are both on live at five twenty five we're doing a facebook live feed of it this month for a great was to be a great show we're calling this a holiday special and never done a holiday special on live at five twenty five before and we have a great lineup of city partners here to talk about different aspects of what is happening during the holiday season here burlington these are city interesting marketplace led initiatives and there's a lot to cover  we will dive right in a second i will say if you want to call in and ask about any of these holiday events or really anything that's on your mind it's six two three ninety six six is the number and we love hearing from you but u up from twelve to four and it was great it was we had limited services but it was a nice time to be open and people came in and they used the library in a variety of ways they hung out in red use the computers we had some families that said we just need to get the kids out from under foot from the cooking that's going on way into the kids room and read books played and use the computers there so it turned out to be a really great day great and i met a hundred people came out and that's over a hundred people and it's a pilot that we're trying and so we're going to do it again on christmas on december twenty fifth we're going to be open again from noon to four limited services but come on down to the library's one place to go and it was as if it was you and your husband that kept us open on thanksgiving yeah my husband and myself and we also got some volunteers from the community that came out we had some people brought snacks and we had coffee and cocoa and tea and that was nice to know it was it was a good time and then i'll make a quick plug to come pick up some wonderful books books for guests great so that's so thank you for that we actually do have a car radios go to the phone line and follow you you're on the the one concern and that affects everybody i think in the city department heads and departments working together and around this holiday season i think they all need to work together to make it a better holiday experience for everybody in the ways the department of public works is operating right now they're all working together with their fire department and our police department we've got the bollards up we've got the planners up snowplow drivers take great pride in plowing our streets we don't need to put things in their way unnecessarily as these things are in their way our emergency personnel take great pride in not having any white marks on their nice bright red fi eccles these things are in their way is causing problems now i'm talking about working together here it doesn't sound like we're working together if we leave these things up inhibiting the work of are so clever removers and our emergency personnel management has got to get together and work on it to make it better experience for all and i will bring up one more ok i'll go for just one more thing about working together to get this past weekend on north avenue a little around the thirteen hundred blog there was a major hol dug in the middle of the street it was left unmarked from thursday through sunday i reported on c click ix it was finally addressed on monday morning but in that time fire department personnel drove over this police department personnel drove over this epic works well close drove over this as well as many visitors to the city as well as many residents in the city it was very it was not marked at all if you didn't know it was there like i do because they live around here you didn't see it had an adverse effect on the coals that's working together police departments fire and so let me address a few elements of that you know big picture dow i think you're on to something with this sentiment that department heads need to work well together we you know  we as part of our kind of the legacy of how we evolved as a city i think that has not always been one of our strengths we had this commission form of government there really kind of was structured in that you had different departments were very much in their own kind of silo and had their own bosses really and there were certainly attempts a collaboration but in that structure it was hard someone proud of as a war a long time department head here i think the level i'd like to think and i you know you need to aren't just being nice to me but i think the level of crossfire mental coordination has really come a long way over the last seven years it's it's been a major goal of ours we have a number of processes that we put in place to try to encourage that we for example we have a we have some called the t v staton hour sit down once a month and we look together with all the farm heads and one table each each department had each department takes turns reporting out and and one knows i think more what's going on the other departments and i used to do and we kind of share air lessons and good things are going well spread through the city in different ways we started you know something mary has been involved in that has been involved in of late is when we committed to doing an equity report this year spawn kind of organically from my perspective  the library and parks started meeting and thinking about how we are providing services for kids and and having conversations i don't think of really happened in the past so you're right that that is a really important part of having a successful local government and  were trying to do that on no that's not specifically the issue you called in about certainly i'm concerned here the incident on north avenue you're talking about to look into that i had not heard about that if see if there's anything systematic that we can address there there's a lot of controversy around the issue with the planters in the bollards that you're that you're raising and i guess the best i can do there is to assure you that you're right that there are concerns among snowplow drivers about about some of these areas i was on the route last year during one of the big storms with a snowplow driver we went down union street and it definitely did make that a little bit more you know some significantly more challenging that particular route we have had a robust discussion within city government about what should come out seasonally what should stay that quick build items are built so that they can be removed and many of them number of them are during the winter months some of these planters are being moved out of there where we think there's you know really problematic obstacles to snowplowing in other areas a decision has been made to leave it for at least this is season we're experiment with new areas here we may make different choices in the future we are taking input from the snowplow drivers and certainly the fire department in how all this is done but it's not easy they're competing demands competing interests being kind of sorted out here and we try to do that the best we can and do in a way that can't please everybody but hope bully tries to get the balance right so with that really go back to th holiday special here and we talked about what happened on thanksgiving at the library what's going to happen this coming weekend and christmas and in the weeks ahead with another one of these sort of special openings jenny can you talk about what's happening right now in the downturn on the market place in terms of holiday promotions yeah well other day after thanksgiving we had our big holiday kickoff so the tree has officially been lit sant is officially in town for the season so it's really kicking off holiday shopping celebrating this season with their family and their friends were trying to make everything really accessible downtown  so that people can calm enjoy themselves and celebrate you know what it's all about we have free holiday activities every weekend free for families to enjoy miniature train and additionally part of the holiday kickoff weekend was black friday sales but also small business saturday which is such an important day for local merchants and to really get the message out there about the importance of shopping locally  to emphasize how many local stores we have downtown seventy five percent of businesses on church street are local which people don't often reliance but most of them are owned by people that live here and that that really helps make church street what it is it's very unique yes you will find so many unique local gifts that you can't find on line so so that's really part of what a part of that and check out some of those local shops there i think there you know one i think central thing we want to make sure we're communicating clearly this year is  that burlington is open for business that yes there are some construction going on in the downtown but there's plenty of parking within three blocks or church street there are hundreds and hundreds of available spaces even in busiest times we are running more you know we have the biggest parking promotion that we've you know really ever had any time recently in terms of extended free parking opportunities either in the garages or through the and yes they have been remarkable to work with four hours of free parking in the lakeview garages next to hotel vermont and the college street garage which is next to the helton so really you that it is true that once in a while the marketplace garage that is that crushed us fill up yes it does however if you just go to the west side of church street you know barely farther away there are multiple city own we actually have embassadors out during this holiday season to try to direct people in person towards other garages once the marketplace crotch is full but we need we need people to get the word out in other ways as well so those other garages are just two blocks from the church street so you know it's really not that much farther it's just getting there and good exercise yeah and if you park in the on the cherry street marketplace we also have all of our information on our instagram at church street marketplace we post information about parking about events about all of the stores we're going to be posting a lot of gift ideas that you can find locally so there will be a lot of holiday content and we also use it to engage you know i love seeing the pictures that people post on the tag shirts tree or they are taking self es in front of the tree with their friends and so we always like to engage with people and see them having a great time it's really it's a really standing social media instagram feed and facebook page for people who do that we are kind of underway with the holiday season and these promotions the opportunity to go all the way through christmas of course something that is going to happen at the and the holiday season as we start the new year has always been and and even improved ways on new year's eve as well throughout what we're color highlight we are throwing out that red carpet to our community members and to visitors and family members from around the world and highlight will be the new new year's eve celebration it will feel distinctively different but it will also have some very familiar parts so some of the old time favorites what we call the traditions that became beloved by this community we're continuing we're creating a larger parade but very much having the things that people love and there's going to be lantern making in the schools and community centers lee in the month leading up to first night and so we're hoping we're going to have eight hundred children and families walking in the parade carrying their handmade lanterns and we've got some wonderful new events like  the fireworks are going to be eight o'clock in the evening as opposed to having two sets so we could have one larger set and help families will stay downtown and to do that we're going to have an enormous bonfire down on the waterfront waco beautiful magical fire acts and events in side of echo throughout the day and then turning into a dance hall at night so many of the organizations that have tak part in first night in the past have rethought things and we have not one artistic director but it's community led so there are community members and artist throughout the vermont community who created proposals and then a community of their peers chose some of the best and ones that we could run with this year and we funded them and they are creating the vents throughout burlington and i think that's really important to add there is a tremendous focus on the downtown because of the energy there but it emanate out into all of the neighborhoods into the north and the south and throughout the evening so you can go with your family park one place but you'll be able to take public transportation very easily to get to other parts of the city and in the years to come we hope to expand that were you know this is an experimental year you know people got to like ride the train and you know know there's going to be a few surprises and you know be with us in this but i think it's going to be just a thrilling evening there's go we're excited about that but there's also like very accessible events that are about making art or coming to the library mary talk about a few things happening at the library so yeah we've always kind of been a nice space for  excited to continue that with highlight we've got from one to four pm young tradition is going to be programming and we're going to have an instrument petting zoo they're going to do some cool things throughout the day and then from four to five we've got the giant family drum circle that's going to be there a drum circle in the library and you gotta love that right up in our children's area at eleven thirty we're going to do a new year's eve stories and snacks so the little ones can come and do a countdown at noon instead of midnight be fun we've got some light up the year with lego creations we've got some special light up lego's that we have for the teens were doing wearable circuits so i just love this service to be able to plan so that you can think about how you might as a family enjoy the event or really if i will you know do it well we're going to do it through social media we're going to do it on the website we're going to put some what a day could look like and what you c follow what's a great idea for a family who has young children this is would be fabulous for teens when you should take your children home quickly find a babysitter and come back out and you know so that there really is literally a multigenerational event happening throughout the thirteen hours of first night was just memory of highlight tie like it's a great website by the way is really filling up and it's very easy to navigate great great i'm glad sense is also an experiment we've reduced the cost for this substantially adults will be able to buy their b that's for ten dollars and and kids it's only five dollars to kids up to what twelve are going to thirteen so you can take a we're setting up that fund now in fact after we had a luncheon today and we invited a number of people to come to help us support this because we're still fund raising so if anybody wants to ring the phone and dial and become an underwriter supporter tonight that would be lovely  someone who was at our little gathering today called and said i'd really like to help create a fund so that you do have the ability to subsidize no matter who calls and needs tickets to come to this event and i think that's really  important and we'll be reaching out to all of the senior centers and all of the youth centers and letting people know both of these events and the activities as well as the access to low cost or funded tickets so yeah it's it's been a community event in that way as well and that certainly the city is is controlling some funding to this effort but there are huge long and growing list of community partners who are chipping in as well to try to preserve what i think has become a great burlington tradition i think we you know first night had a tremendous run here in burlington has been called the longest running independent first night in in the world thirty five thirty five years and  i think over that time we really got we were we had a real treat as a community to be able to come out consistently on new years eve as and have just a wonderful range of well as lake champlain transportation are leading a long list of generous local donors who are making this happen i mean it's tremendous and i do want to applaud the mayor and the city council who came to us this year and said this is something that is a beloved tradition it's something we don't want to lose we're willing to step up to the plate and funded to a degree that i don't think the original city budget  imagined but you know really found some creative ways to do that and i think the community in response to that has stepped up in kind and you know this is again one of those it takes a village in order to create an event like that and i think we're you know being true to that burlington tradition so i'm delighted i'm really pleased and excited i mean every day something new gets added on friday we're going to be announcing five new events as a part of this and  so it just keeps growing and not not that our budget keeps growing but there's some individuals and community groups occurring coming forward they're sort of joining something that's already happening or they're augmenting or they're creating something new and they're funding it themselves so it's delightful can you give us a hint well there was a beloved component of first night that families came to every year and it was a circus and it was something that became very difficult to fund and we weren't sure that we'd be able to bring them back but we've found a way to reimagine reinvent that circus and to offer it in a number of different ways to the community so that's one of us making news here live at five twenty five very easy to get around figure out how many venues are we going to have to think in well you know i keep saying there aren't as many venues but they're almost are this about one thousand venues ok and they range from how far the farther south and you see people getting get around a masters or we're going to have one of the it's going to be fold g m t buses or what ok yeah great and that will be part of the schedule will be there but we're going to just try to run them continuously and specifically targeted towards the hours of the day where the largest number of people might be traveling to those parts of town great so are we are almost out of time thank you to the three of you for coming on the show taking your evening to talk about this more importantly thank you for the huge efforts that are happening in these three different parts of the cities to make this holiday season special and vibrant here and burlington thank you to dale for calling in earlier we look forward to hearing from others of you next month we do this we try to do this once a month the mayor's show will be back in december and we have a lot going on in city government and as we kind of march towards and we kind of