good evening with everyone please join with me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to amend and adopt the agenda as follows first to note the written material for concern item three point three one which is a communication from the mayor about the library commission appointment with the action to waive the reading except the communication places on the file or the mayor's office note also written material and title change for consented gender item three point three two a communication from the city assessor regarding pending citywide re appraisal with the action to waive the reading except the communication placed on file percy a anderson there's more on that item in a bit and then remove th the conservation board regarding his resignation with the consent action to waive it except it placed on file advertise the vacancy and send a letter of appreciation to him thanking him for his time served on the consent action to waive it accepted and file a per chief of staff rebel add to the consent item agenda item three point three eight a communication from the clerk treasurer cers office regarding ma fourteen twenty eight hundred openings burlington city boards and commissions with the consent action to waive it accept it and file it ad councilors shannon odell and mason to agenda item four point zero four resolution referral to charter change committee concerning city funding of capital improvements for church street marketplace council roof per council roof add to the agenda item four point zero five which is a deliberative item appointment and approval of task force committee members with the action to appoint patrick brown terri mellon cough gen berger thomas carroll gary de carolis brian sullivan and way way way as members of the male task force and respectfully request that the administration send an e mail to task force members these task force members thanking notifying them of their point moment thanking them for being willing to serve include the applications of the appointed members and asking for interest in serving his chair and requests also city staff to send a thank you email to applicants who were not selected per council president right per all those in favor of the agenda as amended please say i opposed we have our agenda and now we are going to recess that we have that recess a regular city council meeting and move into the liquor control commission meeting so i will open up the liquor control commission meeting at seven twenty and recognize chairman dean thank you commissioner right i'd like to move to accept and adopt the agenda roof any discussion hearing none of those in favor of the agenda we say i may post proceed mr chairman thank you now a motion on the consent agenda i move to and liquor license and an outside consumption permit for a local wood fired pizzeria hearing no objection from the commission we will proceed that way item three point one i move the approval of the two thousand and eighteen two thousand  nineteen first class restaurant bar and liquor license application and the outside consumption permit application for group l l seeing doing doing business as book i would fired pizzeria eleven twenty seven north avenue suite thirty two contingent upon fire marshal approval with all standard conditions seconded by callous or commissioner roof any questions or concerns by the commission zero three and three point zero four to move those together and again hearing no objection to a city council that will be the order ok so i did three point zero three and three point zero for a first class restaurant bar and liquor license application and an outside consumption permit application for truck size enterprises l l seeing doing business as taco gordo to eight to ten north when you see avenue with the following conditions all city permits need to be closed out contingent upon fire marshal approval with all standard conditions moved by commissioner dean seconded by commissioner rufe cancer commissioner  pusher thank you very much just one quick question regarding the outside consumption permit i'm not really familiar with and i mean i don't know where this is but there are residents around there and is it ten it is ten o'clock ok to have that we have has there been an outside consumption permit that went to ten pm in that vicinity and is there any concerns you so to that question there has not been and this is the location of current redemption center for bottles right there so taking over that space turning into a restaurant and then that small triangular space that is the  so it's just a little bit early but we will open a number two is the public forum so we will open the public forum and we have two people signed up if anyone else would like to we have three anyone else would like to speak in public forum there are sheets over here on the table if you want to sign up please bring them over to laurie over here the clerk's office will bring them to me you have a time  three minutes to speak tonight and you will have a light system that will let you know when the red light goes off you have to conclude your remarks so open a public forum tonight with joe an please pull up please pull the microphone right in so we can all hear can hear me now that's better so my name is joanna grossman and i'm a ward five resident and i wanted to talk to you guys a little bit about the burlington school district capital plan and some concerns that i have about it so as you know in two thousand and sixteen voters passed the deferred maintenance bond which was intended for school repairs so as you may also be aware currently the school district is using a large portion of that money to build two new buildings and between one and three roads the buildings will housing new district offices and two preschools so there was no mention of new construction anywhere in the ballot language and there was no mention of anything like that and any of the publicity that the district used to promote encouraging voters to vote for that either so my concern is that that isn't really a valid use of that municipal bond and you guys  buck kind of stops with you guys so i'm aware of that the district's lawyer has approved this as you know has given his legal opinion that it's ok but that isn't the same as a judge saying it's ok that's just one lawyers opinion and we've talked to quite a few and by we i mean a lot of district parents who are very concerned about this we've talked to a few lawyers who disagree and going further than that legality is not the same as morality and i really want to hit this point home whether it's legal or not is kind of a moot point because the voters thought their money was going to be spent on school repairs and it's being spent on something else and that's a violation of public trust and if that is going to further role that the relationship that the district has with the community and that the community has with future bonds like to be just fine and i'm pretty concerned about that another thing that concerns me about it is that these two new buildings they're going to be for preschools and preschools are important and they should be tucked away in some bond that was meant for repairs they should have their own bought and they should have their day in the sun so that the community and the experts in the area can really weigh in and say hey like that's really important and we want to talk about that we want to learn more about that the whole the whole underpinning for the motivation for the new buildings is this idea of swing space so that while the district is doing school repairs we need to create space for kids who are displaced so the goal is that the new buildings will be built and the district offices and all that district police preschools into the buildings  displaced will be kind of warehoused and that's when space and even district staff have admitted that hasn't really been thought through and i have a lot of concerns about that as a parent i kind of feel like i don't want my kid to be educated in a place that doesn't have access to counseling the school nurse instrumental in de escalating tensions between the district and the community at large in the past specially with the strike and i'm asking you to think about helping us as a community make that happen again so that it's a workable solution for everybody is and i'm not mcconnell to be followed by donna walters and monique forum together good evening welcome hi thank you for having me i was to say to joanna the last time i was here was probably about fifteen years ago when the skate park was being discussed and  we had great results and i'm hoping one of the same results here so i am from or five and i would like to also speak about the burlington school districts capital plan i'm really thankful we're about to invest all this money considering the culture of education right now and how people are protesting and not getting paid that wages they deserve but i'm concerned about the fiduciary responsibility that this city has to our students and to our community we voted for a capital bond that was nineteen million dollars and the original estimate for ira allen was three point two five million dollars the current plans that include two new buildings are over eight million dollars that is five million dollars more more than double and i want to just say i'm not against preschool i care a lot about preschool i have two kids i have gone through the pain of being on waiting lists and trying to get my kids  somewhere and the issue is that we have a capacity problem certainly but we also have forty four providers in the city and it just isn't to the burlington school district and when we think about the numbers of students that we are currently serving according to the agency of education we have roughly four hundred fifty students currently being served in early education preschool so age three to five roughly right five year olds some are in kindergarten and i want to understand if we're going to build two new buildings and significantly change campuses and communities like not even just the parents in the students but building roads creating new environments and experiences for the residents that live there i would like to know why we're doing that and so when we talk about enrollment numbers that's what we need enroll in numbers a going up our population is not going up what's happening is because universal pre k is more people are aware of it now there are more people in rolling but that doesn't mean we're going to have more kindergartners through fifth grade it means more people are accessing what we need and i would just say to i know the mayor had initiated a report in two thousand and fifteen we had something like i'm going to forget the number and botch it right now but a thousand children  residence at the age of zero to three and only three hundred seventy one spots for care so we have a capacity issue and if we're going from a classrooms that we currently have administered by the district to ten classrooms i want to know what is the enrollment increase by people by individuals what is the programming increase are we going to serve more full time me and i would like to know the answers to some of those before reengage in spending five million dollars thank you monique fordham are up next to be followed by the final speaker marian cornell whom you miss for a ms walters welcome will give them sensors to people speaking an additional three we are represented at the park green so we were notified on friday actually we received a bunch of documents in preparation for the meeting on wednesday when the ad hoc committee is meeting to discuss saving some trees and adding more shade on the hard scape in city hall park and so was such a large amount of people that were upset about the large number of trees that were going to be cut we were expecting to save maybe half the trees that you were planning on cutting that would have been maybe sixteen or so trees from the initial read that we took from the documents that we received on friday we're just surprised thank the three options combined will save three or four trees in plant two trees it's like not even close to what we were expecting it's a really dismal star and i'm just hoping that the city has another dozen trees up their sleeve because three or four trees is just not going to cut it thank you i just like to obviously echo miss walters comments and i realize you know we have an extremely personal i just want to be heartfelt  thankful to the council for passing that resolution to give us another opportunity to find a way that we can respond to frankly from what i have seen is pretty much of a massive outpouring of people who are willing to call right show up and speak and say no we don't we want some trees for a park we don't want it to be denuded of trees and i don't feel like that's such a radical you know negative position to take and from the beginning and i've said this before and i'll say it as many times as i have to we've always come forward and said let's work together we don't want to be confrontational about this but this plant just basically gets rid of too many trees it's not going to be any shade it's going to be mostly pavement and we have other options for performance basis to act like you don't have any just isn't reflective of reality we have a huge performance spaces down by the waterfront we have entertainment going on you know constantly right outside here on main street and church streets not like there are no places to have any kind of public events but a green space in the center of a park provides a valuable service it's not just an entertainment venue it's a park parks have a deep tradition they provide all sorts of benefits the most scientific of them being the fact that they call the city down i mean i was out today that was going to go first warm day got pretty hot out there i was looking for some shade after walking around for a while so i think we you know we came from this from a position at the beginning that this we looked at this plan this plan is not a particularly complicated plan in term of in terms of its layout and design it's still keeping with my central feature was some radiating paths i think that i've seen enough landscape architecture in my i day to see that it's not that difficult to kind of work around some of the actual benefits and ecosystem services if you will that already exist in the park so we didn't think that we would be met with such a tremendous backlash of opposition i mean for crying out loud the burlington business association put out a thing saying you know sun activists alert and opening up this process to talk about saving some trees would be going against the rule of law and then this is overkill we want to come to a compromise we can say from trees trees are good and they you know they help restore water reduction and you really don't have to peruse too much literature to see the trees are in a very important part of environmental planning because of those systems that they provide cutting them all down is actually going to worsen some problems and really not provide the things that people enjoy now i really hope that we can find more of a compromise and i really didn't think it was going to be this difficult so when we received the three options that the city put forward that we were supposed to be discussing and selecting upon frankly i just have to say it really felt like having someone thumbing their nose at you when all three options can bind would only save three or four trees just doesn't feel like a good faith effort and i'm really hoping that on wednesday we can see a little movement in time to ration and the over two hundred people that row in spoke are going to be thankful to have a compromise and i really think that you know that this design as much as the designer may like it if it's being funded by the taxpayers there ought to be some taxpayer input to try to save some free can trees i really think we can do this and i think it can be a win win that's all we've ever wanted from the beginning so we look forward to wednesday we're going to do our best to negotiate and hope that we can get some movement on this and once again thank you for passing the resolution to give us an opportunity to look at this again thank you miss fordham and miss walters and not opening a dialogue but just let you know that we we will be meeting wednesday and we will be meeting a good face because any decision he makes is not going to affect his kids it's going to affect all of the kids in burlington and especially low income kids and you guys just cut a whole bunch of a p classes from school a whole bunch of other stuff and i don't think it's fair any decision that he make should abstain sibly affect his children as well as ours and i don't think that's fair and i really disagree with it to adopt the consent of gender as amended and take the actions indicated is very discussion here none of those in favor of the motion police say i opposed and with that we have passed the consent agenda unanimously and taking the actions indicated in each item i am now going to before moving back to the deliberative agenda i'm going to recess the regular city council meeting and go to will go to the are required to be legal voters of burlington and they're expected to become legal voters after a year of their national point it also we have the charter and our rules provide for a process by which the city council with mayor presiding that is this body can consider and grant requests for extensions of that period of time to become a legal voter if we find a personal hardship we have a read we've received a request from the chair of the school board claire was really very happy that that she can be here with us tonight a request on behalf of the school board to request a further extension of the hardship that this council extended to doctoral bang three years ago and which is expiring and it is now timely to consider a further extension and we received this request the language of the resolution just so we're all very clear that the if this resolution passes and i very much hope that it will it w extend the requirement to be a legal voter for as long as doctorow bank holds the position of superintendent he must submit to the city eight resources department an annual form certifying that the hardship continues and he must continue to live in the residence that he owns as of the date that we extend this the basis for these personal hardships you know how it must be explained we need to understand and the council over the years i have considered many many of these and each case is unique and we choir's the council to consider the fullness of the request before us now we have codify in language some some of the reasons why requests harsh requests are extended and this request does fall under one of those cases and it's the case that says applies to appointees that currently reside out in chittenden county and who certify that becoming a legal voter of burlington would present a personal hardship for them now this is language that we have applied to other department heads and it is a reasonable certifying that it will be a personal hardship for me to move into burlington at this time and i have always believed individuals who come and say i have a personal hardship and i am going to believe this superintendent who is coming to us backed up by the school board backed up by this the the chair of the school board to say that that is a hardship now it always comes down to a judgment call because although we've tried to codified the caissons under which hardships can be granted there's also a provision in our policy that says you know you use your judgment and if you think that it is in the best interest of the city and that it is a reasonable request given the totality of the circumstances city council with mayor presiding it's our job to make those judgments now where as i consider where we are in the city burlington where the schools are with the school department has been through that we are now in a period of reconciliation of healing of transition to new leadership and new leadership really starting to rebuild their working relationship and i ask myself big picture if this council votes no and i really strongly believe that that would be the wrong thing for this body to do what would that really accomplish and what it would accomplish is sending us right back into turmoil into uncertainty it would do nothing good for brawling schools for burlington students for burlington teachers for burlington school staff for burlington parents for the city of birmingham and you can't make a case that that is the right call for burlington and so tonight i hope show thank you mr mayor so we have a request before us to grant a waiver on the residency requirement or not residency but rather the requirement to be a voter  based on the fact that mr obeying works long days in the city regularly respond presents to burlington schools is connected by phone email text and social media and if this is the standard by which we apply our requirement i don't see how anybody would be required to actually live in the city  all of our of our department heads work very hard work very long hours are very dedicated to our community and are available so  i think the argument is that that the the purpose of this requirement can be met in some other way other than actually being a resident and i don't believe that that's true when we granted this initially i do agree with much of what council no del said we have to review each case individually and we have come up with some rules that cannot we can't envision every possible scenario that's going to come before us and i think that that's what happened three three years ago in two thousand and fifteen when we were presented with somebody who could not become burlington voter because he could not instantly become a burlington citizen which is a requirement of being a voter but at the time that we granted this waiver mr obeying was moving he was not commuting here from canada where he lived we knew that he would be moving to the community and we were assured that he would move to burlington and with that it was very reasonable to give a waiver on the requirement to be of over voter but mr obeying did not choose to buy a home in burlington he chose to buy a home in south burlington and i think if he had come to us at the time and made a case for why he was not buying a home in burlington we could have judge the merits of that at the time but now the only need for this waiver is by not meeting the criteria that was in the previous waiver and i don't know if the president right if mr obeying would like to come and explain sorry mr mayor if mr obeying would like to explain what happened between  previous waiver being granted with the expectations stated in that waiver that he would become a burlington resident and not becoming a burlington resident and now faced with the choice that we have now  precision in terms of thinking of what's to come forward and remember you reference in two thousand and fifteen so i'm going to take a little bit back and when i initially came to burlington to apply for the position and went through the process and then i was in can and i was i was asked if i would accept the process and receive the documentation around the position there was no mention of residency and that's not a practice that we have in ontario in terms of residency souls it was was it was a surprise to me when i arrived here and i was i was actually here when i heard about the expectation around residency i was not party to the initial documentation that came to the board i would say that the previous board at the time did not share the information with me immediately and i wasn't aware of what was what was transpiring and by the time that i had found out about it the documentation had been sent forward and and that what was what was placed forward i know there are a couple of items that were requirements one was the actual physical residency but the other is in terms of being a voter you must be qualified citizen which would mean for me being a citizen of the country in order to matriculate to have that access which i do not have and i can't sustain that within the next you have to be precise in the country at least five years before you even start that process so i beg your forgiveness around the sort of the order of operations that happened but  i was not familiar with the expectations until the city had probably dealt with it prior to and i didn't and i was not aware of the severity of it or the actions that need to be to be taken at that time that says dr abang intends to establish his residency in burlington and to work a said u s lee on securing his work visa and u s citizenship so there it seems that there had been discussions between you and either m  porter or or the board stablish ing residency in burlington that's what was conveyed to us prior to our our resolution was that not the case was there not discussion about this actually no i had never met mr porter at that point so the idea of my contract with the with the then existing chair holiday which was in march and that's when i signed my contract and then the transition came in terms of did new board members and i had not met the board chair it occurred at that point at this point i was receiving  communications across the border in terms of what was transpiring so i wasn't really sure exactly what was what was happening my i didn't even raise it as a concern because it wasn't raised to me that this was a major concern or something that i had to address  in terms of it was not until much later then i found out about the expectation and then the board proceeded to do you know prior to purchasing your house that there was a requirement to be a resident of you did you know that we had voted on a waiver for becoming a voter of burlington and that being a voter of burlington requires being a resident prior to  that my family were engaged in where we were under contract with a number of homes and so throughout the process the contract we were on the contract was a long story we're on the contract with their specific home for a period of time and expecting that that would be our home and then at the last minute we had to shift to to purchase a home so it was months in different homes going through that process from and i think we all knew this was coming before i think it's unfortunate that counters to have questions did not reach out to dr bank and get those questions answered before tuesday before tonight's meeting i think it would have been very helpful  in this process rather than a way to tonight but i would like to thank the school board chair who has put put out a letter in support of the council  granting the waiver we had a conversation with that chair early on even before she was elected and said she was eager to get to work on the school board and work with doctoral bang and i think she has come forward in good faith and i think counsel and odell has has put this better than any of us could given everything that we've been through over the last two years and given where we are in this community and the temperature in our district in our schools this would be a great turning point to turn the page right to welcome everybody aboard we talk about people moving the borough into enrollments down wolf we continue to put the the school district on the front page of the free press we will continue to see our role not go down no question about that this is the opportunity to turn the page this is an opportunity for this city council who has done it many times under many circumstances for many department heads to grant waivers under all different circumstances and to draw a line in the sand tonight to say that we're going to get righteous about this we're going to set the example tonight if you want to say we need to have a conversation about department heads residence that's fine well we can have that conversation but to say we're going to draw a line in the sand tonight and we're not going to grant a waiver you know based on this hardship compared to other hardships now there's other there's been two cultures here that have been very consistent since i've been on the board concert and i respect that and they've been that way but that's not the way this body has worked the rest of the way so i would hope that we would grant this waiver it's bigger than us it's actually even bigger than the charter because this is about our district this is about our kids this is about one of the best districts in the state of vermont who has the best teachers the best administrator the best principals and we've been through hell with it and it's time to get them off the front page of the paper it's time to move forward it's time to go come together in this community and start talking about how great our schools are and that conversation has been happening a long time and it needs a star and tonight would be a great way to do it thank you hartnett recognizing the consistency that i've brought to this issue over time as the director mckay smiling there in the corner i'm glad to see you smiling because director mckay came to the city with incredibly with an incredible resume and but nevertheless i wanted to continue to live outside the city of burlington and i said no i'm not willing to do that in another circumstance on july sixth or on june sixth twenty sixteen when both mr rust and again who had done great work for the city as well as mr landor  was who was and continues to do great work for this is for b e d you know both of them came to saying essentially the same thing they wanted to live continue to live outside the city of burlington and i felt that it was that i want hold them to the same standard that i had held other people to throughout this process and so when presented with this situation it does not feel fair given my previous votes on this issue to then extend a hardship in this in this particular instance so i feel a need to remain consistent so that i'm fair to everybody across the board and that fairness is founded on my in my sincere belief that you know living in burlington is not a hardship it is in fact a privilege and that people should live in the city of burlington because i think there's something to be said for feeling our pleasure and our pain you know by living directly in the community and feeling the weight of the decisions that you make dane in day out so thank you very much and i will was defined more as for those individuals who had children in schools and how the impact on the family or the children up rooting them what that would do and then we bro it i don't know if if you have children in school but i'd be willing to continue granting a hardship but only if that's the scenario to me that makes sense and then at the end of that juncture when they're out of school then to me that's the time where the decision needs to be made of whether you invest in the community or not so i've always felt that made some sense i didn't want to disrupt people i think them i think we as a community let you down or somehow or other there was not good communication that started us down that path and i'm not going to point fingers  what happened there but it wasn't ideal and ideally you would have found a house in burlington but that's over so for me i could support granting this hardship for another three years if it or until your children if you have children and school until they were out of high school that's more consistent with what i've done and how i feel about this so and i appreciate all the work you do and what you bring to our community this has to do with the policy and how we apply it not you the individual th i'm sorry i have a point of order i'm just hoping that we might be able to take a five minute break i apologize i was late i drove up from boston and i i got here is quickly as i could i have a couple of things  thank you i did a quick tally today just to give us a little perspective on department heads there's there's roughly twenty one or twenty two depending on how you count department heads nine of them nine of them don't live in burlington i think we just should be upfront about that with ourselves and with our constituents for various reasons we decided that waivers were granted i have a twenty eight year filiation with the city either as a city council or a city employee and i think dozens dozens of department heads have been able to get this this  all different because it's a it's a waiver of the charter of requirement that the superintendent be a registered voter of the we had department heads driving from rutland vermont commuting figuring out how to balance that we had a department head from hanover new hampshire who would come to work and figure out how to balance that and make himself available we were able to find it in our hearts to say you know what it's best for our city to grant these waivers i would ask you tonight to dig in deep in say is what's best for burlington to fight this fight and have this be a divided vote with the exception of those councillors who never grant waivers and i understand we counsel her and it's a negre with him i think we have to look at what's best for our community what's best to heal this community really what's best for our future our children and i think our superintendent deserves our support tonight and i hope we will get everyone to support that who doesn't who would normally vote for waivers and has in the past many times is different this one is a little different than other ones but i certainly am not prepared to make a change that i do think that i've been consistent as well and in a different way consistent and granting the waivers as long as they fit within a rationale that we have up for these hardships and i think this one does fit the rationale in terms of the person who spoke to us a little earlier in a public forum about this issue saying seemed to indicate some actions that we had taken just clear you're talking about the school board not the city council and we have had superintendents also that in recent history have not lived in burlington so i think that dr abang is doing a good job the school district we have been seeing excellent and wonderful result i have never heard of a support antonin who would say let's raise the bar for those who are doing well we've always been focusing on making sure th during my five ten years in the but in school i would be voting this be supporting it but i'm just asking you one thing we need to look into school choice maybe your children  yo are not residing in burlington but they should be able to at least come and witness a decision you made or the bullington school the kids if they still in high school i think they are able to be able to come  and if you're buying a house you want to do in burlington i can become a realtor for you yeah but thank you for all you do and wonderful missteps made in the very beginning you know clearly when you accepted that and there should have been probably much more dialogue we can't go back there clearly there were things that if we had to do over again probably would have been done a little bit differently but here we are now and so you know as far as you know the few people who have noted their consistency on this issue with one exception and that exception was bob ruston i have consistently voted against waivers i voted in favor of the one for bob reston because he was made it clear that he was retiring in one year it would have been a significant hardship not only economically but also personally and given what was going on in his with his wife at the time  there were a lot of extenuating circumstances and because we all knew that he had already had already said that he was only going to be here for one more year i i was willing to make that exception there have been others that i did not make and they were not easy to not make but i felt that it was important to to live by the ordinance and i admire those people that have done that consistently as well as well as the ones that have done consistently on the other way on the the reality is that sometimes there are times where you shouldn't just do something consistently for consistency sake and there are to me too extenuating circumstances one of them was a conversation that i had with doctoral bang about three years ago right after it was right after you started and it was in his office i won't go into all the details it was a private conversation but i think there are other circumstances that exist beyond what may be on paper and the other the other thing that i think is different is that there is a difference and maybe it's something that we should look at in the charter that because of the relationship between the school and the city and them to some degree being independent bodies to some degree the the the school board hiring the superintendent and other extenuating circumstances that make it a little bit a lot different than a c e o director or a d p w or you know another department head i think there is a difference and  again it's hard for me not to be consistent but i'm trying to evaluate it as a case by case kind of thing and i'm trying to not just be consistent just to be consistent i will i will thank you thank you i just want to state that i i would have a problem voting for this today had we not had the school board weigh in on this i actually contacted the chairwoman clearwell a while back and asked her to come to the council with a recommendation which she has done submitted a letter to us that i know she was put before the school board and their recommendation was that we did grant this so i would not have wanted to do that take this action tonight came to tonight thinking that i would vote no on this and that was based on not having a history and understanding this issue as deeply as i think i've come to understand it tonight i think the words that were provided by counts  cancer pine really gave me a much deeper understanding of what our actions history actions as a council have been on these issues and with other people in the city  have that be available to someone who is so critical to the success of our school system so i will be supporting the extension i have a point of order councillor  mentioned that he works for the burlington school district and that he does not have a complex and before we voted i just wanted to understand is that the position of the city attorney or is that something th counselor jang has the ability to kind of declare for himself or how how does that work exactly i don't believe that that counsel the fact that he is employed by ninety three four point zero one in four point zero two at the same time one indoor entertainment parent permit and one an outdoor entertainment permit makes sense hearing no objection we will make that the order ok i'd like to move the approval of the two thousand eight thousand and one thousand indoor entertainment permit application and two thousand eight hundred two thousand nine hundred out door permit application for to work a group of well seeing doing business as the wood fired pizza eleven twenty they opposed hearing no and we have passed unanimously the indoor and outdoor entertainment permits for the boca north avenue thank you very much we will now move on to item four point zero three which is a city ordinance regarding offenses and miscellaneous provisions quality of life ordinances i will recognize kelce or roof to move this item thank you president right i move that we waive the second reading and adopt the ordinance and after a second allows for the floor back sec like house or bush or closer roof you have the floor back thank you again president right this this ordinance has had quite a long journey after many hearings that the ordinance committee discussion here at the full council additional review from the public safety committee it is now arrived back with us here tonight it's safe to say i believe this ordinance has received immense attention and care from the general public from the from community partners the council as well as the administration i believe that it is ready for action tonight and hope to majority of this council votes in favor as a reminder this ordinance clarifies in establishes an enforcement and waiver policy on two issues public urination and defamation as well as public consumption of alcohol in simple terms this ordinance calls for civil tickets to be issued for the first two offenses and for additional violations excuse me that were occur within six months of the prior violations those charges will be criminal in nature this penalty is waived however upon the successful completion of a restored of or repaired of justice program through the community justice center this in foresman schedule as public consumption of alcohol and the fines for these matters do differ slightly but do not exceed one hundred dollars in any single case this ordinance change should be taken in context  be taken in context of other work being done related to issues being addressed as you can read in the public safety committee communication three to five on consent agenda for tonight that committee will be looking at things such as how we can extend the operation on a yearly basis the eula little barrier homeless shelter as well as bringing more bathrooms into the downtown furthermore you will remember a resolution that the public safety committee issued that was passed on march twelfth by this council related to the reporting of how these ordinances chapter twenty one ordinance will will be enforced and reported to conclude this ordinance changes in front of us tonight in my opinion strikes a balance between the responsibility that we have to hold both accountable those whose behavior is dangerous and destructive to our scenery and our sponsibility of being thoughtful and fair in how we do so  she fell pozo thank you for being here i will go to counsel pyne in a moment become chief here tonight i just would like to echo the sentiments accounts of the roof that this was a long journey for this these ordinances now that it's gotten warm again i had been meeting with business owners right across the street here you know their concern continues about their ability to provide safety for the customers and employees and a theme that comes up again and again is intoxication and a business owner say to me  this person they were naming a person is fine and then he starts drinking and he does things like lick my window and lay in wait for the people coming out of the back entrance and for my employees and you know i recognize that some people are suffering from you know addiction alcoholism is a medical condition but we like to start with the assumption that some people do have agency and that they will respond to the consequences and i think we do a decent job in the city of recognizing when situations are intractable and not just pursuing criminal recourse for its own sake so i think the compromises were well articulated and i think this will be a good tool for police officers to use and if you are present enough to engage in restored of justice that i also proceed the way i read the ordinance it's the first offense can be essentially cleared if someone goes through the resort of justice process and it looks like the second offense maybe as well is that it you get two swings basically at the process and i think nothing prevents the police department from continuing to use the civil rights justice approach what the way i read it the way i hope the spirit of the changes are intended with a regime is that we have the option after that there are a point to start pursuing from the great that's that's actually us hoping because if you see some forward progress but somebody slips up you don't have to automatically say we're not going to use a restart of process anymore because on the difference between the waiver penalty it's only a few dollars but in the in the civil the waiver penalty is fifty dollars at that the penalty is sixty the waivers fifty seventy five for second offense waivers seventy and yet with the criminal penalty it's one hundred dollars and yet this charge will be dismissed so i what i didn't totally understand that so i think it's really important for us to understand that that's a very important distinction because if indeed the charge if indeed you go through a store restorative justice then you know if that charge is just missed then you won't have a criminal record and i think the point of all of this was to change behavior not to have someone labeled or burdened with another problem in their lives so what we want to do is change behavior and we worked really hard to give people the opportunity to deal with their behavior and make it right and not leave them labeled or burdened with a criminal penalty and so if the chief did you want to speak to that at all or no i mean i agree that we don't necessarily want people who are committing minor infractions to go on to be labeled as criminals in my experience the vast majority of the people who are gauging this conduct have already been convicted of other crimes they just think this is a minor one that the do with impunity we're trying to alter that the goal is to find what people are responsive to some people it's treatment some people it's restored of justice some people it's a stern warning i think other people were hoping it will be an education period where we say if you continue to do this you will get someone to see a judge and if you don't see that judge will be brought to the judge and i've said that for a while now and you know all i know is that our without the incidents being down the issuance of these civil tickets is down between thirty and forty percent in the or counsel roof depending on who was there but one of the issues that came up was the issue of criminality and there was an idea of having a criminal penalty and then i was under the impression that we found out that we actually had that authority already so is this really adding  yeah absolutely so going off of that i think that that is really helpful and it's helpful to me because i think i voted against this initially with the idea of adding a criminal penalty but knowing that we're not actually doing so and in fact if we don't pass this ordinance we're actually not adding in or is sort of justice yeah that's i think that that's crucial for me to understand because i'm very much in favor of providing alternative means especially for folks who may not have the money to pay for the ticket to go through restored of justice process and have that opportunity to  really enter into what i think are very productive conversations or community justice center and just tremendous work that they do and so i'm i'm very heartened to hear that we are what we are recognizing that we are ready had this authority that really we're trying to build in other means of compliance recognizing like you said that there are different ways that different folks respond and that just piling up tickets may not work but actually having a productive and structured around the violations can be very productive i also am heartened to hear of the you know the the conversations that have gone around going on around public urination and really the lack of public bathrooms in our downtown i think that if we think about one of the reasons why a lot of that happens is that after hours in a lot of cases the nearest place to go to the bathroom would require you to purchase something to eat to use that bathroom and i don't think that that should be the case i think that if someone has to you know go about their their biological business they should be able to do so in a public facility that is clean and well maintained and that there should be more than more than one of those facilities in our downtown such that people will actually be able to comply and take care of their needs in a very dignified and proper way that does not result in some of the harms that we've been seeing taking place in our downtown so really want to us to continue to pursue that especially as we look towards the city budget and thinking about ways that we can build that in but i am also you know liking that the fact that this ordinance does have a criminal a community justice restored of justice peace built into it because i think the lead to some productions thank you very much to the ordnance committee for their work on it especially being willing to entertain further conversation around the public  to the chief for your work in the department's work on chip thank you thank you councillors you notice in our goal is not to generate revenue or get funds out of this in fact that it wasn't working with the civil recourses it's to add a mechanism of accountability where people who do this course a kind of repeatedly can be brought in front of a judge or if they lack the restorative justice apparatus to just account for for what they're doing and why they're ignoring the city's attempts to get them to change their behavior searching and then arthur thank you president and i also would like to ask some question to the chief and was just wondering you know i like your comment when you said that if people don't respect don't go to the judge you can bring them to that you know and now those same people don't still go to that us to practice services would you bring them there or you know what would be next if they don't respect any of these i think the way to engage in their way to avoid the criminal penalty in a way to avoid the criminal process is to agree to your sort of process if you don't successfully completed  it reverts to the criminal process and gives me meaning going back to the judge and maybe getting sentenced to i don't forsee i can't speak of any monster judges per se but i don't forsee them except in facilities basically provided for the purpose and it sounds like we don't have those facilities existing within bloomington area and all of our parks now will need to be better for us thank you want to say cancer roofs and a lot of time on this lot of patients i worked on this in public safety i was hoping to continue to work on that in public safety in the coming year but i wasn't put back on that committe you're mentioned about changing behavior and i think we really try hard in a lot of areas in the city to try to change behavior and that's how we always approach things but we often don't ever see results or so i would like to maybe and to the summer begin in the fall have a report back to the council to see if this is actually working because sometimes we just do things because we think it's the right thing to do and we don't know if it's result driven and it's just not with this you know it's with opiates with everything that we are trying to change behavior make us a better community and and i think we all want that right but i don't i want to do things that make a difference and so i'm hoping this will i think it will you know i have noticed over the years that you know people in the public you know  going to death because they have no other choice and that's unfortunate and we can adjust the city and other times i see people coming out of bars who are very capable of using about to move decided and i think there's a big distinction there  to police this city in new and different ways and i think this is an opportunity for us to show our support for officers and empower them with a strong vote from the city council  make it clear that we support them moving forward in attempting to address this issue in new way appreciate that perhaps its authority was there in some form before but i think having a strong council vote showing that the leaders this community are behind this will go a long way to signal to the officers that we we have heard them with one of their major frustrations i have i think over the last six years this issue i've heard from officers more than any other frustration they have as officers about their inability to with the current tools bring about change and what i think there's broad agreement is bad in an acceptable behavior in the downtown  and there hamstrung from doing so i think this is a good faith attempt on our part to give them a new ability to move forward in a narrow number of cases that require this type of additional authority so we strongly supporting it i very much appreciate the all the work that went into this over a number of months and the initial impetus for this that came from the president right i think it's very complimentary with the other policing community policing  foot patrol efforts that have brought about to try to impact downtown i think in many ways are working i think it's important step and specially things appropriate step when you balance when you recognize it is very much balanced by the full know second that motion fails chief i just want to clarify one point in regard to the fact that there were there was the ability for police officers to issue these tickets with criminal penalties before but it clearly wasn't aware now we're caught a firing this was a vote tonight that not only is there restored of justice but the police there would be consequences under these two offenses so the police may go back to issuing some tickets would that be correct chief for your answer to those questions answers to those questions and for the great work you do at our police department doesn't burlington all those in favor of the motion to waive the second reading and adopt the ordinance police say i i they that is a resolution by kauser roof regards the marketplace roof thank you president right i move that we waive the reading and adopt the resolution and for a second please best from the floor back second by great to you again first off i'd like to send appreciation to the church free marketplace commission for their diligence and partnership on bringing this resolution together this resolution simply asked for a charter cha capital improvements such as the bricks which are beginning to show signs of where this is a matter of long term budget planning and protecting against the burden of future infrastructure liabilities historically as many of us know we've been we've been lucky and we've benefited from federal transportation dollars to support the marketplace and in a time where those dollars are becoming more and more scarce i think it's important and responsible for us to consider how we can best look forward and ensure that our church free marketplace continues to be a destination and a community asset that serves residents and visitors are like a like for another fo on an almost annual basis at the board of finance working our annual budget and we've we've seen this as as a at a barrier to addressing some very pressing capital needs of the marketplace district this time that we are you know through the mayors leadership and the support of the voters we are raising significant funding to address to improve the city's infrastructure and let's not let the church street marketplace fall behind we want to invest in that key asset at the same time that we're investing in other important infrastructure in the city so so thank you council roof and i hope that i trust that the charter committee i know they'll look at do good job with this and look forward to this coming back to us ideally in time for a tie timely vote and so that we can start to address this problem thank you thank you kelson o'dell other counselors here none i think we are ready for a vote and the vote is to send this to the church change committee with a report back by august thirteenth all those in favor of the motion please say i like any opposed hearing none that passes  task force and respectfully requests that the administration send an e mail to selected task force members notifying them of their appointment thanking them for being willing to serve include the applications of the appointed members and ask for interest in serving as chair and requests city staff to send a thank you e mail to applicants who were not selected and i asked for the floor back briefly after you i want to thank my fellow sub committee members councillor no dalin councillor jang i think we worked very hard to reach consensus on each and every one of these appointments and we had a really good pool of candidates to choose from we really could have gone with any of these candidates and been served very well but i appreciate the collaborative process of my fellow councillors on that subcommittee and hope that the this task force is going to work very well together i would ask it we did there was a couple things we didn't do and i just want to bring the administration's attention to the fact that we didn't say exactly who is sending these notes but we left that to the administration to figure out how how that would be communicated in have faith that you will do that with  do that promptly to let everybody know we also talked about whether or not to appoint a chair to the committee because we want this committee to get up and running quickly we decided not to make a recommendation to appoint the chair but rather ask from the applicants if they're willing to if they are willing to serve as chair to let the other committee members know through an e mail and also share their applications because this committee is going to come together presumably knowing little or nothing about each other and that will help them get to know each other a little bit and help them to select a chair as their first order of business so  thank you to all of those who applied and for the time that they spent on their applications and sharing their thoughts with us and many of them also came and presented themselves   our committee so i appreciate the interest in serving on the committee thank you cancer shannon thank you for sharing that committee and thank you as we go to counterpart real quick is there a plan to do with the opposed hearing now that passes unanimously and will move on to item four point zero six this was consent item three point three two and it's a communication from city assessor john vicary in regard to he has a question for you thank you mr president as is the newest member i wanted to make sure that i understood this process that was laid out in his difficulties memo which was quite short so i asked him to come and give us a little more background i was a little concerned about the time frame i've been around for a couple of reprisal they know they take a full year but this is quite a ways out so it's dated you know this week and it's it's referring to a completion in two thousand and twenty two so that seemed like it was quite a  runway absolutely fair question so then the question follow up would be can it happen sooner what would be the conditions that would allow it to progress at a faster pace and is there any two which means that it's complete new valuations by july first two thousand and twenty one and the way that our office looks at it is that a reappraisal is quite time consuming and it's it's all it's a process we're going to begin in july to put together and then talk to vendors and then we have an antiquated software system that's on and outdated so when we hire a reappraisal company likely they'll come in to help us out with the implementation of the new software system it's converting a lot of all the data all the tables all the photos all the sketches into a new software system so they're really going to start as of next fiscal year if we get a company in but their team of people won't be coming in till the following year  and also i've talked to several reappraisal companies and they're all booked out so they may end up selecting a vendor and they may help out with the implementation but they may not be allowed to bring their team in for another year so we're going to work on it immediately and the last question that you asked about what does this do with our education funding does it put into any kind of jeopardy absolutely not the state of vermont the state tax department will be mandating a reappraisal and if we were to do nothing then they would have some grounds to withhold education education funds we've already started some work some preliminary work and all thoughts and how we're going to lay this out and we want to do a great job for burlington and we want to do it right so i don't want to personally crunch it so that there's more errors i'd like to to lay it out in appropriate fashion with implementation of the new software and the stable recogni that we work with them thank you just one more follow up question which is the for the council and for the public the the effect of of being so far below the common level if we were one hundred percent in theory would our tax rate be lower the rate itself not people's taxes but the rate would be adjusted accordingly no the the the effect of the the common level of praise will in the education formula is really to what it does is it in a sense is the rate that for equity for all towns and it will what the rate does is just it's a factor that puts assessments up to market value so it really means nothing it's just an adjustment of where one hundred percent of market values are up that rate will go up to one hundred and there should be it should be basically a neutral questions any other questions for mr vickery from so this probably is for the administration but for you also i think that every time people hear reappraisal they really get nervous so i'm hoping that that we will set up a series of communications telling people just what we talked about tonight about when it will start and when you hope it will and and really what reappraisal means in the generic sense of what they can anticipate and i know you can't forecast what is going to happen for different properties but i think they need to understand that i know that people are constantly get concerned about this and and you know we went through a period where we had sections of the city that were really out of whack with the rest of the city and we stopped moving forward with those that process because then that raise questions about what they were getting further out of whack because now one section was more in compliance and the other sections may not be so anyways i really hope that there's good communication and it will be ongoing  and i'm hoping that the mayor can have on his on the city web site on the calendar that there can be a section on reappraisal and just with updates that people can be aware of so thank you very much vicary that moves us into our final stage of the meeting today which is i don't number five a number of things but committee reports any committee chair who would like to speak of committee activity chairman of to selection as well as the bank and cherry streets public person of presentation of the concept of zines for approval and recommendation to the full councils if you're interested in either of those issues either as a member of the council or certainly a member of the public you're check twenty second at five hundred the same place staffing issue with the city we haven't resolved that yet so hopefully we'll have fixed by then so we will meet week from tuesday all right thank you president i'm not a committee chairman i'm the head of the work group would this be the time this is the time so the inclusionary zoning work group it will be holding in public hearing about our recommendations and report on monday june eleventh and we have to get the room and everything but we are very close to having a report a draft report to take out to the public and then we will have a meeting the following week to discuss what we heard and then the report will come to the council so i've said to the group i'm committed to getting this off of our plates and onto the plates of the council and the mayor by the end of june all right thank you cancer good we are late but we're i was hoping to get that resolution now i'm not going to have time to get out to everybody i will have it to the city clerk's office tomorrow morning and it will be on the agenda if there's any questions feel free to call cultural day has been working with me on it and roof thank you president right i just wanted to take a moment this sunday is graduation for the university of vermont students commencement will be a great cause for celebration in a lot of different w h but also there will be some disturbance with traffic patterns people who have been here for a time understand the section around the green will be closed down and parts of college street will be congested this is a lot of areas around where the more one and besides that you can go up and listen to a great commencement speaker which will be happening i do it every year and it's exciting to see the students celebrate and then live for a little while adoption of the emergency plan and it is not usually put out for public because there are some things that are confidential  or need to be handled carefully but i do believe that an abbreviated overview and i mean really appreciated it is really important for the council to know about certain situations and how we as a community handle them we've had that before and if it has to be an executive session so be it i'm talking about something like five minutes looking for a huge amount of time but we get we have done this in the past and i think that it's important for thank you president rape counselor jang commendation of jordan rebel reminded me that i while i'm looking at my fellow councilors i failed to recognize jordan's contribution contribution on the mural task force and i'm very very sorry out of sight out of mind i i very sorry for that and do appreciate jordan's also there is a communication from james lockridge about public public bulletin boards on cerium bank streets and i think he makes some very good points there and i hope that we can in this day open to this idea think there is a way to do it and i hope that that we can that we can keep this in our minds thank you yes or no doubt other city council general city affairs hearing may sixteenth wednesday seven to nine is the first meeting of the city hall park taskforce on trees specifically and we will be starting the meeting doing a walkthrough in the park and we're hoping that with the city arborists who also is on this task force and hopefully that will take not too much more than thirty minutes thirty or forty minutes or so and so that will we will then come back into city hall we will take comments from the public will hear about the three options that we heard about from the public tonight and the committee will begin to deliberate on that and as i mentioned to the  two members who spoke in public forums today who are a part of the task force we will they acted certainly in good faith there was no appeal and we will be acting in good faith in regard to this issue and whether  one of the options or whether we expand it from there so that seven to nine this wednesday also don't forget that next monday is the necessity hearing parkway that will start here at five thirty and we will hear an update from legal counsel what the necessity hearing explain what the necessity hearing is we will then board buses i think that is not a mandatory meeting for city councillors  is that right city attorney like when the site visit it's not required for everybody to go on but you know the hearing is a regular right councilman so you know i would be nice for counselors let me know or i would appreciate you know during this coming week who will be going on the buses and then i would hope everyone can make the necessity hearing when we get back here we will board the buses if we need two buses they will be two buses the public can join us on the buses and channel seventeen will be there as well we will be stopping at sham at shipley college miller center and getting getting an update there we could hear public comment there and then come back to contours and the hope is to be back to contest by around six has agreed to chair that this year i will serve on that again and callous or tracy is serving on that and i think jordan is on that as well jordan serves on that from the mayor's office so again there'll be some more compliments coming i think for jordan as we go forward so cancer mason will be working with the with the city clerk's office to begin to schedule some things there and with that i will conclude my remarks and turn it over to mr mayer to take creating the monsoon assistance corporation creating our legally system starting from on public television he was a major figure in the anti war movement he had other environmental victories but one of the things i learned during the course of that day that i thought it come back and just ward sex where he was actually unsuccessful he did not win that first campaign but less than a year later he ran for to be the sole member of the city representing burlington in the in the run house of representatives at that time broad thing got all of one representative and interestingly when just one term later he was elected governor in this fairly miraculous election made later in the day pointing out the governor hoffer someone who went right at problems didn't nibble around the edges of them and was very effective and successful in making transformational change and how we miss him already  wetland and not really thrive ecologically and i think it's just worth noting at a time when there is understandable concern about trees being moved in different parts of the city there's also a massive effort from the parks and rec department every year to reforest and plant trees and the amount of trees in the city has been dramatically expanded in recent years and this is  example of those efforts another exciting events of last time we met that watch viewers at home and the council should make sure you're aware of is that this new initiative has been launched by the brunt electric department it's really quite a gre  deal burlington electric customers can get a two hundred dollars rebate on an electric bike the bikes cost probably twelve hundred a little over three thousand dollars you can try them out down at local motion at their  can actually borrow one free of charge for a week and if you never been on a bike i really recommend that you do it it is a surprising experience it doesn't feel anything like riding a moped or a motorcycle really feels like you're biking you're just have sor powers and in doing so and i think it's really important step forward in our transportation system tension speaking of our transportation system i do you want to again alert the council this one has me a little bit concerned just because of the time line we have a significant decision to make together a week from tonight when pursuant to our approval processes as well as our development agreement with bronson city place heavenward the council is going to be asked next monday to a prove a design for both cherry street and bank street the new six blocks of new streets that were authorized or rebuilt streets not the not the new streets coming through the property but rebuilt streets that were authorized by the vote in the fall of sixteen  considerable public process has taken place on on the design of the streets over the last couple of months considerable more public process as councillors noted is taking place over the next week the hope is that that will put us in a place that even  though there are some very different visions of how we move forward with the future of our streets that we will have some sort of consensus to move forward with by next monday there's a good thorough memo in the packet that lays out more thoroughly and i encourage councillors to if they do have questions works is eager to engage over the over week add it's a busy week of public and local government for sure in addition to these meetings regarding cherry street and bank street there will be two presentations this week as well as to present patients next week on the f one nine hundred budget and our counse invited to join the board of finance for those presentations which will begin tomorrow night i do want to compliment our newly confirmed c e o beth andersen for her work to get us to this point i'm  real discipline in terms of respecting the voters desire a strong message not to raise property taxes again the elective property taxes for the fourth year in a row are not going up at the same time programs  draft budget all programs remain intact all staffing remains intact and but we still have a ways to go with this there remain weeks and numerous meetings before the expected vote in mid june when we when we are present formally not to the draft budget that we have now but the formal budget to the council we look forward to the discussions at the other things in the weeks ahead the fifth annual  complete department barbecue will be taking place this wednesday from four to seven pm at pomeroy park and it will be the another version of the great event that we have  enjoyed for the last five years there will be food there will be d j craig mitchell will be there there will be a wide variety of municipal trucks on display in ration books from over twenty partners our canine units will be doing demonstration bouncy houses and more it's really become a well tent and well organized event recent years and i hope you can make it and finally the one just mentioned again in this room on may twenty third there will be i just first say that you'd be surprised how many times legislators bring up that court ruling and and long for the old days when brought it i just want we'll move on to number nine which is a communication from eileen blackwood about city attorney about to executive sessions that we're about to move into the city attorney thank you president right there are two sets of issues that i've been asked to address one is  to give you an update on collective bargaining with their unions so employee labor relations and the second is to give you an update on the public utility commission ruling and hearing that occurred and i've been asked to give you some legal opinions about what the effect of that is and so i believe you should go into executive session to hear those as well so both of those issues would require you to make two findings the first finding being that premature disclosure of moves the first motion is there any discussion on the first motion second about house or no del any discussion hearing on all those in favor of that motion please any opposed and we need the second am posed we will move into executive session and there is no action coming out of this executive session social seventeen will say goodnight