yeah how did how does one access i mean like this question on the internet getting i would like to convene this meeting of the regular meeting of the city council tonight at seven fifty two but everyone please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance please point presentation slides for agenda item three point zero one discussion david white planning and zoning director and neil wonder bill regarding permit reform this is the seato slash planning merger  forum which we are significantly late on so i will open the public forum at seven fifty five anyone who wishes to speak to us tonight please come on up i have no sheetrock now if you want to speak their sheets over the corner table bring them over to laurie at the clerk's table she'll bring them up to me if no one is doing that we will close out the public forum and once going twice gone will close out the public forum and move into item number three the deliberative agenda and it is the main event tonight and that is planning  proposed merger and hear from director of c though and david white director planning you know exceptional step to to have a special meeting on this i know we have already very conscious of course we have had one work session on this already and what we're doing we push forward some part of the perm reform effort but there was this whole other area which the sentiment of the council was that we wanted for this question on before taking that step and you know that makes sense to me and  can get a ton of us into these big difficult problems and is it getting a lot done on our behalf on behalf of the people of burlington and i think that thank you mr mayor dave and i are really pleased to be with you all tonight and thank you for the opportunity to present again on this we're not going to cover a lot of the old gr  passed out this large sheet of paper the eleven by seventeen vision this is not something that that we had when i when i first arrived one of my early missions pick up the pick up  voices in the life of our city fostering healthy neighborhoods and housing choice and advancing people to develop that's a vision that we worked on with planning and the sego teams through a that's the work model we've chosen and we don't have a team approach necessarily we have it sometimes but not all the time and we have a system where there are all across the organization individuals doing all parts of what he one project a program that creates the operational risk where somebody wins the lottery and leaves tomorrow they're going to be there they may have a lot of knowledge that we really need a team approach would start to resolve some of that but right now the way we work doesn't really work for the kind of work that we do third and as the mayor alluded to there's the resources that see the need to do all this work are very thin as you'll see in just a moment we're very thinly staffed for the breadth and depth of the work that that the see those asked to do in the studio wants to do one of the challenges there is that we receive a lot of grant money a lot of federal grant money and some state gram money and that grant money comes with a very with a lot of strengths it's very inflexible and the result of that is that we don't we aren't able to be as nimble nimble and entrepreneurial as we would like because we are oh thank you because we are really trying to meet the needs of particular federal programs so finally and a lot of this rolls up in into this is that we have  some mis alignment or or non alignment between our mission values initiatives and the organizational structure needed to achieve that so in purposely when i start to look at this we didn't start by looking at the organizational structure the organizational structure needs to follow both the work that we're trying to accomplish and how we work to do that to do that to do those efforts and then you build an organization structure around that ultimately the some of the reasons that these things are misaligned is that again the federal money is has a lot of implications but also there's sort of a lack of an integrated view across the city one other thing i'll note is that when we have a lot of federal funding that's very specific to the grant there is not necessarily a lot of flexible money for the core programs that c d o does and so you hear that observation time and again so just a quick look at what we have for staffing we have twenty six employees including three limited service employees and five that are budgeted for forty hours a week or more or less  we have twelve of those twenty six employees in two programs the community justice center and the lead program those are really single issues they do a lot of things but they're they're really single issue and kind of standalone programs we have three people but two and a half full time equivalents in the administration which includes the studio director leaving a loving people to do a lot of the things that you dated they associate with siedah of those eleven people for five of them have their funding streams split across five or more programs some of them as many as ten programs these are extremely fragmented way of of approaching these these the work secondly of those eleven seven of them have money from federal programs where they have very little flexibility and we see this time and again when you have folks that are that are having their funding stream split across so many ways it becomes a literal administrative challenge to fill out your time sheet in a week because the notes need to go in we have at least one employee who spends upwards of two hours a week filling out the time sheet across ten program codes with all the notes that's five percent of their time that's that's that's really not a workable way to do this so keep your eye on that eleven there's eleven people do this body of work going back to the slide around the scope broad deep and diverse eleven people plus  director are handling housing economic development all the large projects the youth programs c d g administration etc etc this is an extraordinary amount of work it's amazing what we're able to do and it's it's really because we have a great staff that works a lot of hours of work really hard but it's really not long term sustainable and and with this we're not able to deliver on the big vision that we that we laid out before so what are the what are the the the prescription to solve this so i want to tell you the good news is that you know this is this is not broken beyond repair or anything like that the seed the core of seato is strong but it does need some attention and i have a list here and i'll run through really briefly a few of the things one the team is smart but need support making sure that we're investing in training and development also making sure that when when we go forward to find the permanent c e o director there representing the employees in the search committee that's going to be importance of they have a stake in who is leading them there they are taking a real stake in a real ownership in the plan and in the work to make all these changes they want to make sure that a stake in who the next next leader is when it comes to the work model we need a very different approach we need a team based approach i want to talk more about that tonight that that really brings in the life cycle of these projects and we need to invest in that kind of that team building when it comes to resources and i'm very rich with all my work for years a b e d we did a lot to trim the workforce there i see the opposite occurr see the needs new staff at least three to five by fiscal twenty converting the limited service staff to regular staff and finding flexible funding that c two can use to be more nimble throughout the organization finally we have to finalize this plan we've got a long way but the final draft stage that plan i think the merger with planning as you'll hear tonight is really integral to getting alignment around all the things that we do in the organizational structure and then finally after we bring the two organizations together we spend some time working together building the teams then we should complete a reorganization of seato overall we're not trying to do that here by bringing suit on planning together that's that's another exercise that comes after we bring the two teams together and get them working together so the rest his presentation will focus on really only two things tonight which is merging of of plating into sido and then creating this more entrepreneurial nimble team approach to the projects that we do so again you've seen this before what's the big idea the big ideas that we bring together planning in seato into this this super group that's able to handle these these really critical and increasingly complex initiatives in the city and i want to turn over to david talk a little bit about explicitly clearly what this idea is about thank you neal and  also if you could i'm sure you're probably going to dress the same way with really make clear to us why this is in your opinion is better than keeping planning separate a small separate department we will absolutely get to that point  here coming up thank you so as you all know the proposal here is with the currently planning and zoning as a standalone department with oversight by the planning commission and course my position is appointed by the planning commission with your confirmation the proposal going forward as you understand through the permit reform initiative is to take the zoning part the permit ing part of the work that our department does merge that into the new permitting and inspections department and then take the planning portion of what we do and now merge that into the seat of the office currently as a said director of planning and zoning is appointed by the planning commission and confirmation by the council th proposal is that in this new structure the planning director becomes the deputy director of and is a mayoral appointment with consultation by the planning commission  d confirmation by the city council it's the same arrangement that there is in the partment a public works with the public works director in a city engineer it's really the same basic concept we're talking about here  today that as i said the planning department has oversight by the planning commission appointed by the council they have the statutory authority and responsibilities for the development of an amendment to the city's municipal plan as well as any ordinances and bylaws that implement that going forward we would anticipate that the planning commission remain an independent body again utilizing their statutory authority in plan development an amendment and by a lot of development amendment they themselves would not have any oversight responsibility for four seato and finally the planning commission today doesn't have any sort of advisory role in the land use and development related plans that may come out of seato going forward we would anticipate that that would be the case using examples of the housing action plan or or the jobs in people report where seato is is engaged in doing very important planning and policy work around the specific programs that they are responsible for and we would use the planning commission as a as a mechanism to get get insights and get advice as that work is developed ultimately those kinds of things get approved by you the council so this slide just highlights that  relationship both before and after the role of the planning commission before and after so i won't spend a lot of time with this but you can you can see and the portion of the slide on the left hand side the grade boxes this is a function that the commission would no no longer have that is the appointment of the planning director who is also the zoning administrative officer the orange boxes on the right hand side of the slide are  additional functions that the planning commission and would have in this proposed relationship so again advisory to both the advisory to the land use planning and development work that goes on in seato as well as the administration of the regulations within the permanent inspection department and as commissions do under the charter today for all of the others departments they play a role in the annual review and the hiring of a new director but that appointment is made by the ma n yep i've covered this as an example of where the commission has not had such insights in the past what we're proposing here is something that really is very common across the  country having a planning department isolated from a community an auction amik development function is actually quite unusual the examples that i've looked at it's really only in some of the largest cities in this country places like seattle where there's a stand alone planning to department but it is enormous compared to the kinds of things that we're talking about here we've really looked at cities here listed on this slide where there's a planning community development department and a standalone permitting department and portland maine is is kind of one of the best examples but also portland oregon and seattle providence and northampton mass or other examples where to show what after we do the merger and do a full re org a few months out what a new c d o might look like and i want to spend some time on this just i want to spend a moment on this but i want to do something really important with this it's that you know in the end with any kind of reorder it doesn't exactly matter where you put the boxes it it definitely matters how you do the work and how we do the work as one organization so getting the work model right is the most important thing alternately we will have to come up with an org chart that that to to make sure we have those clear lines and we think something along those lines might work where you have a policy in planning branch that sits alongside that that is doing the the the the planning work that david has articulated alongside an opportunity and engagement branch that's working on housing choice homelessness promoting economic mobility and doing great community engagement sitting alongside the community work function that's really the projects an economic development branch sitting alongside a finance and ministration wing where we're bringing in more resources to help on the really complex financial matters that seato deals with where right now we don't have the resources that we need and also not to forget the community justice department as well so when you align all of them like this you can then start to look at how will certain projects work and the next slide sort of shows that with a cross cutting team approach we're not assigning one person one project for that person to live sort of in their own pod and do all of the activities that go along with doing a project because  project there's a lifecycle there's planning there's there's a planning element there's an engagement element there's actually implementing it doing the work on the ground and then there's it in valuation compliance and reporting part of it that's sort of what we laid across here so you take something like like the youth and policy programs you might have a team comprised of two or three different areas where someone from policy in playing might work with somebody from opportunity and gauge working with somebody in community works where the teams brought in a different points to be able to to do the part where they know best drawing from the strength of the team in order to get the best outcome for that project or program there are some things where you're going to have a team that's drawn from every branch inside of seato i think about community engagement one of the things you'll see in our strategic plan is a whole column about engagement the need to to build a robust community engagement effort that now i think in some ways with the way they see the works today that could be assigned to one person that person could go do a plan they could start to implement that plan without really working with anybody else at sido that's not a great way to do this it's really the wrong way to do it because engagement needs to be part of everything we do whether you've got a plan a program project or an initiative good engagement is a cross cutting type of of endeavor so you can see that nearly everything that we do will have some kind of engagement team member working alongside folks to do it so that as they move through the lifecycle of a project the team members will work next to each other this is a a well known way of working in a lot of other areas it is just not at quite yet but at the i hope it will be when you think about this discontinuous a proven lifecycle approach to these projects you'll find that you can have a very different different work model that brings you much more result better results employees feel more empowered because they're close that closer to the work they're collaborating in a way that they haven't before and when you do something when you use a work want to like this it's much more resilient so right now again going back to if we had an employee win the lottery and walk out the door a lot of knowledge could walk out with with him or her but with a team approach where you're spreading that knowledge across multiple team members who are bringing in expertise we build a much more resilient system that's that's really a best of many talents not just not just one one person on the team i mention here for anybody's from earlier with their different models they use is called kind of fancy names for this collaborative model this is sort of what we've been thinking for a model that would work at  so president right you asked the question what or what about planning as a standalone department what what are the options here that we might think of in the alternative seato  planning merging together so the first option here is that planning moves into the new permitting in an inspections department that certainly is one approach to take the downside of that are twofold  least initially today planning and zoning work well together and planning has a has a strong function within our department because we're a small department and because one of my primary objectives as the director of the partment is to make sure that the planning function doesn't get lost in the day to day permanent process that that recognizing that the importance of plan development and policy development needs to be nurtured it needs to be prioritized in the work that we do in a larger department that is dominated by a permit in process it's much more it's it's much more likely that that planning function can get buried within that department because it's not the central focus of their day to day work on a regular basis in addition moving the planning function out of city hall down the pine street where the permanent inspections department is and planned to go would completely undermine the working relationships we have with c d o today that really require close proximity with with sito with the mayor's office in order to  collaborate on the projects that we do today if planning were to become a standalone department the isolation that we experience both as an independent department and as a small department would be greatly exacerbated to a two person department just really is and isn't a functional size department and it would really require additional resources in many ways in order for us to fulfill our responsibilities and our objectives in plan and by a lot of development work that we're charged with as as neil was talking about with examples of the vulnerabilities without having a team based approach those  vulnerabilities are certainly the case in a in a very small department where you know somebody sick somebody is on vacation you've lost the functionality of you know fifty percent of that department as a stand alone i think just to put it on the table keeping the status quo and not advancing permit reform would be another alternative but i don't think that that's a viable alternative turnit of that any of us want to do so in summary last couple  slides the sea to revitalize revitalization that i talked about tonight is very much insight i have very optimistic about about the work we've done over the last six months i'm optimistic about the team and from conversations i've had with with many councillors i'm optimistic about the support for c d o we have a draft of a strategic plan we've been working we've been finding ways to build our team meant to try to find ways to get flexible funding and and get more resources and we still have a long way to go in with your support we will be able to continue on the path to seeing sita fully revitalize d but there is there is a piece of this that will be is extra really necessary to to do that and that's we think we see the merger as as part of the the ultimate prescription to to make revitalised and here that the three top reasons the first one is that the merger the merger is a bit of a yoga pose you're if you're finding it's creating strength and balance and at the same time because what c d o has that planning needs is that we bring immediate ground truth focus to the issues facing our community equity housing mobility economic mobility  need for youth policy you think gauge meant gooding community engagement these are elements that need to be fed into the planning process to create good plans in planning brings to us the long term comprehensive view that we need to fit all of these together planning it stops us from having a lot of sporle moments where we're squirrel squirrel and jumping around it gives us that balance that that allows us to execute on the long term vision that we have secondly is by putting planning alongside of seato in the office on the ground we are creating this team approach where we can manage the lifecycle of these important plans projects programs and initiatives that we think we need to deliver on the vision for four seed out and then benefit of the people that we serve in if i could just throw my own two cents worth in on on this one merging planning and see those a good idea regardless of whether or not permit reform are going on today it's something that i've certainly  often thought about that our department would be so much more effective and i think see that would be so much more effective if we work together more closely this is a great opportunity for us to actually do that because out hard to bring up that idea without permit reform being the instigator of the conversation but it's clearly something we would want to do regardless and i think the kind of improvements and investments into the work that c d o does that neil's been recommending a gain is something that we would want to do regardless so just a quick next steps we're we're we are asking tonight that that the council move this proposal to the charter change committee who will have the full proposal at board of finance next week and then with approvals in place or recommended approvals in place we will bring that to the council on the seventeenth looking a little beyond that because i think this question come up we are working on a transition to a new interim director and through the course of the month as i will be stepping out of of this role at the end of the year we do hope to be able once we have clarity on whether see complaining are together we'll be able to go out and recruit for a new c e o director and that process will take us into the spring in the meantime the teams hopefully the teams will be working together they'll be doing team building and ultimately understanding the council for full approval there's nothing that in that intervening period we can work together find the best ways that work and continue that that team building so that the this is the action i think that you're contemplating tonight and with that we'll pause and thank you for the time thank you very much and just to clarify i started out to me tonight saying i was you know convening the regular city council meeting this is not a regular city council meeting  special just for the public a special city council meeting called by the mayor it is dealing with this one topic and as a salon a veil noted i think there will be a motion made  so thank you for this additional information i appreciate that but i have a couple of questions so this proposed or chart  what's happened to scott mary and the other person where are they so the rest of our department scott and mary lean and surely in ryan are going into the new permitting inspections department so how are they going to deal with certificates of appropriateness so that their job within that new department will be as it is today by mary scott and sometimes staff from planning sometimes you're always at the planning commission but sometimes there is someone there from planning so i you know i had pointed out and i'm not going to get into the weeds that zoning needed to be in two places owning needed to be permit reform and there still needed to be a component that was associated with d r b and planning and i still am not really clear with that functionality and i'm somewhat concerned about this this proposed three org i must admit i'm supportive of the i want to move forward with permit reform but i am really concerned about who's going where because i really feel that we as a city benefit from having all of your collective heads together when we want to project comes in and we give input to the developer so i'm somewhat concerned about this and i have to be upfront i've always felt that burlington i know for those that are developers they feel like there are such barriers and i understand that opinion but i also feel like because we take our we have in the past recently we've rushed but in the past we've taken our time and i think as a result the development new development is integrated with existing development and we've done it well i really do and i don't want to really lose that piece so i am concerned about this so so the only two people that remain are david and meghan correct correct ok all right when you talked about when you when you showed us the options for where planning would go  you didn't mention that you could stay where you are with that's option two as a standalone department well yes ok but in city hall not going down i mean i don't there's no rationale for you to go down to pine street so i don't understand why you couldn't stay stay as you are and still be in city hall where i think you need to be so i'm not exactly sure why that isn't an option you know there's the assessor down in that area or i don't i still feel like there there's opportunities here  let me just see about something else here i totally understand and i think that what you said about collaboration between planning and seato make sense it doesn't require merger i've said this before and i don't want to be redundant but i don't believe it requires a merger but i do believe collaboration if it's missing should be incorporated into whether we stay as is or would move forward with some new design i am a little concerned about the priorities that planning currently has regarding so who's going to be who's go first question you asked as well when you think about zoning there are two basic functions there's the creation of the zoning ordinance and then there's that in the administration of the zoning ordinance that permit in process the deer bees process so  as part of this merger planning into planning and sido the development of the ordinance the amendment of the ordinance function would would be there meant the work that meghan and i do as part of drafting amendments to the ordinance would would remain with the planning function but there's also a very strong connection with the folks that had minister of the ordinance as you may know scott guston is the staff persons to the planning commissions ordinance committee in this proposed structural structure he will continue to serve that function because it's very important that there is a strong bridge between the people who are creating the ordinances and the people who are administering the ordinances so through the job descriptions particularly of the zoning staff that's going into the new permit in department they will have some responsibilities to work with the folks in planning to develop those amendments to the bylaws whether it's something new that we want to add to it or it's a refinement to improve the way it currently function i guess so thank you thanks i'm still concerned about who who's driving the bus if it's ito and seato determining priorities i'm concerned that planning planning attention to some of their their issues right now will ness maybe take a backseat i'm not really sure if you will be able to dedicate the amount of time you have which has served us well i i still have strong reservations about this i really have to think a lot about scott and mary because that team it really works really well and scott not only staff the ordinance committee but scott is as as a counselor mason knows i mean scott knows the ordinances scott times is part  in the creation of those ordinances and as and has served a really important role working with you and meg i'm not in isolation in another department down on pine street so i i have some concerns about how this all has been shaped in the proposed org chart i think i want to do it right and i'm not convinced that this is right thank you  there was another question i think pusher in relative to location physical location yes certainly if planning were a standalone function it could be here in city hall alone the assumption was in the first in the first alternative shown there that if it were to be part of the permit inspections department that is being stood up down the proposed to be stood up in the pine street then it would go down there and that would create a that disconnect if it were standalone it certainly could be here but we fully intend to build and maintain really the very strong working relationship between the administration of the ordinance and the development of the ordinance that we have and by incorporating it into not just our day to day practice but into job descriptions we can institutionalize that over time so you know if scott wins the lottery that the person that then fills has his job responsibilities will know that that's part of their responsibility is to collaborate with a sr department in the development of the ordinances they administer thank you president right now i just ask one other question it's i the c e o director briefly i do have to get back into the queue or some other sorry when you when you talked about when you have this org chart you talked about needing more staff and seato and  mentioned the people in a lot of change i how many people have actually been there more than five years i'd have to go back and look it's not it's the we we we counselor shannon to be followed by counselor mason and then pyne thank you president right first i want to clarify what i believe we did at the last meeting and actions that the charter change committee has already taken based on that which which did include moving the zoning staff to the new department d p w because our understanding was that that was the will of the council and that that is part of the permit reform work that we were asked to do and the only thing that was left out was the merger of planning and c d o so i think that the choices we have left are leaving a stand alone planning staff or to merge them because we have to do something at the office has already changed if we're going forward with permit reform were were implementing those zoning piece of it the change has already started to occur so we have to we have to do something secondly i wanted to know president right there are a couple of highly regarded staff members from each department here and i don't know if they had any desire to share their thoughts or if you would like to invite them to do so and we absolutely can hear from them if you would like to we can do it now or you can i don't want to force them to i just wanted to make the offer if they be absolutely can offer would you like to give us a brief your thoughts on on this proposal  i don't have time to add beyond what david has said other than just reiterating the point that a lot of the work that i do in terms of the long range planning function requires collaboration with many individuals across the city and often that includes a really close working relationship with many of the staff in seato so i personally as you know looking at my role within the city and the type of work that i do within the city i see tremendous benefit in being able to really work collaboratively as part of a team with not only the policymakers and seato but also the folks that are focused on community engagement and programs to make sure we really develop that synergy that  that was talking about in terms of how we actually carry our policies all the way down to the direct service level for residents of the city so i think that that's kind of the one thing that i would just say i think david and the i have covered a lot of the other thoughts and perspectives i have if there are any specific questions any of you have about the work that i do i'd be happy to answer them but if anyone has any questions what i would call you back up any other thoughts to shapiro i work at the community and economic development office like so i have been working for the city for many years and you know both planning and seato do really great work and have really high quality staff people but the workload is only getting more and more as our city and county continues to grow and to meet all those community needs we definitely could use more resources and more staff to supportive of the merger proposal yeah i think if that's what the citizens of burlington and the council directs us to do i think it makes sense and as i said i've had a lot of good relations working with both david and meghan on many projects so i look forward to working with them if they're in seato or if they're downstairs still but i think there's some benefits that could come from that for ok if councillors have any specific questions f a department of two people maybe i'm missing somebody but i wondered how that affects hiring a planning director and david i hope you would stay  presumably you won't stay forever and going to hamper our efforts in recruiting somebody because it doesn't look like we highly value planning if we have a department of two it seems like to me and i wondered how you think that might be viewed if we if we choose that route and if that's a problem or it's not a problem i think it's a great question i think it would be really difficult because i think it would be an illustration of how the community values planning as a function how it how it whether or not it takes planing seriously or not to be such a small department whether we remained independent or not really wouldn't matter that it would appear to be so under resourced to do the work that it's it that's at hand i think it would be hard to find  hard to find quality people in overseas to work in such a small area i mean certainly there are cities that do have a standalone planning function but again they're much larger cities they have much more robust staff resources and i think even for us if we were to try to go down that road i don't know that we could do it with just two people were able to do it with two people today because we we supplement that work with time and effort of other folks in the department and talked about marion scott who both dedicate a proportion of their time to working on plan and policy type of work  is that you said that there were other cities much larger cities that do have independent planning planning departments and you said that right before you showed us a slide that said that there are other peer an aspirational communities has successfully established planning slash community development apartments and then he listed the same cities that i thought you just said had separate planning departments on that list you had portland maine and seattle washington and i thought those misunderstanding something just so hard when maine has planning community development department and they have a separate permit inspections department that's kind of been the model that we've looked at in both the perm reform and in this reorganization we look to that as an example other cities do it in other ways but almost in every almost every situation planning community development is  a combined department whether or not permitting is embedded within it or it separate within it separate from it the one example purely independent planning department planning function from the mayor's office is philadelphia philadelphia has a planning commission with its own independent staff so when you say that the other much larger cities with independent planning departments you mean actually merged with commute not isolated from the community development office you mean merged with the community development office even in that you know in almost every looking back and i think we'd all acknowledge source and pick up some plan b t v south and you know how does that process look different if this merger goes through you know when how is the process better so i think that's a grilli good example where the work that we do in the planning office we can't do in isolation we have to collaborate with other people and we do that wherever and however we can but particularly with the south and planned it was critically important that we have a close working relationship with c d o in order to really understand the economic development issues and opportunities in the south and that we are trying to preserve in advance had we been all part of one department that would have looked a little differently in that it kind of as neal described it instead of meghan or before meghan sandrine kind of being the project manager and project champion you know through shuttle diplomacy meeting with lots of others people involved in the process and getting their input and perspective on it  it would be a part as part of a team of people that were that really owned this plan and carried this plan forward on an ongoing basis i think by doing so we have a we have much more b in across in between the two departments as they are now in the development of that plan to say nothing about the benefit of the robust public engagement initiative that seato is looking to to put forward and really is is is growing their capability today we do rely on each other quite frequently then in wednesday night it will be a good example of collaboration between our department and  in pulling off that community engagement function but that's kind of a prototype for where we want to go in the future and by institutionalizing that working relationship we can make sure that it goes beyond kind of the  current personalities and individuals that are doing thank you counter mason surprise thank you the history lesson real quickly which most people know but i'll just repeat it is a is worth it is that was created in one thousand nine hundred three out of a department called the planning department at the time for very good reasons that that was after a year of a blue ribbon commission that looked at these issues so it's has got think about what you're doing i think long term and whether the solution really addresses in a drawer and solves the problem that you're trying to solve and i think that i really respect both of you i have great respect for the ma think the idea has merit but i'm not sure yet that the solution is the solution to the problem we're trying to solve so i'm just i'm still open minded about it i would probably end up supporting referring it to the charter change committee  but i have a couple specific questions i think the one that's really getting me is the idea that doing this will inherit lee result in more resources for seato to do and i haven't yet seen how if that was the impression made no they're definitely different i mean it's going to it's it is the list of recommendations that i printed out here they don't what they all need to happen and they're all have a different process of happening the merging of planning with c d o does not bring in the new stat that needed that the new staff there needed on top of that merger that's a separate process by which through the budget will will occur with the merging the planning planning does as it does really activate our ability to do the lifecycle planning that we that we really need to do around the lifecycle approach do around these projects which includes planning that's what the that's one of the big benefits that that the planning the planning see the merger will break but the other piece is sort of there are also need to happen and some of them are on an independent big piece here which is that this is a proposed organizational chart for the merger only right and a full re org would happen in the spring of twenty one thousand are their thoughts already as to what that looks like or is that to be determined i think i mean i don't  sure i can speak to you won't be here much longer but that will look like but no we've we spent some time internally discussing that the chart that we put right here with with this sort of play out but but  i'm reluctant to say to look just like this in part because i think when the teams start working together and we start to really implement the team approach you might find some different pathways to build an this team approach works understand what lines they create in the sand and then start to map the the org chart around that versus trying to lay in order to chart on top of that without the understanding of how it works out don't i would say we take a different approach in city government where we want to have it all sort of sorted out in the org chart before we we we do it and i think there's a lot of value to spending a little time working together seeing how you work predicated on really beginning right now developing in fleshing out those team team building relationships and and kind of creating some of these teams standing them up seeing how they work in seeing as this is a starting point does it does it bear fruit as we aim as we envision it here or there important tweaks that we see that helps a little bit because i think what i'm struggling with is the structure now has you you david the deputy director coming in but really coming in with a specific portfolio if you will of responsibilities not extending across the department necessarily and yet i think here i would see if we were to look at where you would land it would probably be the planning and policy area i think is what i'm hearing which the term deputy director kind of implies that you're maybe dealing with h r issues you're developing the budget but i don't think that's really what you're talking about here right now ok as i make sure that as someone who looks at other cities for examples i think it's important to remember we are pretty unique the what form of government where the we have a strong where we have a council c e o in the charter  clearly empowered by actions of this council there are governments that you cited there that are virtually no mare and a town city manager running the city at the direction of in the behest of the council so there's there's so many different variations i don't only get that helpful to say these cities do this because we all are such unique creatures and i don't think it's really adds that much to the to the debate really and so it's important to remember that we're just we're unique and so i think that's that's really really broad support both here and in the community and i i would worry that if we have something in tax to it in the same question that doesn't have the level of support and consensus yet it jeopardizes our chances with that question so i think that's just for going to gull council and the mayor and you all to think about is does this help or does it hinder in any way getting the real main objective which for talked to other staff to see though and do you have any idea whether or not to ask you whether you know what every single person thinks but is your general support in the c d o staff for this merger yeah there's general support for the things we need to do to revitalize seato i think the the staff have worked well together over the last few months and in working on the overall strategic plan i've i've asked for feedback and a lot of conversations i've not  to be able to work alongside them in the future at a more day to day level i think people like that idea that the team approach has merit they want to understand how to work on the ground which is a fair a fair thing but the with the pine mansion i think one of the things that if we do have those to send this to charter tonight would be that question of should this be should the question be combined into one question to the voters or or should meant you know and i think them what they did about planning and also you know their community economic development office i think reason why they have the best around the country know what is it the state in this south i forget but they have and you have an example of them oregon or in oregon they have the initiatives in the country you know those tiny homes you know for homeless people they have a unique and wonderful program the best one of the best and you know i like those example and i'm glad that you provided them  but what i could not wrap my head around is the scope of work of seato it's a deep it's a large it's all of that but i did not see any component of diversity equity inclusion in the city and to me i am afraid that it will even be buried when we merge the two entities and was just wondering if that you know a few that is part of the mission is the seventh word in our mission here on this page it is one of our values of equity every one of these categories across the top mentions equity seventy five percent of these of  these initiatives have some form of of a measure of promoting equity equity and the mobility of people in our economy and with their housing is at the very core of what we do and  it is it is written large in this plan so that is something that has come through absolutely loud and clear through the strategic planning process both internally and c d o almost to a person and then in combination with planning even thinking about our planning in our place making sure that we are doing things to that promote diversity equity and inclusion across everything that we do so i'm glad you mentioned i got ha t of that work as well because it really is fundamental to the work that we do as a planner and also it is my understanding that if we merge the two different departments looks like c d o will have an addition of over nine new stuff no i mean based on your presentation here that's what it sounds like you say an edition of three to five stuff two different things so  to me solving those problems is just force you don't have the leadership and i think for a very long time we had such a wonderful creative leader which is you mr neal you know and i think just through your leadership all of these concerns can be you know can be changed and can be addressed you know over time you know with the time but i personally i personally do think there are some component of the planning if i talk to meghan ask her i thought that she works at burlington pratt's and recreation because she's always there but i think the understanding was her office is actually he and i heard that there is the problem of proximity i mean which i don't understand what do you mean by the lack of proximity between seattle and planing knowing that your offices are already in the same building and also we live in have a better sense of what we need to complete the work there which i have which i've i've i've laid out here but there's a lot more work to be done and some things are structural not the the leadership one of the structural parts is the need to have folks working in these teams as you as you correctly said the proximity of working in teams is important because of the the kind of work we do we we work in the community we work next to folks and having them in the same office being able to in a in an office environment that promotes the kind of collaboration which we are going to have with the with the office renovation that's that's coming having the planning team next to the seeded team working in that kind of space will really start to you'll see these ideas be tied together in ways they never were before that doesn't happen when you when you are able to go will sparks that created i think the same think could and will happen here with with planning if we're able to bring the teams together and let them work side by side because the people have this they're smart they're talented they have the same kind of core values and they they want to do this work and they want to do it right so i hope that helps and i think what we're really striving for is we've built some really effective working relationships over the years in which what we really want to do is institutionalize that right now you know at any given point in time you might have you know one or two different pseudo folks down in our office talking about a project that they're working on or that we're working on that we're  collaborating on that happens by a kind of sheer will of personality we shouldn't leave that to chance i think institutionalizing that within how government actually function functions on an every day basis is the goal that we're after and lastly mr president and i think he's the fact that when we heard about this presentation at first it was more about haven't heard it in this new and those of the fingers that i came out with that i came out at the last presentation and today it's totally disappeared and i don't really see where we are right now you know abstract and you talk about your charts and the work and we're all you know even those of us you know you know doing this all day some this can feel big and not concrete let me kind of give you a concrete example i think wa remember that kind of brings home or trying to achieve here is you know meghan was just here at the last city council meeting presenting eighty use in this idea for a pilot system that she's clearly spent a great deal of time on and worked with outside partners on there is this whole parallel effort that neal has to staffers and you know that i've been working on for years that is also focused on eighty years and there was not a lot of there's a little bit of awareness between these two efforts but there sensually were spent we having staff the yes there in the same building but they're not part of the same team they have different bosses right now and necessarily different priorities and and things  capturing their attention and we just we miss opportunities and i think we're too small of a city to to do that and i think that's what david's point is exactly to is like we're doing probably better than at least you know i'd like to think we're doing better than we've been doing in a long time from from the stories you hear about getting that kind of coronation between planning and seato but it's still it is not codified it is not institutionalized it's it's left to thank you i just wanted the council to think a little bit about something that was mentioned about possibly splitting this question and i don't see how that works i think that if you're we've heard strong support on the council for permit reform and included in that is moving the zoning staff into that new permitting office and the default once we do that the default is that we have a planning staff planning department of two people and a separate sido office and i don't i would be concerned about going forward without making a conscious decision that that's what we wanted to do because i don't think that that would be obvious to voters who may think well we want to keep the status quo in the planning office but we're not keeping the status quo in the planning office if we're going ahead with permit reform so i think that it's important for the council to make a decision i don't think it's fair to say well i want to go ahead with permit reform but i want to hold this decision on whether or not planning should merge with sito to a later date and or have more process around that because i think we have to come up with a workable solution for all three  we can't just we can't just say well we'll go ahead with this piece and you know what happens on the other side happens it's it is kind of a package deal i think so i if you have other thoughts as to how that viable i don't really see how that's viable having done the work that we've done on the charter change committee so so far there is a big impact on the planning office just by doing the permit reform piece so i'm going to be blunt i think that i don't think we as i don't feel i can take responsibility for myself but i do believe that others around the table also didn't really look at all of them a new show that went into zoning moving over to permit reform i identified it though i said i think there's a problem here with zoning i'm not comfortable with what's going on here because i didn't fully understand it so i just wanted to say to councilor to president right but if he had passed it on to councillor shannon that i do feel that the zoning component could  be not that i want to remove it completely but i do think that there was there was a need for zoning in both planning and in permit reform and i'll just stop there because that's not the only reason i wanted the mike i wanted to say that i haven't heard from the planning commission their opinion of this and i think that's key i did ask before we started the meeting and i was told that they have not given their decision to anyone yet which says a lot they're being very thoughtful but if you're on board you usually say right away so i'm wondering where they are on this the other thing because i am getting into minutia now who staffing and i don't i'm just saying in my head who's staffing the conservation board who's staffing the design advisory board you know i mean we've on ravelled a department that was complex and made this new department thinking well we've done a great job but i don't think we've done a good job on really understanding what we on ravelled and who staffing what and i'm being honest there the last thing is and mr mayor this has have never felt that the city would be well served by having the planning director appointed by the mayor and i want to be really clear about that because i always thought autonomy for the planning director was a good thing and i and i heard that from people a lot wiser than i am in regards to this topic saying that you don't want the mayor to control development you want the mayor and he has the mayor hirsch someday she will have some day you can only hopeful she will have a seat oh department that will allow that vision to be moved forward working in collaboration with planning but i don't feel that we are well served by having the mayor make that planning director appointment and so i am not comfortable at all with this and as i think more and more i'm somewhat frustrated that we didn't get into more of the weeds and minutiae because i think you know as we see these org charts and as we understand more and more we begin to become enlightened and they are asking the right questions we want to do this right i want the permit i want one stop shopping for just like everyone else but i'm not sure that by an unraveling planning  evening i would like to actually make a motion to refer the pseudo planning portion of permit reform to the charter change committee to consider and report back to the city council has december seventeenth regular city council meeting and after second i would request them for experience dealing with planning and zoning and certainly you know as well and just from my perspective as a professional i think this is the right move to make it's logical makes sense to me in my professional role that these two planning organizations would share a you know both a common location and they share a common mission already that they would be within the same organization makes sense to organizations more efficient both at state level and here with burlington electric department i think that they are the authors and supporters or or you know the backers of this give me great confidence that they really see efficiencies and they they see this are concerns were different the scale of the city was different and the kind of what we look at today as a as a goal for our city is really much broader we i was having a conversation with michelle cooper smith who's a fourth term legislator and her point to me is that our success in burlington is not just important to us it's important to children county and really is the economic driver of our whole state so we have to get this right and i think doing things the way we have done them in the past when the challenges aren't the same doesn't make sense so with those two points i'd like to say that i do feel as though this is the right thing i will the weeds a little bit the last meeting about part of this that's uncomfortable for me is you know whether we want to admit it or not this all becomes political now with planning and zoning and and i think that's unfortunate and i'm not quite there with that but and in the other thing there was a slight up there said option three would be to stay status quo and not do anything at all and i think that's an insult to this council actually because we all want perma reform into say on a slide that we can't get there unless we do one or two things i i disagree with that and if i have to eventually come out and not support this and as one of the counselors that was on the resolution that pass permit reform i'm confident i can go to the voters and make my case why i can't support it so i just want to put that out there i'm not i'm not afraid to do that so i think we really kind of need to think about our next steps and how we're going to do it because i think we can keep planning and zoning together and have her reform and because i do think there's a component of zoning that could be down in public works but i don't think the whole department needs to go public works right and so to me yes knowing has to be part of that but i don't think the entire depart joint apartment has to be down under the public works and the new department so i would hope if we send is to charter that we think outside the box and we look at ways that we can keep planning and  together intact for the most part and continue to work on her reform and bring some to the voters but as of right now i was counseled bush has said i'm not i'm not willing to our so i think that the answer kind of depends on a number of different factors it is is there still a permanent inspections department that that encompasses planning and zoning and all of the other things so you're asking for a period you know public microphone a little bit closer please you're asking for a piece of that department to be dislocated in kept up here versus down there i mean is it is it possible it's certainly possible to do that but i think again from an organizational standpoint from from a leadership standpoint i think it it further isolates the planning function within the city and yes it is within this larger department  but that larger department is entirely focused on permitting and the planning function is happening often in some corner i think it's less than optimal for for both to approach it that way thank you councillor tracy thank you president right and thank you for the presentation i certainly appreciate it what i will say is that with this process i feel incredibly rushed and i don't like to feel rushed and in that i also feel like i'm not getting the information that i need in a timely fashion to have a presentation put on board docs at five forty six the day of a meeting have materials handed out for the first time when fundamentally thinking about changing a department is  unacceptable it's completely unacceptable for us we've made this point time and again to the administration about getting materials we made this point a year ago when we're talking about the v m funding issue and again we're at the same place where we have key questions unanswered where we're getting material in a place for many of us on the council pretty much everyone on this council who works doesn't have a chance to review this material beforehand and even if they did even if they did get it you know a couple days but you know even during the workday they won't be able to do it either and i just think that's unacceptable and not a good make talking about making fundamental shifts in terms of the two crucial city departments in the work that those departments do so i think that that's the first law and i think that from that flows a lot of other problems i think that we have both unanswered questions and then connections within this within this proposal that are not made i think in terms of the unanswered questions in this was a point that i made before i do not specifically see how the historic functions of public outreach diversity and equity outreach and anti poverty work are specifically supported by this merger yeah i see elements that could be done outside of the merger namely bringing those lenses to the planning commission work but that in no way is dependent upon merging these two functions nothing in this this presentation tonight has shown me how we're going to expand the diversity and inclusion or the anti poverty work that does this and i think that this is part of an intentional shift actually that's taking place here where we're trying to institutionalize the more developer focused lens that this particular ministration has put on that has put on the seat of department and that's this particular flavor that this particular administration has chosen to has chosen to bring to this department another may or may choose to take a different approach and i think that that should be there at their leisure but i don't think that we should institutionalize that approach and i think that there's a couple of reasons that i think that that's also problematic beyond that more general sort of ideological thing that i think is institutionalized here and that's going on here but i think that part of that is that it doesn't really address the key issues that you're naming here whether it's the team needing more support we don't address that issue because specifically said we don't address those points of adding additional staff in this that comes later and so we don't know whether the staff issues of support will continue to be that continue to exist and part of that is that this doesn't crack the not that we have or deal with the problem that we have regarding federal funding and the slacking off of federal funding that's going to continue to remain an issue this doesn't deal with that whether we have a different process or something that those issues are still going to exist and i would like to have clarity on those to understand whether or not this is actually going to help those those kinds of issues i don't see yet the connection being made that goes back to that point we also don't have this idea of the work plan being you know being flawed i think that again this is another issue where why can't we work on this within seato see if we can't fix it within seato first before doing a a merger i don't see the connection between merger and the work plan model i think we can fix the work plans that are going on within c e o in a more collaborative or team based fashion and not necessarily have to do them that way there's also you know these a number of other questions about why  know about the flaws of a small department i don't see necessarily as being a problem i think that that isn't a nimble department that could could be there and i think that the issue of location that they said that you know they would be far away that's by no means a decided factor so i just think that there's a lot of things within this plan that are are not necessarily well thought out they're not well established and so to ask us to even do so much as refer that to the charter change i don't know as a member of that committee what kinds of things i'm supposed to be bringing to that language when i bring it to that committee so i'm going to be voting against this motion i will be opposing it at the committee level and i'm going to oppose it with the voters and i will be very clear that i think that the voters really have a choice here whether or not they want to have a continued focus on some of these historic issues that that's you just focused on or whether they want to really take a shift ideologically towards a more developer focused apart think  trace a response not sure where to begin on that council tracy thank you for those comments is certainly entitled to your opinion and i would disagree with most of  i won't reiterate the points i made earlier because i do but i will make a couple one is that i would very strongly disagree that we have lost our equity folks in fact i believe this plan strengthens equity focused focus in a way that will make it more robust than what we have done over the last many years ten years at least on this  because we are actively finding ways to increase the number of programs that will and handsome promote equity diversity inclusion antipoverty economic mobility that is again as i mentioned councilor gang that this is written large in in this plan a plan developed not by the mayor not by me it's from the staff this is staff level document and i have the i'm happy to share with you the paperwork to show you all the work we've done as a staff to really create this there are development things in here that they are taking in balance they're taking a balance with the other items that we need to make a complete city and i think that's that's so that is important to understand that if you're critical of plan you are critical of the staff time that went into this and the focus they wanted to put and they believe strongly about an equity one i agree with and one that i think seato needs to occur second item is that you're right we are not taking all of the things on my list to do right away that would be great for the takes a lot of time and it takes a lot it's complicated some things are going to take time to do but in my experience and i've had a little experience in challenging circumstances you don't want to make a perfect solution you take the the things that you have that you know work and you know are good and you implement them and then when when time permits and when the budget permits you start to do the other things good ideas have a plan which we have we have a plan that will allow us to start to do this part of the plan i had i do believe in my opinion that is bringing planning together with studio to form a more cohesive  unit but that doesn't mean we that's the last thing we should do in fact it's the first thing or one of the first things we're doing we've got a strategic plan working on team building work on the budget items bring plan together is on this list we should continue to pace ourselves through this list  i would just say that i spend certainly my great honor to work with the seat of staff i think i would encourage you all councillors spent time talking to them you've heard from houston who is who is among the very best that the city has you will find their words their values imbued in this plan very deeply as something that ultimately i hope that with planning has the opportunity to to do and to act to to really make real on the ground because it is the thing that will really make our city shine in the future we've done great the past and see those bent and used for that and we want to make sure that it has the fuel that that and that is finally to and to continue that in the future thank you unless there's any other counts i think we may be ready to vote i would like to just say before going to vote i don't want to open a speck  but i totally get what the chair charter said about her feeling on any potential combining of the questions or keeping separate church angels but i think there are some councillors who feel differently about that i would just ask that that debate happens at the charter change committee and some testimony be taken about whether that could happen or not with that i am actually going to ask for a roll call so with the clerk please call the roll on this being the move to send this the motion to refer this to try to change committee has passed by nine to vote and church change committee has works cut out for them thank you for the presentation and we will see what happens when it comes back with that we have one last item to deal with that is item three point zero two which is dealing with broad telecom a verbal update from the city attorney with i guess an expected executive session and city attorney blackwood if you could also make clear to the council because i've had this question myself and why we will need to go in executive session on this sense the topic has been filings that the city made and the position that the city has taken that requires me to talk about what our legal strategy is in relation to litigation against the city and therefore i would suggest that that should be covered in executive session as premature disclosure of it would put the city at a disadvantage if you if we were to try to explain exactly what our strategy is and what we're doing ok confirmation thank you present right  present for executive session thank you cancer makes a second again by cancer shannon any discussion hearing none we will clear the room and go into executive session at nine forty one just to be president we're not expected to take any action so i don't know if channel seven ten that's right we are taking no action this is just a update from the city attorney with some questions from counsel i don't know if we have any idea where this see you back here on december ten