good evening i'd like to call to order this regular city council meeting on monday december eighteenth at six fifteen pm and we'll start with the pledge of allegiance and the first order of business is the agenda and we have a there really long motion on the agenda to move to amended adopt the agenda as follows note additional documents for a consent agenda item four point zero eight resolution authorization to execute the first amendment and execute the first amendment to extend the license agreement with snyder construction l c to obstruct a portion of the city's right of way on flint avenue and pine street pine street deli license to me personally attorney's office to the consent agenda item four point zero nine communication solving or be regarding missing the march twenty third two thousand o communication from mayor mara weinberger regarding memorial out of tory i'm up to date with the action to waive the reading except communication placed it on file and refer to the cd in our committee personally council president no del no power point presentation slides for agenda  item five point zero one permit in total no revised version of agenda item five point zero three resolution march sixty doesn't eighteen annual city ballot question regarding formation of a union mean a simple district public safety committee per item five point zero five note revised version of agenda item five point zero five per the city attorney's office thank you house the roof is their second house or more seconds it any discussion seen one in all in favor of adopting our agenda as amended please say i any opposed we have a ridge and our first piece of business is a is the expected executive session about the burlington telecom purchase agreement and we will look for a motion on the finding first i would move to find that premature public knowledge of the asset purchase agreement was sure would place the city at substantial disadvantage because the council wrist is closing its the go shooting strategy if discussed in public thank you second there's no vote on the perch on the purchase agreement tonight but we we may have an announcement about our timing later on in the in the thank you very much like to bring us back from recess and we will we will get started on our public forum and we have a lot of interesting let's set the clock for two minutes please a lot of business  if you're interested in signing up for a public forum there is a form in the back on the table in the back corner you fill out and then i'm on call you from here so our first beaker is james lockridge to be followed by charlotte d i think we all hope to accomplish dignity to feel it in ourselves and to never take it away from other people steven marshall has made the point that we are humans and we function in a certain unavoidable way the point has also been made that we are criminal people for circumstances that we forced them into by not providing bathrooms in the first place i make two additional points and this is about public restrooms when we interact with people who break our ordinance about urinating in public or agent for that is a police officer we respect our police officers and our police force is necessary but we should all perceive that our officers are also authority figures with guns on their hips when the city sends an agent with a gun to tell a person that for the act of being human without the option of a civilized toilet that they are a branded criminal and will now pay the city money for it we are all committing a quiet violence against human dignity the other point i'll make is that burlington is investing tens of millions of dollars in public infrastructure from the new city police burlington to great streets p t v to city hall park are making choices about what to build please consider that at this moment the city  your leadership is building pretty benches on main street and patios in city hall park not public restrooms that would make our city kind of a better place for both citizens and visitors if you're in a position to take dignity away you're also in a position to give us all more dignity than we currently have please build public restrooms in burlington and probably make the statement that our city has both compassion i am again as a as a journalist i am still raising my deepest concerns about what will happen if this burlington telecom is spot up by sure stevie in the last session  councillor paul asked mr shirts about whether shirts had contributed to right wing candidates and made any personal  campaign donations and his answer i believe was disingenuous first of all let's ask about what who shirt's hires is it's  lobbyist's looked into open secret start org which you can all find on the internet and which uses information from the senate office of public records and it indicates that the lobbyist that  communications uses this is the same lobbyist that is used by rupert murdoch fox t v and news corps this is trump t v i keep raising this because journalists are on to the fact that right wing trump is getting media companies that agree with him to go out and buy local radio stations and newspapers to influence public opinion and i would regularly watch reliable sources on sunday c n n and in that program just sunday i really encourage you to look at it because journalists are very alarmed that there is a closing up of information that gets to the american public and that this poses a serious threat to democracy as for campaign donations  what i see on the public record is family car contributions to very ultraconservative people including mr shirts his own car contribution to a representative fr michigan who votes ninety eight percent of the time along what trump wants to happen so is this what we want for burlington at least by what i would ask you to ask him more about this not just leave it up to me to raise thank you thank you so they over be followed by stephen marshall hello everyone can hear me in two thousand burlington city voters approved bonding and to construct the city's municipal fiber optic network which ultimately became burlington telecom it was intended to be a fiber to the home utility that could be contracted for use by anyone somehow this original vision fell by the wayside over time now that b t s fiber infrastructure is being sold to private investors we should ensure that the original intent of this municipal utility infrastructure is preserved contract language should be included in the purchase and sales documents that ensures that the last mile of the fiber to the home called the local loop remains accessible to other telecommunications service providers to prevent monopoly operation of this fiber resource the purchase and sale contract should include the following contractual commitment fiber to the home networks are costly to build municipal investment in burlington telecom has created a fiber optic network asset that is economically prohibitive to duplicate to ensure a competitive opportunity for end innovation and to prevent opportunity from monopolistic practices regarding access to the fiber to the home network the purchasers of burlington telecom commit to provide to any requesting telecommunications service nondiscriminatory access to network elements in an old basis at a technically feasible point on rates terms and conditions that are just reasonable and nondiscriminatory in accordance with the terms and conditions of titles forty seven u s c section two fifty one two fifty two if rowling to telecom is to be privately owned this contract language will ensure that competitive internet service providers or other innovative internet based services delivered over fiber to the home will have the opportunity to compete in burlington the various competitive telecommunications and internet services will be able to address issues of net neutrality data profiling surveillance and data privacy in their own ways and provide competitive products accordingly to residents will be able to choose the services that they want thank you thank you steven marshall and then  you for the opportunity to speak on august twenty eighth is this council passed resolutions asking the ordinance committee and public safety committee to address issues with what were called publics quality of life  the work they've done has been good the ordinance committee has proposed an amendment i'm sorry an ordinance that will actually relax some of the restrictions a little bit to make  our response to some of the behavior in the in the community more humane however there's a there's a flaw in the in the ordinance which i proposed to correct i've rec some counselors to propose these amendments to you for the when the ordinance comes up for your consideration in essence my proposal is to create a feedback loop in the if if the city is going to make it a crime to urinate or or eliminate waste in public then because there are no bathrooms for people to use their city is offering no consequences for its neglected failure to provide bathrooms so what my proposal does is very simply is to say if you get a ticket and the city cannot show that there was a bathroom nearby your ticket is dismissed it's not harsh but it's a reminder so that when in the future after are the what seems to be put some enthusiasm at this time for bathrooms to be to be constructed  when the enthusiasm wanes with this bit of ordinance that i would like to propose there will be a continuing reminder that every time somebody gets a ticket and there was no bathroom and they challenge the ticket will be reminded that there's a problem thank you kelly divine and then  good evening kelli divine representing the brilliant business association read through the recommendations that came out of the public safety committee wanted to think that group put for some i think important work i wanted to speak to two individual recommendations one is related to the need an increase public bathrooms i do think that that's something that is well time for the city to take a look at and i'm just coming forward to say i've talked to several business and property owners in town about this issue and they've indicated a real willingness and interest to help with this effort i know that the recommendation talks about having folks from the city get involved in trying to address this issue and i think it may be useful and helpful to have representatives from property owners of the business community be a part of that solution gathering effort because let's face it both public and private property downtown we need to find some solutions that worked i asked a member of my team today to start to establish a list of what public bathrooms are available downtown i know with the closing of the mall we recently lost a set of public bathrooms and also on the waterfront that's often an issue down there when if it's an unseasonably warm day before the public works i mean before parks and rec opens up their bathroom so willing to help the city address and solve that problem and bring that forward tonight the other recommendation that i can't say enough about is the one to increase the resources the street outreach team as people may or may not know our organization was played a key role in establishing that group in two thousand it's a really important asset for the city of burlington and it's my go to all the time and earlier speaker said oh what would you do if you saw somebody breaking one of these ordinances that are under discussion right now my first go to and i tell every business community members to go to the street outreach team because the speaker was accurate in saying that bring in police and can be a confrontational experience for the person involved so the street outreach team in a lot of cases is are our first line of trying to help folks out who either are experiencing issues downtown or need to be reminded about you know what's appropriate behavior when you're in the public space so i would advocate strongly for that as well they're a great organization that do amazing work for burlington thank you thank you cross sparrow go i think and then  paxton and ellen mason good evening council thank you again for allowing me to speak tonight and i thank you for considering the proposal to place tobacco twenty one on the sticker on the ballot for the city for the advisory for the  i'm an interventional cardiologist of the universe vermont medical center and as everyone knows tobacco is the number one publicly number one preventable cause of illness in the united states and mortality the stats you see in front of you are the stats from the hospital for a large heart attack two hundred seventy one last year fiscal year two had two thousand seven hundred over five hundred smaller heart attacks majority of patients who have heart attacks who come to the universe for medical center are  smokers so as we know and i would like to use the word science based on evidence base as appears that the current administration is trying to get the c d c not to use those words the incident medicine predicts that tobacco twenty one will lower smoking rates for fifteen to seventeen year olds by twenty five percent twenty five percent of pregnant women in this state a less than twenty years old smoke tobacco twenty one is thought to decrease death in this country within the next fifteen years by ten percent if we can pass it nationwide so a lot of the arguments against tobacco twenty one is the age of consent the age of reason eighteen is considered the age of reason or age of consent for smoking right now it's and same thing for voting and for going to the military but we have already legislated other ages of consent or reasons for other things twenty one is a proposal for marijuana is occurring as age for drinking alcohol twenty five is when you can actually pay less insurance rates for your driving for your car insurance or become a representative at the federal level for the state of rest for the house of representatives thirty to thirty five you cannot be president or a senator under these ages these are legislated and i've been there for a long time there is a reasonable age limit to raise when you think that someone cannot tolerate a decision that's a very important maybe to their personal health or the pope already over two hundred seventy plus cities and counties in the united states have passed back on twenty one and i'll add that over five states now have passed that state wide thank you very much  members of burlington partnership for healthy communities be above substance abuse prevention group and we are here tonight to support the resolution to include the question shall the voters of burlington advise their representatives to the rim on general assembly support increasing the age of purchase of tobacco products and twenty one years on the city of rolling and ballot i am here tonight because i want my voice heard on this issue and i think everyone in rowing to need the opportunity to express what they think about raising the tobacco sales age twenty one we should be doing everything we can to help support our peers in making healthy dissent the people of burlington need to have the opportunity to make this clear to our representative s hello my name is ellen me i'm an eighth grader at miss middle i am here tonight because i care about my future and the future of my peers i have many goals and the influence of tobacco makes  harder to achieve we need to prevent he from having access to tobacco the tobacco industry spent about seventeen million dollars in marketing in vermont every year the tobacco companies continue to relentlessly market their today i would like to share a poem that i wrote about my uncle he started smoking when he was a teenager a month ago from with tobacco related illness so i'm here determined to make so other families don't have to go through the same the fear of loss and imitation of it will be scary sometimes from brown girl jeremy my greatly loved uncle on my mother's side born free in kenya nine hundred forty eight he died we knew it was coming she'll be followed by katherine clark sanderson i'm the director of burlington substance abuse prevention coalition the burlington partnership for a healthy community and i just wanted to come and share our support for any initiatives that people work on in this  city that help us create a culture where youth and young adults reject a bacco products we know that most tobacco users start before the age of eighteen and almost all of them only one percent of people start after the age of twenty six so anything we can do to reduce the age that people start using and reduce use really impacts a lot of different areas our health and our kids future and tobacco is one of the crazy products that when used as directed kills people so it's it's really important that we think about ways to keep people from using that product as i think we kind of think as a society that we fix that problem we've vilified tobacco use and the rates really came down but as the doctor was saying that it's still the number one cause of preventable death in the united states it's still costs are it's tobacco use is one of three behaviors that results in four diseases that cause fifty percent of all the deaths in our state and we know that the minimum age laws for any substance really impact the age that people start using and so the higher you can increase that rates the the more the impacts the number of people that will start and here in our state one of the initiatives that we work on in our coalition is supporting college students and colleges to create tobacco free policies because we know that here in our state the tobacco use rates for college students are higher than they are for the national average we're at about fifteen percent of college students that use in the national average is about nine percent so anything that you can do to really support people not picking up the habit will their young adults really help t become so one of the things i wanted to mention is that there's a lot of data to support policy change and a lot of work there's a department of health has done to collect information from people about what types of policies they would support related to tobacco use so if you feel so inclined you can connect to their coalitional let you know where that information is and help with providing support thank you very much the next speaker is katherine clarke and she'll be followed by christie law rain of the phone calls is taken from is from the time someone calls the nine one one operator to the time is transferred transferred to the city that time will still be used even in a regional center because we would then assume those responsibilities that does not just go away what would be saved is the time from when we take that phone call to the time we take full ownership of it based on my experience that will be a significantly shorter amount of time than what has been put forward  has also been a city that's very proud of community policing it's an ideal that they support and the center would be taking a step back from that ideal when we lose intimate knowledge of the city there will be people who do not know the landmarks they do not know the people and that could result in a delay in service when it translates to the officers or firefighters it's been stated that the loss of knowledge will be recuperated after people have been in the center for a certain amount of time but for one person to have to learn the protocols and policies for each different cities and towns and reasonable another issue that has been brought up multiple times is whether or not people who are currently employed as dispatchers in shipping county would have to reapply for their own jobs we have no idea what salary benefits retirement would look like in a regional center and there's been no information relayed to us regarding this i'd also like to mention that both the letters of support from the fire and police chiefs mention that their department support this but none of their twelve dispatchers were employed by them have come forward in support of this initiative thank you christy laura rein and then  the community you serve the community well dispatching regional has its place in smaller towns and cities i don't believe it has a place in burlington we are unique in our resources and protocols we can operate the same as the small towns can what happens to community based policing if we're taking our dispatchers out of the community that's one of the things that we strive on and we do know our local area our landmarks our people when speaking of staffing issue has been said that there's more dispatchers that are going to be on in one location that's true however there's not going to be more just measures on inch and county is still going to be the same number just passers just in one place has been offered that the center will save sixty seconds per call how is this number been reached when a committee has not figured out the operational side of how things are going to be done there are so many factors like is the call the dispatcher to be also a piece who's going to have to give emergency medical instructions while sending out the medical units bronson is the largest department in this group coop consists of different needs for each community does the city really want to relinquish control to a separate entity that's going to have to be concerned with more as a group and not just burlington services also i have spent the last sixteen years working for the city's citizens of burlington it is a great feeling when you can make a positive impact it's not a great feeling to have spent nights weekends and holidays sacrificing your time with your family and friends to keep the citizens safe only to be told there's no guarantee we will still have a job and if we do it'll encourage pay for change of benefits i would like to think that retention of experienced skilled dispatchers should be the highest importance in this process thank you you for your time i'm speaking to you in regards to the proposed regional communications center yes please speak right into the my car since two thousand and four i have been employed as a emergency communications specialist with the city dispatching both fire and police and fire but prior to that i was a dispatcher for a regional communications center in the oil county we dispatched for three police departments six fire departments and four rescue squads and in addition to that i was an enhanced nine one one call taker for the public safety answering point one of six throughout the state so i speak to in from the perspective of both someone who's worked for a single department urban center here in burlington and someone who has worked for it with for a regional center and a piece up your burlington dispatchers are so much more than simple call takers as you might find in a  officers and firefighters and because of the resources we have available to us are processed as much more streamlined therefore we don't have the need to utilize mutual aid like some of the smaller departments in the county would therefore benefiting from the regional center city residents have the benefit of help arriving to them within two minutes and were able to dispatch most priority incidents within seconds of receiving the call or a lifeline to both police officers and fire fighters as well as city residents and visitors once an incident is dispatched the dispatcher doesn't simply end there involved and move on to the next we remain with it until the end conducting research on the people involved to better ensure the officers have a safe response checking their welfare and if needed deploying additional resources completing other tasks at the request of them it's not unusual to be handing handling several incidents at once that are the same priority is what i just described comparing my role as a brilliant and dispatcher in incidents to my role as a dispatcher for a regional center in peace can easily say that i play a much higher role in the successful outcome of a situation and have a direct impact to the safety officers in the public call taker is faced with calming the c dispatching the appropriate resources providing emergency medical care instructions to the caller collecting follow up information and researching the parties involved they have a lot of on their plate at one time where is someone who is able to dispatch as we are  able to ensure the safety of our officers while remaining with that one call at the time because we're able to leave in the hands of the peace call taker and  i've been employed at the city of burlington for almost four years as an emergency communications specialist applied to this job with the intention of joining the team of just betters police officers and firefighters who serve the citizens of the city on a daily basis i think our city has made great strides in transparency  community community policing however i think the regional dispatch center will be a step back in this direction public safety officer safety and my livelihood are at risk with this planned center i could go on at length about the many issues and concerns that have been raised about this center and ignored by the planning committee these issues include operational concerns officer safety concerns and the dispatcher's concerns about our loss of union protection lack of information about pay benefits job duties seniority and having to reapply for our jobs the lack of transparency coupled with the fact that the committee has been engaged in the planning of the center for around eighteen months now but it's failed to include the dispatchers officers and firefighters who actually do this job on a daily basis has created an atmosphere of mistrust in addition to these concerns i believe the planning committee has been disingenuous with the da transfer of the now one call realistically the time saved will be much shorter because the piece now gather all of the initial call information but switching to a regional center will not cut that part out of the call it'll just go it'll just redistribute it to the new center burlington vermont as a whole or opposed to outsourcing and subcontracting of resources in this case there is certainly something special about being able to contact your local municipality without having to navigate a convoluted phone tree or speak with someone who is not familiar with you or the city in which you live i urge the city council to uphold the values of its citizens and residents and pay homage to the longstanding tradition of keeping it local in conclusion i hope you will keep these concerns in mind when voting to put this to the public i hope you'll see through the facade of this original dispatching plan that's been put forth point zero one is a presentation from megan tuttle from our planning and zoning department about great streets design and construction standards thank you for having us on your agenda this evening  try to be brief as we introduce the great streets designing construction standards to this evening yes and we also have laura wheeler from work lorillard sorry from public works excuse me thank you and i think shapiro who is another project manager is here as well ok great we have come before you to talk about several elements of the great streets initiative at various times over the last eighteen months and during that time our team has also been working on the development of a comprehensive set of standards for the design and construction of all of our downtown streets which are the standards which will present to you this evening we have been utilizing these standards as we've been developing the concept plans for individual street projects that we've brought to you before and in the most recent months we've started discussing these standards with the boards and commissions that have various authorities over different parts of the right of way and look forward to coming back to you in january after you have had a chance to review these standards to talk to you about them in greater detail so tonight's presentation is really intended to be an introduction for you so just to clarify there's no action from the council tonight there's no action this evening they're accessible for users of all levels of mobility that they are sustainable not only in terms of their environmental performance but also in terms of their longevity and or ability that they're vibrant their streets that will support and are supported by the adjacent public and private uses along them and they're also functional there are places that accommodate all of the different users and uses that are expected of our public rights of way these elements of what a great street is have been derived from  number of plans and studies that have been adopted both by the city of burlington in the past ten years or so as well as from a political state and even federal guidance in some cases how will these standards actually transform our downtown streets as we've been developing this document and as we look at those plans and studies that we as a community have adopted there are three major principles that this these standards are based on the first is that we w restore a balance among the users and the uses of the right of way on the screen you can see a very conceptual cross section of main street today and you can see that while we are accommodating many of the users that are  expected in our public rights of way much of the space is dedicated to the movement of vehicles and while we may be providing adequate access for other users some areas are actually providing substandard access or no access at all for certain types of uses so these standards seek to find a way to continue to accommodate the users and the uses that we are currently incorporating in our public rights of way but to reallocate some of that space to ensure that the full range of users that our community has identified as being important can be income accommodated within our downtown st the second principle is that these standards will help us to implement a unified visual language a unified street e this obviously the former is no longer a draft as of last month but we really see the green street standard as a complement the public realm complement to the form base code that will help us to identify a palette of elements that we can utilize as we rebuild our streets over time so that whether a street is bill this year or ten years from now we're ensuring that it has the same level of function and quality as any other street within our downtown so that our individual streetscapes don't become a standards recognize that the character of burlington's built environment really comes from those beautiful historic facades and public art and unique signs and we seek through these standards to create streetscapes that allow those individual expressions of our character to really shine rather than competing with them and the third principle is that through the application of these standards we will create a level of investment in our downtown that reframes the center of our downtown along among the streets that frame city hall park and along the streets that connect our downtown to the waterfront both visually and functionally and up the hill to the institutions through our gateways so what are the standards do i've talked about these a little bit already so i won't read all of this in the interest of time but essentially as i said it creates a palette of elements that will guide how our streets are reconstructed over time and one thing that i do want to touch on here is that  these standards do provide guidance for how we'll build streets that complement church streets character rather than replicating it wholesale and this these standards also do provide one single comprehensive resource that designers can look to as they start a project and actually throughout an entire projects development to ensure that all of the necessary and preferred elements of a right away are incorporated in the appropriate way these standards do not however create a plan for every street within our downtown they do provide guidance on the dimensions and some of the basic performance criteria of our streets but they are not intended to replace the project development process that we all know to  be part of the reconstruction or redesign of history this guide is meant to be critical resource not only for the city staff that have any involvement in the redesign and reconstruction of  streets professional engineers and designers that are often brought on to assist us in the development of plans for the reconstruction of streets but also for our community so that they have a consistent expectation much like we've discussed with the form base code that we have a consistent expectation of what our public realm can and should be achieving as it's redeveloped in the future so how will we use this document a little bit about what's in it as you start looking at it there are seven chapters in this document one of the first major chapters starts by looking at some of the existing conditions in the future design considerations that need to be consulted as we begin thinking about the redesign of streets this includes basic information about the and location condition of different utilities and infrastructure and this is a really important point part of the document that brings in relevant recommendations from adopted city plans i recommendations for public or private changes that might happen along a street corridor or that we should take into consideration as we're developing a plan for a street and ultimately provides a recommendation for a street type  ology which forms the foundation of the rest of this document there are six street type ologies each of them are identified by the amount of space that's dedicated to either the roadway or the pedestrian zone you can see on the screen that we call the the roadway zone everything between the curbs and the pedestrian zone everything outside of the curbs and as we dig into this document further we see that we not only are focused on what is the ratio of space within the ri dedicated to each of those zones but how do each of those loans function and what specific elements are incorporated in each one of them each street type ology begins with a basic cross section and a number of streets to which that ology could apply should apply and then identifies a number of options that allow us to recognize the unique role of each of our streets within our downtown transportation system and recommendations from adopted city plans we have also identified both the minimum required standards for these elements and any preferred elements that we see as needing additional enhanced mint or additional performance and ultimately what this all means is that we have options for how st is designed you may remember our presentation to you regarding st paul street several months ago this these standards really helped us to evaluate a couple of options that we had for how st paul street could be designed to meet our great street standards while also looking at opportunities to better adhere to those principles of being walkable vibrant and more functional  there are a number of details that you'll find in the stock you man i know it'll be really exciting reading that we're delivering to you right around the holidays but you'll see a lot of details that we've incorporated in this document for you know the dimensions of a sidewalk minimum dimensions of a sidewalk the minimum lane with for a travel lane where how we choose what elements belong on a street based on how it's used where we place them how they interact with other elements and with  users of the road where we place things at intersections to make sure that they're there visible and functional and ultimately what options we have if we are dealing with incredibly constrained or abnormal situations in our rights of way that that will create conflicts for being able to achieve those in a sort of typical way and then finally the last element of this document is actually the palette of streetscape elements you can see here on the screen that this this section of the document looks at all of the things that we typically think of when we engage with the streetscape there are chapters on bikeways street trees and green storm water infrastructure that provide incredible detail about the appropriate species how to plant them how to maintain them so that our streets are functional and beautiful streetlight design is another important part of this document and then finally all of the individual streetscape elements all of the materials and furnishings that we will utilize to make sure that our streets are functional and comfortable for the users we've also been very conscious throughout this document to make sure to incorporate a number of options so that each project while our goal is to create a unified streetscape we have the flexibility for individual streetscapes to be able to adapt to their unique considerations so whether that is so again we're here tonight just to introduce this document to you we've been developing this document over the last eighteen months through the great streets initiative process one thing that i do want to note is that this project to develop the standards has been an incredibly collaborative effort among city departments we've been engaging with nearly a dozen departments of the city to ensure that all of the elements that we individually are responsible for are accounted for in a collective way in this document going forward and we have begun discussing these with many of the boards and commissions and ultimately we'll be seeking their approval and their recommendation to you for approval when we come back to you in january so the last slide here is just linked to the documents it's also been provided to you in the memo that was on board docs for tonight's presentation this is where you'll find all of the individual chapters that contain tales that we've just briefly touched on here and with that world gladly take any questions that you might have at this time questions from the council know it's always great to hear you president obama the great work that you do every day but now you know things change and most of the time you know things come up and you have a picture in front of you and restroom this is an element that we have actually had a lot of conversation about throughout the great streets initiative one element that we have included in the standards is for a freestanding public restroom like this not exactly like this but similar which is a model that is being used in the city of portland oregon but the idea is that within the standards we have identified elements like a public restroom as we decide as a city where these elements can or should be located we've provided the information for how to actually install that element within the right of way so we have identified a public restroom in the document the standards will come back to the council as you stated our standards but i'm always leery of the fact that if we vote on this then this will be a booklet that people will use to develop their streets and what i've found is rigidity in the city with if indeed people don't want something that is put forward in these standards there is resistance and pointing to the documents saying you supported this and this is the way it goes and i found that with plan b t v you know it was supposed to be for the waterfront pretty soon as for the whole city and everything's linked to plan b t v when a group of citizens got together to look at a specific part of the city and yes it got expanded to the south end but not the whole city and so i'm very concerned about where we're going with this and i'm not totally on board i mean some of the streets that have been shown during the public forms are public meetings i have some reservations or concerns about those streets even though some may see them as improvements i feel like i'm concerned about being locked into that design if i vote for these standards so can you tell me if these standards get adopted how they will be utilized i really need to understand that so i'll look to laura as well to help answer this question as i mentioned we do not see the adoption of these standards replacing a project development process so it would not take the place of public engagement or individual work with stakeholders that d p w and the d p w commission would hold as part of a project you know creating a plan and moving forward a plan for an individual what we have done is identify critical elements of a streetscape such as what is the minimum dimension that a driving rain on the street must be or what if we said it is the preferred minimum with that we think is acceptable for a sidewalk we've kind of outlined those basic elements and then we've provided a number of options for things that we can do that go above and beyond those minimum requirements i think that when you look into the document you'll see that for example we haven't identified just one bench we've identified a whole series of benches that we think you know work well together and we are open to them being incorporated in projects based on the you know individual decisions and preferences and project budgets things like that the only other thing that i'll say is that we also recognize that as we start to actually implement these standards utilise that put them on the streets and see how they perform that we might need you so the point of all this is very cautious about adopting now policies and and standards like this because of what's happened to me in the past so i want to be very clear but i also want to make sure that you know we had a public engagement presentation regarding how d p w engages the public so i don't want to curtail or limit creativity regarding a this is a design and somebody comes up with an idea that really is good but it's not in this formula and so that's really where i'm going with this i i think that sometimes we lock ourselves in and then we are limited with what choices we have before us and so i don't know if that can be referenced in these standards so that we don't find ourselves just limited i understand the need and all the work that's gone in but i am a little concerned about what i just reference you do have more to add other than what you've already said oh i was just going to say so you know the standards don't identify a place a plan for any individual street so there is absolutely the discussion that will happen the community engagement that will happen at the individual project level and the only other thing that i wanted to say about creativity is that we do acknowledge in this document and recognize that many elements of the public realm themselves about insure or so i don't see a cross walk or a bike rack other elements could become something artful or something unique and creative and we recognize that we want to encourage those things to happen when it's appropriate and so many of the elements might identify kind of a standard element optional elements and then a custom element and in that case what we say is you know it needs to meet really appreciate that one of the concerns that i've heard from constituents as it relates to city projects is that the use of tropical hard words really seeing that as being in conflict with our stated commitment to reduce our carbon footprint as a city and so wondering if you could sort of speak to how the standards do or do not allow for the use of tropical hardwoods and some of these projects the standards specifically speak to the issue of not using tropical hardwoods within the downtown great street standards area where we most commonly see this is benches and we have our design team can attest to the amount of work that we've put them through to try to help us you so much yes i'd like to address the distinction that you make in the presentation between a unified visual language and a uniform visual language because the uniform visual language to me sounds boring right and things that have our city has grown organically and in ways that give it a really rick's wrist rich texture because we haven't over designed it so i'm just worried about this combined with form based code kind of over designing our city and making it less interesting right so one of the things that we've kept in mind as we've been identifying materials and elements that could be utilized in the street gape is to really focus on how these elements can perform or where they'll be placed within the right of way so that they're accessible and functional we've thought a lot about  you know we can see that we have used different materials different styles of light poles different plantings specifications throughout our downtown some with success and some that haven't worked as well which has provided in some cases a burden on maintaining those elements replacing them as they fail so what we're really focused on is creating a set of elements that will help us to be able to address issues of maintenance installation and performance but also recognizing that our streetscapes themselves should really be the place that recognize should be a part of our public realm first of all and should recognize the really interesting activities that are happening along the streets rather than as you look at the standards for example you'll see that they're not you know really ornate or a lab or it elements that are trying to detract from the individual facades or signage or things that truly are unique about our bill environment within the downtown just one more thing and then  i think we also want it because it is really creating the public realm a kind of investing in the public realm that let's be very aware to stay away from little ways that we send out signals that this is spaces for some kinds of people and not for other so this is something that i won't be getting behind not now not in january and i'm just if i have big concerns about where we've gone with this with the  this plan and specially in the downtown area where we're what we are saying here is just no cars and we have no mass transportation the city we live in a climate that gives us maybe three four months of maybe biking and good walking and if you look at this plan it says if you are an automobile really don't bother coming down because this is just going to cripple traffic in downtown and i know we've had this conversation before at this council and i know there's counselors around the table here my good friend concertina ward one who believes the automobiles will be obsolete in the near future and i say to myself when i read the consumer report back in september of this year the automobile industry set a record selling twenty million cars in the month of september where do you think those cars are going to go  says no to horrible beals it says yes to long lines of traffic and we're building a brand new downtown that we want people to come to and most of the people today and in the future will be coming downtown in their cars in this city we have no trains no subways limited bud's bus service really and i see these plans i just say to myself how does this make sense in the city now i want people to walk and bike and i bike a lot and i want to be safe but there's got to be a better balance than what we've got going now and what we're looking at down the road it just doesn't make sense in this city and so i would ask that we step back take a look at this realize that the alamo below is not a bad word and they're going to be around for a long long time for those who think the automobile is going to be obsolete in the near future i don't know i don't want to tell you i just don't get that twenty million cars were sold in the united states and the month of september a record but yet we believe we believe there will be no cars here in burlington in ten fifteen twenty years and i just don't get that there's got to be a better balance so i won't be supporting this now and i will be supporting in january and my hopes is that we'll take a look at the walkable bike will plan and make some changes there as well because if we don't a just a point of kind of curiosity and just a statement to the point that consular hartnett made about september being a very high record breaking sales automobile month that was actually in response to the hurricanes that happened in the self and everyone essentially going to car and those hurricanes were caused interesting only enough probably by global warming so just a common cancer dreamed i first this is the second time that i've seen this presentation it first came to us as two can and i want to repeat a comment that i made then which is that you know as a design professional i certainly appreciate the don't think it again as a design professional i see opportunity for creativity within the overall vision that this creates and so i really want to compliment you on that and in particular the kind of the way it's straightforward organized as a design professional i see fantastic opportunity within this just to respond a little bit to the issue of you know the automobile being a central part of  future i think that the automobile has been a dominant part of our streetscape for too long that this represents not a neglect of automobiles it's actually putting on all of the olds in the correct relationship to the ours so i really think that this is headed in the right direction and those people who who see this is a an attack on automobile it's not that at all it really is just moving it the bar a little closer to the rest of us who and thank you for all the work on this plant unfortunately when it comes here i also probably will not be supporting this for many of the same concerns that are part and i talked about i don't have a question but just a very  stable say most of it for when you actually come back to for this to be acted on but my fear is that counts are wrong but that we we may make the automobile obsolete growing and if we continue with all the plans that we are talking about here not in just the great street ones but with all the different initiatives that are going to be going on around the city i think that all of the different initiatives may in fact make the car obsolete in burlington to our detriment that we are in a period of major investment in our public infrastructure and our public spaces and that's being driven by some a number of large forces we have a storm water regulation protection regulation that is going to force us require us to do things differently to protect lake champlain whether we want to or not and we have just made a major commitment to  infrastructure plan and that we have just finished the first year in point taishan and have four funded years of head ahead will be making major investments in our in our public realm and our streets and our sidewalks and we have conceptual plan for the year out years beyond that when we continue to make high level of investment and i think what this document is a is getting those investments right to the greatest degree possible and i think i would just i understand the concerns that have been raised i think there are some legitimate concerns and certainly we don't want to we there is there is a danger perhaps of you know overprescription overdesigned there's a danger of not getting the balance right  but i do think there's some really good early examples of where this thinking has been implemented so far that i would hope that we give the council the public some some optimism that this thinking is head in the right  examples that come directly out of this thinking from the same set of consultants and team that's been working on one is the the waterfront north section of the waterfront which has i think is our most recent  new street and which has a lot of the features in terms of enhanced landscaping and enhanced materials that we are talking about in these designs and i i would submit that that has been extremely well received by the public the people think that is a beautiful new part of the city that has totally changed the way we think of the northern waterfront and is one good step in this direction a second think positive promising space aspect about using this kind of thinking is to look at what's happened so far with the redesign of st paul street we had the draft standards in place for those conversations with the stakeholders and that those conversations one extremely well there's a great deal of excitement enthusiasm from the people impacted most alongside the street about where that is headed and i think this gave us a the building blocks the tools to have those conversations and and i think we're coming out of it likely with a good design a lot of course the proof will be in the pudding so before we come back to you and our hope is that we will be back here before you in late january ok great when you when you do come back i think would be good to have a report on each of those boards and commissions had to say at the end of this all right thank you very much for the president more brief statement thank you i i just wanted to talk about there's a comment about kind of over designing things and and i share that concern in a lot of ways particularly when it when we're talking about development when we're talking about great streets i do think that the design continuity is a great and handsome in the city that's the the public way and it's continuous it's not something where we need to see something different on your dramatically different from street to street and i  am very appreciative of this work for one thing because of the issue that i've had with protecting our sidewalks so that there is space you know we keep wanting to put all of these cafe tables on sidewalks and you end up with these sandwich boards and cafe tables and plants and there's barely any place to walk and i think that we have to keep the public's interests and different uses in mind and in a more comprehensive way in a way that flows from block to block and kind of makes some sense and is fair to everybody and so that's one of the things i'm looking to get out of  diagonal parking i'm not comfortable giving that up and i'm not sure how this works without i'd like to talk to you further about that as this process continues thank you any other cancers cancer jank thank you let's remember we do have a lot of business in front of us it will be quick president and thank you so i remember the first time you provided this presentation and i ask you one simple question that was what is a street in burlington that couldn't be has all the elements that you talked about and you specifically said you don't pay attention i never paid attention when you talk about that's when i went there and then looked around and paid attention and actually this is not about the cars but this is exactly about the trees the streets the sidewalks you know the benches you know you look at them you're like wow this is perfect and i think i ask you also one question that was about street lighting you know and because now it is becoming a  topic in the national level because the cities are getting more and more bright and we are losing the aspect of looking at the sky and seeing the stars and the moon and all of that but how do we just ensure that we make sure that we still can look up and see the beautiful sky of bullington one of the things that we have been very mindful of as we've been developing the street lighting recommendations is finding the balance between streetlights that will zero two is a resolution requesting report on options to reduce municipal taxes and fees for seniors and low and moderate income burlington residents council right think president would del i would like to move adoption of the resolution and this is basically this is acknowledging in the resolution that we've done a good job here the administration the council in solving our credit rating issue that we had a few years ago that we have we have met all of our goals financially in regard to the unassigned fund balance and have have surpassed those goals and believe me i'm not complaining that's a good thing but i think that it's also a good time now that we've achieved those goals and surpassed them and we have we think some other revenue sources coming in as well that we take a look at how we can help residents share in the success of the city as much as as the city itself is doing as individuals and so if this resolution would have us look have the administration come back to the city council the finance board and the city council with information regarding how we might implement and what the cost associated would be doesn't lock us into doing any of these things but has us take a look at this over the next three months reporting back to the second meeting him in march on how we might implement a program where we could reduce taxes for low and moderate seniors in burlington at what level we might do that what the cost would be i mean there's different ways it could be done also we would look at all of the fee program the fees for programs in the city  this could be helpful for low and moderate income families in burlington and to also take a look at whether whether we might instead actually reduce the overall miscible tax rate which we did do by one cent last  year so i think this is is timely i think that this probably is not going to get the attention of some other items tonight our agenda but i think it's something that the citizens are going to be eager to hear us talk about and debate and get information on i know that when i go door to door the thing that i continue to hear more about and it really makes me sad is a long time brewing for residents and sometimes short time zones and residents saying that i love the city but i it's just very if expensive to live in burlington and i think that we need to take those and believe me that's not just burlington vermont expensive and i think we need to do our part and see what we can do to help alleviate those concerns so i hope that we pass this resolution tonight and begin to get some information on how we could address the affordability concerns so that we can have our residen a small very minor amendment which i believe will be friendly on line to the words undesignated reserve fund just simply replace those with unassigned fund balance i think there's a there's a wish not to have friendly amendments up until this no longer in our rules ok i'll take that as a motion to amend ok is there a second right seconds it is there discussion all in favor of that you i'll be supporting this and i just wanted to say that having grown up in massachusetts and coming from a family that had no money my mom actually would not have been able to stay in her town in her house in her town if her town didn't have a program where although she the state could give some reduction in property taxes what she was allowed to do was to defer her property taxes until the time she sold her home and then you would pay those taxes and accrued interest and so that allowed her to keep her home and that made a big difference so certainly you have to set the threshold you have to figure out what threshold to set that it but i think that these are the kinds of ideas that i'm hoping will be explored and what makes sense for us in the state i know we already have opportunities where people we have income sensitivity as far as reduction of property taxes from the state but i i think that sometimes you need more rel that in order to stay in burlington and i would really like to find ways to allow people to stay in their homes not only is it morally the right thing to do it cost society less to have someone stay in their home than to have them move into assisted living or a nursing home we all know that and so really what we're doing is we're protecting them and we're protecting ourselves so no matter whether you want to be humanitarian  y thank you very much five point zero three is a resolution placing a ballot question on the march sixth annual city meeting on the formation of the union  that was adopted so says revised dot p d f second from cancer heart that cancer if you have for thank you last tuesday the public safety committee met to discuss regional dispatch which shows that topic contemplated by communities throughout shipping and county for decades she flock presented information related to the work done over the last eighteen months by a regional committee of public safety professionals and municipal leaders on the concept of regional dispatch for emergency services this regional committee has determined that a regional dispatch center with a nine one one call center included can improve the response time for many nine one one calls the regional committee has estimated that the call transfer times could be excuse me that the call transfer times could be eliminated which would improve response times additional benefits of this model as presented include enhancement mutual aid among municipalities more dispatchers on duty and dedicated oversight of services the regional committee also for see the benefits to the dispatchers were to include increased training opportunities career advancement and management opportunities for those for million or with the operations of a dispatch center we also heard in committee concerns related to moving forward moving towards a regional dispatch model in our committee we heard concerns from a group of dispatchers and i believe the full council received some email correspondence from dispatchers as well the concerns much like we heard tonight are primarily due to employment uncertainty and insufficient involvement in the process thus far it was discussed that the city and committee it was discussed at the city cannot make guarantees to this point on behalf of an entity that does not exist yet and that those communities who join the municipal union will have or would have the will have members on its board to establish those commitments due to labor concerns primarily the city council is receiving this recommendation from public safety committee without the support of all members in reaction to this and in an effort to be responsive to these concerns while also respecting the dispatcher's union protections around negotiations myself and president no del worked with the city attorney's office bob rust and chief lock to bring forth an amendment to the resolution that was moved by public safety this amendment now found online fifty to fifty four is a clear directive stating that if the voters do approve the creation of the in a civil union in march that the city council guarantees involvement of the city's dispatchers in the discussion is going forward this seat at the table is not only i think the right thing to do but also valuable for the future entity itself because when you look at other communities that have made this shift those have those that have had dispatchers at the table have found more success close with an important point that much like the council much like the votes the council of taken on this issue in marks and october tonight's vote is not about deciding to support or to not support the concept of regional dispatch tonight's vote is about moving the question to the ballot and giving the voting public an opportunity to fully participate in the discussion if the voters vote yes in addition to guaranteeing the inclusion of our dispatchers in the process the city council will still need to vote as to whether or not to actually join the municipal union prior to that vote the all parties will have full details related to the new entity a full understanding of how the dispatchers were included in the process and how full knowledge of the employment package is being offered so i think you know just to close one of the core functions in my opinion of city government is to ensure the public safety in our community as an employer of close to seven hundred we as a city have a responsibility also to do right by our employees i think that if done right and managed well this process can result in an outcome that accomplishes both thank you  approached the city attorney and bob ruston that you were told that you could to the dispatcher's and i'm curious so we talked a bit and in committee about where this  worked well and where this has been and the importance of involvement of the dispatcher's where it has worked well and so i was unclear i guess i'm still unclear at what point that involvement started in those more successful examples i'm not sure if if anyone knows that you know i don't know i'm still wondering it seems like you know we spoke today briefly it seems like there could have been some conversation earlier on maybe not about the details you know no one even knows the details yet and and i take at least partial responsibility we saw this in committee when i was chair of that committee and i didn't ask that question either so you know i need to own that there has been some question about the around the time savings and i'm hoping that someone can speak to that where that data comes from there's some disagreement about how accurate that is there's some question around  how dispatchers will be able to follow eight different policies from a different communities will there be one policy for all communities and i i'm curious about that  we've heard from dispatchers about the importance of knowing they all know our local police and firefighters and how they have this working relationship and how they see that as really key to  public safety and the success of their occupations and that that would be much more difficult with regional dispatch and of course there's the there's the challenge with the union contract obviously you know that no doubt they understand that there's there's no details known or that can be guaranteed and so i'm curious also to hear  from any of those dispatchers if if there's someone that would be appropriate to speak on behalf of the group how they would see some sort of plan like involvement in a plan because we heard that they would like to have involvement but it was unclear what that might look like since we're not quite there yet from what i understand ok so there's up until the very end that was mark i think a question for a dispatcher to answer but all of the other questions are for the gentlemen at the table and i'll ask coun first the data so the data can on the seventy seconds so we randomly polled sixteen thousand nine hundred one calls out of the state system so there's about two hundred thousand nine one calls generated annually those calls go to six different public safety answering points throughout the state so when you dial nine one one it's going to answer to one of six places barring you're not on one of the borders where you hit new hampshire or new york let's just put the two aside from the time that call is answered in the center one of these six places until they take your information and they transfer you to a local dispatch center at the ninetieth percentile which is what the the  statistic that the and uses that takes that took seventy seconds that is exactly where that transfer time of seventy seconds arrives if europe if your a piece  if your consolidate peace dispatch center which at least for the for local piece of the all are so my former agency you're taking that call the mapping information all the all the information where that c is calling from already it doesn't it doesn't have to be regurgitated restated it it's all the allows for a quicker processing of the call in the dispatch center that's where the seventy  state nine and one system sixteen thousand calls over a thirty day period and at the ninetieth percentile seventies legal advice it started way before way early on one of our first meetings with the managers we hired in the pending legal labor attorney karen stackpole for the authority or for the joint survey committee who gave us very clear direction that they almost all of these forty four employees are unionized and it's a very fine line of what we can and cannot speak to with them and that was validated can con continually by our own city attorney aaron you want to is anything else you want to add to that i mean please use them like mr frank you know it's the relationship we need employees as their representative not very much different than when a person gains an attorney you have to work with the larger group and so it does provide some constraints  representation and having to engage properly so as not to step on the rights of these employees within that and then just as a quick follow up so that was it that was the direction we were given and stuck to that really until about october where we said ok we're going to start having some conversations with our employees so that they're aware of what we're doing but at the same time trying to take a high level of voiding anything that had to do with collect so just on that point from what i think we heard through e mail and i'm i may be getting this wrong i thought we had heard but that that the employees had been reached out just  see you're absolutely correct in october we as a commission as a joint survey committee made the decision we were going to start having these meetings it just took another six weeks because it was it was until now until very recently i may have been i don't want to know may have in the week before thanksgiving ok so week after thanksgiving it took that time to have the conversations because again before i met with our attorney before our employees i needed to have that validation with our own city attorney so before we could get our provable from our own city attorney to have those meetings it took until and give them the notice it was late november so the decision was initially made by the survey committee in october and then late november we held our first meeting common operating policies absolutely i think that came as one of the recommendations from the delta works report the police chiefs are aware of that the fire chiefs are aware that there's no way there's two things there's no way that dispatchers can be asked to dispatch as many agencies without using computer aided technology and there's no way that they can expect to be expected to know that eight communities are going to operate a different ways so without a doubt we understand that there will have to be common operational policies and every police chief that i knows aware is aware of that and willing to to make that concession and certainly there is a personal touch and a personal relationship when a police officer can walk you know every day into that dispatch center and have those have those relationships i think you still will build those over time you'll still hear the voice on the radio you're still going to know the inflection of the voice when someone's  someone's upset or someone's on a hot call but there are side of the molly that i think there are some sacrifices made but i believe overwhelmingly they the value of this far exceeds those those certainly n thank you i do want to add that in committee it was it was my impression that the employees were entirely against this idea that they were really frustrated with the process  and i just want to acknowledge again that you're in a very challenging place she flocke and i want to thank you for that i am curious to hear from him if there is anyone able  d anyone from the dispatcher's like to come forward i think prison for us i think that counselor morse interested in hearing how they would ideally be involved in decision making and recognizing  so i want to think the work that was done to put together the amendment around involving employees i would just like to touch on to two things that were brought up one i completely understand the legal reasons that we were not communicated with but burlington dispatchers as well as many other community also read multiple articles over the summer about information that was released and to us it was speaking to them like it was agreed that moving forward they would agree if something could be released to the media or to a public entity that would be shared with this batch as well so we're not finding out in the free press or the seventy's about what's happening with our own employment and something that came up during the public safety committee meeting was that she flocked fully supports the idea of dispatchers on subcommittees and in the planning process but it was also mentioned that such subcommittees would need to be approved by the regional directory board so there are sounds as if and i don't know if this is someone knows please correct me but it sounds as if although chief supports it there is no guarantee because that has been passed by the board yes when you can when you come back to the table yeah yet when you come back i think you can expand on that so there is a there is an amendment maybe another counselor who was involved more involved in writing that around expand on the so we carefully worded the amendment to the resolution to avoid that so based so the resolution the amendment to the resolution states is that whoever is the burlington director will meet with the burlington dispatched and then the bronx and director reports those findings back to the entire board of directors for the municipal district so we took away the if the decision making of the higher of the higher board and said the broughton director is going to consult with with or with our staff and then bring that input back to the entire board of directors so it will happen kelso more you're still on i maybe you asked a question this little bit hard to do questions like this but did you hear her question did and it's spelled out she's asking who would be the director the agreement that's before someone was referencing that you know the issue regarding the union employees not being able to be engaged initially but but you were something i think you said sir that that they could designate you or relating it to you know having someone an attorney represent a group of individuals so was an option to have a union rep involved then could the employees have selected a union rep that could have come to the table to represent them because that's what i sort of understood you saying and if i misunderstood i'd like you to clarify that early on in the in these deliberations so it's this as direct so that's that's really not my question i don't want you to go too far with that my question is when you were deliberating as a group of individuals from various communities i thought i understood that there would have been an opportunity to have representation from dispatchers if they were represented legally or by somebody and they could have been at the table did i misunderstand that i guess that's really my question you issue of representative ok so then my question to the city is and then i have another unrelated question but my question to the city is then could the dispatcher's earlier have selected if if we had reached out to them could they have selected someone like a union rep to be come in gauged or or be involved in in this discussion earlier i don't think so here's the issue you're running into labor relations issues and and right now the employees are unionized and when we get to bargaining with them around their upcoming contests are tracked i fully expect that we will be dealing with whatever employment issues they would want to deal with that have to do with their employees of the city and at some point if this goes through they would transition to being employees of somebody else that transition what happens what happens to their jobs as the lead up to it as to the city's term a nation of those positions and they're moving on i fully expect that will be the information that we would bargain with them but they they cannot be at the table to talk about formatting because then all of a sudden it becomes bargaining but there's no entity yet there's no recognition of union to deal with that entity yet so it's all premature for them to be involved that doesn't mean it isn't going to happen it's just the way that the vermont system is set up the union municipal district has to get formed first and then there's an entity for them to talk with and we will also have discussions at the city level about how that how they transition assuming that union municipal district gets formed so thank you i just guess i know over from my own experience so as i shared with the fire chief and a juror here but at my job regular person and when people that actually deliver services get don't become involved early on when they have that insight there is frustration that builds up in misunderstanding and it doesn't really necessarily make the process go as well as it could and i understand the union complication but i i i'm i'm understanding the frustration from the group of individuals who will be delivering those services and would have liked to have shared of liked been involved in giving some feedback not i understand there's the issue regarding employment i get that but i think there are other issues that could have been there's there's a conversation to be had and so i feel like i appreciate that and i'm just trying to understand if there was any other way having said that i'm going to leave that because that's the past and i support the amended resolution and i was wondering some of these employees have have been in their positions for a long time and if indeed the voters in march approve this and ultimately we go in this direction i think a hurdle that i recognize is that having people have to reapply for jobs and have to fill out applications and do resumes except for and i was hoping that in those discussions maybe h r in the city could help some long term employees doing that this is premature but i just wanted to let people know that i think that there are ways that we can work with the employees to make them feel valued and help them through a transition that may occur thank you thank you council bush or cancer dean thank you the advantages for regional dispense system versus our current locally based dispatch system yet that thank you very much comes to dean i think the first thing to say by way of a preamble is that this is far as i'm concerned this  not about the quality of the dispatchers who work in burlington they're absolutely top notch they're excellent professional they have officer and firefighter concerns foremost in their mind they work really long hours often times they get held over without without notice and just to make sure that those seats are always filled in there's always a voice on the radio and i'm glad that they're here tonight because the prospect of a change like this is it would be unsettling for anybody so i'm glad that they're there speaking up for me i tell my loved ones not to call nine one one when they are in trouble if that ever happens i tell them to call direct into burlington dispatch it's going to save them a minute it's going to put them directly in the room with the people who are dispatching the officers and going to get them help more quickly now if the only three numbers you can get in a panic are nine one one by all means that's why it's such a simple number but i i advise people in who i talk to to call directly into dispatch because our piece up system is good for a rural state where the response time is typically fifteen to twenty minutes and adding another minute makes it sixteen or twenty one minutes here in our city we have a response time of two to four minutes we're proud to say and maybe three to five and we can reduce that to two or three minutes if we cut out the time that it takes to go from the nine one one call to the dispatch the reason why we can't do that is because there's no computer interface whatsoever between the piece at and the dispatch it is a telephone interface so they take all the information that they put the caller on hold and then after taking all this information they open up a line with the dispatcher they're trying to talk to and send it through in police departments and fire departments have had the time to build a properly professional system that's based on a city model not a rural model the second the connection is opened with the nine one one call or that nine one one call taker starts populating an incident immediately on the dispatchers queue that they can send out so someone says a man was just shot or someone just robbed a bank what's your location they're typing that in as it's and it's coming up on the screen right on the other side of the room and getting dispatch that cuts out thirty forty fifty sixty seconds and they're talking right there in situ another problem i have with the way we do things now is it were a region but were a fairly small region and right now in cold chester or in burlington or and when you see a cop could be screaming for help by him or herself under attack and my burlington officers ha no way to figure out that that's going on until somebody fumbles with the radio frequency or jumps down or one dispatcher calls another but if a cop is under attack in the dispatchers for this region or in the same room hearing that it will take seconds to get that c i'm emotional about this because i've heard it happen here and i've heard it happen elsewhere and it's time that we build a professional system that those two things get citizens the help that they need immediately without relying on a rural system to do it because we're not a rural system or a city and the rest of the state constantly reminds us of that and number two when my cops need help or any cop in this region needs help i want them to get it right away and right now that's not going to happen we're beginning with channels and hoping dispatchers talk to other dispatchers that x got to go out in seconds because a fight is won or lost in seconds so i wonder you describe the central role that the computer aided dispatch played you know takes in this you know minimizing the response time can you give us a little more idea of what that looks like you know how to how to when when i'm thinking about this regional center what what is it going to be so it will be and chief can talk about you know the seating arrangements for saying things that committee has been giving a lot of look to but you have colocated call takers and dispatchers in the same room and as the calls come in from nine one one there's two types of communication there's i hear a call i'm populating the information in my computer to dispatch it interfaces with the incident management system right on the other side of the room so as i'm typing it's coming up over here i'm typing bank robbery and bank robberies appearing on the screen it's not somebody in the other end of the state asking a bunch of questions for thirty forty fifty seconds and then opening a new line it's not it's not voice but then there's also voice right when that dispatcher says i'm getting a bank robbery and w the person on the other side of the room here is it in choosing can send out the information right away right i mean i think that's so there's there's just that the voice interface and think about active shooter situations think about situations where we have several cops needing to s consolidated center you would literally just cue up two different radio frequencies and punch  so if all those things are true then why were so many police officers here to tonight you know if this is an issue of their own safety why would they be choosing to put themselves at greater risk and come out in support of the dispatchers because each and every one of those police officers as brave and gallant as they are is only work for the burlington police and this is the way we've always done things and their friends are extended about change and scared about reapplying for their jobs and scared about all the things that are very valid things to be worried about that counter the bush are brought up and counter them or brought up and there are men and women who care about each other and if their instinct is to help and as the chief of police my instinct is to get them all home safe ok may please ask the dispatcher a  so i'm just wondering you know that that characterization about not being able to help other officers in the community is has that been borne out by your own your experiences here because that seems pretty pretty significant you know i'm just wondering like and you're able to work together as a team where as i'm gathering information that call is immediately being put out over the radio so it's not as single focus as it was presented as necessarily importantly there are times where we have a high call volume and we all have a lot of things going on gets really busy in there but we do try to work together as much as possible so that we can be and helpful as we can to this city far as i'm aware every dispatch center has that really are free and i have heard agencies call for a system using that so instead of picking up the phone calling five cities they're clicking a button and just saying this town needs assistance this is where this is what's going on and when available if you can help let us know we can all hop on that same radio and immediately say yeah we have people available or we would just stay off if we don't and one side note i'd like to meet regarding staffing both the letters of support and tonight they stated that we will have fewer order in staff and will be better but without an operational plan not necessarily fair to promote that idea when we have no guarantee what staffing is going what the call  volume going into that center because we just don't know there's nothing in place to guarantee that that thank you that's a very complete answers and i really appreciate i understand certainly how difficult it is and i really admire your courage in being willing to speak out given that you have the bosses here and the power differential so thank you for doing that j i think cason jane also has a question for you you know i would be supporting as useful to go to the ballot but i just wanted to know what are your plans in you know organizing the community as well in letting them know actually what is really you have something in place as far as that goes i think we're hoping to wait and see what happens here today and see what the city council has to say what their vote decides to be and from there depending on the outcome we would make attempts to you're more concerned about the but tonight you seem to be against the concept so i mean everyone that spoke actually seems to be against the concept so i'd like to know were really yeah here are you against the concept and just don't are resisting that and don't think it's the right thing to do or are you more concerned about job security required for your job like the kind of get a few where the dispatches really are because i'd like to know as a counselor you know sometimes we kind of you know play a little you know game and we say well we're really not against and then we come to find out that you really are against it so where are we with this i'm going to get some advice from city attorney blacklist i'm a little concerned here i mean you're putting the dispatchers a little bit on the spot about things what we can't do is we can't get in to trying to put them on the spot about the terms and conditions of their employment or trying to negotiate that with them and so from a labor relations standpoint and then from another standpoint i just think it's a little bit unfair to take employees and then ask them for you know are you all for or against this particular thing that's that's that i mean i think if you want answer if you feel like you want to answer your personal thing but i just want to be very clear that we're a little bit on comfortable here because the city council are your bosses they do have input they are management of the city and this is not really the forum in which management should be putting employees on the spot and saying what is your position on this so that's what i'm concerned about here you are not obliged to answer the question ok but if you i don't think i still stand by what i said last week where we are not against regional dispatch as a whole it's just we're very uncomfortable with the current plan or rather lack thereof because we are very focused on the operational side because that's our day to day or focus on we need to know and that's the part that we unfortunately don't know at this stage and won't know what it sounds like for a while so we're not just saying no to say no because we want to be an op and we're just  so so the question i have is probably over my head technically but i'll ask it anyway and hopefully you can explain it in a way that i can understand you had mentioned that you know as  far you had sent me an e mail and it said that dispatchers you know are feeling disc that there be of some level of disconnect between you know these are people bless you these are people that a lot of the dispatchers have been there a long time they know pearlington well they know landmarks well and there's a certain level of familiarity when they take a call that they can sort of under they can understand  the you know where somebody is and be able to potentially respond better in in certain ways and one of the things that you had said was that although that does have some merit you pointed to a technology called  two cell phones that would give the location of the collar in advance mapping products that would limit that level of concern and what my understanding of that of that technology is that it's really not a new technology and that there are ways of blocking that technology so it might not necessarily be that effective depending on what kind of a phone you have and not everybody not everyone has a smartphone a lot of people you still use track phones flip phones and so i was just wondering if you're if one of the one of the compelling arguments is that a lot of this would be handled by technology how that sort of jives with what i'm what i've pointed out sure i would just i think there's a couple way different ways to look at this certainly if you look at the new hampshire model all calls and new hampshire go to one public safety answering point so they're figuring out where you are from one location in the entire state we do that really in over six different places so the technology we really do rely on technology it's about clearly about where that callers calling from so again a technique that we do rely heavily on technology and so is her value to local dispatchers absolutely i think we we also know that those almost every one of those dispatchers learned their area as they worked it and you're going to see that as well if you work we're not talking a major metropolitan area here you know i think you know often we look at union county as being the big city but ultimately the district here is not that significantly bigger and this happens all over all over the country dispatching agencies much bigger and much busier than what happens at shooting county out of consolidated centers thank you genk i don't know what president said this but he said fighting against terrorism is having the right information at the right time right and it sounds like you could number we have a hybrid number that the last four digits will be zero nine one one that would put you directly into dispatch we just loathe to use it because we want to know what their action this whole thing is is going in but it would be possible to have a direct line into it's a burlington dispatch that would allow borrowing tony and to talk direct in fact most of those store owners and security people around church street who call the police all the time they call direct into dispatch because they know it's  it's faster one of the things when i hear or dispatchers talk is they you know they illustrate what number one the workarounds they use to try to minimize response time they use statewide channel to hoping that other dispatchers are listening to state what channel to use that they can hear something's going on then try to get more information that's that's that's showing the earnest and hardworking attempts at dispatchers make to minimize wasted time and maximize communication but i'll  say two things we cannot control when this phone starts ringing from the state peace at it rings when it rings and however long it takes the state on their landline to process their nine one one call and dial our dispatch is how long it takes and that's the amount of time that we're trying to minimize by having a colocated nine one one call taker and dispatch function and the second thing is it's a it's a it's a hypothetical it's a thought experiment but if i were to ask a group of cops and a group of dispatchers and a group of firefighters to go in a room and say this is certain county design a system that gets police resources and fire resources number one that gets information to the dispatch and out of the field as quickly as possible and then gets the right resources to the right places at the right time and it's as responsive to police officers calling for help in the field as possible i strongly feel that in out of the box of are doing this from scratch they've come back to what they described to us would be a regional dispatch system i'm tremendously sympathetic to their their quality of life and we're concerned because their people have loyally serve this city i don't want them to get short shrift but i'm hoping that there's a way forward that honors their service and everything they've done and  their commitment and that also allows us to design the system that i think we'd have if we were starting from scratch thank you chief i think we might be i'm going to just i'm going to be supporting this will go to the mayor and hopefully we can say that we we can't figure it out and that we are convinced that it won't work and we won't be able to create a system that is good for the employees and also better in terms of response time point of information coun the m o you that's attached here is that something that we are actually voting to support when we have a chance to look at this again that was my question which i know you there's an ammo you that was part of the things right now it is legally part of the agreement but additionally before the city of burlington should the voters vote to approve the creation of this county public safety authority the city council must ratif should you vote tonight to support this going to the voters the voters vote to create it and then before the city of burlington would receive service or pay into this organization for operational services you'd have to ratify that is the council would than eighteen months you know this is a conversation that has been attempted many times over decades and my sense is that it has gotten by getting here tonight getting to the floor being on the cusp of going on the people in their own dispatchers and try to address this concern i want to thank the people involved and trying to get this process this difficult process right from the start i've engaged this effort a couple times you know a number of times over over the eighteen months and every time i've gone to one of the meetings that has been held talking about the substance here there has been the focus always to a degree that frankly surprised me at times has been entirely on the operational potential operational public safety benefits the potential savings in response time in the improvement of response times and there really all the minister polities who are involved have been advised not to expect or bank in any way on but also in that it gives me real optimism that to go back to one of the first statements counsel roof made at the beginning i do have real optimism that we can do right by our constituents in improving our public safety system in reproducing response times and proving response times and we can do right as we have a responsibility to for the team that works for us the people that work for us and certainly if the voters the council of voters give us the authority to take the next step and get to the detail level questions and really work out what is it going to be involved in transitioning employees from being municipal employees into this new municipal union and it will be a very high priority of mine to make sure that we do that it do right by people who have served and sacrificed for us for a long period of time i've been a few times in the in the dispatch center our dispatchers and we owe them the responsibility of making this transition as successful as possible if we if we get to that and i'll be personally committed that if we if we get to that point like the process has been flawed and not fully and more fully engaging the dispatcher's and i'm hearing different things from dispatchers and i'm hearing up here and it's very difficult to reconcile those two things especially when there's not a proposal clearly a clear cut proposal on the table for us and while i do think that we can certainly figure out a proposal i don't think that voting no for for lack of having a clear cut proposal on the table with an understanding of what's going to happen under that proposal is really saying that we can't figure it out i think it's saying that we would like to have some greater assurance some greater understanding of what those key and crucial operational questions will be as we move forward towards this system so i think that that's a really important thing to have as as we move forward and as we take this quite frankly to the voters and i feel like i'm hearing different things in terms of for instance you know the voter asks me is this going to going to save response time well i have someone who's doing this several people who are doing this every day and then other folks who have long life long careers in law enforcement and  and fire telling me something different i feel like it's very difficult to explain especially when i don't have a plan to that voter what exactly the benefit is going to be to them so i would have hoped that we could have had a more fully  baked concept or at least a more fully baked plan to bring to voters and really answer their questions with a greater degree of certainty because this is a crucial and crucial information crucial a crucial consideration for our community so i will not be supporting it thank you thank you any other counselor need to speak before we vote care to speak before we vote ok so we go to vote all in favor of adopting this resolution relating to the ballot question on formation of a union minister paul district this is the revised version please raise your hands five point zero four is a resolution to put on the ballot a question about climate action cancer shannon thank you i would move to adopt this resolution to put a question on our ballot with a slowly change from what's been presented on line twenty it should read additional support for low income people or rural communities it's not appropriate to have the words people of color in there so i will omit that  and after a second as for the floor back counselor paul seconds it does everyone understand the amendment ok counselor shannon you have the floor thank you recently vermont digger  had an article citing that burlington was the number one city with increased temperature of seven degrees of all the major us cities which was astounding  that that point is i found the source of their information and quoted that in this resolution but i i think th were really trying to do in this resolution is emphasize to the governor how important this work is to reduce our carbon input and try  reverse the effects of climate change and there has been some work done at the state level to do that but we'd like to see more teeth and more progress towards reaching the goals because just establishing goals is not really enough we need to make sure that we are making progress and the city of brawling tin has been a leader in that effort i think those of us on this council are proud of that as well as the citizens of burlington and we'd like to see the state taking many of the similar actions that we've taken and making sure that they are making good on their pledge  achieve ninety percent of their energy from renewable renewable sources by two thousand and fifty and other initiatives that will minimize climate change you yes i do have an amendment and it's actually going into line with what the previous resolution that goes on the ballot on the previous one on smoking smoking increasing age twenty one  this would coming up council excuse me that's that's right that was coming up after this today here so this line sixteen added after the word governor and members of the general assembly so during and after the word governor and members of the general assembly yes and that would bring it into line with what the language of the next resolution is going to say and i think which is appropriate more traditional that and we're back on discussion on the the resolution as amended any other councillors thank you president i will be supporting this i want to thank counsel shannan for sort of taking the lead and  know i did so i know i can't be more specific i mean i think that that's up to the state to determine you know what what actions can be taken to achieve those goals what's important is not so much the specifics as that they are studied and identified and and move forward and meeting benchmarks and deadlines or examples think it would be appropriate to offer examples and it's already a fairly lengthy ballot question so i'll leave it at that cancer jan you still have the floor i don't have any specific questions ok but you'd like to see some more specifically yes yes and you know one thing that is very specific and we even and i think this could have be what can we do more knowing that the way in terms of climate change in terms of energy and all of that but also what else can we add in holding that leadership for the for the rest of the nation and also the city and one example is very specific such as as a city we do we need to also make sure based on the finding and also the great work from the burning to an elected department we need to go move i wonder if i might offer some specific examples that i'm aware of as a design professional that the state can take in forwarding this initiative the state administers the c b s which is a commercial building energy standards  that has a three year review cycle it's something that we all that professionals look at and something that absolutely effects what how are buildings are built and what energy we use there also is the act fifty process which plugs into the commercial building energy standard and forwards that in asked to actually go beyond that so i think there are those are two examples just very very quickly where the state can have a  which i think is a pretty clear vote for people do you want to raise the smoking age to twenty one i think voters are clearly going to know what that means i think here again i would vote for but i'm not sure that is clear what people are voting for i know though what it says but i think the point is there's no specifics and i get why you can't say he has his expects some voters may not know whether that means that my voting for a carbon tax here what is it i'm voting for or against i'm voting for anything to get to those goals so i'm not sure what the message will be coming out of this i will vote for but not sure what the message will mean thank you cancer saying no other council will go to a vote after second thank you the second comes from counselor shannon counselor and thank you president o'dell the proposed ballot item seeks the input of the voters on whether to encourage the governor and legislature to increase the age to legally purchase was it died in the senate on a sixteen to thirteen vote which did include two no votes from the county senator so this will have a real hopefully potential impact on how they view this in two thousand and eighteen following the defeat of that came before us for those of us who were here on a few meetings and encouraged us to adopt that locally that intrigued me and some others we followed up with the city attorney only to found out that under our home rule we were not allowed to do that so and sort of began the genesis of this i'm not going to go through and i think that presenters in public forum very effectively articulated the public health reasons why we should do this  i know for me this is sort of an easy just hearing the statistics and the numbers you know trying anything we can do it's also my understanding that you know a significant amount of effort that has and success that has been achieved as a result of the tobacco settlement those funds are about to dry up so now you know we need to look harder and deeper about how we can continue to bring those numbers down so i'm hoping we can get a majority or unanimous support and put this on thank you thank you thank you sir who else or bush or so you know i work at the university of vermont medical center and i know the risks of smoking i heard tonight that the present presenters one person said that most people start smoking before they reach the age of eighteen  so i can't support this resolution because i wish there were this whole lot atory and was foot filled with people saying that if we say that a person a eighteen is an adolescent and can't make a determination like this then we should not say they can be inducted into the service and they can die for each one of us i have strong issues with that i have strong issues with the fact that we say that people at eighteen can't drink because i feel that we talk out of both sides of our mouth everybody around this table is more than happy to say goodbye to this person or that one person as they go off to war to fight for us at the age of eighteen but now we're saying that they can't make that determination of whether or not they should have access to tobacco products it really it breaks my heart i don't want to put people at risk but i feel like i put people at risk every single day by telling them one thing that they're old enough to die for me but they're not old enough to make these determinations they're old enough to legally they can make a determination to marry they can make all sorts of other determinations at the age of eighteen so for me i can say both things to an individual that's in front of me at eighteen telling them yes guy no i'm sorry you can't access this or that you're not old enough to make that determination for yourself thank you others see none will go to a vote all in favor of adopting this resolution for the bow question on legally increasing the legal age of purchasing tobacco products products to twenty one please raise your hands three five point zero six is a report from the public safety committee about combat ing homelessness calce the roof thank you i would like to make the motion floor thank you last tuesday the public safety committee met to also discuss a set of recommendations that resulted from an outreach in our region initiative to the community to community partners on how the city council can do more to support those experiencing homelessness in our community the committee move forward with this initial set of recommendations knowing that we will reconvene to amend and or add to this list and so i'll go through the recommendations in short there are eight and they are as follows recommendation number one is to increase the capacity of the low barrier shelter and conduct a one year pilot period to investigate the benefits of twelve month operations recommendation number two it's to support and facilitate the standardize ation of the processes between service agencies as modeled after the success of the church and county homeless alliances coordinated entry efforts this recommendation calls for a pilot project whose members would include but not be limited to willing agencies that received city directed support number three is to review and possibly adopt the city's internal encampment remov procedure number four is to increase opportunities for those experiencing homelessness to be positively engaged with the community through investigation of the viability of how low hurdle employment opportunities of low hurdle employment opportunities and community activities number five topic we heard today short but important increased public restroom access in the downtown core number six provide anti bacterial and sun protection  public spaces recommendation number seven increase commute communications between the chitlin county almost alliance and the city council through representatives from seato and from b p d the city council is to receive quarterly updates by way of this recommendation related to the work of the c c a j finally recognition number eight a recommendation that asked the administration to put forward a budget with increased funding for street outreach and for housing retention and that the administration explore and support state legislation changes for expanded medicaid coverage for social work positions relating to homelessness and low income housing just like to thank all those that have participated in the work so far especially thank my my committee members council hartnett and more for all the work that you to have put on put into this thus far and i also just want to say that while i certainly did my best to reach out to as many organizations and individuals as possible  certain that some were left out but they are not because the process is not over we will be discussing these recommendations tonight not voting and the public safety committee will be reconvening early in the new year to make changes in response to what we hear between now and then that meeting will be scheduled soon so please do come and participate i look forward to the discussion thank you thank you house if so the intent is that we have just tonight that we discuss these recommendations that we just have a discussion of the proposed ordinance change but that the action be deferred to a meeting in january and they both be taken up at the same meeting correct in that and these recommendations and potentially more will come in the form of did come up and was accidentally left off of this list that we all discussed was increased access to a low barrier space during the  daytime that that has been been used in different areas and could potentially offer people who have no other place to go that you can be under the influence at the co station that venue certainly serves a lot of people very well in our community but doesn't serve everyone and so there was that recognition and and so looking into what that would take and i just want to say there was an interesting conversation with the states of one of our meetings talking about one individual in particular just as an example that she saw every week in her office until that person got into housing through the housing first model and then she didn't see them again it was really speaking to the importance  model seeking to once that person had more stability in their lives as i think we've all heard that that they needed services much less  and and then when that person left that housing she started seeing them back again so i think one i'm really heartened that this community is kind of taken up that model and really push that forward and second the recognition that that that doesn't necessarily answer the whole that when people have been homeless for years chronically homeless that simply getting into a place that isn't isn't the final the final step i guess but that there are barriers that i don't think i can understand to maintaining that housing and that staying with that person after they leave is a part of the process so i really appreciated these meetings that we had there was a lot of good conversations and i also very much would love to see some of the financial success that the administration has helped us achieve going towards more support for street outreach as well as housing retention which councillor hartnett found from his subcommittee to be really key thank you thank you  of their counselors elsa bush or so i did get to attend at the end of this meeting when this committee was talking about these recommendations and and i've talked to councilor roof about the low barrier access during the day we talked about the days station and we talked about whether or not there was would it be appropriate to have other opportunities for  people places for them to go during the day because that seems to be one of the real issues that we've heard as i was listening to counselor more you know when i walk downtown and you know i don't see that cluster of people because of what we the barriers we put up on on main street but when you you saw the cluster of people who were there panhandling and and  they're a circle that's a circle of friends so i think that social interaction at some level so housing might be isolation but social interaction is really important with peer groups no matter who your peer groups are and other people to to expand your peer group so i think that you know i don't want to minimize the importance of having places for people to go where they can find like minded people and other people so they can potentially maybe make improvements in their lives so i want to speak strongly to that recommendation i think that you know each one of these has as counsel ruth said has will needs and action plan one and next step and so also that the outreach program on the street we know that the city stepped up to pay some of a salary but i think we need to look at how many people do we need on the street today how many you know and what and how do we meet those needs and the city isn't going to solve that problem alone but i think we could potentially play a larger role so for me the low barrier access during the day and the community outreach are two key things that i would like to see advance sooner than later we've already heard a lot  about the fact that there needs to be public restroom access and i think certainly i'm going to speak in support of that too so i think those three things are my priorities although all of them are are important anyways thank you very much there is a stand alone portland lou planned for in the city all parkland that's going into zoning this is a stand alone bathroom it is part of the whole part plan and there is also going to be permuted footprint for the kiosk to be built it's just that the design is not completed yet for that so that's going to happen into two phases so they're very similar plan fit very similar facility to what was in the race in public forum will be is part of the city hall part plan currently thanks and the other point i make i just bring up the housing retention specialist i find it to be intriguing that we could you know create a position that conjunction with the public housing but also more housing retention i mean to have somebody actually go out there and in and interact with these find out why they're not helping do they want to get housing and how can we given housing and i'm not so sure that we're doing a good enough job doing that and we might engage with them once in a while for you know once a month but  we need to be able to have people on the ground and so i think it could be in conjunction with the housing authorities the public housing authorities that we could maybe split this position and we could help them out as well there's only three housing retention specialists in the tire chilton county which to me is amazing i can't believe that we don't have more and and the fact that we could kind of copartner with them and put more people at out in these neighborhoods to find out exactly why these people are homeless and to find them housing i think the city's done a good job overall and in this issue but we can you know we can always improve and i just gotta believe i mean i just  leave here times people want to be homeless and i'm not saying that's not the case maybe it is but you know deep down inside they really want to be homeless i mean i don't know if we're doing a good enough job reaching these people to find out why they are and if we can find housing for them so i hope that we can create this position with the housing authorities thanks thank you county so i had a question not to bring it down that so i didn't see here at the end anything around actually creating more housing more studio units more small you know housing that people could was not really the intent of the committee to go down that path of how we can create those conversations are happening in feeding our housing actually which is which is also been having some interplay with this with this work so oh i mean the priority basically for me is to have these street bathrooms you know we need to have those as soon as possible because there will be end of the resolution that will be coming up to me it won't make sense until we make the appropriate steps so i and i'm talking about tomorrow what can we put outside you know order for the homeless people to be able to use that's like a steak that should happen today but i think that that's a wonderful thing what you call on but also i wanted to have a suggestion in which that on october tenth  in partnership with many of our community organization we celebrate homelessness because so many people in this it's not about because they choose to be homeless or no but i know parents i know parents that i work with that had they had it all but in one day they can lose everything but we also need to make sure that we celebrate homelessness because these people it's not their choice it's just the consensus of life that bring them to where they are you can have that i think that would be wonderful and will hundred percent will be supporting this thank you thank you availability that might be there for this correct ok thank you very much we'll move on now to five point zero seven again just a discussion and this was work that the council asked the ordinance committee to do and now repeat offenses of these types of violations of aggressive and disruptive behavior such as but not limited to public urination public drunkenness littering sexually aggressive catcalling and we were tasked with bringing back an ordinance penalty that was sort of the first hurdle for repeat offenses but unbeknownst to us we were informed that the city actually already had an ordinance on the books that impose a criminal penalty for two offenses in six months as it related to your knitting a deafening in the streets and alcohol consumption we were also advised by memo to consider a number of changes to other ordinances that were either at risk from a constitutional challenge were unnecessary or redundant in light of other city and state ordinances or were outdated the ordinance committee elected not to take those up as part of this process because it was sort of outside of our charge and i think it's going to take a longer we had a pretty aggressive time report back i will say though that the comm is aware of those and i fully intend to take those up after the new year as noted in a memo we got back from the city attorney that's in your packet though included in that list of things that we could not take up for one of those reasons included the public public drunkenness and the cat calling so i think it was important to for the council to know why the committee isn't coming back with a proposed criminal penalty for violations as to those two specific that were called out want to make clear you know the chief again without weighing in we heard from the chief of police that you know what was important here was to go after behavior not specifically individuals the stated goal was to foster an ordinance enforcement mechanism that preserves order maximizes personal freedoms wherever possible employers principle of escalating consequences where  appropriate and inspires confidence in the law and institutions that enforce them by making sure that they're both fair and taken seriously we then had a discussion at our last meeting we received some revised language there was a discussion at the earlier  or did bring to the council's attention that in the noise ordinance it does have a criminal penalty there was an opportunity for an alternative you know resolution which didn't require a fine the committee felt that was we also dialed back it was the recommendation of the committee to go so we stayed for you know what you see before you does carry forward a criminal violation for repeat offenses as it relates to the two that were already on the books your nation def occasion as well as alcohol possession it is softened however the committee went from two violations in six months to three violations in six months that was supported and actually put forth by the chief at the first meeting and also as i mentioned breaks in that restored of justice there was much discussion about that so what that means there was concern counselor busher and counselor ging about you know what would be the impact on an offender and it was brought to our attention through the restorative justice program that you know if you completed that in spoke were predominantly opposed at least my recollection as to the urination death occasion and i think it ties directly into the lack of access to public restrooms which why i think it was important that these two move together in concert and not you know one be taken up independently so with that i will sort of turn it over for discussion i was not intending to take this back you know we did have two hearings we heard comment you know the specific language was before the public before last hearing we did take comments made revisions so that was why we didn't you know we had two options either at the place and all stages of passage or sent it back to the origins committee it was my sort of feeling that it wouldn't be prudent at this point in time so that's why this was open for very much chairman mr marshall came to us this evening with a proposal regarding the the euro nation provision and basically asking that the city create some sort of  process whereby if someone could prove that they didn't have access to a public bathroom they would be able to have that it weighs with something that was considered a committee level and if so what was through the nature of that discussion it was not until i heard that the seat that was the first i'd heard was really important for me and this does deviate a little bit from the noise ordinance because i i wanted too i had known that if you have a criminal offense that can follow you through life can impact your ability to get a mortgage to buy a house to be employed and so to me i didn't want someone to be burdened by this for these offenses even if they did they did three and six months if indeed they were willing to do restore it of justice and so what i asked was could indeed if indeed they did that and that's a choice  that could that that criminal offense be waived from their record could that be outraced and so i was told yes and so that was really key for me in this the other piece that i wanted to say that everyone that came to the committee talked about people downtown the homeless but i do want to tell you that these activities these this public urination not i'm not sure about jeff occasion but the other open container law really goes to another population of people that happen to live in our city and those are unfortunately students frequently or young people who are intoxicated and relieve themselves in neighbors bushes and no there is no public restroom on every street and every corner so i'm less sympathetic i mean people were really focused on the downtown and the homeless issue but there are behaviors out there that are inappropriate and i'm i am concerned a little bit about you know what what was just what councilor tracy just asked for because i think that people are focusing on one segment of the population and one place in this community and and i'm saying well that's and i don't want them to be at risk for something that they have no access to so i certainly said i supported you know making more public restrooms but this ordinance speaks to the whole city and to any body who demonstrates this type of behavior not just homeless people and some of these people can control themselves and do have options i just wanted to state that thank you thank you cancer so yeah i just wanted to say to wish you i mean these two dead ground because it was not easy to be in front of the community and have to say what i read out here but if you look at th lives i think the biggest off and say here would be a one hundred dollars if i yep so you would go to a first then it won't make any sense let's find the responses and if people don't respect them if people don't follow the directions then we can move forward into implementing that  it would be clear in the resolution what that's going to be proposed next time we meet and vote on this hopefully as there will be two items that will be have a criminal penalty after three offenses and i think that is the that is the general direction that i proposed not all of the things that were mentioned in the resolution but that's what we want to take it up and i want to just reiterate what we're talking about here is people who are on the street and who are engaging in extremely bad conduct they are not going after just people that are homeless or people that we have mental health issues we are going after the bad conduct of people that has resulted in escalated into actual stabbings among other homeless people that has frightened women that are going to work downtown this is a serious issue i went to a forum that mayor weinberger had with legislators and i was frankly dismayed to hear some of comments i heard from legislators so we can talk and talk around this about all the things we want to do and that's and that's fine but there needs to be consequences and i think this resolution does do some good things i think it's a step forward in making sure people understand if you're going to be in burlington and you're going to hang on the street and you're going to drink and potentially do drugs and engage in bad conduct and scare people and escalating into some serious violence that is going to be consequences and i would like to ask pozo if you would come forward and answer question on this you were just waiting for that right chief chief thank you for being here do you we're not voting on this tonight but i just would like to get john record now do you support this as a good step forward and congressman peter welch give a talk at christina nolan swearing in as the u s attorney and what the congressman said is the biggest problems facing america are number one failure to respect our institutions and number two failure to respect the rule of law he's talking in the big scheme but i think here in our city just feet from here we're dealing with those two failures as with the consequences of eroding our quality of life so you know it would be fruitless to impose criminal penalties on people who are clearly unable to comply with the law people who are mentally ill are acting in a complete desperation but we do want to assume that there are people here who can obey the law who are agents who do respond to incentives in the sanctions and as far as we make those judgments we want to be able to say if they choose to scoff at the law we want them to account with escalating seriousness for why they've chosen to to scaf and i think that would return some of the dignity to the work that our police officers do because the people needlessly shame on us i mean i hope we have a public accounting for that thank you chief thank you now we have a motion to suspend the rules continue our work and complete our agenda so moved councilor right you know we talk about this this issue this problem we want to make sure people are safe in the downtown area and young females and families but the other population that wants to be safe are the homeless  and so over the last couple weeks i've had dinner at the salvation army down here downtown and i've had the opportunity to talk with a lot of these people who actually were in sears lane and to my surprise they were glad that sears lane was cleaned out and of course we never got that story right we got the story that you know there was for some people that were upset that we were doing this and the u was down there fighting this but in all actuality the people that actually live there had had enough they were scared that there were five six seven individuals that were coming down there that  guns and knives they were stealing their stuff got to be you know really unsafe place to live even for the homeless so you know yes we're compassionate and yes we need to take care of these people but we also need to keep everybody safe and so we can continue to be lenient on those individuals like so i'm glad this resolution i think is a little watered down a little disappointing that i think it could have been a little stronger i did go to the hearings and listen to the counselors i thought they worked hard and i think it's a difficult issue but the reality is that even the people that are living on the streets that are homeless want to be safe and so we need to make sure that happens so i hope this is a good first step and the topic that we've been talking about public safety to me is so broad it there's so much overlap and clearly there's a lot of understandable overlap and yet i see us talking here about a lot of different things so we really focused in in public safety on homelessness and services in the downtown which in and of itself i saw as different the the resolution that we voted on regarding this ordinance was about behavior it wasn't about homelessness and i've said that a number of times and yet it it always you know whether it's us talking or whether it's the public talking it always comes back to homelessness it's not about homelessness is about havior it's not about public urination necessarily even i don't feel threatened by someone publicly urinating it it's kind of gross but you know that aside if they don't have a bathroom i kind of have a problem with penalizing them for it i also and so i supported this to go to ordinance committee because i reluctant supported it because i recognize that some people are afraid and have experience experiencing things including people who are homeless and living in poverty  it's have had some pretty bad experiences in our downtown i'm also concerned that criminal penalties aren't necessarily going to fix that i mean that's that's our system i see i see the chief over there taking us aside i sorry what can i say i'm in social work school so so  i'm trying to think of how a chain changes that we can make that really really address or really kind of impact behavior  i'm making an assumption here that people who are committing violent acts stabbing other people that they may already have some involvement in the coarsest i'm totally an assumption on my part i'm not convinced that more involvement in the court system is going to change that and i don't know what to do with that i mean i think of my work and we do team meetings sometimes for with families who are really struggling with all of the various systems and institutions that they work with and sometimes that works and i don't know if that's something that works here but you know i'm trying to think out of the box because i just i'm really reluctant with our current system and it being effective so i don't really have any question or any grand idea to fix of to respond to some of the comments have been made in terms of the watering down concerned you know we were relying on the advice of the city attorney you know i think it was clear from the committee we were not trying to inject our own personal views because we were tasked with the job of coming back with an ordinance and i would say what we came back with is what we were advised we could come back with without our own you know in fact it was discussed at the committee that we even though we may you know unanimously brought it back here you may not get unanimous support from the members on the order committee in terms of i want to be careful about look thinking that this is going to solve it i don't think anyone has that aspiration i think this has to be viewed in the context not only of the work that's being done of public safety but as a result of continuing efforts we all acknowledge were falling short in multiple ways and this is one of the tools but what i'm hearing is that you know from the chief and others that it is a necessary tool it's not going to solve it but it is yet another and i think you know the organs committee in the council should be tasked with coming up with other tools but this is i wouldn't say don't support this because this is not going to solve the problem  you one thing that i neglected to say and i think this goes to a counsellor moore's comments about behavior was that at the committee we had more time to think about this you know and speak to it but there is storage of justice peace brings if people do this brings people face to face with potentially the people that they have wronged and brings them into the community and does for a few maybe offer an opportunity to change behavior and if that's really what we are trying to do and that is what we're trying to do that is another potential outcome from this i'm not nave my ex husband tried to integrate people from prison back into the workplace to keep them employed to keep them out of prison most most a lot of people re entered prison so but i do think that for some it may make a difference and so that's another piece of this trying to think of how we can engage people and piece waters this down at all it is very intense to come up before a board of a community members and discuss how your behavior has impacted the community that that's hard so it might sound nice and you know liberal or liberal and flowery or something to some ears i'm not saying that's what you're saying but i could see i can see why some people thinking community justice you know it sounds it sounds very i don't know it sounds easy somehow i don't think it's easy i've seen some very hard conversations so  so i just want to say that thank you council i want to thank the public safety committee and the ordinance committee for doing a lot of hard work on council roof a public safety committee and i think you have twenty different i mean you had lots of mayor so tonight we the council had another executive session discussion of the purchase agreement with sures communications and the target the city attorneys feel that they are very close to getting to a final or near final version of the agreement the our goal of the target is to release to complete this and another set of negotiations over the next day and a half and to release the agreement to the general public this wednesday which is december twentieth that will be again available for the general public  to read then the council will have a a special meeting which the mayor will need to call on wednesday september twenty seventh which is a week later and wednesday december twenty seventh at six pm and there will be a public hearing for the public to weigh in and the only piece of business will be to hear from the public and to deliberate discuss and to vote on the purchase agreement that night which will mean that we have met our deadlines barely but we will have optimistic we are on the cusp of getting there thank you very much mayor so we'll move onto committee reports in the community chair ok any city council or on general city affairs dumplings yes it's to the dumpling of what for with seven and i think your presence was tremendous thank you so much for taking the time driving all the way from the south to the north and i thank you i have been it was tough to navigate but i it was a pleasure and the dumplings out in the new north and are thank you councillor jang at five thirty right here at said city hall on church street and looking ahead i guess beyond our special meeting to the first night once again we will be so than in the past involved and we hope never will come out and enjoy this unique celebration of the new year and this year it will include of course the flag raising at four pm of the of the new brighton flag and that will be