by modifying the design we could more than double the number of healthy trees saved from five to twelve and this would reduce the number of trees being cut from thirty two to twenty and it translates to a reduction of trees to be cut from sixty percent to thirty five percent we were appalled that when the city in their sleep proposed to save just two trees we came before you and told you that it wasn't going to cut it and you assured us that this committee would make a good faith effort we encourage the council to step up to their commitment to save more healthy trees and approved design modifications to do so cutting half the trees in the space in the park is still too drastic thank you  and with that i will conclude that item a public forum for tonight and we'll move back to item number two which is annual reports to the city council two point zero one is a report from the electric lake commission and general here thanks for the invitation and i'll just start off with the commission did file an annual commission report it's a two page highlights but then also available on our website the performance measures report for twenty seven team i have been working in the energy industry for over ten years and i will i just hearing this brief little moment of your meeting tonight it's amazing how many things you guys cover but i will say that if the lights went out right now in the ac went out right now and that went down right now this meeting would just called so at the energy electricity it is at the core of every day in every way and i will highlight that for one hundred plus years  electric utility world the three most important things have been safety this is a levee making sure folks are safe reliability making sure that there are voltage changes making sure that it's always here always there and then  in terms of all three of those pieces safety affordable rates as well as moving forward towards reliability ongoing and then sustainability you'll see a lot of comments here a lot of highlights in terms of financial  management you know neil has done a phenomenal job and in terms of h are changing how the staff feel whether or not they feel like there are new opportunities to grow to learn and to just become more committed to burlington electric department great strides there but then also the strategic direction to get to in that zero excluding air travel by twenty thirty is really out there and it's it's very very challenging a tough tough nut to far and we learn along the way and modify the course frequently but with with a very clear guidepost as to what happy to take any questions or neal if you want to add anything no i just want to you over the last four years that their skills have grown their commitment is stronger and so the team starts on the front lines all the way through the organization and in concert with our commission i think it's top to bottom line men allows us to move forward on our goals and do so in a way that we remain affordable for our customers provide them the power that stays on better than a utility in the state and of course for the safety record that  think some of the best numbers we've seen in a generation are going to their comments other than the say it's been a sincere honor and privilege to lead the organization of the last four years and as exciting as it is to tackle another you know for them to actually invest in a major or even a minor energy efficiency besides buying plastic crap and then lead taking their hair dryer to the window besides doing that it's really challenging to crack that nut to have someone feel comfortable financing low income financing correct me if it's not quite right but a lower low income financing offer that would basically attach to the meat so that you know in the old north and where you might have people who you know live in the same home for five ten fifteen years they could get a low income financing offer with perhaps a local credit union this is all still very you know this is still but it's pretty out there for the utility world that to one there really starts to get after the discipline isn't that issue that we've we've already done some great work in that area and i think that's an extension of it we've also looked at very very in the broadest possible sense looked at how we start to integrate efficiency with a lot of the other energy innovation that we do one of the things we've talked with our commission about is looking at how we integrate several of the different components of what we do energy efficiency energy innovation some of the unique financing approaches that we take to come up with a more complete package for our customers our customers tend not to look energy efficiency as a unique program in and of itself they look at energy overall how do i save money and be more comfortable in my home and that might be electrical efficiency it might be thermal efficiency in a might even be with their car we want to approach their customers in that way and make it as easy as possible for them to take advantage of the programs that we offer and also other other utilities we work very closely with vermont gas to offer incentives kind of across the utilities so that our customers don't have to think about am i getting a vermont gas you filippi or my getting a utility i'm just getting incentive to make my bil cheaper my home more more efficient i think there's a lot of work can do there in the coming one quick follow up there possibly that will become the burlington energy department and maybe include the thermal approach that district energy involves and just you know sort of expand what you've been able to do with electricity is a yeah i think i think the best part about burlington electric is if we can dream it if you can dream it we can make it happen so  we'll wait to see how we move forward on some of the thermal challenges but certainly our partnerships with with with other utilities outside folks do open up the door for a lot of interesting endeavors in the future thank you cancer plan i have cancer tracy and cancer bush are thank you president right and thank you to both of you for your service to the city as well as for this report really easily readable report and one of the bullet points that i really appreciated was the launch of the bike program i just wanted to relay and sort of anecdote about that as walking across campus last week to get some lunch i ran into a professor who had taken advantage of that program and he was beaming you just was smiling year to year incredibly excited he claimed that this this program and this he would have been able to get a new bike for his family but he was able to because of this and that has since changed their lives as a family and so i just want you to know that some of these things that go beyond sort of the traditional purview of an electric utility have a dramatic impact on people's lives in the city and just want to encourage you to leave don't think they need much encouragement but to continue to do these things and to hopefully capture some of these stories so that others might start to consider the the real potential that's there to have a transformative effect on how they get around our city and i just want to say i'm so glad you mentioned we can there's a lot of programs we have that are really exciting even like one is really excited the mayor and i were at the ied like kick off and we both got a chance to ride the bikes and i'm a cycling as well if you haven't written any bike please go down to a commotion and get on a new bike you can you can rent them for free taken for a test of go between me to not be sweaty and everything else i think they're just like yeah evey's are revolutionizing car transportation bikes revolutionized bike transportation especially as a replacement for for automobiles and by and things coming together with district energy the the the opportunities now are there and i'm hoping that we can realize them i did want to acknowledge and i won't say much about it because it says something to be publicly announced tomorrow but there are some awards here in this laundry list and i wanted to offer my assistance you're on the short list for an award in the category of green energy brands and the winners are going to be announced in iceland so if you want someone to represent you i'd be more than happy to go to be there on your behalf but really i love the fact that you do the performance measure report it links me with people get tired of me saying but doug hoffer was instrumental in starting this and it really is so readable and just tells you about the department and how successful it tells successes and failures it tells where you need to do make improvements i think it's so valuable for us as consumers to have that available so thank you very much for being here tonight and  after nine am tomorrow and read more about that so congratulations and thank you congratulations on that award and you can talk with cancer butcher later about representation cancer jane and thank you very much president and thank you  and for all your work i mean it is just that twenty years your accomplishment has been just amazing so i am new here but what i witnessed first time is a visit that i did with your leadership who's been here since the ninety's have and it is also not responding to the aesthetic the beauty of our environment so i would like to you maybe to explain to us what is  plane around that how long it's going to take what is needed for all of us to see how utilities go underground for safety reasons thank you thank you i would say that  so safety is our number one value of bronx electric and we rank our value so that we always know which which takes parity and safety is our number one value and when we look at across the range of of activities that we do and  especially and managing our electric grid we're looking at safety and i do want to report that both our underground and overhead system is managing operated say and constructed for safety was safety in mind  we would generally not make a move from overhead system which is the utility poles with with the conductors between them to move to a underground system for safety reasons a lot of that is not a generally an over riding concern there may be specific instances when that when that is the case but the broadly speaking it is it is not the case we do look at underground utilities when we have an opportunity to especially as we we thinking about projects coming here in the downtown for for opportunities like great streets and other places where we can move our utilities underground for a static reasons and  there's a slight reliability again when we do that as well generally our reliability scores are so good we don't have a lot outages on or even our overhead system so moving them to but moving away from the policy  toward a fully underground system would be challenging from a cost perspective then and it would require some other decisions that we may not want to undertake if we went in that direction so thank you for the great wonderful and so i think it's great but me what i'm trying to look for is basically a plain let's say a fifty you play possible to two to have in fift on how much it would cost i think it is certainly if you look at a long enough time arise and it is achievable but there there would be tradeoffs over that period and we want to understand those trade offs before we endeavor to do that but i think the first place and and where it's certainly be happy to get back to be what the cost tradeoff would be and understanding that i think are you know to build a new street out overhead versus an underground versus overhead is at least five times more expensive to go underground if there's a lot of different reasons for that but the conduit itself is pretty expensive and you have to use certain types of switches and conductor the actual lines themselves underground to make sure that you are protecting against  in particular not just getting rained on but actually being under water or vaults have to be protected against that so up with think about that get back to you thank you for the question thank you also saying any other questions from the council report from the parks and recreation commission we have the chair commissioner caplan here and commissioner hurley welcome as well as the director  don't know what i would call it i guess i would call it equity so we have taken the step of deciding to hold our meetings at various places around the city in city owned properties so we've been holding them at miller center we held one up in the new north and we've held them at the new st joe's we're going to pine street we'd like to make sure that people all around the city are able to come to the meetings and one of those is that we are more mobile than many of the people who would like to come and so we are really making a commitment to sort of move our meetings around so that more and different people could show up for a meeting public form and with that  that's a wonderful program because it brings and there are so many community partnerships with that program we have staff there we are we've been able to bring in the champagne senior center and we also lease space to the very mary theat r the vermont hindu temple and the family room so it's just a really great partnership that came together and we're very proud of it of course the addition of sandy and our new arborist t j is also a great highlight of the year pleased to be a part of the process and excited that we were able to bring cindy in this year of course it's been a news you guys have been on at the but the burlington greenway is another proud accomplishment of the parks commission and i hope you all have been out there as much as i have this summer and it's been just wonderful and i'll leave it at that because you all have seen it hope the department continues to improve our energy efficiencies there have been numerous car improvements and and a new software system which has been i think very well received for families booking recreation programs on the website so that has been a really positive experience families that i've heard from time last year so we're thinking that it just is easier for people to read online this shelter reservations people have really appreciate how easy that is to reserve a shelter from the rub site they don't have to call in with the questions that  what's available and then book it in pay for right on line so that's really been great i want to touch a little bit on the eve bites we have been piloting a electric bike with a trailer on the bike path with our conservation bike path crew and it's been working fantastic they estimate that they can probably get rid of ring down to about eighty percent of the what we have previously had either been a truck or the boat on the bike path they'll be able to do eighty percent of that work with an electric bike using a trailer so that's been a really great working with locomotion let us test something out and then we'll be looking to purchase a bike and a trailer to that we can do that permanently on the bike path and then of course july third coming up we hope all of you come down i can't wait to see it i have to mean i have never seen it before here in july in burlington so please come down and celebrate with all of us and if you can if anybody is in control over whether if you can please get me a nice night so i don't have to make that that call the mayor will take care of that  concerns always my concern are scholarships available and into the programs into the camps and i want if you can just give me a little update on where we are with scholarship funding how it's going and the process really  you know it's great that we made it online for you know people sign up in payments i understand that i just hope we don't lose sight of affordability in our parks and and that program so to just anyone that wants to take a shot i just to give me a brief update thanks so the scholarship i've inherited a wonderful sort of thought not thought actions that nobody is left behind as far as scholarships go we've exceeded the amount of money that we originally had budgeted so had to make some budget adjustments for the fact that we have given out so much in scholarships so in the ways that we make it really simple i'll take you know basketball for example is if the kids register through the boys and girls club or basketball it's free so they don't have to fill out paperwork it's a program that we offer for the kids that are connected right with the boys and girls club we try to make it as simple as possible so that if somebody comes in and they have a request for a scholarship that it's just a simple you know whether they show that they're pretty reduced lunch or maybe they have something to make it so that it's just a simple process to get people connected to the scholarship money and we work really hard to get all the kids in the programming concert and i think it's great and i think you know we always you know i want to say we could do more right and that you could always do more we're always not we're not going to reach every single family every senior single can i i appreciate that but just some thoughts of maybe you great some of these events that we have beach bites and other events to maybe have a little table or blue set up lighting families know that there's you know there are there are scholarships available for different programs on list those programs  and i think it's a lot easier i think at times when when we're doing the inviting right than having them have that ask it's always to you know it's a tough call right and so i think we could be i think we could be out there a little bit more publicly and just some thoughts about how we might might do that so i'm sure there's many more ideas than just that but i just want to put that out there we do a great job i honestly believe i don't think there are many kids left behind the city and i think that's what really makes it pretty special here parks and rec and i appreciate all the work you guys do so thanks welcome and those one of the items that the mayor challenge me with their holiday celebration that we do in december is that we make it really easy there's a lot of families that are there at that event and how can we just get people register right that day so that's a commitment that we have thank you cancer her neck cancer roof and then mayor bloomberg thank you president right thank you for the report and i enjoyed we have an amazing campground manager for modern understand believe it's over the past five years since alec came on board that the campground has doubled the revenues than they to have brought in before he takes it very much as a business what they're doing there and it's all online registrations so i think when people come they have a really positive experience and and then they want to come back it's a pretty unique environment i will say it's a tired campground i stayed in it for two weeks i had the opportunity to stay there for two weeks prior to purchasing a home in the city and everything was incredibly clean so it was clean well taken care of but it's tired it's a tired say that there's been no drastic improvements to it since the so that's something that we're looking at is how do we make an investment in that camp ground to really kind of bring it up to current standards the last time that any changes were made to it was the land of airstream trailer trailers have gotten significantly larger in size fewer people are camping and if you get a chance to go down there or encourage you to check out our first of many come lean tos that was built by the youth build program and they just finished that up and we're looking to do kind of a fun launch with the lean to do maybe someone might build chance to win for the hundredth celebration weekend they could win a stay in the m equity metrics over the course of this year and i would say both that parks as well as the library and a we've been having conversations already on that about how we you know  have more metrics on how these efforts are going be able to say more to you report more to you in the public eye exactly how this is going to expanding your year so this very much shana thank you all for coming here and for the report and parks absolutely does a fantastic job i will confess that like a lot of brawling tony and i'm a little adverse to change but you've come up with some changes that i think are wonderful the things going on at st joe's are you know just a great addition to the community i love the space and the activities that are going on there and thank you for changing the registration process which is something that director white and i have talked about in the past for those who don't know they would have sometimes a dinner or something and it seemed a little odd to have to put in the age of your children to make a dinner reservation so that's a really welcome change but there there is one change that i wondered if you could explain how why why the change and that is the burlington greenway which i have known as the bike path in the past and i wondered where that came from men and why you know talk a little bit about that i don't have the full history on it but i know that part of it is that greenways is a name that is nationwide that's used to describe a linear path and so if somebody is coming to your community i know for myself personally when we travel my husband i always look for the green ways and so that's something when we go to we were just recently in madison and those are who we look for where the local greenways and again it's describes a linear path and the other part that we really want to make sure that we get across to is that the came out of the extensive master planning process that we finished up a few years ago and it was one of the key points that it's not just the path is not just a bike path that it is for everybody and so and just we also met last at our last meeting we met with steve norman from the about seeing what we can do about having more welcoming recreation no longer runs the licensees around child care and i think that was missed in the debate here and was wondering if you can provide some we no longer run the  the city used to run city kids program and the full childcare licensing program was under parks and recreation at the time so we did all the after school summer programming we did the vacation programming and then the school to the program with the twenty first century grant program and the city then city schools took over the afterschool program and the in parks and recreation continued to run the vacation ca program in the summer program and that was all under one license with the state so one child care license and then just recently within this past spring the childcare licensing program had decided that it really was not appropriate for there to be one license that the school system was onder in parks recreation waterfront was under because we really have no jurisdiction over each other we don't tell the school district who they should hire for employees and the school system doesn't tell us who we should hire for employees it really needs to be two separate completely different programs so right now they have split the two programs that we're looking to look at the licensing for the champ camp and the vacation camps in the school is continuing on their path but we are starting to really look at that is should there be two programs with a lot of of services within licensing if a foreigner for example had a child that was in the school district program even though maybe her child went to one school if he then goes to our program even at the same school she would have to work with the childcare licensing program to change that license around so there's a lot of additional paperwork families are going to have to do now so we're going to be looking to see is licensing part of our mission employees are paid the minimum wage and last i believe i don't have this all memorized i believe that they've worked much of it's a certain number of hours or five years but there's there is a there's a point where they were then we have to pay them livable  wages i don't know by the attorney if i was clear on that or if you could maybe clarify that turning black when that's correct it's after five years that they have to get the live wage but i think they make more than the minimum wage most of them and they and they progressive get higher as they if they come back year after year in the city has been very successful in having people come back year after year lastly and i think this one is about equity and i think even not only about scholarship you also provide programs that are not free so this summer recreation and nutrition program for low income families we have had bob and me now we have  franklin square riverside goes out amazing and it's free you come good nutrition gardening activities field trips and it's two hundred percent free and at the end you also provide a big block party for those neighborhoods that's  and now talking about it would you do if you look at burlington we have so many fields but i don't know if i ever seen a softball field for girls and i don't know if it's a plan it's a coming up or this is something that requires some funding in order to get there and be happy to touch on that so to feel that small the park with a penny for parks application was skinned and has been used by the middle school program and we got a very enthusiastic email by tom got the name correct simon thank you tom simon thank you very yes just very briefly i just wanted to let everyone know that director white was a big hit at the word two three n p a and as you may know the board through three m p s like to be very involved in decision making and especially around budgets were kind of talking more about you know engaging citizens around our spending tierney and director white offered than the to come back to future meeting and talk about emerging needs in the parks area where we could make investments using the penny for parks program and that was extremely well received and look for you doing that i think that's possibly a great model to use in other parts of the city's operations as well so thank you very much you're very welcome and it you know goes back to that concept of rather than waiting for people to come to us is that is there a way for us to go to them i was pretty inspired by the m p a there was a lot of words two and three there was a variety of ages that were demographics come to the meetings and so i looked at them and you know that sense of you know if you go out and get people to come then we can come to that meeting and if people have ideas for a penny for perks seems like there's no reason we take those ideas and bet i'm a bit at the meeting thank you and thank you for this report so my one question is just simply about wife i know we had spoken about that or communicated via e mail constituent had asked me about getting wife i in parks  he was specifically asking about smally park i don't know what the cost is involved in doing that i did reach out to stephen barrack off of bt and my understanding is that that is something that is not sure how to put it either being considered or perhaps in progress i'm not really sure where it is so i thought maybe you could just let us know i have not heard any more on that so i let's you know i was on the bike on the greenway also known as the burlington bike path last night it was a beautiful night the path was beautiful the mosquitoes were out and it was gorgeous so thank you for the report thank you for your service commissioners kaplan and hurley and it's great with that we conclude those reports and move number four which is a consent to gender and we have a motion favor of taking of passing the consent of gender as a matter of police a i i and he opposed that passes unanimously we have approved the consent to gender and all the items on it i am number moving back to the moving on to the deliberative agenda now is item five point zero one and that is a public hearing on the church street marketplace common fees and i think we're hearing a presentation first from the chair of churches marketplace that for a number of reasons we're finding that our fee payers are the retailers and restaurants have a very high operating expense relative to other shopping districts in the county we just heard from our consultant u some retail traffic downtown so we're cognizant of all of those issues and with our great staff of two in the office and four on the street very dedicated hard working staff were able to pull this off without  increase happy to answer any questions ok any questions for mr nick before we go to a public hearing hearing none thank you very much and we will open the public hearing on the church of marketplace common fees anyone who would like to speak to us in the public forum this evening hearing we will close the public form and move five point zero two which raise a little over six hundred in ninety eight close to seven hundred thousand dollars which is approximately seventy percent of the operating budget so this is a significant portion of the budget that our thirty or so businesses are paying on church street to get that operation moving every year so without any questions i look forward to a vote in moving this on right thank you council rufe any discussion by the council hearing none cancer it's more like a question and correct me if i am wrong it sounded like that we moved it was it is a mission to move this into a committee and the community committee will report back to the council no we are actually voting the council is voting now the church marketplace has voted unanimously on this and now comes to us we have the public hearing it's been closed and we vote now on the actual common area fees which is which is to not pass it was just a not increase that counts or bush or clinton information usually it's a two step process and i thought this said we're voting on the re adopts the existing standards for allocating the common area fees but then at the next meeting i thought we voted on the actual fees is it always has been a two step process so i guess on president right i'm looking for it was all right thank you counsel bush or was my understanding that we were voting on the fees that was out your understanding mr nichols if i ever stand and can someone shed any light on that i mean that was the expected procedure that i had seen and expected so i can turn back with thank  you i believe this is how it was done last year i did not go back further than last year to look at how it's been done in the past so that house or bush or what the resolution says it's a commission recommends a city council continue to approve the methods and standards and so the public hearing is for the obviously you're not raising the fee but for anyone to come forward and voice objection or whatever to the fees that are being proposed and it was always a two step process i'm positive of this so i have i just wanted to point that out but i think  understood we had to be the commission had a meeting and discuss the fees at the beach all of our fee payers were invited to the be the old do about the meeting and some did come and we had a good discussion and we took a vote as a commission  that was last month unless unless attorney blackwater someone indicates to me that we have to wait a meeting that i think we would we would go ahead and do what the expected action was tonight i believe part of the issue is that there's no cheney they're not proposing any change to the standards so if you had to vote on new standards that would be one thing but i think the sentence that you just read is is the reason why they were doing it together is one roof i just want clarity believe counselor bush or stating that this resolution i understand two step process has been in the past but that this resolution only adopts the standards and i think it does go further than that and levies common area fees for the fiscal year beginning so on so forth i think this doesn't tend to do both the standards and the fee and so that is the intention of the unless there is some objection by the council we will vote on the common fees is there anyone else wishes to speak on this again having heard from a city attorney that this is that what we did last year and that this is ok to do this since we are not having any increase in fees we will about all those in favor of resin the passing of the resolution please say i moving into the budget and that is we start with i mean number five point zero three i will recognize kauser paul and i don't know whether there's any consideration to moving any  combining any of these i suppose we could over three and four possibly but you can do it either way whatever we certainly could combine both five  and five point zero four the annual appropriation for budget for fiscal year beginning july one two thousand and eighteen and the resolution five point zero for the annual tax assessment on the property grand list value president reagan thank you for the second so i think arguably even though there are very few people here with us this evening which i hope is a sign of the fact that the community thinks that we're managing our tax dollars well perhaps the most important function that we have all year is the approval of the mayor's recommended budget my remarks about the budget this evening are mostly intended for our viewing public we have as councillors have had a lot of time to work and look at the budget and asked lots of questions my remarks as i say are mostly for the viewing public just by way of brief background for the public  mayor by our city charter presents a budget to the council in june just prior to the commencement of the next fiscal year in july the board of finance as a group with the mayor offer input into the budget as it's being drafted as do other councillors through budget meetings over over the past few months there were four budget meetings that were held in may and they were extremely well attended by a majority of city  councillors there were some people that were there from the public as well this evening we're going to be voting on five budget resolutions the first two that i've mentioned the other two are the or the other three one is the approval of public improvement bonds which is a fairly standard annual thing that we do and then grants as a patient notes for the airport which again tends to be a fairly standard resolution that we do every year and then  resolution on propose uses for the unassigned fund balance that falls above our stated and unanimously approved fund balance policy approved in two thousand and fifteen which is an unusual one and one that i think is also another sign of how far we have come in the last several years that the budget that we have before us and builds on the good work that the administration the c f o past and present that city department leadership the council and the voters have all worked collaboratively on the budget allows us to continue to make progress on improving our infrastructure increasing effort including increasing efforts and public safety supporting those most vulnerable among us namely children in those struggling with challenges that impact our society the goal was to continue all of these values service to build a among upon our collective successes and to do all of this while maintaining our property tax rate for operational services at last year's level not only was the goal to keep our operational property tax rates flat but  that we've done all of that which is really good news on top of providing a high level of service and doing all of these things and keeping taxes unchanged it's important to know that all of that would really be for nod if we weren't at the same time improving our strong financial position and our credit rating just a few months ago in f y eighteen in november of last year we saw the fourth upgrade to our credit rating in three years this along with credit upgrades to our enterprise funds the airport and burlington electric are another sign of our continued improvement in financial reserves while delivering best practice services to our community as was the case in last year's budget there are a number of things in this budget too many for for us to go into this evening i'll just highlight a couple of them on the budget for this year includes increase investment in public safety growing our police force from one hundred sworn officers in f y seventeen to one hundred five this year and that is being done with grant funding not with  general fund financing funding for a number of items to do with our fire personnel including fire dispatch and paramedic capabilities it also includes five hundred thousand dollars the same as last year for the early learning initiative for those who are on the cd in our committee and for a number of counselors who have attended our meetings this has been an initiative that  took us a little bit of time it was a new program in f y eighteen and it did take us a little bit of time to find a process for granting funds and we're working through that the good news is that we were able to to work through that for y eighteen and now the future is brighter for us in f y nineteen we still need to be vigilant to ensure that these funds are truly helping the people that we want them to help the budget also includes one hundred seventy five thousand dollars for the housing trust fund just like last year we're continuing our commitment to the low barrier warming shelter and i think another thing that we are all aware of is that our senior centers have in our community are experiencing reduced funding from other funders this year the board of finance was united in its advocacy led as always by president wright who has always been at the forefront of advocating for these centers along with the mayor and wanted to assure that these centers would continue to serve our community as they have been the budget will allow us to replace some of this lost funding there's a number of other things about the bike path in tripling our investment in our city sidewalks all of this is goes to say that it goes to show that the budget is a complicated and fairly delicate structure the budget is just over two hundred million dollars we have a general fund budget that is seventy one million and our enterprise funds make up one hundred fourteen million manning managing these budgets and balancing many needs is no easy task for the fourth year in a row in conclusion i'd just like to say that we have a budget then in bodies  our former c e o s watchwords of being fair factual and forward the budget is a good budget it's fair in its presentation by department it's collaborative by department it's factual it's forward thinking planning for tomorrow with contingencies and conservative assumptions by our c e o and building on our past successes and providing related service providing needed services for today  as far as the tax rate the tax rate is for next year is going to be eighty three point four four cents per one hundred of assessed value on a property last year's rate was seventy seven cents and i know that probably gives rise to the question of if it was seventy seven cents last year and it's eighty three cents this year and we said that we're keeping the rate flat why is the rate gone up  answer to that is that there's only so many costs that we can control the administration in its budget and has kept operational costs within the general fund unchanged the remainder of the increase of the increase two thirds of it is due to debt service on approved voter approved infrastructure improvements the rest of it is due to the retirement task tax a couple of differences that happened this year and have increased that retirement tax the rest of it is very it's fairly straightforward and very standard in terms of where all the other money goes to there's a half a cent for the greenway bikepath me an instant improvement fund a half a cent for open land conservation money for penny for parks and a half a cent even to go to purchase books in short i think we're  doing is funding our obligations for the present and providing for our future needs i hope that these two resolutions will be unanimously approved and i thank you for your patience in listening to me thank you thank you  posted a front porch for my summary and i where i do say that i think this is a good well managed budget that i am prepared to support as cancer paul laid out this budget continue continues many of the handsomest that we have added in previous years and keeps up with the rising cost of of doing business the everyone meets everyone faces without an increase in the property tax for general city services so and and we have relatively modest revenue growth from prague from property taxes and local option taxes which means that the way that we're covering that expense growth is essentially by shifting our spending priorities with the but within the budget and really very carefully managing expenses and and that is very hard work that that happens has to happen all year round and so i think this is a very a very good budget  we should note that there is an increase in water and wastewater rates that i'm convinced that we do need it mad amounts to about five percent of like maybe three dollars a month for the typical household and these were well justified and we're looking at potentially more in the future but we were happy to hear that the water department is thinking of ways to introduce i think some ability to pay into the rates for water and wastewater which and we look forward to learning more about that over the coming year so i would just like to thank the mayor and the c e o and the cancer bush or yes president right if you'd allow me to ask a question of the administration certainly ok so first off i would it's two fold one is i didn't know where the mayor wanted to make comments before we adopted these two resolutions and the second is that with counselor no dell bringing up the fees i did ask that if you could give some guidance to the homeowner and there was a statement about what it would cost a homeowner with a house that was such and such a condo that was such and such i didn't know whether you were prepared to kind of give that that included the though the fees that council modelled was referencing in it and in addition to the increased tax tax rate that councilor paul reference so i don't know whether someone want to comment on that or just highlight that for those people who might be watching  a typical single family home owner in terms of cumulative four point one six percent tax increase which as was stated is almost entirely  related not to general city or really any of the operating taxes but is really during my two things one is an increase in the capital investments the streets the sidewalks the  greenway the other elements a sustainable infrastructure plan that was approved you know by basically three quarters of the voters that is two thirds of this four point one percent increase and the other third is basically coming from the first increase and retirement payments of the city is made for a number of years that that impact is approximately seventy eight dollars for the year for the average single family home owner and sixty four dollars for a condominium owner that is the tax increase that is not the you you also asked about the the water or water rates which is about a five percent increase over  the rate so you know it's cuts or no down much about three dollars a month increase i think that they were associated with like the condominium i believe was associated with a condominium that was about one hundred  ninety eight thousand and the house was two hundred some odd thousand just to give people kind of a ballpark of where they fit in this yes the bush era is going to kelso president to the mayor where that is that is very close one hundred ninety three thousand is the calculation for the condominium owner and turning thirty four thousand two hundred fifty four at the ok for the average single family home you know lots been said who is leading this process for the first time and it's really it is a daunting process and she dove right into it even while doing another job at the beginning of the process and  feel very fortunate for her service that we've got here today with a good document in front of us and you know we've already begun some discussion in the board finance level about how and second year we made  t for ways to make the process even better and find ways in which perhaps we could have some early milestones in which there were you know we would welcome greater engagement with the board of finance and maybe other other counselors but  compliments and thank you to bath and her whole team the c e o s office as well as the department heads to work both to create these budgets and then to have a lot of day to day responsibilities week to week month to month and making sure we stay on budget which has been you an equally important part of the progress we're making in recent years one you know one thing that i think is always worth it was sort of some i don't think i was fully conscious of before serving in this role that is different about municipal budgets and budgets and other federal levels is our by far largest source of funding is the property tax and that is a the rate which is something we you know have a kind of culture of doing fairly frequent but only this is the fifth year this budget without an increase in the kind of general operating taxes are actually a slight decrease and it's and it's something that is has taken a lot of work to ensure and and we're probably approaching the end of the ability to to do that without you know we've made substantial increases in public safety and really expansions of how we provide public safety in both the police and the fire department there are discussions of even more this may this may be the last year they were able to do it but i want to you know note for the public that there is that unlike sales tax cheats tax property tax not income taxes which rise generally with inflation these revenue sources do do not only with really additional growth and investment in the community that those sources increase on their own and so you know that that's one of the reasons it's challenging and to be appreciated what's happened the certainly would welcome a strong support for this budget tonight and you know show how well government we can he we have we have different challenges and then we don't have the same way and we increase but we get budgets done here on time before the counselors who gave the summaries especially appreciate the lengthy introduction that really went through the budget as well as counselor nobels thorough analysis and thoughtful sharing with our constituents in the old north and as we think about as i think about my time on the city council i can think about lots of things that have been controversial but it's really haven't been one of those things and i think a lot of that has to do with the fantastic work that we have and that has come out of the ceo's office starting with p be described as pushovers they ask tough questions they really vet these budgets and i sincerely appreciate the hard work that they put in alongside other counselors who sort of come into the budget sessions listen ask questions often questions as well and i very much enjoy it as a way to check in with different departments and to understand their different priorities as as sort of put out in the context of a budget and this year i don't think that that is different i think we've had a thoughtful process we've had a lot  of good debate in the context of those budget hearings and i will be supporting this budget but as i close a budget process i like to kind of think back on some of the different things that went on during that budget process and things that we could improve for future years  and as i think back on that i'm sort of i think i sort of think about our most recent m p a that counts are no doubt referred to with regards to cindy white and her you know desire to bring people more into the penny for parks process that was really enthusiastic we met and this is part of a broader sense of engagement and desire to be more involved in the part of the n p a one of the things that the n p a had requested was an additional amount of money above and beyond the four hundred dollars that they receive now to support some of their efforts to do public and continue public engagement i think with somewhat good reason they were not given that in the sense that i think that the most recent position was that they wanted to have an additional or specific proposal for what they wanted to exactly do with that money and that's completely understandable unfortunately we were unable to get to a consensus position as an n p a but i do think that that their desire and some of the conversation that took place around that desire were reflective an increased desire were flecked of of of a feeling at least in in our words and i would hope citywide to be more among citizenry to be more engaged and understand and have better have increased say over some of the budget decisions and so i look forward to hopefully continuing to pursue that additional funding for the n p a so that they can continue that outreach function but that we also look beyond n p s to think about ways that we can continue to engage the public more so that people are just coming to us as we saw with for instance a high number of senior center getting funding cut but that that it's more of a proactive process not really reacting to a loss of funding in a particular context but really trying to go out to the public giving them a chance to influence those priorities and i think that the council would be better position to do so or read it to start earlier i'm not sure how possible that is but i think that bringing the council into the process at a sooner time would be more helpful in terms of having being able to engage our constituents so those are just a few reflections but again i think i truly appreciate the hard work on the part of the administration and look forward to continuing that collaboration and hopefully thinking about potential ideas for ways that we can improve public engagement in the budgeting process as we move forward thank thank you counselor tracy cancer hartnett thanks in general i'm supportive of the budget and i always like the process i think it's a great process that we all participate in and we might not all agree but i think it's great that we have the opportunity to participate just three observations touching three different things on funded balance i would have hoped to see more go into paving and sidewalks and i think i know the reason why didn't is probably because we're not going to have enough time to do do the work but i still think i w some money there i think i want to send a message to the people drawing ten is that we've heard you loud and clear there are unacceptable conditions our streets and sidewalks are acceptable we put this money aside and we hope to use it i think we're going strong message send so i was a little disappointed in that early initiative lowering the five hundred thousand although i'm encouraged we're going with this i think there's better work to be done one group is that the family room i think we should take that model and i think we should really run with it they're going to take that money they're going to go into people's homes and they're going to make a difference in the t it's really going to make a difference in given budget constraints that our school board has and everything in front of them i think it's important that we use that model and we get in front of these kids and we get into their living rooms and we close that gap because if we don't close that gap by the time they get to kindergarten we're not closing it so i think it's important that we use that money and hopefully we can continue down that path and the last thing the l barrier shelter i'm glad we put the money back in really would have been i went over proved a budget that didn't include the money for the library shelter i look forward to the pilot of a year long low barrier shelter because if there's a need i want it here and i don't know what the cost would be but i just think we live in too great of a city now to offer that service and i think it's vital to our downtown that we offer that we made this big effort of cleaning up encampments getting people off the streets and by closing that shelter and i know it was no fault to the city by closing that shelter  approximately put twenty to twenty five more people and it's automatically day one that's what happened when i shut down and we don't want that right we don't want that in our city so hopefully we continue to make those ties but overall i'm very happy with the budget and there are difficult decisions and i understand that i appreciate the administration's work thanks thank you cancer heart and the other comments or questions from the city council are we ready to vote here is that we are ready to vote so we are voting on items three and four five point zero three and five point zero four which is the annual appropriation and budget as well as texas as well on the property graham list so hearing no other comments all those in favor of approval of the budget and the tax assessment police say aye and he opposed that passes unanimously congratulations great work and we will now move on to i think  for the cost of certain airport improvement projects since you said them so well i won't repeat them but just i'm moving the items that council president right just said waiving the reading and asking for a i had mentioned before is something that we do annually it's in the city charter it allows for bonding desponding to be done on an annual basis there is in the resolution an amount not to exceed two billion dollars to address working capital and capital improvements for the city there is three million dollars for capital improvements additions in replacements for burlington electric and two million dollars to accommodate capital needs  for the economical operation of the school department so that's the that is the first one the second is again something that we often do in terms of grand intice a patient notes sometimes we do revenue submission but this year it's just grant anticipation notes this is temporary borrowing for the airport at the airport most of the grants that they receive are federal grants and unfortunately the federal government does not work on the same year as the city does so we need to wait for those grants in the meantime we have needs for them there's no risk to these notes because they're secured by federal grants that are on the way and the amount of these notes is and is a an amount not to exceed seven million dollars i would just ask for the council to unanimously approve these funding mechanisms thank you thank you paul all right so open up to the council and councillors comments or questions hearing on seeing  passed and we are now on to the unassigned fund balance five point zero eight councillor paul ok just a note at the thank you present rate just to note that five point zero seven whatever those following along has been removed yes so we're on to five point during f y sixteen as many of you will remember due to a lot of hard work prudent budgeting the fiscal stability bond which we passed a number of years ago and help from the voters we found ourselves in the enviable position of accumulating a fun balance there's a limit to how long how large a fund balance needs to be certainly we want the fund balance to be strong it is an indicator that this is an indicator an important  indicator of our financial strength and it singles our ability to meet contingencies to provide for unexpected costs in economic downturn things like that and it certainly is an important  moody's uses for our credit rating so in two thousand and fifteen when we had this on a signed fund balance on the council and board of finance and working with the mayor adopted a fund balance  policy the policy was put in place to establish a target level of the unassigned fund balanced the general fund and to establish a process and criteria for continued evaluation of that target as conditions warranted the bottom line as far as the the policy stated is that the target balance was to be ten percent and the maximum balance after a lot of discussion by the board of finance was not to exceed fifteen percent of expenditures so any amount in excess of fifteen percent has to be appropriated as an assigned to fund balance in other words a specific use either or either a use or to be used to reduce property taxes are last audit which was for the end of f y seventeen reported that we have a fourteen percent fund balance so the reason for this resolution that we have before us tonight is that we are seeking to use a portion of the unassigned fund balance to support projects that would reduce our ongoing annual expenses improve operational efficiencies and create new opportunities for revenue which is what the whole idea of this was the the uses for the fund balance that have been proposed in the resolution and mostly for the benefit of the public are eighteen thousand dollars for the senior center to address the unexpected loss of grant funding that was critical to their programs five hundred thousand dollars to build up a reserve for the state mandated property reappraisal that we're going to be doing in the next two or three years eighty thousand dollars for legal and professional services to support the proposed district energy system seventy five thousand dollars one of the  one of the one of the other great things that we've been doing in terms of good news for the our finances that our audit recommendations are practically down to and there's just a few of them one of them was that we improve our capital project accounting and there's seventy five thousand dollars to work on that one hundred thousand dollars for a full time community engagement specialist for sido fifty thousand for a plan to digitize an archive the city's records and for anyone who's ever looked for anything in city records the idea of digitizing is great news and then twenty five thousand dollars for jobs and people study to look at trends in the working age population and employment and you know the board of finance looked at this list there it's a long list of items there was a lot of discussion in exploration about those and other priorities this resolution was unanimously approved by the board of finance and some members may want to speak to some of the items and their views on it i do hope that this will receive our unanimous about the potential uses of the unassigned fund balance and i think this is maybe where we had the most in depth discussion of the options in front of us it was a very good discussion i wanted to the development efforts of the economic of the city as a whole so especially see though and just to note that we are not tonight spending all of the available unassigned fund balance and as we get into the year we may be decide to spend more but that would be something that would come to the board of finance in the city council so i do think it's we're in a good position with an aside fund balance that we've got to the point now where it's in the interest of the people that we yes this is this is exciting all the hard work pays off and now we can utilize those funds to help the people in the community and i think that you know some of that seed money and some of it is is money that will be utilized to either see through a program or get started in one counselor no del brought forward the the jobs initiative and wanted that included and as i thought about it i feel so strongly about this now that you know we we've addressed things like housing but we continue to need to address affordable housing and we're trying to deal we've tried to deal with with wages but i think jobs also or something that really kind of completes that approach here because if we can get people to have jobs that can support them then people in the community will have a better quality of life so i'm really pleased with that but i wanted to speak to that list that isn't in the budget the additional consideration list which i asked if we could have a meeting in july for the board of finance to discuss some of these initiatives may not actually get funding but i thought it was important to have a conversation as counselor tracy referenced i think that you know what we're trying to do is work with the administration and the community to kind of give some insight and better understand the initiatives and see where we want to potentially put some money forward bring money forward and support them and i think that i just wanted people to know that as  everyone else has stated there's opportunity here i think we want to be cautious i'm anxious to hear what the other members of the board of finance think about these other opportunities and also to better understand what the administration feels about them you know these are sound bites of of an initiative and what what can be accomplished with those dollars but when you're really making those decisions  than just this a brief brief paragraph and so that's what i'm hoping will happen in this process so once again i'm hoping that the citizens of burlington are satisfied with how we're spending those dollars their their dollars and we're giving them back to the community and that feels really good so thank you very much thank you cancer bush or other remarks or questions from the city council  news balance not specifically supporting social services when we talk about homelessness when we don't have enough money we understand that when we have extra we need to put strong and faces in that quality of life issues for bullington young for people who live here that's one and also i would of really want to see someone who is able from the city to coordinate education when you talk about from the mayoral initiative about early childhood education and also all the problems that we seen with  and school district the budget and helping schooling i would have loved to see a position from the city of someone who can coordinate that from early childhood education to graduation from high school i think those would have be wonderful have definitely find some resources to locate to that social service as well and i also see that you know some of these like supporting the implementation of the district energy i think they've been doing and great job along with the department with the fees that they raising i would have really want to see social issues that are real and critical here in this community but that would not hold me to not support this but i think someone in this console talked about it a little bit of coordination with the council about what are things that you fink are important so we can work together in making city probably you know as i think about it more than any more near the city in the state of vermont and we should be it's probably thinner stand that so i wasn't surprised i didn't see that but i think we've made a strong commitment i'm sure we're going to make a strong commitment in the future with that but when we talk about social services when we talk about senior centers i mean over the last four years i think the city has given the heart of or close to forty thousand dollars to make sure that it stays operational i think we services as best we can there early initiative although i do agree with counselor day i would like to see it more based towards schools and programs that get into people's living rooms and to close gap you know i think we could sit around this table and argue amongst ourselves about where this money should go who deserves it were it would be best spent but at the end the day i think the board of finance and the administration has done a really decent job distributing these funds and it's not easy and so i appreciate it i do think we take social services very seriously in this city i think we're just them i think quality of life and growing to is very good because of it  and we can always do better and i and i hope that's what we strive for that we'll always try to do better but in general i think these are well meant and well served so thank you thank you cancer and any other cancer shannon and i'm going to make a brief remark after consultation and then go to the mayor thank you president right i want to thank the mayor and the board of finance for their work on developing this list and i think we could all probably come up with lots of things that we would like to spend more money on but with limited resources i think the areas of focus that you've chosen here make a lot of sense and i'm not sure you know in order to say that you know i think you should spend more money someplace else i would have to say you should have spent less money on these things that you've chosen and you know of this list support for the hindenburg senior center building a reopen reappraisal reserve supporting the implementation of district energy updating the jobs of people study improving capital accounting practices staffing a community engagement specialist and evaluating evaluating digitizing our historic records i cannot say that you should have spent less money on any of these things so i'm sorry that our funds are not unlimited but this is tremendous progress  from where we were years ago and i'm so grateful to have some extra money to be able to move forward on on community initiatives so thank you for your work and i will be supporting th cancer shannon and no doubt surpluses are better than deficits and it's and it is definitely good news it's it's great to be sitting here talking about more money then you know where we have to find cuts to make  and congratulations to the seniors who came here and advocated great job you know i think they came here and they made their case and and they were helped by the city i do want to just say and i'm gratified that even though cancer she is right that we don't have unlimited money but we do actually have some more money that we are going to continue to look at as we go forward outside the budget process with a board of finance and i'm glad that the mayor has indicated that we'll continue to look at that one of the things that i did bring up was st paving and i do understand that we're we're paving more than we have having any other year but i know also that the need has been greater than it has been any other year and so appreciated what  that the mayor has and the mayor will make his remarks and can respond to this and that we may be can even do any more than this particular year but the two things that i had asked and that we might be able to continue to look at is street paving and actually making sure going forward that the phase out of the business personal property tax that we if there's a gap and not being able to do that that we continue to consider that as well with other unassigned fund balance surpluses so with that i will turn it over to mayor weinberger for any remarks he cares to close out with on this excellent president right and you touched on a couple of points that were on my mind  hope it's clear to the whole council and to viewers that we have we are with this vote if it goes through tonight committing approximately eight hundred fifty five thousand dollars of this unassigned fund balance to a variety of initiatives have as we've been discussing but there is within our policy and within meeting our ten percent goal there is potentially another you know more than a million investments by by the end of the year and so certainly we've taken and you know as as was noted there's been good discussion at the board of finance levels about some of these items already but certainly it's possible that other initiatives c councils are welcome to suggest other areas that meet the spirit of what we are trying to use these funds for which you know are not ongoing operating cost but investments that can be used that will reduce is another area and counselors are certainly invited to suggest additional ideas for consideration as we do that work the and i will say i do believe i'm very committed as a think you know council hard and knows i hope everyone knows that we the sustainable infrastructure plan that went to the voters in the fall of two thousand and sixteen and they had strong support we are very committed to delivering on the commitments made in that and that and that's going to be challenging because we get off a lot there we said we're going to get the streets in the sidewalks in this five year period to a certain standard we said we're going to get the bike path you know there was a  number of commitments made there were a couple years into it it's a five year plan and as with any five year plan unexpected things are coming up we're being pushed in new ways so i absolutely think that is a likely possibility that we may want to suggest finding additional ways to make into investments with the capital and i take a take the point that there's a lot of need out there with with our infrastructure if you just want to reaction and i think it's something we had some discussion about during this budget process and i think we'll have more discussions in the future and that i think the way in which we are i think there's some shift going on in the world here that the city is trying to respond to but out in that typically in the way our system works the state is the primary funder of social services that is that's the case in all states but it is the case in vermont and the cities investment in social services has been intentionally inexpensive the quite limited  and as now that doesn't mean the city is and is not involved in and i will say the our first approach when we become aware of new social needs in the community is to try because of that alignment of responsibilities and because the city's resources are limited we try to find ways to get the system to address these social needs without additional taxpayer spending and we haven't had some success of that including recent success so you know the opioid crisis is something i'm very committed to and working very hard on we're trying to stand up a new pilot as there's been some reporting about recently that will increase  are we are there are other groups out there state source's u t m medical center sources where we can where we can find ways of supporting city initiatives without having to tap already stressed property tax payers same is been true and became aware of these cuts that number of social service agencies have have experienced this in recent weeks we have been convening meetings and making phone calls and working to find a way in which a lot of the acute and near term needs are being met without the city having to to write additional checks now there are exceptions to that and where there is a strong connection between  municipal interests and and a social service agency we have in recent years and we continue in this budget to consider making new investments we are  doing that with the senior centers here said the area where we're talking about activities that take place for seniors many seniors that live here in burlington or very nearby activities are taking place in the city  these centers didn't exist there would be pressures on other elements of city life we've had a historic relationship with the senior centers we are now running one of the senior centers and so there were there were cuts we did think was appropriate for the city to step up with about thirty six thousand dollars of new funding in this in this year's budget similarly you know we didn't have a warming shelter four years ago we together have supported the creation of that we haven't had to pay for any of that in the first four years again to this point that other parts of the system pay for that but the system but the that low barrier shelter closes down during the summer we feel those municipal impacts in the summer and that it's our police officers as our parks and rec department employees that have to break up encampments and they become problematic so we see a real need that maybe other elements of the system don't for having that low barrier shelter operating more months of the year and that's why we added sixty thousand dollars for the budget so i just i share that so the public in the council can understand how we've tried to grapple with these difficult issues i think there's more more to come on this in the years ahead i am proud of the early learning this of i'm glad we're investing there are there was a big major conference  conference happening farms last week that i attended where they had speakers who were around the country there in the main one of probably the central messages of that conference was that america is the thirty first of thirty second in industrialized nations in terms  the amount of investment we make in kids here at a five and ninety four five ninety four percent of what we invest in kids zero to five is on four and five year olds on pre k we're doing something quite unusual and i think important by  best in kids ages zero to three and not only is that unusual it's probably the area we can have the greatest impact if we get these investments right there in the first thousand days of life there's an opportunity to set the environment set the climate for children that may ha not quite ready for a vote which i'm sorry i neglected to either speak to it or ask the mayor to speak to it during this whole process there was a shift in the united way funding of a number of social services and as it was identified the senior centers was or one of the errors that came up short but there was also an initiative on domestic violence that ended up not being funded as they had been in the past and the one that i'm talking about is women helping battered women as one example  there are and as i stated there were a number of social services that were not funded as they had been in the past and as we've heard over and over again the city cannot be there and support every shortfall so the administration is looking at working with the state trying to figure out how to make some of this recoup some of this funding for all of these agencies i think that the reason i'm  highlighting this one is not only do i care very much about it like everyone else but also at the neighborhood planning assembly that i attended more than one in eight it came up as a topic and  tried to be accurate and fair and my statement that you know that it in this process they would not see funding in this budget process but that the administration was working on this and there was concern and support from the community in trying to resolve as i said that funding gap so i don't know if the mayor wants to say any more about that but for those people who are listening and may be reviewing this i didn't want to leave them without some statement regarding that so thank you president right for allowing me to make this statement i don't know if the mayor wants to say and thank you cancer but sure it is an important topic so i appreciate you bringing back that we are ready to vote on the unassigned fund balance and expenditure of the variety of items that we have been discussed here over the last half hour or so which amounts to somewhere around eight hundred fifty thousand dollars in initiatives in surplus on  fine unassigned fund balance monies i was in favor please say i i he opposed that passes unanimously congratulations on all the great work from the administration thank you that will conclude the budget and tax items and we'll move on to i don't number six which is committee reports any committee chair who likes report to the city council doubt reporting as the chair of the inclusionary zoning work group and ad hoc group we had our last meeting this morning we had a public hearing which we appreciate some of our colleagues were able to join in and  share some of their thoughts with us this report will be prepared over the next couple of weeks and i'm hoping if it works for the council president and for the mayor that we can come to the july sixteenth meeting with the presentation right just for the council's benefit in the public benefit the boards and commissions nominating committee will hold be holding its third meeting tomorrow five to seven in room twelve we have interviewed most of the applicants there were a few that were not able to make it they have been wishes to report to the city council hearing none we will conclude item six and item number seven is councillors on general city affairs and councillor general city affairs cots property on north avenue is the process of the pile driving has been come a major issue for neighbors living in the nitty so if you hear about it it's been hasn't been resolved because it's going to go on for at least a couple more weeks it's extremely loud in the vibrations are causing people that they're calling everyone they can so hopefully they won't call you and other wards but the result of this is that the developer which is redstone  met with residents that are concerned and they basically agreed to a tough time limit of the the the hammer that drops the steel piles fifty to seventy feet into the ground only operate during the hours of nine am to three in the afternoon they will move as quickly and efficiently as possible i guess we got the hammer going over here to be it's been extremely disruptive for folks i just want to acknowledge it and i there's not much you can be done  you know as they say you do have to crack some eggs to make an omelet and unfortunately that's what's happening right now and it's nonetheless it's not a pleasant experience for the folks who live the closest to it because it's really disruptive and for people who are home all day it's is city council president update and we have any other updates i'm not going to go into this very far as i know the mayor is going to talk about this but just i know that city council all wishes everybody's heard about chief tell pose those very serious accident over the weekend biking accident and appreciate it i been in the hospital a couple times since the chief's accident late saturday and saw him in good spirits yesterday and very much on them and and  eager to get back to to work as quick as he can there is going to be it is going to be a little while before he is back at work he was he was definitely making progress they were looking to move him out of the  unit shortly if not already by now but he will be in the hospital for some additional time and then it will be some recovery from some broken bones and his abrasions in the meantime ministration and has served in this role before she there was that people may remember there was a couple month period between chief showings retirement and chief arrival where she served as an acting chief and she is  leadership and organizing that about thirty people gave blood over the course of the day and it really is a remarkable thing for people think about only about three percent of americans give  certainly encourages that the couple opportunities looking he had one on wednesday night the we are for the first time in a little while point to gather a joint meeting of the school board in this body the city council that event is going to be at the point the police department at six pm on wednesday dinner will be provided  many new school board members of course i think there's six or seven new school remembers just selected so i think will be a nice opportunity for the two bodies to get to know each other better a couple of topics  are on the agenda for discussion one we're going to talk about debt policy we've never really had a debt policy as a city how much debt we should take on what types of debt and  finally next sunday june twenty fourth we are having something called the block party which will take place right out here on the southern bloc of the marketplace between one and four pm time we're doing that and again and katie dean was involved in the organization of that as well so she's been on a roll back there and we appreciate her service with that person right i think that's all i've got for a night all right thank you m