thank you so we'll get the meeting started in the absence of president no del i would like a nomination for an acting president for the evening yes i'd like to now nominate councilor right thank you second thank you all in favor of a post president right thank you  first item on the agenda is the agenda yes thank you all move to amend adopt the agenda as follows remove from the agenda item two two point zero one report retired navy chief joe gilmore on the head of the log with the action away of the reading except for communication and placed on file remove from the from the agenda item six point zero three report comes the roof chair public safety committee regarding homelessness oral pork per councilor roof no written material for agenda item six point zero four communication eileen blackwood city attorney and anthea dexter cooper assistant city attorney regarding church street marketplace mural everyone loves a parade in burlington vermont per the city attorney's office and add to the general item six point zero five resolution appoint an inclusive tax taskforce to re imagine the everyone loves a parade mural and report recommendations to the mayor and the city council councillor shannon per tom sole president no del no revised version of shannon thank you thank you castle roof a discussion on the proposed members to the agenda hearing none of those in favor of approving the agenda as a man who police say i oppose we have our agenda and i would like to ask everyone to join with me and reciting the all right welcome everybody thanks for coming out tonight and we will get into the agenda here the first item on our agenda is item number two i remember to actually security was has been removed from the agenda we moved item number three which is a presentation from the onion river co up their yearly presentation john to shiro come on up and we always love hearing your report welcome thank you for your patience good evening city councillors and the mayor thank you for patients were just trying to get the presentation up and really today is really an opportunity  support of the cop and neighboring us to continue to make the impact that we so seek to do as part of our mission at the cost so as in previous years i have  shared some of the presentation with you in many respects this presentation is very similar to previous years as well as you may recall at one point this was really a requirement from city market but since we had purchased the land although it's no longer a requirement we feel that it's very important to keep the city informed of our continued progress especially as we continue to focus our efforts  how we best serve our members our customers and the community at  large in terms of really our mission we have a mission called the global end and as part of that really our focus are some of the things that are represented here on the slide you see for you as it relates to release meeting the needs of the community at large and also supporting certainly through our focus with strength thing local food systems and addressing insecurity food insecurity  offer as the cause variety of products and services that cover everything from organic and local products to conventional goods this is something that we have done over the years and certainly as part of our agreement with the city when we made the transition from the ordinary then to the downtown location we made this significant shift and we've continued with that model that we have also expanded now to the south and as relates to our performance in two thousand and seventeen you may be aware that as a single store caught up until november of last year we generated a little under forty two million in annual sales it is a well known fact that as a single store caught up last year we remain one of the busiest and highest selling single store corp's in the country this is actually quite an extraordinary point something that i can't emphasize enough considering the certainly size and the population of burlington compared to many other cities we are comparing ourselves cross the country in terms of the sales contribution from our members we have now over thirteen thousand five hundred members which is once again a new milestone for us they generate close to seventy percent of our annual sales of that forty two million and turns our emphasis around local products and offering those product options forty percent of our annual sales is generated from local products so once again from a co op standpoint we continue to really stay focused and how we best deliver supporting the local community our local businesses and our local farmers and vendors in terms of fighting local products another that we're very proud of is about how we really look at the well being of our employees up until november of last year we had about two hundred and thirty seven employees but with the expansion with the south end when there pirating approximately one hundred new employees pretty significant shift for the co op which close to eighty percent are full time one thing the point that in a traditional sort of food retail environment it is usually the case that that is the opposite food retailers tend to hire part time staff to minimize their labor at the coffee and this is a long tradition in the up world we have emphasized the need to really hire as many full time staff so we do have that continuity that hopefully you experience when you come to the coffee in terms of that customer experience in customer service and with our staff over sixty percent live in burlington which is once again another area that we're quite proud of also as we look at some of the benefits that provide our employees this is a topic of great discussion around how compensation works for employees we take a very much a holistic view it's a combination of certainly wages but also general benefits and i know there are a number of conversations that are happening in the broader marketplace about the fifteen dollar wage we have a union environment and when we do prepare for negotiations we certainly refer to the proud of and is because of that we have such great continuity with our employees at the co op just recently in the last few weeks we had employees that were celebrating their twentieth year at the cough who were actually in the same positions they were twenty years ago and it was a wonderful story to think about how in this case mary magnus produce fire had really started the co op twenty years ago buying produce and has evolved with the organization so much so that she enjoys her job today to now certainly do produce pie in a much larger scale but something once again from our standpoint is very important and a testament to how our employees are very satisfied working at the coffee you may also know that for the second year in a row we've been designated one of the best places to work in vermont when we did this survey a year ago for the first time our intention wasn't necessary to receive the designation our intention was to understand how we could do and we just how it happened to receive that there's a nation something that we certainly were very happy about but that was not the main purpose nor goal this year so in action to december of two thousand seventeen we administered that same survey this is right after our south an expansion which as you can imagine was quite a significant lift for the co op and we have once again received that  nation of one of the best place working for mont once again for us it's all about the learning and how we can continue to prove to make our work environment the co op the best they can be in terms of how we support the community and certainly a key focus area about how we provide healthy food access to the entire community and certainly focusing on those members and customers that are u such resources as are on the programs of threescore vermont equipment of food centro gram or wick and if we go to the next slide we referenced them as part of our greater focus with food for all members these are members that are on some form of federally subsidized program and it's a number that we certainly track very closely they make up about ten percent of our current membership and you have  certainly asked in past about how we're continuing to allow and enable that healthy food access to those who may be in slightly more difficult economic times this is really a testament once again to see know notice how in the last year we have really put an effort to continue to increase that contribution within our overall set we've done this for a number of programs first of all we offer a ten percent discount for those who qualify under the food for oil program we had also launched a co op basics program which is an everyday low price program as of april two years ago and we have increased the number of products that  qualify for those products and that i think feel in combination has enabled more healthy food access for those members who could use that healthy food  a member work another key member benefit to our thirteen thousand plus members a as you'll notice the number of hours that our members have volunteered throughout the year  which over ninety percent is conducted through our twenty three nonprofit partners which you see listed to the right there once again another way for us to contribute to support the comm and when we did tell you the total number of member hours of over fifteen thousand that's the equivalent of approximately seven and a half full time staff position another way to support the community is through our rally for change program this is really based on the generosity of our members and our customers that shop at the co op up until really  last year we were generating approximately fifteen to sixteen thousand dollars a month and that's the adding up of those quarters nickels pennies that you as customers and the  community donate when we ask whether or not customers are members of be interested in rounding up half of that for change amount every month is designated to t food shelf that's in line with our focus around food insecurity the other fifty percent is divided between a ten percent nonprofit partner and a forty percent nonprofit partner those two nonprofit partners rotate every month while the fifty percent partner in the food shelf remains consistent and so when we looked at the last year in two thousand and seventeen we tallied up proximately one hundred thirty one thousand dollars that went toward the food shelves efforts something once again we were very proud of  road hundreds of trees to essentially sell to our members and our customers and donate really the profits of that program to cots and i don't think i need to say a whole lot more about c phenomenal organization that does great work and this is just one way for us also promote and support their  work certainly in terms of our patrons refund every year with members who have shopped at the co op we generate a certain level of profit and a certain portion of that profit earned to the members based on how much  members have purchased at the koa now we will have certainly we have had a patronage refund check for the last financial year but i will make a quick kaviak the say over the next that we hope certainly to get back to profit the sooner and so this patronage check will not be coming we anticipate two members possibly during that period of time but obviously as members just as highlight some of the other benefits that members do have including aside from the our own machine but remember volunteer work where if you volunteer two hours a month you get a seven percent discount four hours and then certainly every year when we do circulate those papers refund checks a certain portion is not cashed we do have members who contact the cop and ask us to donate to a worthy cause we have other members who choose not to cash them and with that we are entering our fourth page and seizing grant that will take place next monday where the mayor and also secretary tablets will be joining us to present the grantees totaling approximately a little over thirty thousand dollars of what we consider to be the patron seedling grants but one thing another way for us to take that money and invest it back in the community also as reference earlier in terms of the number of vermont local products that we offer offer over twenty eight hundred and as mentioned earlier forty percent of our sales is generated from local product certainly importantly i know to the city is our tax in fees i want to see reference numbers but they've been increasing every year and certainly for the coming year with the south and expansion that number is also going to be increase for there as well last in terms of expansion updates as all of you hopefully know and have possibly visited granted i have a number of members who i've met at downtown store and they say john we love your south and store and i said have you visited said no we haven't but we found parking space in the downtown we love it and that's a great compliment to hear and i am always amazed at how much people have complimented our parking space in the south end but needless to  say opening the south and store prior to thanksgiving was quite a challenging task certainly from the national cooperate of grocers association who partnered with us in our expansion they would never recommend  to a co op to open right before what we all know is the busiest certainly food holiday of the year and we did not miss it choose that to begin with we had some delays but we definitely wanted to open for thanksgiving and i can tell you that the opening once again with great support from the community certainly the hard work from our staff and great support from the city and certainly the mayor and and all of you who are a part of it certainly ward five city councillors we were open we were able to open very smoothly we planned it to be a soft opening on november the sixteenth but word spread very quickly it's amazing what digital technology can do and i'm very happy to say that as much as i have been approached and we were approached by members saying wow the down town feels just as busy maybe a little less busy but still busy but the south end just has a different atmosphere different vibe is everything ok just feels a little too less busy in the downtown i'm happy to say that we are actually meeting and exceeding our sales forecasts in the south and now remember we had anticipated the south end to be certainly a larger space and also to have possibly a different a different and one of the biggest challenges we did have opening the south and was finding enough staff to hire for that southend site with one hundred positions we were looking to fill we were we probably were only able to open around fifty a little over fifty percent strength that's a combination of low unemployment which obviously is a very nice situation to have in many ways but certainly makes it difficult when you're looking for very capable employees and to some extent are picking us and i think all of you appreciate that we really do treasure the cultural fit in addition to the techs and technical expertise that staff bring to the co op but in light of that we were able to open that store very smoothly we appreciated the patients for members and customers because i know that we have said high expectations based on how we operate in the downtown and here we are over three months since we opened and things are just getting even better one of the things though we were slightly surprised that we had expected a migration of about twenty percent the t raffic in sales from the downtown to migrate to the south and over a let's say a three to four month period of time what is indeed happened is that that has migrated over almost instantly now we couldn't dissipated during the holidays because the south end was new and that there would be great interest in it but we thought that might slightly settle in the early new year and there would be more of a gradual climb but the reporting is that has not happened it's really half ago we secured a space in the old north and a two forty two north when news gavin you with the intention that we wanted to experience opening the south and store and possibly then looking at expanding into the old north and recognizing though in theory what it would take to open a south and store but the amount of time and effort and even now the settling and efforts required to really optimize fiscally also as we look at our staffs capacity and as much as we have an incredible can do attitude we feel that there may be other services and ways that we can support not only over north then but the other to share some of our progress thank you for your tremendous support and i'm certainly open to questions thank you for that presentation mr to surely appreciate that and is there any comments or questions from the city council council cha n thank you acting president right and thank you john i just want to commend you for the leadership you have brought to this process and the opening of the store and i'm not sure that everybody is aware that change changed the zoning to allow the south and store to open and the neighbors rightfully said that that zoning change brought into use that attracted more cars than probably  any other use we could think of and coming to agreement with the working with the media neighbors the traffic issues was not not easy and i so appreciate the way that you approached that calmly and respectfully and wheelie worked with them and at some expect some significant expense reworks your plans to accommodate them  but every step of the way i just so admired how you handled yourself and how you spoke with the neighbors and consequently i don't know about chip but i will say i have not been hearing complaints in the neighborhood and that's not to say i'm sure there's an impact in the neighborhood and the neighbors understand that but it's really thanks to the way that you worked with them and the store has really been welcomed in the neighborhood  and certainly i'm there a fair amount and appreciate all of the services that are provided there and to look forward to your grand opening hard to believe you haven't had a grand opening at this point but  work together there were challenges along the way but i feel you know it was really in the spirit of the co op and i think in the spirit of how we want to work in partnership with the city and certainly with the neighborhood so thank you thank you thank you the city market does and and we i think this body kind of required that of you in a lot of ways and and i know it still comes up to you that it is still a more expensive place for a lot of folks to shop myself included i certainly shop there when i can and i love the thursday days anyway  and it had like the seconds in a sense which seemed like a really great creative way to offer some some products at a discounted price i'm curious if there's any other kind of thoughts out there because i mean when you do expand if it's into the old earth and or into a new skewed be great to offer something that would make it more affordable to some of the folks that live there thanks for that question i a question that does come up here actually probably less so these days but in terms of having that access to healthy foods we recognize that there is a general perception out there about the cause of being more expensive and yes we do offer a variety of products but we've really made quite an effort and i think you've seen it once again with our co op basics program which is an everyday low price program we have over two hundred forty skews of products now that are available have also done for now quite a long time many years in fact price comparisons for a number of what we call basic basket items with all of the traditional retailers food retailers really in the area and we have consistently come within anywhere from six to ten percent and from a price standpoint and in some cases we actually offer better prices with summer products so from all supplements as well and we are looking at actually for food for all members because they get a ten percent discount on their purchase in general to possibly offer additional discounts  especially around produce and for book so we do have efforts that we are making there and that was based out of a survey that we conducted about a year and a half  ago that has led us to look at that type of work so i think as we move forward we certainly want to be accessible to all the people in the community and certainly being very mindful of that price perception that we have because we recognize that you know we need to continue to work at that and get that message out there that we are open and a sale on the of the second parcel in the south and just sort of an update on where that stands yes so we didn't make it a press release about this now probably about three to four months to four weeks ago  so we went through a very rigorous and comprehensive r p a request for proposal a process that started last april may and a number of organizations applied for that we went and then she took them through a bit of a matrix assess them presentations and went through a couple of rounds of presentations and we that they will conduct that could be anywhere from stick actually up to maybe nine months but it was really a very thorough process we certainly had our board involved in that process as well and we really looked at in a number of fronts fit with the community how it compliments are and the mission of the co op price was one of many components of it and such so we took a very comprehensive look and that's where we landed and we really feel they did a phenomenal job in terms of painting their vision what they saw short term and longer term and certainly as a local business that is well respected in the community that promotes health and wellness i think for us  feel very nice fit thank you thank you thank you president right yes thank you so much for the presentation and thank you for being here and before i start i mean you did not include my program you know the bulletin school district but since two thousand and fourteen there isn't any requests to be made in terms of donation that you haven't grant us so we want to thank you very much for that it also for so many new americans you know to learn from them and also to teach them you know food safety and all of bike shop program so for example if you buy a helmet you come in you get a five percent discount just to people to keep on walking to keep and biking because we all connected and we're all very close to each other and it in relation also we know that the south and in the downtown the very close the two stores are very close when you compare it to the new north and so i just wanted to write thank you for that question as you can imagine when we were looking at expansion this is taking really quite a few years this is even was really much before my time during the co op where we recognize that with the amount of sales and traffic that the down sound store was  generating that we viewed really needing to look at another location to be able to offset some of that traffic from the downtown and this is a very rare situation to be and it's very rare certainly within the co op world but i think in with food  retailers in general that you're looking to build another location to cannibalize sent to the sales of your existing store but this was indeed the case for the downtown so it's a very unique situation in many respects and so when we looked at different locations and we conducted market studies that were done by experts we were able to identify after a number of different assessments this south and location and so sure enough we had developed a performer in terms of what and how much traffic would possibly migrate from the downtown to the south end and that has indeed been the case and we've also dissipated new traffic in sales coming to the south and as well we have looked at other locations in past including the own north and when you ski and others even places well beyond burlington and we'll continue to do that but for the time being really our most priority was really how to offset the traffic from the downtown in the south and really was the right fit and at the same time in a parcel of land did come up that we could actually be able to work with and ultimately and i'll certainly to you location and with the south then we have developed seventy five bicycle parking spaces which i know exceeds i think the initial limit that the city had set out as a way for us to demonstrate how we also want to be sustainable and  in addition to the fact that it took us about three times as much financially to clean up the parcel of land it was a very toxic site and because of that we could have done the bare minimum but as a co op you can imagine that we really wanted to do it in the right way so a hand on heart there is no cleaner site really than the south end and by the same token because of that we did receive the governor's environment award last year once again you know we appreciate that but the point was that we would we really wanted to make sure that it was a safe environment for that for many years to come and then the second thing is just to say that the counselor shannon talked about the grand opening we did have a ribbon cutting certainly at the end of last year with the mayor so carney was part of we are planning a grand opening on may the twelfth so please do mark that in your calendars we very much like to see all of you there once again it's a ways the you know this project had the added challenge of having to be designed not just to work with the existing infrastructure and streets there are there now but also with the into speeded you know relatively near term arrival champlain parkway that added extra challenges here and was also i think exciting that that long plan changes is getting the point where it's real and something we're working working through together your sustainability efforts are also very much appreciated you know even you really get into some of features of the new store that are so unique and exceptional in terms of bringing down the climate impact of the new store and i think very much models what you know the city is striving to achieve in its net zero energy city goals and then another thing there's just things that came out in this report that is always striking about the way the cop operates is the focus on metrics and being you know really working hard to measure the public's value that can be value that's being created by by the organization and it's always just you know for the first time  presentations that the see three squares from on a with redemption numbers have fallen quite significantly from at least the recent peak in two thousand and thirteen almost thirty percent down below that i'm just wondering what us what you why  think that is so that's a great question and thank you for that from our standpoint part of it is relative with the federal grants or the drying up we i think were very much  was so strong and that's why the we have moved to introducing other programs to try to bring that contribution back up to similar levels and we'll continue to do that but that's really one of the key reasons that we've seen because from  a service standpoint whether it be the call basics program whether it's introducing these additional discount days that we offer and certainly planned efforts to offer additional discounts in addition to the ongoing ten percent discount food for all members receive you know will we would just like to continue monch of that and we certainly seen an increase in the number of food for all members overall which is once again a good sign for us and that we're headed in the right  direction and i also did want to also thank the mayor for mining me because there are you know i could go on for for quite a while about some of the different aspects of the south and store we do have the first ever trans critical a c o two a federation system  in vermont this means that essentially refrigeration unit is powered by c o two the technology is proven it's in your in place of europe and other states but never in vermont we made the investment at the very onset because we want to set a precedence for other food retailers to follow and so we hope that is the case we also have a wonderful teaching kitchen so if you haven't taken a class at the call we offer over seventy a year they've been selling out  very quickly and then also we have a community space something that based on the conversation the many conversations that we had with the community that came up as a consistent want for the communion so we develop one which you can actually yourself thank you so much with that concludes that presentation i number three we will move in we are about twenty minutes late on the public forum my apologies so we will get right into a number for public comment  period and i'll call your name up and you have three minutes to speak there is a time system in for you that the lurch you when you're near the end the yellow light the red light tells you your time is up and you need to conclude you remarks please make sure you speak right into the microphone so everyone can hear you and the council was criticized recently in the free press and the editorial by someone for didn't appear we were listening so let's all just let me remind everyone on the  to be followed by doug good evening miss andrea welcome thank you good evening i first like to acknowledge the results of last tuesday's town meeting where fifty five percent of the voters in burlington voted with their heads and their hearts and supported article six i hope the city council will do its to diligence to uphold the mandate from the people of burlington who asked for the cancellation of the f thirty five mission and requested a quieter safer mission for our air national guard that does not harm its neighbors or their children i understand that you were to receive a presentation tonight honoring the new navy fast transport ship named for the city of burlington this new ship that honors burlington is designed for in fiftieth landings and troop transports or to perform humanitarian missions these are the same kinds of missions that the voters of burlington strongly support for our and national guard and that aligns more closely with our vermont values than the f thirty five first strike stealth bomber fighter jet whose primary mission will be to bomb structures and people of sovereign nations in foreign lands i hope you will fulfill the wishes of the voters of burlington for a mission that our vermont air national guard that they can truly support and that restores their support for our guard thank you thank you very much dug us lazarus thank you to be followed by trial charlotte good evening and welcome my coming here tonight has to do with my interest  i'm an artist a filmmaker and a bit of a historian i did the bicentennial publication for the state of vermont back in ninety one i've been aware of the mural for years i never thought of the mural as representing from on history i thought it was kind of a church street phenomenon i think that would have been sort of brought out now is that it does seem to have morphed in consciousness to a representation of the state's history and not just church streets history or even burlington history my personal problems with the mural have to do with  historicity of the mural it does not actually include things that are in people that are significant to the history of the state  also does not present the contributions of nonwhite vermonters to any great degree and i did some preliminary research found that the first vermont woman the first black woman poet in america was a vermonter back in the seven hundred ninety s he was born seventeen nineties and so people began coming coming to me out of my research and i realized that the mural did not have to deal with tokenism but actual important historical figures  if it is to represent vermont i am not in favor of the idea of taking the mural down in its entirety and replacing it be very expensive to do that and i believe it also would  provocative to people who feel that doing that would be a statement that goes beyond the mural to to the issue of political correctness which to certain individuals even in vermont is threatening to them i think that what i would like to see is that the mural be viewed as a work in progress that our consciousness has evolved since it went into position and that by the addition of probably a dozen or so figures the mural could be altered so that it would be making  thank you very much charlotte bennett to be followed by donna walters good evening mr that will welcome this time i come as someone who had the great privilege of studying art history in florence italy the great city of the renaissance so when i first heard about  to destroy the mural i i was shocked and it hit me right in the got someone who appreciates art as history and as a reflection of the times when people lived and created it is a window into a civilization at that particular period and i just wanted to give you a couple of examples i decided to look up and some of my old art books some pra do you want to pass that around only because when you leave the microphone channel seventeen lose you in terms of the volume thank you but there were slaves and they were bringing tribute and the interesting thing is there's a picture in there that shows that one of the porters is scowling at the artist think he could he or she could get away with putting that into the mural i don't know but it tells us something about the times then we come to the time of the message in florence there's this wonderful   we're going to we need that to tell seventeen especially they'll pick up if you hold it up they'll zero in on it so this was done in the fifteenth century it was in florence and what's new about this isn't it you no longer have kings you have noble well they're not even noblemen they're bankers this is the beginning of capitalism it starts in florence and there's a great great art artistic blossoming at the time but what's interesting is that you're seeing the melding of religious themes the adoration of the magic and you've got the nobles presented visiting  virgin mary so they're interjecting the point is this tells us a lot about this the times and the and the medically are pictured in just as people are pictured in the mural now come up to present it's much more representative but to be improved i concur with the previous speaker one other last thing i found an a a in a town and then they found out it was taken from a picture of a lynching so it changed the whole dimension and what ultimately here is the end what ultimately got decided was that a committee was for elgin cultural arts commission which will decide the fate of the mural and they say the purpose is to engage the community in an ongoing conversation about the history of racial violence so  and we have we have people that taped all the trees in the park so i encourage people if you haven't had a chance to take a walk or drive by the park in the last three weeks to please do so it's not an easter egg every tree that is wrapped in brightly colored tape is one of the trees that will be cut down if the plan for city hall that's under review right now city hall park  approved so i just want you to imagine what it's going to feel like walking through there and those are all stops and i want to appeal to the city council to take you voted on this to approve this back in september and i'd like to encourage you to take another look at it because the plan has changed and morphed since then there's new information that been brought forward that informing can be informative and i think you should take a look at it one of the things in particular is a shade side that the requested and it pretty much shows that on the hard scape area where people would be sitting on benches on stone walls or movable tables and chairs there's hardly any shade at all is a tiny bit of shade but hardly any shade at all between noon and four pm pretty much the peak time some people want to be escaping the hot hard scape on church street and they want to escape into the shade of the park eat their lunch we also visited decker towers in three talk to senior citizens that live there within walking distance of the park we showed them the shade study and asked them there what they thought about it and pretty much what they had to say was they want to sit on wooden benches that have back support that are along the the walkways not on the grass but along the walkways in the shade so i would just encourage you to take another look at what is slated to be approved and the other thing that you didn't know when you folks major approval decision was a number a definitive number of how many trees would actually be cut down and we know that number now and people are shocked they're just shocked and you may be shocked to so please take a walk through the park and see how you feel all right thank you ms walters next up monique fordham to be followed by carolyn bates welcome ms fordham thank you we'll let me in to eat into my time for just a second to say came a little bit late and then when i saw that you all had a little goody bags i thought like maybe like oprah i would look under my bag under my seat and there would be one but there was that i had my hopes up there  actual tree study of how many trees were scheduled to be cut down we've been working to raise public awareness about this because we know that there would be an outcry and we were right and in a very small amount of time the d r b which was reviewing  it received over one hundred eighty e mails from concerned people in addition to at least fifty people coming to speak on very short notice and at a time which is usually extremely inconvenient for people to attend because it starts at five when most people are just getting out of work and going home to make dinner so i think that in this very short amount of time and once we had put the ribbons on the trees to really show the full effect of the plan people i'm sure some of your constituents have reached out to you and were really really upset about this and did not feel that there was adequate concern consensus members of keep the park green attended nineteen of the public planning meetings and we were never given a straight answer about how many trees were going to be cut we were never given that personally we actually just found the plan by looking on the d r b website under a button that said coming soon which in most cases would indicate there was nothing there that is how we obtained their tree study and in our interactions with the d r b it be came clear that what i would call there was impermissible segmentation of the trees in the park and the twenty two were not studied so the total amount that people were told going to remain twenty four did not factor in  opinions that the previous arborists had already said seven of these non assessed trees would also need to come down that's a total of thirty nine trees to come down and in addition to that we've just record quested the staging maps for when they bring in heavy machinery and one of the members of the design team in one of the second to be meeting had made a comment that some other trees would need to come down to accommodate the staging areas which would mean even more trees would come down so although it's clear that the d r b is going to approve this based on the very near a criteria we're going to continue to raise public awareness about this because we don't think that your constituents are going to be happy with this plan and as ms walters stated we don't believe that when you voted on the plan that you had all the information in front of you that your constituents may care about so i think that we can find a compromise we're certainly not against taking down sick trees that cannot be treated in medicaid in some way but we think we could work together so i wasn't city hall park before they took out all the benches and the homeless and i slept on those benches i was even homeless for about a year but anyway we're into city hall park design and part of the keep the park  and i find that we just all voted to help climate change to reduce it in the city and i pretty sure the mayor is very proud to have that within our city but we want to take out more than half of the trees in city hall park i mean i have now taken out all the grass in my little one thousandth of an acre of land to try to help climate change i think we should in the city as well you know trees help reduce air pollution they reduce u v light because you're in the shade and the biggest operation in the in the nation every year is for cataracts and u v lights causes those and cancer it each and every one of you walk that park more than once and see what's happening how many trees are really being taken down and think of the size of the canopy i can't even put my arms around some of those trees and they're going to replace them with trees or the size of my ankle ok i majored it what i have here i've done a lot of taking their designs and trying to make them understandable because they're only in black and white illustration so you have to read between the lines to find out what's going on and this particular one i don't have enough for all of you right now but that is showing you the hard scaping at four o'clock in june which is and on the top one you will see that there is very little hard scapes shown us of the hardships only twenty five percent of the park not a third of the park which is the bottom plan and that's their plan and you can see it's hot on the fourth four pm this other one i'm showing you shows you the trees that initially we figured were going to be removed we found more and also on the bottom is the two thousand and twelve survey that everyone keeps talking about being robust and you'll notice that only five people wanted less shade in that park so i don't think that's being followed at all so i ask you i plead with you to let this be let the public come back like they did last august and have a public display of what the new design is it was changed march seventh of this year c'mon get the public out and revoke thank you so much for to be followed by james lee's good evening and welcome mr send them weinberger and members of the council even though it's not on your agenda tonight i also am here to speak about the proposed city hall park plans its recently gone through to d r b hearings as some of you may know i had the honor and privilege of serving on the planning commission for some eleven years and on the d r b for two years in all the time that i was on those two bodies i on any other project i haven't seen as many people come out opposed to a plan and that includes there are more people at the darby hearings and we're out there for example the downtown wall redevelopment project  people were passionate and they made really perceptive comments especially about the massive tree removal goes without saying that city hall park is probably the most important public space in this at least in downtown probably in the city and the main issue that's coming up is just the dramatic extent to which crees are going to be removed many to meet the program needs of the new park plan of the plans call for removing over sixty percent of the trees now there in one fell swoop it's going to be almost like a clear cutting of the park of our set of our central  park also for me i also have concerns about the removal of the historic fountain feature there replacing it by a series of water jets i haven't heard any comments by the planners about what's go the six seven eight months of the year when the water jets are not in operation it's on this massive cave surface i just don't understand it  e had to do some fundraising recently for a nonprofit and you have to give people the ask so the ask want to give to you is come up with a way to re examine this to reopen the process i think there is room for compromise on both sides but i think both sides need to get involved there's new information that's come up as the previous speakers have said and i think what we're asking for is for you to develop some strategies to have a fresh look at what's in place before we go down this route thank you all right thank you mr sandel james lee used to be followed by steve marshall our final speaker mr leader welcome thank you very much so the vote for ballot item six on march sixth was not just a victory for thousands of families in the flight path it was also actually a victory for the men and women of the merman national guard more than a thousand children will be spared the intense noise of the f thirty five that burlington's own board health reported causes delayed reading and impaired memory and concentration elderly will be spared a cause of heart disease and stroke as also identified by burlington's own board of health and the men and women of the vermont air national guard will have a new mission that does not put them in the position of harming neighboring children and  elderly and that allows them to avoid contradicting their own announced mission to protect the citizens of vermont it will also be a victory for vermont story town meeting form of democracy that goes all the way back to seven hundred seventy seven if this council respects the will of the elect requesting that the air force cancel the f thirty five at burlington and provide alternative equipment for the vermont air national guard that slow noise and has a high safety record i'm delighted that councilor jones shannon put forward such a resolution her resolution is consistent with the requirements of article six and article twenty of them on constitution that provide the town meeting is when the people instruct their representatives and that elected officials are trustees and servants of the people i hope the resolution will remain as written and will receive broad support from councillors and the mayor thank you very much thank you mr leaves our final speaker tonight is steve marshall welcome mr marshall thank you very much mr right and thank you counsel thank you very much for considering the resolutions and ordinance changes which will have an impact on not just the homeless community but also on a lot of other poor people and tourists i take it you're i guess i'm i'm told that you are to dissipate that you will be passing these resolutions organize changes which i fully support and i'm very very grateful i'm going to take the rest of my time or part of it who said change the subject i would like to say about the f thirty five the world is a crazy and mean place we are seeing shootings in schools i do believe we are not talking about arming teachers here in vermont because we do not believe that making schools less safe we don't want to make them war zones and in this very same way i'm adamantly opposed to bringing the f thirty five to burke to burlington vermont because i do not want to make the world less safe by supporting the existence of these planes i would ask you to demand a safe mission a mission that contributes to the safety of the world and is not one that is based in a loud dangerous machine finally the thought was i guess i'm going to have to leave it there because i went blank thank you very much it happens to us all mr marshall thank you very much that concludes tonight's public forum  any discussion of those in favor of approving and taking action is indicated by the consent of janet tonight please say i and he opposed passes unanimously and we have approved tonight slate of consent agenda items we will now recess the regular city council meeting and go to the board of civil authority with the mayor thank you i think press the right let me call intersession the board of civil authority twenty pm the first item is the agenda are there any changes to the agenda if not accept the motion accept the agenda as presented mayor and we will now convene the local control commission meeting item number one is the agenda and i will go to the chair of the local control commission all those in favor and the discussion all those in favor of approving that consent of jennifer and the opposed we have our consent agenda ok approved move to item three point zero one i'd like to move the approval of the two thousand and seventeen two thousand eight hundred first class restaurant bar liquor license application for need to bakery to ninety five north when you see ave one twelve c with all standard conditions are moved by counselor dean second roof discussion seeing none of those in favor of approval police ai and the opposed that passes unanimously moved to item three point zero two counts are doing i'd like to move the approval of the two thousand and seventeen two thousand eight hundred outside consumption per application for the friendly toast eighty six st paul street moved and the second by a commissioner roof any discussion  bush it's my regular question so was there any process i'm not sure if there are any residential units around there but were there was there a process to leaflet or include comments from the neighborhood or surrounding businesses regarding the eight am to two am outside permit and could you just share it sorry president right may i ask if the chair of the committee could share any comments that were i will recognize the chair counselor commissioner dean to respond there was not a process to leaflet or ask  adjacent neighbors to the to this location it is in a very commercial location just across there there are very few residential units that would be directly chastened to this to this this and that it's a relatively small area that has in the past hosted with previous restaurants located in that location has hosted outside area consumption before we felt as though it was responsible to support the application permission to ask a brief question of the chair you may proceed sort of following on the same line you know i feel like these guys all come in and ask for the most you know i appreciate friday saturday nights two am you know might be expected living in downtown but i do share some concern that two o'clock seven days a week there are a number of you know there are four condos in seventy six st paul street there are a number of you know apartments along bank i could see if it were really intending to do seven  week and my guess is they're not you know but most applicants come in and ask for the most you know rather than what they actually project in terms of hours so i don't know if there was any discussion with the applicant about whether they really needed you know two am seven days a week we encourage the applicants to think broadly about what their needs will be and so we did not have an objection during our discussions as to committee we invite them to like dean said to think a little bit more broadly expression when there are nearby adjacent businesses that are doing the same type of operations such as in this case from up from brewery or across the by the from the down st paul that strip there with american flat bread with this one again responsible responsible tenet prior applicants had had more expansive times and what they were offering i think was delhi at one point and so at that point when we felt as though these times were are open the last thing i'll say is also we've been common practice unless there is a reason to be restrictive we tend to be granting the outset and then if shannon i will also voice that i have a philosophical difference with that i think that we should be asking applicants to be realistic not expand their horizons to you know the most that they could possibly do and i think that it perhaps can invite problems where there don't need to be problems so i would ask the committee to reconsider that general philosophy but we'll go forward with this application thank you thank you commissioner shannon anyone else wish to be recognized mr chairman i'll just say that i appreciate the input from both counselor shannon and mason and i would like to invite them to contact me to give me a little more of that guidance about what they feel the appropriate questions to be asked and policies that we should be implementing great right with that kaplan revocable trust already for motion in the senate sure i would like to make a motion to deny the request and ask for the floor back if there is a second to explain why mortgage taxes and insurance were being as crowed as such they were not escrowed so we basically was late in paying his taxes as a matter of policy before this board we have taken the position that you know absent some error by the city pretty much everyone comes in with a reason why they didn't pay but we have taken a pretty firm position in the past that absent some error by the city or one of the other statutory reasons the simple fact that you didn't pay was not a basis to abate at the time this was heard before the subcommittee was just there were two of us councillor jane and myself and we just we were unable to reach an agreement on this one thank you for  would never missed a payment and like mason just say that this was an era and the error was not in our part it was in the part of the city if i get this right right and for those reasons and for an individual who paid he's been doing extremely very well in responding to paying taxes on time and i'm one of the taxes that does not have any it's not major it's very minimal and the time that he took to come here to go back to also most importantly was the only person on that day who showed up and stayed waited for  hours for just sixty nine dollars so i believe that it is very important for some time to take things based on the stories base also i mean the history of that individual the small requests i feel like it is important for us to grant the sixty nine dollars that's abatement for this individual thank you so i just want to speak in support of the motion to deny i think that you know every taxpayer has a reason that makes sense i'm not saying that it's unfortunate what happened to this individual but i think that it's not the dollar amount because it's not whether this is a lot of money or a little money it's about the process that we uphold in the city and how we consistently apply this to everybody and i do believe that we have criteria and this didn't rise to that level it was not an error that the city made it was unfortunate what happened and so i i feel for the individual you know anyways my taxes were late once because i was at a city council meeting and forgot to turn in my check and it's lasted till after midnight and there you go so you know that was human error so things happen things happen but i believe that i have to be fair to everyone that in the past came forward with a story that was had had reason and rationale but still we applied those same criteria and i want people in the future to know that we will be consistent that we won't just say well in this case we feel for you and we are going to grant that i just don't think that's ok that is not consistent and counselor position and share that when i first i came on to the council i was appointed to the tax abatement committee with councillor ellis councillor russ ellis and councillor ellis and i was two to one on every decision and we granted all of these tax abatements and we came back to this board granting all the abatements and the rest of the council then knowing the history that council or bush or just described overturned each and every one of our decisions and there was virtually no consent agenda because the two of us did not agree with the full board we were then removed from the tax abatement committee because obviously the committee could not function and deliver the answers that the majority of the full body wanted and yes so so both of us could not serve and over the years i have come to terms with the fact that it simply is fair to all the taxpayers to take the hard line that we have taken and i actually went through and researched who had who you know if a taxpayer had ever had a late payment on the whole list i was very energetic at the time but i do think that it's fair and we need to be consistent in order to be fair not to just one taxpayer but to all of the taxpayers and i will support the conservation i just i'm sorry i want to skip i'm not sure whether the homeowners here if and i want to extend that opportunity yes please i thought i recognized you please come  and i brought my daughter here from taken some time off from or high school homework to learn about her local city government you know  i paid my taxes every payment consistently for one thousand years and i ended up missing a payment because the escrow stopped because i paid off my this one payment and i put it back in to put it back into automatic payment so it'll never happen again so i understand that you have a policy but if you're going to deny me based on based on a plan in the midst rate of rule then why did you have me here and why did you have why did you have  hearing let me let me explain the process the payment was missed almost two years ago i received i've been going back and forth with e mails with the department since august two thousand and seventeen they've made me fill out a form which is the wrong one maybe fill out a second form which he had to i needed to collect three years of tax payments which you already have so i had to get it from them from which you already have make a photocopy fill out a form send it back and then i sit before before a board at which point i find it is discover that you don't have the authority to make the decision and the only time i get this i get to actually be heard is now which is a bit overkill you know i thought the the hearing was overkill i sat before four paid staff employees two elected officials i would think that penalties that i'm trying to appeal here i'm not i'm not beating my taxes i'm a bating the penalty be up what is a penalty it's imposed to prevent abuse of a system i don't abuse the system i never missed a payment and this is this the city government i work for so harsh that you no matter what there is no discretion isn't that what a hearing is all about to apply discussion if you go over the speed limit and you've never had a prior don't you get you don't you get off don't you get to appear before a judge and doesn't the judge get to say hey sorry you went over the speed limit five miles an hour too bad no showed them that it worked that i actually made the payment through an email it was all taken care of my my my penalty got abated these examples of being abated i mean this is  this is been going on for over a year this is ridiculous and now i have to appear before you all i mean if you were never going to appear if you're never going to  d on city boards i paid my taxes i volunteered on the same boards they use it on an electric commission and the c d g commission on the war for planning my family goes out and tries raise money for local nonprofits we are citizens here and you're going to look at me and say too damn bad you paid nineteen years of payments but you miss one and then corrected it so you can always get we automatically paid too damn bad that really this is the city government that i work for is it really this is city government that i pay taxes to that's how you're going to be and then the same city government going to turn around and ask me to do things sit on a board pay pay to contribute towards the city arts department go to clean up day green up day clean up my clean up my park and that's how you're going to cheat me taking a screen i hear mr crane's points and i wanted to check how the process works when he reference of the forms that he has to fill out in order to appeal these taxes and on those forms as a give the reasons it's not actually an administrative policy it's state law the reasons that we can  e taxes and is that in the forms that he fills out is that on the form the forms the towards the bottom of the form state the three criteria that is outlined or legal and there is other information on the website one of the things that i thought about listening to this gentleman is that maybe everyone that makes a request should have some type of manual as to what the past practice has been so they don't go through all the process if they know that they'll weigh their case in the have more information and maybe that would be helpful yeah i think that i appreciate that mr crane's view is that our ward is is harsh but it has been a long standing policy of the board to try and be consistent which is i think what is being interpreted as harsh though we do value consistency and what is quite unfortunate is the amount of time and effort that you have put into this process with the belief that you're coming to us with a reasonable request and that we have the flexibility to grant that so i think that that i would appreciate a second look at that process in in light of the comments i'm sorry that it hasn't changed my opinion of the appropriate way for you for myself to vote and i hope for the rest of the board to be consistent with pas the history i know that we wrote a manual with cases that are related to a payments and how the previous boards have ruled we can look at that as well regarding the escrow ending and the pay off and then no but they're all very similar but they're all slightly different i can preach i sat on the board a few years and i  i think one of the most important thing is to be consistent and consistent can be harsh i get that and i to learn i think some valuable lessons when i sat on the board  volunteering commissions and all of that and i think that is really important to keep on doing it but you know just let this you know remind you that we all trying to do our best and disagreements  at that process you know by by three counselors but that doesn't take your way of right of coming in for the full council and that's where you are correct mr crane the final decision is made at this and this council and so you have a clearer outcome or a clearer picture when you have three city councillors on that committee i think would be fair to say but i do think that you have it right with your assessment when you say that i never realised that the final decision is made really by this entire body and not by that committee so i just want to make sure that you understand your process of thinking was right tonight and it's only a recommendation that we receive from that from that committee so i just want to for the record want you to realise that you were right and what you were saying tonight ok if there are no other councillors who wish to be recognized think we're ready conservation first i'd like to start by asking whether the homeowner is present before starting the discussion seeing no one raised their hand this one is just as confusing and complex as the last one  it's also come to my own i believe there's some new information that i am not sure whether mr de mint is here mr blackwood but let me give a brief introduction and then maybe turn it over eileen so this is a homeowner who was requesting an abatement in the amount of three thousand seven hundred two dollars and five cents which i believe also is penalties and interest he has paid the underlying tax he came seeking an abatement based on the statutory basis that it was manifestly unjust that the city had assessed tax the record before us showed that this was a homeowner who was and and involved in a long going dispute with the city attorney's office regarding non compliant property all to end during that time period or at some point during that time period he basically stopping his taxes ultimately a decision was rendered in favor of the city's position there was a fine assessed however during that process it does appear he became his financial situation became challenging also because of the flood there was some revised assessment as to his principal residence however so what this actually the committee heard this twice the first time was on the manifest unjust and it was the sense of the committee at the time that what he had not demonstrated you know basically he lost before and his position was not true one that did not give you know you can stop paying our taxes just because you're fighting with the city  however the committee did ask for some additional information of its own volition on the financial ability and whether there was a different criteria under which possibly abating we did get some financial information and then there was a dissent at the committee as to whether to grant based upon that so with that it came to my attention today there is some additional information that maybe city attorney blackwood could inform the committee it's also my understanding that this is a dyno hearing so we can hear whatever new evidence is that true or is that yes ok so mayor weinberger with your permission i like to turn it over to the city attorney thank you i just wanted to make sure that folks understood because it sounded from what i had heard there was some under misunderstanding about this this was an enforcement action that the city undertook and it was a long involved process that took many months and the homeowner had a number of opportunities to resolve their issue and eventually the court agreed to impose a penalty upon them for their failure to comply with the zoning ordinances of a dollar a day and amounted to ten thousand dollars plus so you can see how long standing the violation was the there were were in in addition after the fine was the penalty was imposed there was there were further proceedings  eventual ie the situation was corrected for a while it apparently involved a lot of property out in the yard it was moved to a different property outside of the city of burlington it is apparently now been moved back and we're big about to begin further in foresman proceedings on the property so i just it just felt to me that was and i was hoping maybe if the applicant would be here that you know they could receive respond however they want to but it felt like information you  should have thank you so i read this and was i had difficulty understanding all of this even after the brief information that was just shared what so for someone that's just looking at this information in the packet what was troubling well and this is the information provided by the appellant going to come forward saying that that that that they had paid the fine and they had and they cost more than twelve thousand dollars to to make the improvements to bring the property into the zoning compliance or did it can i just ask a couple of questions mr mayor for the first one is did did he pay the fine is that true and did the property come into compliance oh yes to if i can ask again another question i'm sorry so then they talk about the flood and the money that the city received from i was not safe but vermont i guess  and that the city refused to allocate funds to them based on their ongoing zoning litigation  i don't know anything about that so to me that was incredibly disturbing i wasn't sure legally how this all came together i still don't understand it i think if a person has significant destruction from an event that they didn't cause like a flood then to me the i would have felt that ok now they're in another category and i wasn't sure where i was with this process at that point in time and so i felt i'm prepared to vote on this because i just don't understand this ever just to sort of address there was a lot of information presented and it was somewhat challenging to try and figure out what was relevant and what was not so at least the way we looked at it and i appreciate others may look at it differently was first addressing is this manifestly unjust is the assessment of the penalties and interest manifestly on just hypotheticals or other facts where we have done that are where property was flooded destroyed by fire you know there were there was some  that wiped out and we felt it was unfair to tax you for use of a residence when it was not present so at least in my analysis no there was not you know you can't stop paying your taxes just because you're fighting with the city so for me the conduct did not i did not believe it was manifestly unjust then we got into analysis of whether there was an ability to pay that was the secondary analysis in light of the hardship or the difficulty that was professed and again we were limited to the information presented to us you know it did appear that there was sufficient income you know combined with his spouse in order to pay this penalty and interest so and i respect counseling and i may have disagreed on that analysis but based on you know my analysis there was an ability to pay so he did not rise to the this homeowner did not rise to the level of granting relief based on inability to pay so that was again and i appreciate there's a lot more in there but we did not the homeowner wasn't there so we didn't really get an opportunity to delve into some of that information so mr american history so so i'm so what i'm trying to do is figure out the sequence of  en there was the flood and the the destruction to some aspect of the house it seemed like you know he states they were underwater for six weeks so without access to any of the grants from then even though the ability to pay might have been there if you're trying to save your home trying to figure this out so i don't know how to put piece it all together i really don't and and so then when did he when did the property fall out of compliance again so is that relative is that relevant or not it was not a bar in litigation  city against him i'm trying to figure this out to recognize attorney walker to me when i get home in on some pieces about this because i don't know anything about the flood part of it but the flow that he's he's talking about the flood of twenty eleven and the enforcement action was filed i think in two thousand and thirteen it was resolved in court and twenty fifteen i believe the fine was paid in twenty early twenty sixteen certainly long after the flood ok ok so the flood happened before the other aspects and i'm sorry if everyone else knows the sequence i apologize but i'm trying to figure this out so then the committee looked at his ability to pay based on him paying the penalties the flood was over and so when did he fall out of compliance again with zoning just recently and we are just beginning dealing with track thank you very much ok show i think inability to pay is often a difficult it's difficult for us to determine because there's so much that goes into that but these things are are complicated and sometimes we cannot prove affirmatively one way or the other so we're left to our best judgment on that the evidence of foreclosure tells me this is somebody in severe dire financial situation and certainly they they well might meet that bar of inability to pay the becoming but if they're going back to where they were with the violation of the zoning ordinance they're going to you know it's going to groundhog day and we're going to be in the same situation again where they're going to have to pay another fine which they can't afford and that's going to lead to foreclosure again and we write off this money we can actually get this money through the foreclosure process process potentially and if and if this  if this property owner isn't going to rectify the other situation i see us potentially granting th it ends up he gets foreclosed on anyway so i appreciate that this situation is so dire that it's possible that this abatement is what's standing between this homeowner and foreclosure but i would like to know that can we make it contingent on being compliant can we make an abatement contingent on being compliant with the zoning you know remedying the  and we also can postpone action waiting you know giving giving him a period of time to become compliant i believe i mean my sense would be it might make sense for you to postpone action because council bush has come up with a bunch of questions that i don't know the answer to maybe it would be helpful for us to get some of these answers get you a little bit more complete picture picture of how these things because i don't even know what he's talking about when he talks about some money from v e m a to the city that the city wouldn't you know him i mean and he's talking about having been in forbearance with his mortgage company for a long time but i don't and then there's something about a foreclosure order but but that certainly isn't something i recall seeing in the court record which would have been all around the same time he's talking about so maybe you decide to postpone it and let us get some more information back to you very clearly in this and because maybe there are some new information and to me basically they all the same we are not talking about the new zoning compliance but we're talking about what has passed the application that the person debating the postponement not the merits correct correct so yes ok but i would have really just have the time to also articulate why we needed to do i think things just went a little bit fast without cancer mason you know the floor back think you are acting president right so this is something we've been sort of dancing off and on with for the last three or four meetings i'm not going to go through the same statement that i made before other than to say in the context of the review of the quality of life which we're going to be tackling the city attorney brought to the ordinance committee a number of ordinances that were either unconstitutional based on the read case no longer really being enforced such as the cruising ordinance that is currently on the books the ordinance committee spent a fair amount of time with the city attorney walking through each of the proposed repeals and basically got confirmation that basically actionable conduct was still action e under alternative provisions of our ordinances so i will say i know the one that has generated a little bit of discussion relates to the aggressive panhandling we have received advice from the city attorney's office that under the read case that actually impacted what we did on the planned parenthood buffer zone you know panhandling is speech and there are you know this is happening across the country that aggressive  panhandling ordinances are being repealed the committee separate and apart from this has asked the city attorney to possibly explore an alternative on the streets that is not yet ready for prime time it is not really for this other than to say it will be forthcoming if we get the advice from the city attorney that we expect thank you thank you counselor mason open for discussion to the city council and the city council was to weigh in all right all those in favor of passing this change ordinance which repeals a number of ordinances which there have been as conservation as described please say and the opposed passes unanimously  we will now move to thank you thank you mr chairman on that ordinates item number six point zero two is a resolution policy development reporting on council thank you so this resolution is coming to the council in response to the quality of life ordinances we're going to changes that were born brought forward in the january twenty fifth twenty second meeting of this council at that meeting if we can remember the order and change was warned incorrectly which warranted a slight delay and action also at that meeting there was an issue brought forth by way of a proposed amendment that aim to essentially require police measure and note the distance of the nearest bathroom facility in violations of chapter twenty one this came for both of those reasons to public safety committee to be discussed we did so in our february meeting where we discussed the responsibility of the city in providing bathrooms not unjustly or selectively enforced and forcing chapter twenty one while no amendments more were made to the code of ordinances as we received it we did however address the issues brought forth by the amendment and its maker with the following actions number one will be asking the police department to explore a policy noting the location of publicly accessible bathrooms and cynicism in forcing section twenty one dash twenty four and will report back to the council with that recommendation within ninety days number two will be asking the police department to provide a status report to the public safety committee in two years with information related to the enforcement of chapter twenty one the questions that will be included in that report can be found in the resolution finally we are requesting that the the administration develop maintain and publicize a record and location of public it will be available restrooms with the intention of providing a system of facilities in aggregate that and aggregate excuse me that meet the public health needs of the broad community i will note that this resolution was some was unison supported by other committee members as well as council tracy was president who was present excuse me and chief don't pose a thank you thank you council roof discussion by the city council hearing none we'll move to a vote on this resolution all those in favor of passage of this resolution please say aye and he opposed once again passes unanimously thank you council roof and the public safety committee for that we will move on i don't number six point zero three has been removed from the agenda so we'll move to item six point zero four and this is the item regarding the miro issue and will if you remember back to the meeting we discussed this previously cancer janks resolution basically became a report from city attorney blackwood she has issued a report a written report and now will ask for city attorney backward to give us a synopsis of that report followed and then we'll take questions from the council for city attorney blackwood that will be followed by the next am six point zero five which is a count as a resolution by counselor shannon which was action was postponed on that at the previous meeting to this date march that march twelfth meeting so we'll hear the report from city attorney blackwood and then go to the resolution so you terry thank you i think we laid out some quick questions than answers at the beginning of their  memo and then further on in the memo you can get more fill in more information about this but the quick questions were who owns the mural because that makes a difference who has the authority to do something and if there is only a verbal agreement with the building owner and there was a draft agreement between the church the marketplace foundation and the artists that we did not find a signed copy of but in any case the foundation folks indicated that they believe that they had gifted or in some way given the mural to the city and therefore our conclusion is that the city as sensually owns the mural if there is a decision to go forward we may want to get some something in writing from for example the foundation to just verify that as we move forward so we may take some steps if that's how the the council decides to move but that was our conclusion that we think we can legally do move forward and do something now what can we do so the first the second question we had was were what rights does the artist have and the visual artists rights act called vera in short says that an artist can prevent any distortion modification or mutilation of a plate piece of work so the question here is whether or not it can be modified whether or not it it can be removed or moved without destroying it or or modifying it in any way so for example of the i think the public comments about modification we would need to get the artists consent to do before we could modify and essentially our recommendation is that we should be going to the artists and trying our best to get the artists consent for whatever it is we try to do that's going to be the safest legal way for us to proceed no matter what we try to do and there were also questions raised about what rights any of the donors who gave the money would have and it appears they were given to a charitable organization there were no as far as we could find there were no specific earmarks by anyone so we don't see that the donors have any enforceable right so given those are the essential of the legal summary of where we where we are and i'm happy to answer any questions right thank you questions from the city council council or bush or i don't have a question but i want to give you a compliment i understood this report and from a city attorney to anon attorney it was very clear  it was formatted well you know i very much appreciated it and substantiated and gave me more information about the rights of the artist and where we are and  really it was very well done so i magine this was a fair amount of work so thank you very much thank you thank you councilor bush or other comments or questions for city attorney blackwo yes thank you again for the hard work it was looks like it was also your team how many people worked on this report turney dexter cooper did a lot of the research and she talked to a lot of different people who assisted from the marketplace and other parts of the city that it sounds like now the city owns america is that correct what we are called we believe that to be the case we believe or you know in the middle of no sorry do we own the middle the c d o burlington owns a middle now or no we believe that the city of burlington owns them as i said we were probably assuming that you want to move forward with something we'll probably take some steps to make sure that we solidify that a little more by getting the foundation to be clear that it does not believe it and yes i mean i have think my question is very specific and cleo that the c d o burlington on the middle or no make sure of that getting some kind of release from the foundation so i personally believe then you know we respectfully ask to get all the information and it sounds like it was not only you you had assistant who'd been working on this as well and i do believe this is very important and this is very critical for us to have the right information before we make any action and i do believe that it will be important to get the facts very right so my said i have couple questions many questions but we can't i can come back to the second round president mr mayor and then we'll go to counseling yeah i just cancer jack i think it's important and this happens too often in this setting is important that staff members of the city bryant and be treated correctly and to characterize you not having been given the right information is not a fair characterization of the exchange that just happened between you and see attorney the city attorney said she's giving you the best opinion based on substantial amounts of work and depending on the action that is desired to go forward from here additional steps would be necessary it's not a question of her securing the right information and i appreciate the way in which the question was phrased or this statement was made  you have to be recognized so thank you so let's we'll bring you back but counselor yes thank you and we'll go to counsel roof and then we come back to you think i also have a question for the city attorney will say that i did personnel tried several ways to contact the artist and the artist did not respond however in the interim i'm sure you all saw the newspaper reporter was able to contact the artist and we have not gone back to try to do a follow up post that newspaper report wanting to see if we got a little more guidance from the council on how you want to proceed because it seems to me the next step out of the probably a contact of the artist that says here's what we want to do do you you know where do you stand on that thank you guys or go back to cancer jane thank you and my apologies for you know those reasons but i think it is very important and very imperative because as i said earlier this is very clear and he's very critical and i think since january two thousand and five to now maybe you were on vacation and you let your staff help you to get the right information we are going to take action and we are going to take action but before we do that we need the right information to the best of your abilities but i do believe that it is important to use some wood such as this is a credit or this is not accurate but to me as an english language learning i mean when i hear we believe it does not really give the right answer and that's just what i'm trying to get you to say do we own the middle or not but it sounds like it's not clear yet whether we own the middle or we don't is that i couldn't see at any point of order on a part of her cancer shannon what is your point of order i think the city attorney has answered the question repeatedly to the best of her ability and i don't know that it's productive or appropriate to kind of continue to badger on the same question i think that is a point well taken i think that comes jang that the attorney has i think has covered that i appreciate the question i do appreciate the question but i think that the attorney back was made clear that she's given her best analysis of this which is that she believes that we are on the marrow but she thinks that we need to do a little more work to make sure i when will we get that information if you see the attorney yeah i think what we need is we wanted to direction from you that yes you would like to move forward with with something and then we will go to the foundation and get and ask them for release of any rights any residual rights they think they may have and we'll put that document together and and and  he has the full answer from the city whether we own or not i think it makes sense that's why i'm asking we will counter jang decides to do that that will be up to him to make that motion he has the ability to make a motion to postpone action we have not passes away for that for twenty five maybe thank you acting president right i think the confusion if i may try isn't that it's not a question that hasn't been that step you know what this is not lack of diligence th confusion i think relates to the fact that there's an unsigned agreement there's the fact that the city was making payments so it's not a question of if if more questions had been asked or more people had done work that we know the answer to that what i'm hearing from the city attorney is based on their analysis we believe we own it however we think in order to confirm that we would like to present an assignment or some document to the foundation which is a separate legal person asking them to assign any and all rights to the work to the city that one of us now would address there's no question who would own it if they signed that piece of paper we have no reason to think the foundation won't sign that piece of paper but they were looking for some guidance from us as to which direction to go before preparing that document and presenting it to the foundation to sign so that's my assessment of that so i see no reason at this time to delay moving forward with the task force or some other type of action thank you thank you  think that we should be ready to move into the action item now so let's cancel jang i have multiple questions we will i think there'll be more opportunity when we when we take up the resolution do you  have something to address still now before we move to that all of the questions that i have to get ready and they will be on that report from the c d o today so i would like you to please allow me to ask them  thank you yes so i think thank you again thank you very much and you know you talked about vienna visual arts and in the report especially the sex question number two reputation of the artist yes we did a little bit of looking at case law on what that means how that's been targeted to mean and it's pretty subjective standard and the courts have looked at and i think i gave you all an indication of a very recent incident that happened where a developer removed a lot of graffiti from a building in and twenty one graffiti artists were awarded a fairly large sum in the court case for having removed that without the artist permission because the artists themselves deemed that it would harm their reputations so there is a it is a complicated one i should say it's complicated it's a legal standard that's going to depend on what the artist comes in and says about their reputation and what the court says as to whether adding new figures for example to this would in some way harm the artist reputation my recommendation in this is if we if there is a decision that folks want to move forward with looking to modify the mural in some way that we should try to contact the artist and find out what the artist position in is that is on that it may be that the artist says no that won't harm my reputation that's fine  so i mean i think eats clearly said that the artist had the right under the visual arts right act to prevent any distortion mutilation modification of a work that would be to he's or the petition and to prevent destruction of any artwork and also on the report you also mentioned somewhere that the art techniques that was used here  technique that we use for this middle we found at least one case where the courts have applied vera to trump loyal and trump loyal is essentially the definition of it is a visual art that attempts to take in a two dimensional form and make it appear as if it's three dimensional so given all of that it appeared to us to make to it and our conclusion was that you asked this form of art because you would raise this question to me ahead of time so we did look at it and it was our w so just to come to a conclusion i don't believe that disagree part he's clearly a credit to what we need to know in order to go to the next step and i really would like for the city attorney to please i mean come back with couple of more concrete steps and one of them would be to find the time to speak with the artist about this issue and also try to get his thought i mean clearly and present it to us the second thing would be also to make sure that the presentation will include that yes the cd this middle or the city does not own the middle and also to make sure that we have a find that contract and also to make sure that we have the signed contract here on a document included in the in the report as well so there are four or five man things that i really would like to see in order for us specifically to know that we received a good it report about the things that we nicely asked you on the twenty fifth and again thank you very much and my question is do i think i'm reading it correctly i know there's a few different things at play there is there's very there's a hearty contract there's also the r of q could you just give a layman's terms breakdown of where we are where we are with the promised land of the the there are there are a few was definitely put out and it included something that said five year that it would be displayed but for five years and that the display was not a contractual term there is then a draft contract that we have found in city records with a foundation that has ten years in it and there were apparently some some comments made to sponsors that talked about ten years because that was what the artist indicated that the artist felt the materials and everything would last so so all but our conclusion of all of that is that  because we don't have a signed contract and we don't have the in the promises if they really were promises to donors were not made in the form of being binding promises that in some way means the city yes a move to adopt the resolution and ask for the floor back after a second seconded by counselor bush or cancer shannon tell us what this resolution does and thank you i think this resolution recognizes that the  everyone loves a parade murell is not as inclusive as as we expect in our community but that there might be a variety of different solutions  individuals who have a wide variety of wide array of perspectives including that of the new american abernathy and other diverse communities the church street marketplace commission mural donors and the arts community and that the city will provide staff to the task force and run an open application process one of the things that i've considered if this should pass i think it would be helpful if the city could create a an application that people could fill out that specifically addresses those diverse communities that are listed in ask people if they're because we wouldn't necessarily know from apple application if they fit into this category or that so i think it would be helpful to have that on the application as a way of determining that and also charges the task force with considering what the options might be for the mural keeping in mind the rights of the artists the property rights principles of public art and other important criteria by which this this should be judged i personally hope that the that what might come out of this as well as kind of an additional part of the discussion is to consider what what our process should be going forward to avoid the mistakes that we've made i think it's much harder to correct a mistake once it's done and there's a huge investment in something like this and it will be better if we can head it off before all that money is spent and before we make the mistake that perhaps makes people feel badly for a variety of reasons  one of which might be race but there are other issues as well and i'll you know i'll be happy to come before the taskforce or maybe i'll be able to participate to talk about that more but i hope that the council will support this so that we can we can move forward together on an issue that can be very divisive i think it's better that we try to find some common ground and i think the task force will give us that i don't think it specifies the city attorney's office but that there will be city staff support ok and that would be the expectation the city attorney would provide legal guidance for the task force depending on what the task force might decide to go with them with the m  moral because i think it's important that it stays and i agree that it needs to be more inclusive i'm going to make a pitch to counselor dan i understand where he's coming from with those questions i do feel that it would be better if we had those questions answered before we move forward with the task force i think he makes a good point however back to council shan's point she makes a good point and my hope said that this task force will go much beyond this particular painting and that it will look at the entire process moving forward on how we will approach this in the future i doubt this is going to be the last public paying that we have here in the sea of rowing to and i think would be important so i think there's a lot of work the task force could do in the meantime before we maybe get the final answer sartain to postpone the task forces work that they can actually get started on and then in that process come back with some of the final answers that counselor dang is looking for because i think it's important that we have those it would be nice to know for sure that we own it sounds like we do but i would like it to be official and it certainly would be nice to know the artist's feelings i think a taskforce would want to know that and i think that's important so but i would hate to stop the momentum that we have going now with this task force and i think there's some work they can do other than just simply just just to identify what we're going to do in this particular case so i have hopes that we move forward tonight i will support the taskforce and and and well the thing i i hope the work is done fairly quickly that this doesn't drag out through the summer months or for a long period of time we have a lot of important issues in this city that need to be addressed not that this is an important it is but i just i feel like the real work of the city ahead of us is really critical and i hope that this doesn't bog us down because i think there's a way that we can get to great outcome here and have everyone satisfied so i'm hoping that the time line is very short with the task force thank you they're going to order one of our councils and i realized i was remiss in not clarifying that i was moving the revised version of the of the resolution and the revised version does have different dates noting that the in the revised version that i moved the date to report back to the council is july sixteenth points of more information need to be done before the task force or can be done during the task force work so i think that maybe before i go to city before going to city council bush or briefly the city attorney black with them back to yeah i mean my sense is what additional work has to be done is going to be in relation to the questions and direction of the task force so i see it there we we can certainly move ahead with getting a written document a release from the foundation to the last time because i felt that the community had become divided around this topic and i felt that this was a process that could potentially bring us together i feel that you know i listened to the public forum as all of you did and the lady that spoke about our history and how artists a snapshot in time were not a perfect society that was a snapshot in time it wasn't i didn't believe it to be historical i i believed it to be representative of burlington and some of the people that we recognized more currently than in the past  so but i've learned a lot by this conversation so to me it is so important that we get the community talking about this not just the people that we that volunteer or get appointed to this task force but the whole community some may see the mural as a mistake and i'm not and i don't like those little phrases like a mistake turns into an opportunity but in this sense to turn it's going to turn into a dialogue  i'm sorry i get a lot of those little quips at work you know and so anyways but it's going to turn into a dialogue that is really an important one for all of us and so i don't want to delay that dialogue it's  begun is happening around us we need to be and a part of it we need to be included in it not that we need to direct it but we need to be part of it so that we can take the right response we can do what the community wants us to do after having a conversation about the mural and whether it should stand or be modified or what whatever the suggestions are from this conversation when we were talking about the city attorney's communication and the need to reach out to the artist and the fact that the media had have found the artist and had some kind of communication to me i want us to make sure that this resolution goes to the artist so that the artist is aware that this is these are the steps we're beginning to take and we want the artists to be involved too if he would like to be so i think that that's so important that we include everybody that wants to take part in this i'm hoping that my hopes are that the meetings will occur at times or public can usually in and that's difficult for me to say because sometimes people are much more apt to be able to come to a known time meeting and it depends on who you are and where you work e think that there needs to be a variety of times to make sure that we do capture as many people as possible so i'm very supportive of this and i'm hopeful that this will be more than a discussion about the mural as everyone said it's a discussion about who we are who we include in our community who we have excluded and who we want to make sure we don't exclude and and anticipating the next group of people that come to our community and want the community to reflect them thank you thank you cancer bush or go to cancer more and then to cancer dang doesn't work we might not agree we see each other most of the time we may not get each other most of the time but we have a moral obligation to work together issue with the same level of think that we used to create them in two thousand and four we all know that your street marketplace they have a statement of goodwill in that statement they use so many different example on how discrimination is hurting elected to make sure that every single person who believe in work here are safe they feel safe they feel respected they feel part of the process this has been a problem for guns and now we are here trying to take the concern the issue under the rug i don't think that's that's fair and i don't think that we do understand how the intention was pure maybe it was so pure we want to celebrate this is the name of what we call everyone love the parade everyone love the parade the name just the title of that piece of everyone some people who don't see themselves brought the concern up here and now we're trying to put it under the rug i don't think it's fair we can not move forward with any or that resolution until we get the right answers from the city there are a couple of things that are missing we need to know and once we know all of them  here i mean explained how an african american how the be followed historic all of that are the piece of art is still there and it is reminding the resident of this city most of them that you do belong and i think it is very important sometimes even among us we send signals we say and we talk about stuff that maybe you cannot understand if you are not a person of color and we talk about discrimination you cannot understand it when we say we are discriminating women you cannot understand until your woman we can not understand officials ease our moral obligation knowing that now thirty percent of our students are people of color and this is used as an opportunity for learning for growth but we played around played around until year i don't think that's all of that is fair we cannot talk about a task force until we get all that right information that we nicely i mean respectfully ask the city of two and you to do so we are talking about a piece of art we don't even know if the contract exists there rick the reporters can go to canada and i think all of those are very important thing that we need to talk about we know visual arts it's a protected by veda but we don't know if the specific is also under that protection a lot of things are a known and we want to solve a problem without getting to the roots the root is we know everything that these legal and again if i had the power the whole way would become piece of art and we have local artist international muralist who play all over the world and they reside right here and we also do know that before  we want to put another one we know all of that that person came here one day public forum spoke here in front of all of us you know yeah i do i do i do really do think that we need to pay extra attention we need to open our hearts we need to listen to each other we need to hold our hands we need to create a better future for what's coming next the next generation it's not easy it is not easy because ease discriminating systematic if you structural but we do get there i believe burlington can lead the world this is not maybe hurting most of the people it's not but it is important for me i will not be supporting this resolution and i do believe it is important before you move forward to get the right an resolution or if you you can vote to just defeat this resolution if you want or if you feel that you want to postpone action that is a different course of action that you could take but just to put that out there so to counter more now thank you whether own you know we own the mural regardless of what the answers to those questions are we're going to want to move forward in some way and so  that's why i'm supporting this with without those answer and i don't know i don't see how or sweeping this under the rug doesn't mean thanks i don't know what it is to be like a person of color and never walk in their shoes and i don't pretend to know that and i think anyone does is kidding themselves so i will say that right from but what i do take objection to that for years that this council or this administration or previous ministrations don't care about people safety like we do such a great job in this city and the city council has done to amend this work in this area and many different areas to make the assertion that members of this council or this administration or previous administrations had not made it safe or a welcome city here in burlington it's just not accurate it's not true and i take that personally we've done a tremendous job in this city over the last twenty years of making this city welcome to everybody and we have opened our arms and we've done great things in this city and just recently one dollar trump has been elected this administration this council stood up and made sure that everyone should feel see safe in the city and if you didn't we reinsure you we've done great work in this city are we perfect no but for someone to sit here and make the assertion that this city council somehow has not acted in a way that we don't welcome people and that we don't  resolution is to sweep anything under the rug in fact with this resolution will do it is a bring more people into the process so won't just be the people at this table it will be a more inclusive process and we'll get input from from a variety of viewpoints that are not currently at this table and that's the intention it's a public process to say sweep it on the road it makes it sound as if we're doing this behind the scenes which is not at all the case these are public have so i think that that is not an accurate framing of what we are trying to do here and i also take offense at the repeated claims that the city attorney is has not come up with the quote right answer and i think that the answer is that there are some things that are not completed at this point it is certainly not her fault that they are not completed she has described to us the state of where things are today and that is the best that she can do her review was thorough and it was clear to the point to the extent that where we  that will inform what additional work needs to be done so that we can move forward and i hope again that we will move forward with an inclusive taskforce what i just said over here again i am not turning my back to what i said and what i say it's very true which means that when i say that this the great and wonderful thing that we welcome inclusion diversity and equity that's so accurate and i want to make that very clear but what i cannot understand or what you want to put in my mouth that i did not say is this the member of this council as i said is not easy we are leaders and when they ease a problem there should not even be a task force to solve it this is a problem that people brought up here we need to take action and when we have to do it we have when we how can we take action if we don't know and why can't we take the action if we get all the information why do we need to take the middle of task force again what i'm saying is very clear and it's very simple i'm sorry if i have an accent i'm sorry if sometimes of my words are very heavy but i'm not backing down to what i said again this is an inclusive city and we tank we said a black person here but when we have this type of discussion what i'm saying don't put it in the road that's plan of a task force task force was created to bring this problem and their intention was not to bring it we made a mistake and as elected of show if we see it we respond to it right the way we need the right information and attorney again thank you for your work thank you very think you cancer jang are we ready for the no confirmation i'll be brief i will be supporting this i respectfully disagree and believe that a task force is a way to generate more discussion and greater input we just went through an election where i didn't hear anyone campaigning on last transparency or less public input and fact i think we all heard very much the opposite so and but all the citizens were beaten by a small group of people at the city so i'm you know i would support a group that's going to do more reach out and be composed of members who aren't sitting at this table to help us through this process thank you thank you cancer mouth mason council roof also be brief i'll be supporting this resolution namely just for a lot of reasons that were discussed but also i've had a much from anyone else but  three people reach out to ask when they could start applying for the task force and all this make note of the timing i believe it occasions will be due by april nineteenth i believe sixteen thank you and so there's plenty of time between now if this does pass and the and from past discussions that i think he thinks the decision the choice of what should be done is quite clear i think that's a frustration probably all of us have had as members of city government we want action we want to be able to move forward with it  some kind of consensus on this council that the decision made on this council and the approval of the administration would be received without received while an accepted by the public without  additional process my sense is that this this issue is actually quite polarizing within the community at this point and the reason i have supported the creation of a task force is in the hope that this group will  through what is currently a fairly prized discussion saying it is more broadly accepted and actually leads to the kind of progress that counts or bush or reference earlier i think that in no way from my perspective an effort to sweep anything under the rug it is in fact the opposite an effort to have a full discussion and reach some kind of broad community acceptance of what is currently a difficult forms and to report back finally in july correct all right with that all those in favor of passing the resolution please raise your hands and those opposed that vote is nine to one with two absent and that resolution passes so we will have created the sever member task force that completes that item and we will now move ahead to item number seven which is committee reports any committee chair that would like to report to the council on committee activity seeing none that finishes i  thanks i just wanted to touch base and explain my novo on the outdoor application time for and again and it's no disrespect to the members of senate committee and i know there's one at least fairly new but we've had a big discussion about outdoor seating here in the city and and we need to be consistent in how we address that and whether it's four hundred residents living around the area or whether it's for i think we need to follow some process to say you know we need your input we need your involvement and so i think we have to be more consistent when we are considering outdoor seating in our city and i hope that we can do i don't think that's a new message here tonight that's why i kind of voted no on that just to bring it about like it's been two years now and we've had discussions around this table about how we're i'd like to appreciate the input that we've just received from cancer heart and as a new member of the city council so who's been here just less than a year i understand there's a lot of history this issue that i that i don't fully appreciate  and i think i need to hear more about this in my committee does as well as we think i will say that i feel it's important that we we have there are other businesses who operate under similar rules and that we again face the issue of equity for all businesses that have a right and granted you know these rights and so we have to be careful in our discussions that we are fair and i think we will address that on the committee level and i