2026-11-09 - City Council

The date is Monday, November 9th. The time is 6:05 p.m. Uh I will note that we are joined online by councilors Broderick, Newbeazer, and Carpenter. Um and with that I would ask for a motion on the

agenda as amended on civic clerk. I will note just for transparency that the amendment is to move what was consent agenda item 5.6 to deliberative agenda item 6.8 regarding the Winooski Valley Park

District's FY26 annual report and budget request. >> Move to adopt the amended agenda as listed on civic clerk. >> Thank you, Councilor Litwin. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Councilor

Grant. All in favor of the amended agenda, please say aye. >> Aye. >> Aye. >> Are there any opposed? That carries unanimously. Uh public forum forum is warned for a time certain of 6:30 p.m. this

evening. Uh so we will wait a moment before turning to public forum. And Mayor, that would mean we would turn to you for general city affairs. >> Thank you very much, President Travaris. Good evening,

everyone, and thank you for being here tonight, whether it's in person or online. I'd like to begin first in honoring Andrew Champagne, whose memorial service was held this last Sunday, and it was a

full house at the Unitarian Universalist Church at the top of Church Street. Uh it was quite remarkable to see the political diversity within the room. And as you might recall at the last council

meeting, this council passed unanimously a resolution to honor Andrew Champagne, who was a real institution in terms of democracy here in the city of Burlington. One just very briefly one um there was

a lot of reflections and a lot of actual laughing because he had such a vibrant and eccentric um a life here in Burlington. But one uh piece I want to just sort of tie back to the last council meeting

that was it ended up being one of his last nights with us before he died. And in as the resolution and as the debate and stories that you all were sharing and myself included, it was shared by one of

the folks at the podium that they could tell he could hear everyone's uh fond stories and memories because he was like moving his feet um right before he passed. So I thought that was just a very

sweet remembrance to share back with you as council and appreciated our joint effort. And of course, he would have been very excited to see the results of November 3rd, which we named here in the city

of Burlington Andrew Champagne Day because he was such a fierce democrat and the blue tsunami would really have um had pleased him. So moving on, tomorrow I will be meeting with Governor Phil Scott

here in Burlington to discuss Burlington's deeply complex and incredibly urgent community health and safety challenges. As everyone knows, I've been working diligently for many months to schedule this

meeting with his team. Um we will be joined by a small group consisting of the members of the governor's administration, members of my team, and the two city council caucus chairs. I really want to

appreciate both of them for making themselves available for this very important meeting. I'll be asking the governors uh to for stronger partnership and to support and plan to bring three short-term

actionable ask I hope we can discuss and come to agreement on. Those include more shelter beds in Chittenden County full stop. I frankly don't care how many. We need more more more and we also need

shelter beds of all shapes and sizes. Of course, we know the most critical need is low barrier beds, but at this point with winter right upon us, this is the most critical need for the city of

Burlington. I'll also bring up two other points specifically including more municipal funding for the homelessness response. This impacts all larger towns and cities across the state of Vermont who

are shouldering an a disproportionate amount of the impact of our statewide crisis on homelessness. And this is money that was allocated by the the legislature last session, but has not actually

flowed in the way it was intended by the legislature. And finally, I'll be bringing up more a request for more assistance on traffic enforcement as we continue to rebuild our Burlington police

department. Traffic enforcement is something that we cannot always prioritize at a high level. So trying to direct uh a constructive way to to work uh with the state uh to really bring additional law

enforcement that can help bolster our our work here and fill an incredibly important need as we continue to make our streets safer. Our teams have agreed that it is important to hear and consider all

ideas for moving forward and which we will hopefully result in a successful outcome on uh again on Tuesday. I'm going to move on now to highlight some reparative work that my administration has been

pursuing with the Missisquoi Abenaki after the city council's decision on May 18th not to accept a proposed statute to replace Battery Park's former Chief Graylock statute. I have met with the

Missisquoi Abenaki a couple of times over the last few months alongside RIB council committee chair councilor Laura Sanchez Parkinson and our RIB director Dr. Kelly Parkinson and her team. I

appreciate your partnership as we navigate some of the impact from that May 18th decision. In these meetings we've emphasized that this was a municipal decision about public art. It was not intended

to question or invalidate the identity or heritage of the Missisquoi Abenaki. However the city's decision unintentionally caused harm and implying that the Missisquoi were not a legitimately

recognized tribe. We recognize that there are differing perspectives and deeply held concerns regarding identity, history, and representation among communities with connections to this land. Questions

of formal tribal recognition are matters for the that are appropriate for the state and federal authorities and it is not the role of the city of Burlington or any municipal body to adjudicate these

disputes. The city of Burlington continues to be committed to building and sustaining respectful, meaningful relationships the indigenous with indigenous communities with historic and contemporary

ties to this region. This is in line with our commitment to equity, inclusion, and belonging. We will continue to build relationships with all indigenous communities as that is the role of a city

committed to honoring the stewards of and ancestors of this land. This includes our commitment to developing and a lasting and respectful relationship with the Odanak Abenaki people of this region and

in Quebec and continuing always to learn and be better partners as we continue to move forward. I'll move on now to the library briefly. My administration has been working closely with the Friends of

Fletcher Free Library on a general obligation bond proposal for the town meeting day 2027 ballot, which would allow us to start construction in the fall of 2027. Of course, as many folks know, the

Fletcher Free Library Sorry, the the Friends of Fletcher Free Library have been spearheading a very important capital campaign to probably fundraise many millions of dollars of resources for our

beloved library and this an incredibly important gift of service to the city, which I deeply appreciate. And now it's time to talk about the public contribution portion of this. Key public

institutions like libraries require and deserve our strong investments and we're doing the due diligence to ensure that the proposal that we'll bring to the City Council for first consideration next

council meeting on the 23rd is right-sized for our city and one that we are able to afford. We look forward to giving you a full update on what's behind those figures and how we plan to be really

creative advancing existing bond funds to help them accelerate their ability to break ground next fall. Later this month, I will be hosting another business town hall. This event allows my

administration to connect with our businesses to hear firsthand about their experiences, provide updates on the work being done by the city, and discuss current opportunities and concerns and continue

to work together. The town hall will take place on Friday, November 20th at 10:00 a.m. here here here here at the Contois Auditorium here at City Hall. Last week, Plan BTV 2050 held another community

open house, this one at our beautiful new high school. And I'm not sure if everyone was able to attend, but as I walked in, it was truly finally the embodiment of what so many of us have been

championing for our new high school. There were no shorter than five different large community events happening that night, a basketball game, a theater rehearsal, and then in the middle of the new I

forget what they call it, but the new convening space when you walk into our beautiful new high school was this open house, full of deep engagement involving both family free events and ways to engage

with providing contributions to how we plan our future for the next 25 years here in the city of Burlington. I want to really appreciate the multiple departments who have been involved with PlanBTV

2050 as we again create an integrated plan that talks about not only our larger comprehensive planning, but also our needs around transportation, our needs around economic development, and our needs

around thinking about again what the future should feel like in our parks and our open spaces, etc. So thanks again to all of those departments and the many city staffers who were there for a good

three plus hours and our consulting partners. It was a very exciting and engaging night. I recently attended the Champlain Housing Trust 16th annual cornerstone luncheon where I shared a meal with

affordable housing advocates and community members and heard an inspirational story that they shared among a person who is a CHT resident. But I want to pause on this story because the CHT resident is

not only in recovery, who's able to benefit from stabilized housing that our critical partner CHT provides. And while she lives in Essex, her job, she's in construction trades and learning to become

an electrician and she's helping on the project in the old Y building. And I think that's such an important critical story around how when we support each other and those most vulnerable, providing

them the stability of their basic needs, they can be critical members of helping to build literal new housing for others in our community. Our community has also been buzzing with incredible events

lately and I want to emphasize a few focus on engaging, empowering, and creating meaningful experiences and opportunities for our young people. I'll start with Outright Vermont's launch of their new

youth-led podcast, Transmission of Truth, which was celebrated which celebrated during a podcast policy and pizza party at their space in the old north end in Burlington. This podcast is not only led

by the young people who are members of Outright, but it speaks to the stories of trans youth in the state of Vermont and their experiences during these really hard political times. I that there were

so many um both elected leaders and others at this event because it's so important we show up for all of our young people, not only at members of the LGBTQ community, but young people who are really

struggling with what this community uh not this community specifically, but our larger politics in this country and region. It's so important to affirm um that they exist, that they matter, and that

the leaders in this community stand right behind them. Onto another youth event, the Boys and Girls Club held a career fair, another great youth-focused event further into the Old North End and it was

their 16th one where they focus on college and career advancement opportunities for fourth through eighth graders. There were at least four city departments there, our Burlington Police Department,

our Fire Department, Department of Public Works. I'm forgetting one. I'm so sorry. I'm forgetting one. There was another great department there. Darn it. Um which one? >> Parks. >> Parks? No. Darn it.

Okay. Well, they the best part though is this is new for the city to be able to uh show and have city workers there to engage with young folks and show what's possible about thinking about becoming um

a city employee for really good usually unionized jobs with pensions and good salaries and many of our jobs have entry-level opportunities. So, I've really appreciated how our city uh through the HR

department and our department heads are really being intentional around creating pipelines into our fields. Our final youth-filled event that I like to highlight celebrated a beautiful new mural on

Burlington's Water Resources Building at 235 Penny Lane in Burlington's Waterfront District. The new mural called Our Water, Our Future, a story of memory, stewardship, and continuity explores the

systems that bring clean water to Burlington and protect Lake Champlain. Created by Juniper Creative Arts in collaboration with eight young artists through BCA's 2026 artist apprenticeship program,

this is a powerful example of collaboration across our community. I'm especially proud of the investment this program makes Excuse me. In Burlington's young people. Through this apprenticeship

program, youth ages between 16 and 21 receive paid hands-on professional experience, mentorship, and the opportunity to contribute to their community in a lasting way. Congratulations to these young

artists whose creativity, curiosity, and hard work are now part of a permanent public art landscape on the side of our water department, which you can see again along the bike path if you're not

familiar where that is. I want to extend my sincere appreciation to all of the poll workers who worked diligently to make sure Burlington ran fair and safe and well-run elections. This election staff

worked tirelessly to to make sure that our elections were accessible and successful for a midterm election. Your dedication to our community and the democratic process does not go unnoticed. There

were nearly 200 folks working across the city that day. I also want to congratulate our newly elected legislative delegation who will represent Burlington and Montpelier this January. Many new faces

are part of that group. My team will be meeting with them later this week to begin discussing discussing our legislative priorities, and at your next city council meeting we'll be bringing the first

draft of this document for which I've shared with the two council caucus leaders already for your deliberation and input and then hopefully a vote in December. Finally, this Wednesday is Veterans Day,

and I'll be joining our local celebration and and memorial in Battery Park at 11:00 a.m. that day. This important annual event is organized by our local VFW chapter, the Howard Plant VFW Post 782. And

I'd like especially like to thank Post 782's commander, Michelle Caver, who for all that she does to gather us each and every year and for her long-time commitment to supporting Burlington's many

veterans. Veterans Day is more than a date on the calendar, of course. It's a reminder of the living thread that connects every generation of Americans who have stood up, answered the call, and put

service above self. In a time when our country feels so deeply divided, our veterans remind us that unity what unity looks like in action. They came from every they come from every background, every

belief, every walk of life, and yet when they serve, they serve together. They remind us of what binds us together is far stronger than what sets us apart. To all of our veterans and their families,

thank you on behalf of the city of Burlington. Your service challenges to be better community members, to live up to the ideals you risk so much to defend and to make sure this country is stronger,

fairer, and more just for everyone. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Mayor. Uh again, we have public forum warned for a time certain of 6:30 p.m. Uh we do have two other meetings to hold that we had

warned for 6:15 p.m. and 6:20 p.m. And so I will briefly recess the City Council meeting and now call to order our meeting as the Local Control Commission and uh Commissioner Grant with um

Commissioner Broderick online. I'm hoping I may be able to count on you uh on this one. And the first item on our Local Control Commission agenda is a motion on the agenda. >> I will move to uh

approve the agenda. >> Thank you, Commissioner Grant. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Commissioner Shacter. All in favor, please say aye. >> Aye. >> Are any opposed? That's unanimous. And

we just have a consent agenda this evening, Commissioner Grant. >> I would move to approve the consent agenda as it appears in Civic Clerk. >> Thank you. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you,

Commissioner Shacter. Any discussion on this item? All in favor then, please say aye. >> Aye. >> Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. So thank you to Commissioner Grant, Broderick for their

service on the License Committee, and of course Lori O'Berg for her work on keeping these permits in order. Uh seeing no other business before the Local Control Commission, we will adjourn that

meeting at 6:21 p.m. and call to order uh Mayor, if you're prepared for it, the the City Council with Mayor presiding at that same time. >> Yep. Thank you, Council President Traver. So I will call to

order the City Council with Mayor Presiding on Monday, November 9th, 2020 at 6:21 p.m. Our first item is the agenda. Is there a motion on the agenda? >> So moved. >> Moved by Councilor Traver. Is

there >> a second? >> Second. >> Second by Councilor Grant. Any discussion on the agenda before we vote? Seeing none, all in favor indicate by saying I. >> I. >> I. >> Any opposed, nay? Motion carries

unanimously. Our first item is the consent agenda. Is there a motion on the consent agenda? >> So moved. >> Moved by Councilor Traverse. >> Second. >> Second by Councilor Grant. Thank you. Any

discussion on the consent agenda? Seeing none, all in favor indicate by saying I. >> I. >> Any Any opposed, nay? Motion carries unanimously. Our only deliberative item is one appointment, item 3.1,

which is the Development Review Board alternate position with term expiring on June 30th, 2027. We have one application, uh so I will open up for nominations and I'll skip the other pieces unless

there is another nomination and I'll explain our voting process. So are there any nominations for the Development Review Board alternate position expiring term expiring June 30th of 2027? Are there

any nominations? Councilor Traverse. >> I nominate John Ellis Stilly. >> Nomination for John Ellis Stilly. Any Any other nominations? Any other nominations? Okay, is John here or online and would like

to address Oh. Hi. Would you like Sorry, that was a very joyous hi to you. Thank you for Thank you for willing to to be nominated. Would you like to address? You do not have to address the council. >>

I'll just say uh >> You can want you can come up to the microphone if you don't mind and you just have a couple minutes to introduce yourself. Thank you for being here. And you just need to turn on

the mic until you see a green button. >> There we go. Hello. Good evening. My name is John Stilly. I'll just very briefly say that I have wanted to serve on a board and commission for a long time. I'm

excited to be contributing to the city government and I have no further things to say unless you have any questions. >> Well, thank >> you very much for being here tonight. Are there any questions for

John? And or any discussion? Okay. Well, you can sit there while we vote if you like. Otherwise, we will go ahead and I will call the question on the nomination of John John Ellis Stilly. And I think

we can do voice vote on this one. I'm not expecting it to be divided. Okay. So all in favor indicate by saying aye. >> Aye. >> Aye. >> Any opposed nay? Motion carries unanimously. Congratulations and

thank you for joining >> Thank you. >> our design review board. And with no other business, we will adjourn the meeting at 6:25 p.m. >> Thank you, Mayor. So we'll resume the City Council meeting at

that same time. And I think as a last order of business before turning to public forum, I will ask if there's any councilor with a committee report. Councilor Bergman. >> Thank you. The Ordinance

Committee met and spent a lot of time on the the tier one ordinance related to an endangered species and sensitive habitats. And we've got a little bit more work to do on it. We went line by line and

are looking to deal with that at our next meeting, which is November 19th at 4:30 p.m. downstairs in the Buscher conference room. We'll also be taking up at that time the the comprehensive vegetation

ordinance rewrite, which is you know, a soup to nuts with everything related to vegetation in the city. It there's a lot of old language there. And so we'll have planning staff and the city arborist

and the parks and rec land steward there and hopefully the commission and the conservation board and we will take a deep dive because it is a comprehensive look at our ordinance and whenever we have

comprehensive looks at major policy we in the Ordinance Committee do the job of going section by section, line by line. The last thing is that on the 18th of this month we will be having the joint

Ordinance Committee Planning Commission working group on the rewrite of the amendments to the inclusionary zoning ordinance and we will be looking at a draft of those changes and inclusionary zoning

is the person who is the sponsor of it in 1991 when we got it and we got it passed is an essential piece of our affordable housing agenda and we're looking to make it more vital and effective and so

we'll be looking at the first redraft after many months of work and that again will be on the 18th of this month at 6 o'clock downstairs in the conference room and that is it for your Ordinance

Committee. >> Thank you Council Bergman. Is there any other council with a committee report? Yes, Council Lipman. >> Thank you President Traverse. I just wanted to call to the public's attention. I

did mention this at our last meeting but CDNR or the Community Development Neighborhood Revitalization Committee went through and did quite a bit of work to clean up and modernize the recommendations

that we had made last year. Disclosure that Councilor Sanchez Parkinson was not on the committee last year as she was not elected. So the public can read those as item seven under the consent agenda.

I do recommend folks take a look at it to see you know how we're thinking and how we in took into account public and stakeholder feedback. And then we will need to sort of decide how we want to move

forward with adopting those recommendations. I just want to say one more time, I did say it two weeks ago, how thankful I am to have Councilor Sanchez Parkinson and Councilor Shacter really dive in

with me and be very collaborative, which I really appreciated. So thank you both. >> Thank you. Any other councilor with a committee report? Councilor Singh. >> I mentioned this at the last meeting,

but I want to mention it again. Generally, we have our Public Safety Committee meetings on the fourth Thursday of this month. Because it's Thanksgiving, it will be next Thursday, the 19th of November

at 5:30 in the Boucher conference room, and it also be available hybrid. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any other committee reports? Councilor Sanchez Parkinson. >> Thank you. Next week on November 17th at

5:30p.m. we'll be meeting for the Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee. Councilor Shacter will be joining us to speak on the non-citizen voter charter change. So we'll engage in

discussion around that. And then we'll also have three departments having a focused discussion around recreational and opportunities for our young people and their well-being. So we'll have Burlington

City Arts, we'll have the Fletcher Free Library and the Parks and Recs. So for those of you who want to learn more, engage in discussion around what our city is doing to support our young people, I

hope you will join us. >> Thank you. Any other committee reports? Councilor Newbould-Dezuer. >> The special committee on tax reform has been meeting. We had our first two public meetings, the last one

being last week on Monday, and we have our third and final public forum coming up. We've been discussing three proposals that I am very much hopeful will bring to the council in the coming weeks to

place on the town meeting day ballot. Um, one of those is a creation of another category for second homes so that we can increase uh revenue to the general fund. One is discussion around a homestead

exemption. Uh my hope is that we'll see a universal homestead exemption on the ballot for voters to send them up here. And then the third being um a property transfer tax of 5% on homes valued over on

the sale of homes valued over $1 million and then dedicating that revenue to our housing trust fund. So it's been good discussion so far. I think we've had I want to say close to 50 community members

in total between the two meetings. Uh maybe that's a hopeful number. Um my colleagues can correct me, but it's been really good discussion so far in those public forums. So encourage folks to come out

and share their thoughts, learn about the proposals, give feedback uh so that we can incorporate it uh prior to bringing these for a vote. >> Thank you, Councilor Newbiser. Any other committee

reports? Okay. That brings us now right to 6:31 p.m. And so we'll now go ahead and open public forum as is our rule. We'll begin here in City Hall with Burlington residents. We'll then turn online to

any Burlington residents online. We then repeat that process for non-Burlington residents. If you're here in City Hall, when I call your name, if you could please come forward to the table, make sure

the microphone is on. If you are online, we will let you know once you've been unmuted and can go ahead and speak. Uh as a reminder, in order to participate online, you need to have signed up at least

an hour in advance of public forum. Whether here in person or online, folks will be provided two minutes to speak. Uh we ask that folks please direct their comments to me as the chair and not to any

other individual. We do not tolerate any individualized comments here, uh particularly those attacking any individual's protected characteristics. We also ask that folks please refrain from being

unduly loud or disruptive. It's important that City Hall remain a safe place for those who serve, those in attendance, and those tuning into our meetings. If I interrupt a speaker at any point in

time, it will be to ask that they please continue in accordance with these rules. If a speaker continues to violate these rules, I reserve the right to end public comment for that speaker at that

point in time. So with that, we have Dave Marr, who is the first individual who signed up for public forum, followed by Andre Clark. >> Good evening. My name is Dave Marr. Live in Ward 4. And I'm

still trying to figure out what happened. Seems like a few months ago, we were on the same page. City Hall had been identified as a hotspot and something needed to be done to make it more welcoming

for everyone. City made some tweaks, but as far as I can tell, City Hall Park is still as bad as ever. And now it seems that we've dropped the ball. We haven't even planted any flowers or removed the

excessive park benches. Some people say we need to address the root cause of homelessness first. We need to provide more housing, mental health, and drug addiction services. While we need those

things, but we don't need to tolerate bad behavior in the meantime. This behavior drives people and businesses away from Burlington and could lead to a downward spiral for the city. I ask, do we

really want to sacrifice the city of Burlington to enable the bad behavior of a handful of individuals? At another note, I urge you to vote to approve Anthony Girasi for a new police chief. He may not

be perfect, but to paraphrase Voltaire, perfection is often the enemy of progress. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our next speaker is Andre Clark, who will be followed by Farid. >> Good to go? >> Yes. >> Um

I want to start by welcoming our new chief of police, Anthony Derasi, to our city. Um while I may often disagree with their decisions, likely loudly and publicly, I promise to treat you with the same

level of respect you treat our community with. I would encourage you to get to know the people of this city, all of the people of this city. Even those without resources, even those that some in our

city would like to disappear. I would ask that you enforce the law in a humane and equitable manner and that you not use the power of your department to target marginalized members of our community,

including our black and brown neighbors and our unhoused neighbors. I am fearful of the rhetoric surrounding public safety in our community and how the conversation has shifted to make it sound like

people experiencing homelessness or people who use drugs are automatically a public safety risk. What is often left out of the conversation is how certain drugs are stigmatized and considered

dangerous while the dangers associated with alcohol are ignored. I studied violence prevention. Alcohol is the number one substance most likely to lead to violence. It is more likely to lead to

violence than meth, crack, regular cocaine, and certainly more likely than opioids, which are at the bottom of the list. If this is the case, why is alcohol the one that is socially acceptable? Why

are we okay with the highest density of alcohol establishments in the state in our downtown? Why are we okay with public alcohol consumption in City Hall Park during city-sponsored events? Why aren't

we focusing police resources on the dangers associated with alcohol? Why are we focused on crack cocaine or opioids? It's not because they are a greater public safety risk. The data tells us

otherwise. It is because those are substances associated with poverty or people of color. I've watched people leave the bars and urinate on the side of this building. I've watched people stumble the

sidewalk, get in their vehicle, and then leave their parking spot at a high rate of speed. I wanted to let the police know, but their focus was on City Hall Park and not where the clear and present

public safety risk was. Please focus police resources where the real public safety risks are and don't just criminalize people because their drug use isn't as socially acceptable as yours. Thank you.

And I apologize to your family. >> Our next speaker is Farid, will be followed by Melissa Ronaldo. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Oh. Thank you, Mr. President. Um and congratulations on the the launch

of your campaign for mayor. Um I want to remind you and the majority of the council here that uh we were promised that you promised us uh a charter change on police accountability. And right now, it's

going nowhere. And I I hope that you will make this a priority uh especially as uh you are uh showing that uh you want more police officers. If if police officers are going to be spearheading this uh

initiative, then and you're going to be demanding accountability from everybody else, please also show accountability on your part and hold people who will be enforcing the laws accountable. Um uh I

think it's very important that this piece is addressed because uh if even if everybody who works for the Burlington Police Department was a saint, I think it's reasonable to ask for people who have

power to actually deprive us of life, liberty, and limbs to be accountable. I think that's a that's I think that's a that's that's an acceptable uh expectation to have. And given the history of the

Burlington Police Department and having seen like how uh the individual officers operate, which actually most of the officers, I'm going to say, is are decent people. They really uh want to just do

their job and some of them actually even care about the people they're serving, but you know, there's a few bad apples and unless you you you address this, a few bad apples are going to ruin the whole

barrel. Please make this a priority and can I actually address and welcome the chief like welcome to Burlington chief. Congratulations and my condolences. >> [laughter] >> Thank you, Farid. Our next

speaker is Melissa Reinaldo, who will be followed by Bruce Wilson. >> Good evening. My name is Melissa Reinaldo. I live in the New North End ward four. I've lived here for since 1977 almost 50 years.

Burlington has changed a lot in that time and now has more problems than ever. I attended the panel discussion on October 13 and I hope that more such meetings can be set. It was very informative.

Homelessness, drug dealing, substance abuse, mental health, all of these things were discussed at that meeting. The harm reduction approach that we've read about in the paper and the Atlantic and the

New York Times has not been effective and more needs to be done including enforcement of all laws to protect all Burlingtonians and visitors to our city. Bad behavior cannot be tolerated. This has

been a three-year process to find the best candidate to replace the Burlington police chief. This is the first that I've heard about this candidate was approximately a week ago. I'm concerned that Mr.

Jurassi does not have the experience to address and resolve all the problems and issues that Burlington faces. I hope and must trust that all of you, my representatives, fully vetted Mr. Jurassi and

that he has concrete plans to enforce laws and keep all citizens safe. After working my entire career day in and day out in in Burlington, I was not often able to wander through City Hall Park or

enjoy the shops and restaurants downtown. In my retirement, I would like to now fully enjoy downtown and all the city has to offer. In the near future, I would like to feel safe doing so. hopeful that

this will happen under the leadership of the new police chief, and I trust that the proper evaluation of his experience has been conducted, and I look forward to seeing for myself that public trust

has been well spent. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our next speaker is Bruce Wilson, who will be followed by Chris McGrath. >> Hello everyone. So I'm Bruce Wilson. I'm not going to skip the intros about me

because if I do, I'll go over my time. But first thing I want to do is I want to thank the City Council members. I want to thank the President Ben and Mayor. And I I I really want to thank Ben and

Travis for helping us with the phone boards and our so wonderful murals and graffiti abatement programs and our straight talk for my program. And now soon to be working with my developer friends on

housing who who they have places where way over 100 individuals can stay at and we will be talking about that soon. But I'm also hoping to be appointed as a trustee for Whiskey Valley Parks

Department. And so and so here's some of the things that I have done with I'm on Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission Board of Directors, and I represent Chittenden County RPC for a clean

water. I'm on the Climate Council. Just transitioned. We hosted over 700 events in primarily in Burlington using North Beach, Oakledge Park, Roosevelt Park, Pomeroy Park, Smiley Park, City Hall Park,

Battery Park, and Waterfront Park. I see my friend Chapin over there. We know you know about Smiley Park, right Chapin? Anyway, anyways. So I just want to also say um for the last few minutes about

youth phone boards and um working with Laura and Laura for um helping youth phone boards back again. And so that's very important on youth asking me when it's going to start, when we're going to get

going, we're going to build the youth council. Um and so um that's very important to us, youth phone boards. They need to be making decisions on the programs, projects, and events like everybody else.

Everything we do is for our youth, you know, even the youngest person in this room, what they do is for for youth, somebody younger than them. And so I'm hopeful that we can get that going. Uh youth

phone boards very dear to me. I um was one of the founding members or actually the founder in 2001 um one I think, 2002, whatever it is, to um get youth phone boards and and amended on 2000 21. So

thank you. >> Thank you, Bruce. Bruce, I also mentioned to you and anyone else who's here for any of the appointments later on this evening. Um you certainly don't have to stick around, but if you're

nominated, any nominees will have an opportunity to speak to the council again at that point in time. >> Do you know what agenda item that is for me? How long that'll be for um um Winooski Valley

Parks District? >> Uh it is item 6.6. So it's the sixth item on our deliberative agenda. >> Oh what set again the the time? >> six what time is it at? >> Yeah. >> I don't know. >> [laughter] >> All

right, thank you. >> Yeah, we'll see. Thank you, Bruce. Uh our next speaker is Chris McGrath and then our last Burlington resident here at City Hall will be Charlie Messing. >> Uh good evening, City

Council. Uh I'll keep it pretty short tonight. Um I just wanted to express my support again for the Overdose Prevention Center. Uh I've authored a a short report on maybe some ideas from where one

might get where one might go. I'd like to present that to you also. I'll leave that here. Um and then uh just in reflection on the election that we just had, I wanted to take a moment and uh just be

thankful for our democracy and for things like public forum and hearing uh opinions, dissenting or otherwise, and how valuable that is and just my appreciation for that. Thank you all for your time

tonight. >> Thank you. Uh our last Burlington resident in City Hall is Charlie Messing. We then have one Burlington resident online and Mark Leopold. >> [clears throat] >> Good evening. With some

imagination, picture Philadelphia in the 1700s. After some inquiry, I found a poor industrious man who was willing to undertake keeping the pavement clean by sweeping it twice a week, carrying off the

dirt from before all the neighbors' doors for the sum of 6 pence per month to be paid by each house. I then wrote and printed a paper setting forth the advantages to the neighborhood that might be

obtained by this smaller expense. I sent one of these papers to each house and in a day or two went round to see who would subscribe an agreement to pay these 6 pence. It was unanimously signed and

for a time well executed. All the inhabitants of the city were delighted with the cleanliness of the pavement that surrounded the market, it being a convenience to all. And this raised a general

desire to have all the streets paved and made the people more willing to submit to a tax for that purpose. Benjamin Franklin. Um there's a way to get people who have nothing to do involved in doing

what needs to be done. And um even though we don't take those drugs, we are people and they are people. And I'm hoping we can inject new thoughts into this problem. [clears throat] There you go. Thank

you very much. Have a good evening. >> Thank you, Charlie. Uh we will now turn online. There's one Burlington resident online in Mark Leopold. We then have one non-Burlington resident who signed up in

Corinne Cita. Um so we'll go to Mark and then we'll turn to Corinne. Um Mark, if you just give me one moment, I'm going to share my screen with the timer on it and as soon as you see the timer, you

should be able to go ahead. >> Thank you, President Travers. I've been optimistic since 10:00 a.m. Friday morning. Optimistic that Burlington might indeed benefit from a new police chief that is not

an interim leader and this will hopefully allow our police force to grow with candidates realizing that they're joining an ongoing enterprise and not a tentative one. I hope that the police force can

make City Hall Park safe and also Main Street in front of the old Nectar's and what was Cafe Hot. I was taking my wife to court to serve jury duty and there were people in front of the old Nectar's

displaying behavior that seemed threatening. Very loud, very obnoxious. And I hope the police force can clean this up. Thank you for your attention. >> We'll turn now to the uh one non-Burlington

resident who we have signed up in Karen Sita. We could promote Karen. >> Hello. >> Yes. Karen, please go ahead. >> Okay, great. I'm going to try to multitask. Um so a couple of things I was talking

about in the part of finance and I want to make sure it's clear especially in the city council. We need to find a way to honor the great icon, Vermont icon which is Dr. Lewis First for all the kids

who are no longer kids who are my age. Oh my god. Who remember Lewis First, we need to make sure that he is honored. He I just found out that he was retired. Real tears were shed. So there's a whole

generation of young Vermonters who will not know what First with Kids means and that is a tragedy so tragedy. So we need to make sure he's honored and again I was complaining about the fact that you

guys are 12:00 bus that removes that prevents people from going from Burlington to Montpelier. So if you take the Greyhound or the train, you know that has been taken away from us for no reason. So we

need to find out why that has been done so. And I guess when it comes to the police department, you know Burke and I I don't know. I saw him during the fireworks. He's that dude. You know typically I

just had like a typical conversation with him and I was like oh my god, you know what sometimes you see a man you're just like should I like sit up straight straight? He's that type of man that you're

like okay I got to sit up straight straight. You know girls look sit up straight and you like pull up here. Anyways, so he's that type of man and I don't know about this man. I'm not saying that

there's drama around him because I know what it's like to have drama carry you but let's just hope that you get no offense, no shade but all the shade. I'm trying to not be shade free but I'm still

full of shade. I hope you get a new mayor because if those three women who complained against you were trouble, you have no idea what's before you if we keep that current mayor. I'm just speaking the

truth. That's why they they hate a girl but she still looks cute. So you know again again righteousness is never forsaken. I always tell you know I just tell how it is, mind my business, make sure

that they don't go too crazy and just try to help the forgotten. And also I know that they don't want to fix the drug problem because I used to work at the lab and I used to tell them listen I'm a

black girl. If if a black girl looks at these Caucasian in their eyes and say, hey, you're Caucasian in Vermont, you can do all things, I'm sure their lives will change. And their lives were changing,

and then they got a little jealous. So, I'm not sure they really want people to be healthy, but I do. So, I support people being healthy. And you can do health in all types of ways. Okay? Praise the

Lord. >> Okay. Uh we'll go ahead and close public forum then at 6:50 p.m. And if I can find a way to stop my screen sharing, I will stop sharing my screen. There it is. Okay. Thank you. Um we'll turn

now to item five on our agenda, which is the consent agenda. Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda as amended and take the actions indicated? >> So moved. >> Thank you, Councilor Shacter. Is

there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Councilor Grant. Any discussion on that motion? All in favor, then please say aye. >> Aye. >> Aye. >> Any opposed? That carries unanimously. [clears throat] Uh

which now takes us to our deliberative agenda. And the first item on our deliberative agenda is the appointment of the chief of police. Uh and Mayor, in a moment I will turn the floor to you. Just

before doing that, however, I will just note for the public um that uh the the the mayor has asked if the chief is appointed this evening for the council to take a brief 10-minute recess following

that appointment, which absent objection, we will be doing following this item. So I just wanted to uh make the public aware of that before moving on to this item. Councilor Bergman, do you would you

like to be recognized or >> Only after the mayor speaks to make the uh >> the motion. Okay, great. So we'll turn to you on the motion. Uh but Mayor Happy, the floor turn the floor to you. >> Thank you

very much uh President Traver and I appreciate that recess. Uh again, assuming that this uh uh goes as I hope. So tonight today marks what I hope will be the start of an important new chapter for the

Queen City. I'm pleased tonight to nominate Chief Anthony Girassi to the position of the of Police of the Burlington Police Department. This is one of the most consequential decisions our city can

make, and as mayor, it is one of the most important decisions I have made since serving. This required a vigorous search process, a thoughtful community community engagement, and a deep vetting

process by our partners at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, otherwise known as IACP. Burlington needs to put the right leadership in place to support our police department, to serve

our residents, and to move our city forward. And I am proud to say we are ready to fill this position with Chief Giracci. We all know it's been a hard few years here in Burlington. We continue to

grapple with the lingering socioeconomic effects of the COVID pandemic, a historic statewide crisis of unsheltered homelessness, untreated mental health, and substance use disorder, the spillover

effects from drug and gun trafficking throughout the Northeast corridor, a backlog county court system that has struggled for years until just this past winter with the success of the accountability

court, a municipal community safety system that lacks strategic focus and strong coordination across city departments and community partners until just two years ago, and an understaffed police

department made more complicated by regional and national hiring challenges and a recent surge of BPD retirements within the last 12 months. We have certainly had our work cut out for us. A Burlington

and Burlington is is a resilient city. I am so proud of the way that we all rise time and again to meet our challenges head-on. Our community safety personnel, our city staff, our residents, elected

officials, and our community partners. For Burlingtonians, belief in our city and each other runs very deep. But the work of meeting our challenges is demanding, relentless, and draining, and our

Burlington Police Department has taken on a tremendous share of that burden. Our BPD has faced dramatic increases in calls for service and crisis response due to the high unmet health, social, and

economic needs in our society. And this is coincided with historically low historic lows in staffing and industry-wide challenges with recruitment and retention. This leads to tremendous pressures on

our sworn officers, our emergency communication specialists, our community safety officers, our community safety service liaisons, administrative staff and our command team. We saw this particularly

this past summer when there was an increased need for overtime, a redeployment of our officers to cover patrol shifts in the city and extra pressures on officers, emergency emergency community

specialists, community service officers and community service liaisons to serve to respond to several complex incidences. Our team continues to respond though with professionalism, excellent policing

and strong victim services work while navigating significant operational demands, reflecting their dedication, resilience and true commitment to our community. I am both proud and grateful to our

entire team. Thank you BPD for your dedication, your service, your patience as we work to rebuild and strengthen our department. I also want to acknowledge the leadership transitions can create

additional stress and uncertainty for our BPD team, especially during an already challenging time. And I also want to recognize and thank our interim chief Sean Burke for the steady leadership, the

dedication and the care he has brought to the department during this period of transition. He has truly stabilized this department and brought invaluable institutional knowledge to this agency from

his many years previous service to the BPD. Chief Burke, thank you for your partnership over these last 18 months while we took the necessary time to find a permanent chief. Burlington is deeply

greatly grateful for your service. And I just want to acknowledge him for a quick minute. >> [applause] [applause] [applause] >> Thank you for joining me in that because he's going to fade into the

background a little bit in theory in the next 24 hours. But I am happy to say that we will keep Chief Burke on until March to support this leadership transition and to take lead on special projects

will help strengthen this department. As we look ahead, our officers and civilian staff deserve leadership that supports them, that listens to them and gives them the direction and the resources they

need to succeed. And our community deserves a police department that is well positioned to meet the challenges ahead and is responsive when people call for help. I see Chief Anthony D'Erasmo's

appointment as an opportunity to build on the work that has already been done, bring renewed stability and direction to the department and begin a new chapter for the BPD. Chief D'Erasmo is a strong

leader with more than 25 years of progressive law enforcement experience. His background, character, and values match the community safety approach we've established, which pairs enforcement with

prevention to build safety and security over the long term for all of our residents. While serving as the chief of police in Newburgh, New York, he spearheaded efforts to implement crime reduction

strategies that led to a 50% reduction in gun violence victims from 2022 to 2023. This was the largest percentage reduction in shooting victims statewide within the state of New York. Chief D'Erasmo

also recognizes how necessary co-responder models are to modern-day policing, and his experience includes piloting a program that embedded a police social worker social workers in his department. He's

excited to work with our K program and community safety service providers. Crucially, he brings a documented track record of rebuilding a police department with successful recruitment and retention

strategies. Under his leadership, Chief D'Erasmo rebuilt the Newburgh police department after a 20% officer workforce reduction, ultimately returning the department to a full staffing at the

authorized strength of 73 sworn officers. His inclusive recruitment initiatives resulted in 78 percent of those hires from racial and ethnic minority groups, and he was also credited with

significantly improving morale and retention. Chief Deraissi also has a proven record of community-focused leadership that demonstrates a commitment to de-escalation and to building trusted community

relationships. His professional philosophy draws from the tenants of 21st century policing and procedural justice, which centers on building trust, improving accountability, and strengthening

community partnerships. In Albany, New York, he implemented the Neighborhood Engagement Unit that prioritizes intentional relationship building and visible proactive work with residents. A new model

at the time, the unit replaced the department's enforcement-heavy Street Crimes Unit and continues to this day. He also brings substantial experience in implicit bias training and language access,

including survey serving as an implicit bias trainer for the state of New York. Chief Deraissi's appointment resulted from a year-long rigorous rigorous national search conducted in partnership with

the IACP, which is the world's largest and most influential professional association for police leaders. The selection process extended well beyond traditional recruitment and included direct

opportunities for public input and candidate engagement. This included site visits and interviews, focus groups with local organizations, a community-wide survey of residents that included over 600

different individual responses, a 13-person hiring committee that included city councilors, a police commissioner, and community partners, and community stakeholder meetings with the semi-finalist

candidates here in Burlington. This ensured that our selection process reflected the priorities, perspectives, and the expectations of the community Chief Deraissi will serve. We extend our sincere

sincere appreciations to the many community members who offered their time and perspective to this process. We are also grateful to IACP for their invaluable partnership and guidance throughout this

year long process. Their expertise helped ensure a thoughtful, comprehensive national search that reflected both the highest professional standards and the importance of meaningful community

participation. I'd also like to spend a special thanks to retired Vermont State Police Colonel Jim Baker for his outstanding support, thoughtful guidance and counsel through this process. His

experience and insights were invaluable and he served us through the ICP process as our liaison to ICP. If confirmed by City Council tonight, Chief Giroux will officially begin tomorrow. As with all

new chiefs of police, we we would he would need to obtain a level three certification from the Vermont Criminal Justice Council to exercise full law enforcement authority authority and this would

require Chief Giroux to clear a thorough credential review via the VCJC out of jurisdiction waiver process. This process typically takes a few weeks to a few months. As you'll hear from Chief Giroux

himself in a few minutes, he would be dedicating his first few weeks to listening and learning both to his new department and to his new community. And my administration is committed to supporting a

strong onboarding process with extensive community engagement. Chief Giroux will accompany me to my weekly mayor meetups and he would would schedule and he will schedule appearances at each

neighborhood planning assembly alongside me in the coming months. We would also arrange meetings will arrange meetings representing a broad array of community stakeholders including our immigrant

communities, our service providers, the Burlington School District, the University of Vermont, Champlain College, and our business community. Another plug for our business community forum, he will

come and attend that meeting with me in a couple of weeks. You have many opportunities to communicate and to meet and greet our new chiefs, so please stay tuned. And with that, President Travis, I

will return the floor back to you. >> Thank you very much. Council Bergman, we'll turn to you for a motion. >> Thank you. I will move to confirm the appointment of Chief Anthony Giroux to the position

of the Chief of Police of the City of Burlington. >> Second. >> I would like the floor back. >> Great. The floor is yours. >> Thank you. Um, these uh comments will sound familiar to people who

attended the press conference this morning, but first I am very pleased that our five-member caucus unanimously supports the appointment of Chief Girassi. You know, I have been close to Burlington

city government since the 1980s, and for 20 years I was the assistant city attorney in charge of civil enforcement. So I've seen and I've worked with a lot of police chiefs, and I can say with

confidence that we will be making an excellent choice if we approve Chief Girassi's appointment tonight. It is especially important that we get a chief who will rebuild and who can rebuild this

department. Chief Girassi has proven he can do this, recruiting and rebuilding a department, improving morale, and promoting a culture of integrity that is so critical. And while strengthening the

engagement, all that, while strengthening the engagement with our diverse communities, while dealing with the biases and discriminations endemic in America, including here. His experience with

community-centered policing, community oversight, neighborhood engagement, implicit bias and language training will serve us well. Our history shows that we, the department and our community, will

benefit. And it is no secret that we have community health and safety challenges here, big ones, ones that reflect national challenges on a statewide level. And I look at his record of reducing gun

violence in New Berg, and I feel confident that this experience will help us here. So I want to thank the mayor for the excellent search process that brought us to this appointment. Involvement of the

international associations was very important. The community involvement was essential. We've got a very good nominee to show for it, and I look forward to our appointing him tonight, hopefully

unanimously. Thank you. >> Thank you, Councilor Bergman. Are there any other councilors that wish to comment on this item? All right. Councilor Schacter. >> Thank you, President Travers. Mr. Giracci,

I just wanted to say thank you for stepping up to serve our community. I think from I'm sure from your time touring our community and talking to folks and hearing public comment tonight, it's a

critical time for our city to have a strong leader at the home of the police department. I want to echo the words of gratitude, deep gratitude for interim Chief Burke's leadership and also thank you

and the sacrifice your family is making as well for stepping up to serve Burlington. >> Thank you, Councilor Schacter. We'll go to Councilor Sanchez Parkinson. And yes, I will. Yes. I was just texting

with your I was just messaging your staff to make sure that we provided Chief Giracci an opportunity to if he wanted to address the council to do that. So certainly I think we could interrupt this

process right now, Chief Giracci, if you wanted to take the opportunity to address the council this evening. So thank you. >> Good evening. So I see there's 31 minutes on the clock. Does that mean I

have 31 minutes? >> You know, you'll you'll learn something about Burlington which is that >> already gave me a time limit, so >> Times are very loose here at the city council, so >> Good evening,

Mayor Malvina Stanick, City Council President Travers, and the members of the City Council. I'm truly honored to have been selected and nominated to serve as the next chief of police for the city of

Burlington. I recognize the tremendous responsibility that comes with this position. I I grateful for the opportunity to serve as a member of the city's leadership team and contribute to the well-

being of all residents. To the members of the city council, thank you for your consideration and kind comments that were just made and warm welcome. I look forward to working collaboratively with each

of you in addressing public safety challenges in each ward of this city. I do want to extend my gratitude and echo my comments this morning at the press conference to the mayor for her trust,

confidence, and support. This was, as she just indicated, an extensive and thoughtful process that provided a wide range of stakeholders and committee members with a meaningful voice. I recognize the

mayor, her staff, and city administration uh not only for how I was treated throughout the process, but that incredibly warm welcome this morning at the press conference with all those on the dais

from council members to committee stakeholders and people with deep deep uh connections with the city of Burlington. So it was really uh an honor and very humbling. I would also like to acknowledge uh

the nationwide search that was conducted by International Association of Chiefs of Police and uh like the mayor said, the retired colonel of the Vermont State Police, James Baker. I also want to

recognize Chief Shawn Burke for his leadership and dedication which provided continuity and stability during the extended transition period of the Burlington Police Department. I appreciate his

willingness thus far to share his experience and perspective and I look forward to continuing our relationship and lean on you as a trusted advisor and confidant. Uh law enforcement has been a family

tradition. Uh and as you see here, uh the two rows to my left um are my family, a a portion of my family. We're actually a bigger family. Um but I would be remiss if I didn't recognize my wife who is

not only been with me along this journey, but uh as indicated this morning, she entered this profession with me and although it was not a century ago, it it was in fact last century that she joined

this profession with me. So I do really appreciate the comments about the sacrifices that um our families do make. My father, who's seated here to my left, is a former chief of police. My twin

brother, who is here, he doesn't look like me, so I'll I'll leave it to the everyone in the chambers to figure out who he is. Um my sister, brother-in-law, uh nephew, they've all served and continue

continue to serve in law enforcement. And our family holds it in the highest regard. So you're you're support and everything that we've been through as a family uh throughout my career is beyond

beyond appreciated. And um I love you all dearly. So thank you. Thank you for being here tonight. So I know many people are asking why Burlington. Uh as President Travers mentioned recently in a

conversation, he said that Burlington is a city of choice. And when I heard that, I couldn't agree more. At this moment, I am choosing Burlington, and up to this point, Burlington is choosing me. I

couldn't be more grateful for that opportunity. As the largest municipal police department in Vermont, it has unique challenges but equally significant opportunities. Throughout my career, I've

embraced leadership challenges, developed people, strengthened organizations, and addressed complex public safety issues. I remain committed to principled leadership and being part of meaningful

solutions. Burlington is a special place in which to live, work, and play, and I know everyone in the chambers knows that already. But I feel it's important to mention. While I appreciate the natural

beauty and outdoor recreational opportunities, I'm equally drawn to its walkability, vibrant energy, and cultural diversity. Most importantly, and what really drew me to this community was the strong

sense of community. I fully recognize staffing, recruitment, and retention are among the department's immediate challenges. Addressing those issues will be essential to our long-term success. Building

a strong, supported, and engaged workforce is foundational to deliver effective public safety services. I will not overpromise or establish unrealistic expectations. However, at this moment, I am

willing to commit to remaining apolitical and ensure that there's not political divisiveness within the ranks of the police department. Public safety is a fundamental responsibility to the people that

we serve. My focus will remain firmly on the Burlington Police Department's mission, which I will quote here, committed to policing with the citizens of Burlington to achieve a safe, healthy, and

self-reliant community. Likewise, my actions and decisions will remain consistent with the department's core values of integrity, service, respect, and my favorite one, creativity. To the members of

the Burlington Police Department, and I I do recognize that there's members from the officers union here in the back and I believe the supervisors union, uh members of the command staff, um and I

spoke to them directly today. I and I'll echo the mayor's comments. This transition does bring stress and anxiety and uncertainty to a police department. I have been in their shoes. I've been a member

of a police department where we had an outside chief come in from an outside state. I've also been that person who has come in from the outside. So I am very hypersensitive to what they're going

through right now. I want them to know that I am committed to them, their families, and the future of this department. I recognize that the many challenges they face currently from staffing shortages,

increased demands, and the trauma that they're often exposed to. Please know that you'll be supported and valued in the work that you do daily. I do not come to this position believing that I have all

the answers. As the mayor indicated, I'm prepared to listen, learn, and lead. I will advocate for you, I will challenge you, I will support you, and I will work in partnership with you. As we design a

culture together that is one that is of shared vision and shared purpose. I believe effective leadership means setting clear expectations, ensuring accountability, developing people, and providing

direction and resources that we need to be successful. A significant focus will be officer safety and organizational wellness. The demands of this profession affect each of us differently, but every

member deserves our care and support. We must recognize the fizzle physical and emotional demands of this profession as well as the impact as I indicated on our families. We must provide accessible

resources, sustained attention, and develop a culture where seeking support is encouraged and viewed as a sign of strength and not weakness. To the Burlington community, please know, and I really do

appreciate the comments uh that I received tonight from those members of the community that spoke during the public comment period. Please know that I'm equally committed to earning your trust through

building meaningful relationships and working collaboratively to address the public safety challenging challenges facing our city. My priority will also be to listen and to learn from you, to

understand your concerns, your expectations, and what your vision is of a safer Burlington. I've often said and and some of you have heard it in this room that anonymity is the enemy of positive

police community relations. People should know their police officers as individuals and not simply as the uniform that we wear. That means creating opportunities for meaningful interactions beyond

enforcement activities through community events, neighborhood engagement, and partnerships that bring officers and residents together. My organizational philosophy rests on the principles of

procedural justice, voice, neutrality, respect, and trustworthiness. People want to be heard, they deserve to be heard, treated fairly, with respect, and confidence their decisions are being made with

integrity. Those principles must be reflected in every interaction both internally and externally. My wish is to foster a department where community members feel comfortable approaching officers,

sharing concerns, and asking questions while working together to make Burlington safer. Ultimately, success isn't simply measured by calls for service or enforcement statistics. It's also measured by

whether people feel safe walking downtown, and we heard some of those comments this evening. Enjoying the waterfront, their neighborhoods, attending a school, operating a business, or simply going

about their daily lives. Ultimately, I want Burlingtonians to see a police department that is responsive, proactive, approachable, and accountable. And a community that feels safer because we are all

working together to co-produce public safety. Thank you so much for welcoming myself and my family to Burlington. >> Thank you for those comments, Chief. And on behalf of the council, we welcome your

family here to City Hall. So thank you. Um, Council Bergman, now that we've done things in the appropriate order, is there anything else you wanted to add? Or are you I just I'm going to go back to

you and Councilor Shacter to see is there anything else that you wanted to add to your comments now that we've heard from Chief Garasi? Okay, great. So now we'll get back in order here, and we'll turn

to Councilor Sanchez Parkinson and then Councilor Singh. >> Thank you. Um, good evening and welcome to you and your family. Thank you for joining us today. I want to first of all thank the search

committee and the community members who were invested for now months um, in the search for this position. Um, I want to thank um, first of all you Mr. Garasi for the long process and being engaged

throughout. It's really great to see you in person. I think I've only been able to connect with you virtually. Um, and I I think the the community for being engaged throughout the process. Um, in the

seven months or so that I've been serving as City Councilor, this is one of my most important votes. Um, I have really deeply engaged through the process and the information that's been shared with me

because I believe that um, the appointment of this position is very critical for the future of our community. Um, as someone who's also relatively new to uh, and to Burlington. I very much appreciate

your approach to listening and to learning through that process. And I also I'm I'll make myself available if you have any questions as you and your family settle into into the city. The role of

policing in our country, as we know and as your family probably knows very well, is very ingrained in how the inequalities they experience across our our communities, but particularly among

individuals racial minority, low income, sexual who have various sexual orientations, who have various migration status. And the way and the history of policing against those individuals it is just

the data shows that it's inequitable. For here in our own Burlington that shows up. Just data from this year has shown the rise of use of force against our black our community members. And we need a

leader who is not afraid to be able to look at that data, to acknowledge the data, and to address those inequalities. We need someone who will uphold our fair and impartial policing, our policies and

our and set expectations for the department and for future hires as well. I believe that for our community we deserve a public safety approach that invests not only at the end in the criminal justice

system, but also in in preventative investments in our youth in particular. Even with the limited resources that we have, even with the limited staffing that we have, we can't solely rely on immediate

enforcement. We need a chief that sees that bigger picture and is willing to partner with our community organizations and adopt a holistic approach to community safety. I will be supporting your

appointment because I believe that you will be able to lead our department and our community through that process. I believe that you'll be able to move um our department to explore what policing

looks like moving forward. What are you mentioned your favorite your favorite value of creativity, of innovation, of what does it look like to try and test new ways of community safety? Um I'm looking

forward to explore together what an infrastructure looks like both in staffing and resources and and capacity um that is both creative and collaborative both within the department, across the

departments and with our community. So thank you. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you Councilor. We'll turn to Councilor Singh now. >> Um thank you very much Council President. Uh thank you Mr. Grassi.

Thank you so much uh for your family support too. It's just great to see you all here um and standing behind them um behind him and um I just want to say that it's really important um and that's what

a lot of people here in Burlington value is our family support and the family that we've adopted while we've been here. I wanted to say a big thank you to the entire department uh Burlington Police

Department and again I I would be remiss if I didn't mention their families because sometimes I think we forget uh the strains of this job not only affects the people that do this job but how much it

affects the people around them. I really hope tonight is a step for more stability in your lives and your loved ones' lives. Um I also want to express a uh really big thank you to Interim Chief Burke.

On a personal level I'm going to miss you and and and on a professional level uh you've always responded to my questions and you've always been honest. Mr. Grassi, this city appreciates and is

grateful to those who are committed to its people and honest and straightforward. You you had said in one of the interviews that I got to sit in you said you know get to know me. Well don't worry.

This community is going to try to get to know you. Uh um but please get to know the community too and hope that happens as soon as possible. I want to address you know some things that have come from

constituents that have emailed me because I said on the hiring committee. And I wanted people to understand that you know we were instructed during the initial interview process not to do research

prior to us meeting the candidates. We were not provided names, just their CVs, relevant questions and answers to questions that were provided to the committee. So I wanted to people to know that I

adhered to those guidelines and I followed those guidelines. And it was to give an honest assessment based on our impressions of the candidates as we got to sit with them. I I do plan to throw my

support behind you tonight. But I want people to know that you know it's been a couple years since we've been talking about a police chief here in Burlington. And I'd be remiss to say you know if I

vote yes, in some ways it's a tacit acknowledgement of some of those criteria that we were put on the committee that that I'm in you know 100% in in agreement with that tacitly. And you know in some

ways looking back you know I would you know question some of those things especially about being able to talk to other committee members who are also on the interview process because I feel like some

of us have our own perceptions or hear an answer in a way that might not be the way other people hear it. And I think that's important for any candidate that's coming through. And I think that's

really important for the transparency that we have with each other because a lot of time I don't have all the answers. You know and sometimes it's really good to have other people to check in with.

You know and if I voted no tonight, I think people would think it's you know overly political. So I'm really um the timing doesn't feel as great you know great to me but I I want to give my support to

you especially to this department and I want this city to move forward uh because that's what this city needs. So I congratulate you. You have my full support and anything I can do to make your job

easier please reach out. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you Councilor Singh. There are other councilors that wish to be recognized. Councilor Grant. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Yep. >> Thank you

so much. Um appreciate you taking on this challenge. I think you're going to enjoy it. Um shout out to Farid wherever you are if he stayed um he welcomes you too. You'll get to know Farid. He does a

really beautiful job with the People's Kitchen. Their food is fantastic and they help uh feed uh some of the most marginalized people in our community. So you will see him in City Hall Park and other

places. Uh so I'm sure he said what he said with love. Um Farid and I have been involved over the last several years uh in addressing police accountability and oversight. Um our city had protests

because our city had incidents regretfully. I uh served on the interview committee. Um I respectfully disagree with my colleague. I think the way that we were asked to review um the CVs and then also

to provide our feedback was very important because [clears throat] the committee was very representative of all the different types of stakeholders in our community and I think um it was up to us to

give answers that were most important to the members of our community in order to give the best feedback possible overall to the city. I thank you for hanging in to what we've all described as a very

long process. Um, I appreciated your your answers. My background before Council was serving on the Police Commission and also on a special committee to review policing policies. Recently a friend of

mine sent me a video, a video in early two 2020, I believe, possibly late 2019, but early 2020 when I first started kind of putting myself out there and I gave public comment at the Police Commission

and it was the first time I described our police department as being in distress. We had already had um issues with turnover. Um, information regarding turnover numbers came from the president at that

time of the BPOA and there were other issues at bay. And over the years I've I've used that term distress. Uh, I was concerned about wellness. I was concerned about the lawsuits. Um, [clears throat] I

will say when I went in doing these interviews, I said I need to know that we have someone that has experience with distressed departments and going in and being able to understand what our officers

and professional staff were going through and the rest of the staff in the building. That was really paramount to me because without being able to establish that bond, especially someone coming from

the outside, um, I knew they couldn't be successful and we couldn't have that stability. And so my comments and my selection when I said I believed you needed to be pushed forward for the additional

interview with the mayor and additional meetings with stakeholders, that's cuz you hit all that. You hit all that and I appreciated certain things you said with your whole chest. That uh that you

understand that oversight and accountability is important, but you also understand that wellness is important. You understand all of these things that are important and um you understood balance,

which I think the community needs and I think our department needs. So um I am wholeheartedly supporting you. Thank you. Uh look forward to hanging out with you in the middle of the night, showing you

the nooks and crannies of this city that a lot of people don't talk about. Um I I think you're going to find this to be a great challenge. I and uh um shout out of course to Chief Burke who's been uh

so respectful and I I really thank you for that. Um I know he didn't always agree with me, but I always uh appreciated that I was principled, I think you told me one time, which was a nice way to say

that you didn't necessarily agree with something I had said at that time, but I know your presence has been very important um in helping to stabilize the department. So again, I don't think we can

ever thank you enough. Um and also to thank you in advance uh for helping our new chief. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Councilor Grant. Councilor McKnight. >> Thank you. So

unfortunately, I will not be supporting this confirmation. Um about a year and a half ago, I confirmed somebody onto a city committee who turned out to have a troubling background in terms of how he

treated women. And at that time, I didn't do enough to dig deeper and ask the right questions. Instead, I chose to go along with the flow, to move things along, and to be polite. And that was the

wrong choice, and I own that. And now I'm trying to do better. So this time, I delved deeper. I spoke with the members of the IICP hiring team, and frankly, it was one of the most difficult meetings

I've ever had as a city councilor. I learned that no one in Burlington, not the mayor, not the hiring committee, not the recruiting professionals, and certainly not this council has been able to

review the underlying details of the allegations of gender discrimination against Mr. Girassi. And to be clear, that is not their fault. They didn't do anything wrong. They were just following the

rules. Another thing I want to be clear about, I am in no way making a judgment on anything that happened. I cannot do that because I don't have the facts. No one here does. It could have been nothing

or it could have been something. Instead of details and facts, I heard about favorable impressions during the interviews and a very agreeable personality. I also heard about a toxic workplace and

disgruntled women. When I asked whether any men had made similar complaints, the answer was no. A sealed file is not the same thing as a clean record. We suggested that the mayor ask the candidate to

sign off on unsealing the records, but she refused. Earlier, someone at public comment said that they hoped we had fully vetted Mr. Girassi, and I wish that we could have, but that has absolutely not

happened. And this is what institutional sexism looks like. At every turn, another barrier prevents us from understanding what happened to the women involved. At every turn, the benefit of the doubt

flows towards the man whose conduct was in question. It is sadly a tale as old as time, and I am really, really tired of hearing that story. We were also told that there was an A list and a B list of

candidates. When I asked which list this candidate came from, I learned that there weren't even enough applicants to have a B list. And a shallow applicant pool is not a reason to lower our standards.

I am deeply disappointed. >> Sorry. Hold on one moment, Councilor Knight. Yes, Councilor Grant. >> Some of this information is not correct. >> Well, it's not uh properly stated point of order. If

anyone would like to further participate in the debate, they can. But Councilor Knight has the floor now. So Councilor Knight, you may continue. >> Thank you. >> Um >> I'm sorry. >> Question. >> Yes.

>> Will the mayor be able to respond to these comments >> Sure. >> to correct the record? >> If we'll provide other councilors and the mayor um an opportunity to respond and for others to engage in

the debate. Yes. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Knight, you may continue. >> To be clear, most of these comments are coming from a a meeting that the mayor was not a part of, but several other

councilors here were and uh hopefully they can uh confirm what I was told by the IAACP. Um I'm really disappointed that our first ever female mayor has brought forward a candidate with this history.

And I want to invite every councilor here to really imagine how you would be reacting and voting if a different mayor, perhaps the previous mayor or perhaps a future mayor, a male mayor from a

different party had brought this candidate forward. I have zero doubt that the conversation would have been very very different than the one we've had tonight. There would have been email action

alerts. There would have been passionate speeches. There would have been protests and media appearances outside of City Hall. As one of my colleagues just said, Burlington's police leadership has been

in flux and in limbo since 2019. That's the better part of a decade. I will not gamble with the stability of our department when we so desperately need to build a sturdy foundation of trust. And I

will not put the women who work in that department at risk. The absence of answers is not the same thing as the absence of a problem. And I think we owe Burlington better. Thank you. >> I have

Councilor New Blazer up next, Mayor, but I'd be happy to turn to you if you'd like the floor. >> Very much so, President Travers, please. >> You You may go ahead. >> Thank you very much. I'm not a

member of this body, so I can't call points of order directly, but I really call into question a councilors and questioning my integrity. Not only is the first female mayor, but as someone who has a

strong and very very public record going to a proud historical women's college, a proud feminist, and raised by two people who have proud feminist principles for which have instilled in me my own

leadership and my own values for which I have vetted every single department that I've brought to this council. So I I am frankly very disappointed that that's where the level of debate was taken

tonight on a candidate who is very qualified to lead the next the this Burlington Police Department. And it should not be personalized. It should not be personalized because again, the integrity that

is entrusted in the mayor in our city charter for is one for which I would hope my colleagues here around the council table would respect. We have spent hours and hours and hours and hours of vetting

this, vetting all the candidates who have come through. IACP is the international experts for recruiting chiefs of police throughout not only this entire state, but the country and internationally.

Gender discrimination claims should not be taken lightly. I have vetted this personally inside and out. I brought Chief Jarrassi back to the city of Burlington to go into the details of this

particular discrimination claim. There are no sealed records. The IACP looked at the personnel record. We communicated this to every city councilor. We did. We did communicate this to every city

councilor through the caucus leadership structure. >> of clarification. >> Sorry. Please. There's point of clarification is not a thing. So Mayor, you still have the floor. >> The floor. you very >>

much, President Traverse. We have communicated >> Um, point of information. Mayor, I apologize. Yes, Councilor >> The Mayor just stated something that was false from the >> but it just as we were

saying before, right? If folks have any concerns with respect to what any member of this body or the Mayor's office says, that's an appropriate topic for debate, not to necessarily interrupt a speaker

here. So, um so, Mayor, the the floor is still yours. >> Thank you, President Traverse. There are no sealed personnel records. IACP looked at the personnel records and there is no report in that file,

and we have reviewed this information with IACP in their full background check. But back to the point of the matter tonight, we are putting forward to forward to the City Council a very experienced

chief who has the values and the integrity that this department deserves, that this community deserves. I would not advance a a candidate who did not read the meet the level of standards to make sure

that we are building a strong and inclusive department. I simply would not. Full stop. I take this job so incredibly serious. I am seriously I am very proud again to be the first female Mayor, and I

take this this role so importantly to make sure that we're bringing in department heads who value building in a place of employment where people feel valued, they feel supported, and we are advancing

those who are underrepresented in city government still today. I really want to emphasize that IACP did a deep background check, 50-page document, one for which they do for every chief and for every

candidate they bring forward. Um, we have to rely on professionals here. The the the additional information received from the third party for which I shared at the press conference this morning

indicates um that there was no wrongdoing by any policy violation whatsoever. So, we have to trust the process, we have to trust the professionals, and please trust this Mayor that I take this job

very seriously for vetting the candidate we I'm bringing forward. So, thank you for letting me set the record straight. I think it's very important that we act within the facts and that we act

responsibly as the elected leaders of this community to really truly make a new chapter that's depoliticized as we move the Burlington police department forward. >> I will turn to Councilor Newby-Tzer

next and then Councilor Lippmann. >> Thank you, Council President. And um uh I just want to say welcome to the nominee. Um I'm definitely supportive and will be voting in favor. Um since we last

talked I had the opportunity to to speak with you a little bit. Um haven't been as involved in the process as some of my council colleagues. Um but got to know you a little bit and I just wanted to

say welcome to you, welcome to your family. I left the call and I uh I looked to my partner who uh we just since I last talked to you we just welcomed our our third kid. Um so I'm remote tonight. But

I looked over to my partner and I was like that is exactly like folks I grew up with. Uh and you know it it was really I I think you're going to be a really good fit in this community. So so welcome.

Um and I do just want to say it's a huge leap of faith I think for our community and and you sort of the nominee and other folks have said in their remarks for the department um certainly for our

community because this is and has been such a big part of our discussions as neighbors, uh community safety and and how we approach that and how we approach it effectively uh in a way that aligns with

our values. Um and I and I also just want to recognize it's a huge leap of faith to be moving into a city um and getting to know that community, taking on an incredible amount of responsibility. Um

and I'm really really confident based on everything I know. And certainly uh your background and your um work in other departments uh that you will be able to address some of these some of these

challenges as we create a uh move to the new chapter a new chapter rather of our department and how we really don't focus on the politics of community safety but focus on um um how we're going to make

and uh our community safer in the long term. Um you know, I I will just say I I just found those comments by a colleague really unfortunate. I think it's a really poor way to start off a professional

relationship quite frankly and so I just want to apologize on behalf of this body um for that. Um and yeah again I just I I really appreciate you taking the leap of faith of this community. There's a

lot of work ahead [laughter] um and certainly there's going to be robust discussions um but I again just wanted to welcome you. And I finally I just wanted to thank the administration um some of my

colleagues who participated in this process, folks you know, variety of folks from the city. Um I was really really impressed by this process and I think you know, when I was out running uh knocking

on doors the first time and then you know, got reelected the second time, one of the the core things that uh my ward over in ward one has always really valued uh is community engagement. And so when I

heard about this process and the fact that we had um 600 residents give really thoughtful and meaningful input into you know, in a city of 40,000 that's a substantial number of people. Um really sort

of reflect on the last number of years and some of the conversations we've had collectively um and help together build a vision of what uh community and public safety looks like and and what we need

out of a leader in our police department to achieve that vision. So really excited uh to welcome you, really excited that you're taking on this role. Um and then finally I just want to say thank you

so much um to Chief Burke. I I I think it's not a stretch to say that when you came on you were probably one of the most qualified if not the most qualified person to take on that interim role to

stabilize this department um and to put us in a place where uh the next chief can can build on those successes and and that probably well I know was a ton of work um a ton of pressure um and I thought

that I mean you really just exceeded expectations um and so I just wanted to to thank you and recognize that work. I think your approach is exactly the approach that many of us have been looking for

out of a police chief. Um and we're going to continue to refine but uh look forward to that work. Anyway those are the end of my comments. Thank you. >> Okay. >> I would I would just like yes to ask

the president to enforce >> I had I had not started it at 5 minutes. I think we were roughly at 5 minutes there so thank you. Uh Council Litwin Council Litwin we'll we'll turn to you now. >> Thank

you. These conversations are really never easy to have and so I appreciate the feelings that everyone is feeling on in this entire room. Um I a lot of my comments actually have to do with the process

which was brought up quite frequently um this evening and so it was in April of 2025 that chief former chief Murad who was not treated very well in the last meeting that he had um announced excuse me

left and um he announced his departure on November 4th to the mayor of 2024. The ICP started signing their agreements with the city in January of 2025 and the city took 4 and 1/2 months to decide and

execute the contract for that search. When I looked further at the contract this was supposed to be an 18 week process. There was supposed to be the job open for weeks seven through ten. Week 12 semi-

finalist panel interviews with stakeholder uh panels. And by the way, councilors at this table are not stakeholders if they are not at on the search committee. So I am not a stakeholder. We received

very little substantive updates. Um there were meetings that seemed quite secretive to me. We heard from councilor Singh that he was not allowed to do certain things and that included telling us

certain information um until relatively recently. There was no opportunity for us to meet any of the finalists, unlike prior uh processes that uh these councilors at this table enjoyed when Mayor

Weinberger was in office and councilors got to meet all the finalists. I met uh Mr. Giraci for the first time about a week ago in a one hour meeting with three other councilors. And in that meeting it

was stated that there was a file that was sealed and so I do need to correct the record because IECP said the file existed. There were three other councilors in that meeting who can attest to that and

that they are not even allowed to review that file once the case is considered close. So that was an incorrect statement by the administration. Mr. Giraci has moved jobs three or four times in a half

decade and the explanations that I heard in the same meeting that councilor Brown McNight is referencing were incredible to me. Um what I also want to point out is that it took this administration has

been in office for 952 days as of tonight. It took, depending on the dates you take from the contracts, between 77% and 93% of her entire time in office to bring us a candidate for police chief. And

so we are forced with one choice, 113 days from town meeting day. And the choices are are this. Bring forward no candidate at all and leave our police force in an even worse situation heading into an

election season or bring forward this candidate and hope for the best. And so I feel to my new north end neighbor and resident that spoke earlier tonight where she said that she hopes that she we have

conf confidence that we fully vetted him and that we have properly evaluated his experience and that he has a plan. I can't answer that question for you and I'm sorry. Um this is one of the most

consequential decisions we can make and there there was not a substantive community process from where I stood. Um I will lastly say I will get behind this chief immediately if he is appointed tonight

because we cannot afford to not come together collectively and collaboratively and despite my vote I remain cautiously optimistic and I hope to be proven wrong in voting no tonight. As the only member

of this council endorsed by one of our first responder unions and a member of the public safety committee, it's not lightly that I take this vote in opposition of the wishes of our police union,

particularly since I'm so concerned about how overworked they are due to the pervasive understaffing under this administration and for that I am sorry. And with Councilor McKnight, I see you, I hear

you, and I'm with you. Thank you. >> Are there any other councilors that have not been heard on this item yet that would wish to speak to it. I'll I'll turn back to I guess I'm largely looking at you

Councilor Berlowe or Councilor Carpenter or Broderick. Otherwise I'll go to a second round, okay? I think we'll try to keep second round comments limited if possible to a minute or so. But Councilor

Sanchez Parkinson, I saw your hand raised first if we could turn to you. >> Thank you. Councilor Litwin and Councilor McNight, I appreciate your perspectives. I really do. I think that this is one of

the most important decisions that we have to make and those are your perspectives and and your experiences. I do want to say a few things. I think that as someone who has quite extensive experience in

hiring processes, particularly around leadership positions, there are best practices of what that looks like. And to me that is part of my evaluation was also evaluating the hiring process. I don't

know if it's appropriate, but I would welcome if it is appropriate, Chief Berg and Director Lynn, if if that was to be if you had any remarks related to the best practices that were part of the

process. Some of the things that I that I learned is that there was a polygraph test that Chief Berg was a part of. And part of my as an elected official is building the relationships to have trust in

those individuals and those leaders within our our city. Similarly to the trust that I've gained from community leaders that were part of the interview process. I've spoken with a number of them. I

think that I would agree like we as councilors were not part of the entire process and therefore I took initiative to reach out to individuals who who participated in the process including department

leaders and community members. And because I've been able to build that trust with community leaders, um even though they were not able to disclose certain things, um I was able to get affirmation um

of their experience and their evaluation throughout the process. Um and like I shared to you in one of our um discussions is I trust I trusted the process and I believe the process um that was

conducted in the hiring uh process um did uphold to a quality that I um that I have not really seen in many other um hiring processes. So I just wanted to name that from the process perspective. Um >>

Councilor Sanchez Bargis, and I'm just I'm I'm mindful of time here and if we're going to do a second round just in in fairness to other councilors, if if you could just I don't know how much further

you have >> I'll leave it at that. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you, councilor. Um are there any other councilors that wish to be heard? Yep, Councilor Bergman. I think based on Councilor Sanchez

Bargis's comments, I think we'll try to keep it to two two minutes or so. Yeah, two minutes. >> over from before, but I I mean Well, I'm sorry to say welcome to to Burlington. Uh we uh we do politics

hard knuckled. Um but you're from New York, so uh you you got that. Um but I just got to say that what I hear I'm surprised because you it is undermining this it is further undermining the uh the

stability of the department. And if the vote was negative, it would throw this department into a tailspin which I I can't even conceive of. Um these processes take a long time. And we are in an

unprecedented time for the hiring and the hard the hard times to hire people, particularly police chiefs, but also police officers. To complain about the long time and the the the so-called few

numbers is at this point of time absurd. And I want to say that we have a record here that we can have confidence we will be able to move this department forward, we'll be able to move this community

forward, we will be able to do it right in with the values that we have in the city of Burlington if we appoint you tonight. And I I am confident of that. Is it a gazillion percent sure? There ain't

nothing in this world that's a hundred million gazillion percent sure. Let's be really clear about it. You know, lots of things can happen that will throw things into a tailspin in any event. So I

look at this and I go the opposition based on this record makes absolutely no sense. And to the extent to which I will bite my tongue in making political comments that will just further inflame

things, I will bite my tongue right now because I am right there. Thank you. >> Thank you, Councilor Bergman. Um, Councilor Carpenter, we haven't heard from you, but I see your hand raised. Please go

ahead. >> Thanks. Sorry I can't be joining you tonight. Um, I just want to give my welcome to the chief. Um, as a lifelong Burlingtonian, uh, I am looking forward to a period of stability with our

department which we desperately need. And also as someone who's done a lot of hiring over my years, um, I feel confident in the process. Processes are bumpy. You have a huge amount of disparity and

public input and people are not always satisfied if they don't feel like they've got enough input, but I feel like we had plenty of input and it's time for us um to give Chief Jurassi uh his chance. I

welcome that he loves the North country, which may sound trite, but you need somebody who wants to be in Burlington, Vermont um for the rest of their career, and uh he has stated that he does. So I

think we should welcome that and not not treat that lightly cuz that's hard to find a candidate. So my vote is yes, and I look forward to us moving forward and hopefully forward in um some kind of

unanimity and um joint welcomeness. So thank you. >> Thank you, Councilor Carpenter. Go to Councilor Braley. >> I wasn't going to speak. Um I spoke this morning at the press event, but I just want to

reiterate my uh my thank my thankfulness for you to step up to our community in this sort of at this critical time. So I appreciate that. Thank you. >> Thank you, Councilor Braley. Uh we will be back

into a second round now. Is there any other councilors that wishes to be recognized again? Yes, Councilor Grant. >> Thank you. Um so you all were able to have the same communications with our caucus

leaders, period. Uh we were all copied on certain emails, period. Uh this candidate has been vetted. Uh there were allegations made. We've been advised they were unfounded. There's been an extensive

background check. And not only just a check that was done by IACP, the check there's a background check required by the state of Vermont, which includes a lie detector test. Now part of this

candidate's background uh when I go back to distressed departments and and correct me if I'm wrong, I believe you went into a department that had previously had eight chiefs in eight years. Is that

correct? >> That's correct. >> In the New York State there is something called accreditation. This department had lost its accreditation. It didn't have it. And you brought that back to that

department. Is that correct? >> In the City of Albany we were re-accredited through the state and then attained international accreditation through CALEA. So we did not attain accreditation in the

City of Newburgh. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> But anytime you go into a department as distressed as Newburgh and other distressed departments fact of the matter is you're going to piss

somebody off. That's just a fact. So we have to have our eyes open to that and we have to recognize what went into this process. Now I was part of the last search. There were no finalists in the last

search that were interviewed because the former mayor did not give anybody the opportunity. At the last meeting of that particular search party uh search committee it was requested that the city find

someone to assist us. And in this case this mayor chose IACP. And it was deemed at that time in the previous search that we needed assistance because of the changing labor market. >> Council Grant

well >> I I'm almost there. >> Okay. >> And so the last committee meeting said we want to continue. We want to get help and we want to increase the number of applications that were submitted. So there

wasn't anybody that was finalized. The previous mayor just stopped the search and hired the former interim chief. There's a lot of history behind there that I can't go into by now but I some of the

things being said to be rather insincere considering the problems that we had. Um, I would also like to ask would you like to respond to any of the comments? >> Point of order. This has gone well

beyond the time that other councilors >> I understand. I mean, I I I will if any other councilor wants to go to We We basically went to 2 minutes and 30 seconds there. If another councilor wants to go

that long, I will permit it. Councilor Grant, um, your time on the second round has expired, but you've asked Chief Drossi if he would like to respond to anything. Certainly, you do not have to,

Chief, but if you would like to, we can give you that opportunity now or or before we go to a vote. I I defer to you. >> That's okay. Thank you. >> Okay. Would you like Sorry. It's okay. You'd like to

go now or later? >> I guess I'll take the opportunity to others say that, you know, I just appreciate if people evaluate me based on my leadership record, the demonstrated success that we've achieved,

and I say we because some of the things that the mayor mentioned early on in her comments, yes, I served in leadership positions and as an agency we achieved those with gun violence reduction, trust

building, accreditation, but that was a team effort. So I was in those positions, but it was really leading a team to achieve those those outcomes. So I would just encourage people to really, you

know, evaluate me based on my my record and then moving forward, evaluate me based on the relationships that we build beginning tomorrow and the actions that we take together and the successes that we

achieve. So thank you. >> Thank you. Yes, Councilor Litwin. >> Thank you. Um, and I appreciate that. Um, back to process a little bit because it got brought back up again. Chief Murad gave 154 days

notice to this city that he was leaving, which is very generous considering. Um, and it took then 235 days to go from that announcement to executing a search agreement. Today marks actually 500 days

since our mayor signed that contract. 650 days if you go to the date that things were first being signed. This was not I I get that I appreciate my colleague Councilor Carpenter's comment about long

processes and bumpy roads and you know on various things have been said about unprecedented times, but this just to me did not seem like a priority until suddenly it was because Chief Burke was

getting ready to leave and made clear it's you know time is ticking. Um and I just really feel the need to reiterate that there's you know a reasonable amount of time for a search and this was not it.

And uh not involving when I hear the word stakeholders I think I'm a stakeholder because I have to cast and be confident casting a vote on behalf of over 6,000 people in my ward. And several of whom

have reached out to me from all political parties and backgrounds with concern including some who have urged me to vote no tonight. So I have to think about what they're feeling and saying as well.

And it wasn't just women who reached out to me either. Um so I just want to be clear the biggest problem I have was with what I saw as a failure of process that led us to tonight where I agree that a

no vote had it been uh you know the the majority vote would have sent the department into a very bad position. That's the whole reason I'm focused on this failed process. And so >> say please >> wrap

up, Councilor Lewer. >> I will just leave it there. I've said enough. Thank you. >> Uh Councilor McKnight. >> Thank you. I just want to highlight the fact that Councilor Bergman characterized my

bringing up a key piece of the candidate's work history as bare knuckling. And to every woman who has ever been scared to bring up issues of unfairness, discrimination, or worse in the workplace, yes,

it is scary to do that. Yes, you will get criticized by your colleagues. Do it anyway. Thank you. >> Thank you. I think yes, Mayor. Happy to turn back. I think is there any other councilor that wishes

to speak on this again? So I think Mayor will turn to you and then try to turn to >> Point of order. >> Yes, Councilor Lewer. >> like to call the question. >> I think I I don't I don't Well, that's

that's not a point of order. Um and I think calling the question >> move to call the question. >> I think that requires a second, City Attorney Brown, if I'm not mistaken. Is there a second to call

the question? Okay. If there there is a second to call the question from Councilor McKnight, um City Attorney Brown, I apologize for putting you on the spot here on this one. Uh is that a debatable

motion to call the question? Okay, but it does require a a vote, a majority vote to call the question. >> Needs two thirds. >> Okay. Um so there is a motion on the floor to call the question requiring

a 2/3 vote. Um. Sorry. >> I was just asking the mayor if you wanted to speak. She said yes. >> Understood. So, I will say to folks that are tuning in, we're getting a crash course in Robert's Rules

and open meeting law here a little bit, which is that at the moment under Vermont's open meeting law, if there is a divided vote on any question and councilors who are online that we must call the

roll on that vote. And so the motion is on to call the question, which requires a 2/3 majority and expecting a divided vote, I will ask that the clerk please call the roll. >> Councilor Barlow. >> No.

>> Councilor Bergman. >> No. >> Councilor Brodrick. >> No. >> I'm sorry. >> No. He said no. >> No. >> Councilor Carpenter. >> No. >> Councilor Grant. >> No. >> Councilor Litwin. >> Yes. >> Councilor

McKnight. >> Yes. >> Councilor Newbreezer. >> No. >> Councilor Sanchez Parkinson. >> No. >> Councilor Shacter. >> No. >> Councilor Singh. >> No. >> City Councilor President Travers. >> No. >> Two yes,

10 noes. >> With two yeses, 10 noes and requiring 2/3 the motion fails and so we are back on the floor and Mara, I think we'll turn to you and then try to go to a vote. >> Thank you, President

Travers. I appreciate the opportunity to speak because I really want to turn to Chief Jossi, his family in particular, and the BPD staff who are here and the BPD command staff who are here and offer

my deep apology. Deep apology not only for myself getting a little bit heated and disappointed in the debate tonight and where things started to focus, but as a need for us to reset as a community to

really recenter and refocus on what's incredibly important right now. What incredibly important is turning into a new chapter of the BPD, building on the strong and incredibly brave work that you all

do every single day for this city and making sure that you know the elected leaders here are fully behind you and that we're fully behind this next chief, Chief Anthony Girassi. See, I messed it up

even in the last moment. Um you all deserve stability, you deserve a steadiness among elected leaders here and I just want to bring us back to again deep appreciation because an entire family serves

behind a chief and you have bring 25 years of experience that should be respected here tonight and I truly respect that. I know many of my colleagues on both sides of the of the aisle here do respect

your experience you're bringing to this department and I have great trust that you're going to lead us forward as a Burlington that really everyone deserves and so thank you for hanging in there

tonight and thank you again for everyone's service here tonight. >> Thank you, Mayor. I think um just very briefly before turning to a vote, the council president typically does not participate in

debate and I will not weigh in one way or another except with my vote, but uh I I will just say this briefly, chief, which is as you mentioned in our past conversation, Burlington is a community of

choice. It's not a universal truth. Obviously, not everyone in this community is able to choose where they live, but um you know I've lived in a number of places and more in Burlington than in any

place I've ever lived. Uh this is a chosen community. Uh and with that comes a lot of care for this community and a lot of investment in this community. Burlington is a a lean-in town um and as you

see on a number of boards and commissions here and on the council, you don't have to look too far for folks to raise their hand to want to participate in this community and because of that people care

very deeply about the city's future. They care very deeply about this appointment which is receiving a lot of attention because it is one of the most important appointments that a a mayor will make

here. Um I do believe that the comments that you've heard here this evening are reflective of the community that we represent. As a community that carries deeply, anyone coming into this role is going

to face some level of skepticism, hopefully a great deal of support. I want to note that these are pointed questions that you received from members of this body as you went through this process, and I

want to note that as you said before, that that you have chosen Burlington, that your family's chosen Burlington. I I I respect that this is an opportunity that you could have walked away from at any

point in time, yet you are here this evening and want to extend my thanks and gratitude to you and your family for that. And we'll look forward. I think I can speak on behalf of even those here who

may be representing comments that are skeptical of this appointment, that if you are confirmed this evening, that this council stands behind you and and this department and wanting to support it

moving forward. So with that, I will ask that the clerk please call the roll on this vote. >> Councilor Barlow. >> Yes. >> Councilor Bergman. >> Yes. >> Councilor Brodrick. >> Yes. >> Councilor

Carpenter. >> Yes. >> Councilor Grant. >> Yes. >> Councilor Litwin. >> No. >> Councilor McKnight. >> No. >> Councilor Neubauer. >> Yes. >> Councilor Sanchez Parkinson. >> Yes. >> Councilor Shachter.

>> Yes. >> Councilor Singh. >> Yes. >> City Councilor President Traver. >> Yes. >> 10 eyes, two nays. >> Before calling the vote, Mayor, my understanding is that before we recess as a council that you

would like the floor back, I'd be Should I should I call the vote now or should I give you the floor? >> Let me just take the floor for one quick second because if if you don't mind before you call

it. >> If there's no objection, then sure. >> Okay. >> Please go ahead. >> It's a good moment. It's a good moment. So as I just spoke a little bit earlier, I just want to acknowledge the the that

families serve alongside every police officer and I wanted to take a moment here to share that this afternoon uh I I went when I was getting food I wanted to make sure that we honor Jackie because

Jackie is a critical component of this whole equation of making sure that Chief Jurasic is supported and that his family is supported as he enters this very difficult job and the sweet story I want to

share is that Vermont Home and Garden which is right off of Church Street here is often where I go to purchase flowers and they were closed to set up their holiday display and so since it's Burlington

I just waved at the owner inside and the owners are Janet and Jack Quaili and I waved at them and she let me inside and I just explained what my mission was that I wanted to get some flowers for

Jackie to really establish a real thank you on behalf of the entire city for what is ahead and she said of course come back in 10 minutes and I will have something for you and so these flowers tonight

are on behalf of the entire council, the mayor's office, the administration and the city of Burlington to really just acknowledge that families are are part of this service and we appreciate you very

much and I'd like to give them to you. Thank you for giving me the moment to be able to do this in front of this entire community. Thank you. >> Thank you mayor. So with 10 yeses and two no's the

appointment carries so congratulations chief. [applause] [applause] [applause] So at the request of the mayor absent objection the council will stand in recess for 10 minutes. Thank you. >> Yes thank

you. Thank you so Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Yeah, no, no. It's Thank you. I'm very nervous. Thank you. Oh, hello. >> Hey, congratulations >> Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Hi, thank you

so much. Hi, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it being here. >> [laughter] >> video Which that would still be pretty good. >> Back at it. >> Oh, no, no. I'm just >> Oh god, no. >> How are you? Very

good. >> So we're always talking about structural stuff too, because it keeps everything short up and safe. My name's Nice to meet you. >> Nice to meet you too. >> What's what's your Are you Are you

just concerned with Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Got you. So it's I have done a variety of things. Right now I'm technically freelance. I'm looking to get on with the city kind of the nature of politics in the

states. I have a I have two different kind of degrees. But then also I'm a student of history. So the tech stuff has played out. Kind of I'm kind of done with doing technical I want to do more civic

That's been How to make change, how to make positive contributions as a volunteer, professional That's That's what I'm So so you're >> It was like actually like being over there. >> This >> 1 >> spk

>> I >> All right, we're going to ask that the council please return to order. We'll give folks an opportunity to take their seats. Again, I note that we're still joined by councilors Carpenter,

Broderick, and Newbiser online. And I believe everyone else is back here at their seats. So, Steve, are we back live on Town Meeting TV? All right, very good. So, thank you to the public their

patience there. We'll now resume our agenda on item 6.2, an indoor entertainment permit application for the Vermont Comedy Arts at 118 Main Street. Uh Councilor Grant, can I ask you for a motion on

this item? >> Let me just get back to where we were. >> Item 6.2 and as you are here as the uh member of the license committee, I'll be likely turning to you for a motion on item 6.2, 3 and 4. >> I've

got my civic clerk page back up if it will load. Loading. Okay, great. Thank you. Move to adopt this license as stated in civic clerk with all do What's the word that I want? Conditions to be met. >>

All right. >> Standard. >> Standard conditions. Thank you. >> Right. So, we have a motion on item 6.2 to approve the indoor entertainment permit application. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank

you, Councilor Singh. Any discussion? All in favor then please say aye. >> Aye. >> Aye. >> Aye. >> Any opposed? That carries unanimously. Item 6.3 is a tobacco substitute endorsement application for

the Henry Street Deli Mart at 11 Henry Street. Councilor Grant, could I ask you for a motion on this item? >> Move to approve the license with all standard conditions. >> Thank you. Is there a second?

>> Second. >> Thank you, Councilor Shacter. Any discussion on this item? Yes, Councilor Lipman. >> Uh yes, just briefly. Um I have grown increasingly concerned over the years of us approving these

licenses to um expand vape sales around the city, um which we know to be a problem in the schools. We know to be an environmental problem. Uh we know to be a huge litter issue. And I just think we're

making money off of uh something that we know to be unhealthy for the community. So I will be voting no. And I just wanted to share that. >> Thank you, Councilor Litwin. Is there any other Councilor

that wishes to be recognized on this item? All right. Seeing none, then we'll ask that the clerk please call the roll on this item. >> Councilor Barlow. >> Yes. >> Councilor Bergan. >> Yeah. >>

Councilor Brodrick. >> Yes. >> Councilor Carpenter. >> Yes. >> Councilor Grant. >> Yes. >> Councilor Litwin. >> No. >> Councilor McKnight. >> No. >> Councilor Newbeezer. >> Yes. >> Councilor Sanchez-

Parkinson. >> Yes. >> Councilor Shachter. >> Yes. >> Councilor Singh. >> Yes. >> City Councilor President Travers. >> Yes. >> 10 eyes, two nays. >> 10 eyes and two nays. The motion carries. We turn

now to item 6.4, tobacco license application and tobacco substitute endorsement application for Wolf's Convenience Store LLC, 457 St. Paul Street. Councilor Grant, could I ask for a motion on this

item? >> Move to approve with all standard conditions. >> Thank you. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Councilor Singh. If there is no debate on the item, I'll ask that the clerk please call

the roll on this item as well. >> Councilor Barlow. >> Yes. >> Councilor Bergman. >> Yes. >> Councilor Brodrick. >> Yes. >> Councilor Carpenter. >> Yes. >> Councilor Grant. >> Yes. >> Councilor

Litwin. >> No. >> Councilor Knight. >> No. >> Councilor Newbeezer. >> Yes. >> Councilor Sanchez Parkinson. >> Yes. >> Councilor Shachter. >> Yes. >> Councilor Singh. >> Yes. >> City Councilor

President Travers. >> Yes. >> 10 eyes, two nays. >> 10 eyes and two nays, that motion carries as well. That brings us now to item 6.5, the Church Street Marketplace Commission appointment for the term

expiring on June 30th, 2029. >> I'm I'm sorry, point of information. Um Wolf's Convenience Store had two licenses. Do we need to do a vote on each license? >> No. Uh I believe it was a joint motion

for both the license application and tobacco substitute endorsement application. That was the >> you. >> So just as the maker of the motion, Councilor Grant, to confirm it was your intention to

approve of both. >> We can say yet. >> Okay. Thank you. And Councilor Singh, I believe you seconded it. Was that your understanding in seconding the motion? Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Grant, for

that question. Uh that brings us to item 6.5, the Church Street Marketplace Commission appointment for the term expiring on June 30th of 2029. Uh this is a position on the Church Street Marketplace

Commission for an individual representing a Church Street business, and I will open the floor to nominations for that seat. Is there a nomination? Yes, Councilor Singh. >> Uh I'll nominate Joanna

Grossman. >> Thank you. I believe Councilor Singh nominated Joanna Grossman. >> Joanna Grossman, sorry. >> [cough and clears throat] >> Is there any other nomination for this position? Is there any

other nomination for this position? All right, we will close the nominations then. Oh, Councilor Grant, sorry. >> I'd like to nominate Margot Anne Cunningham. >> Okay. Um, Margot Cunningham, is that

right? Okay. >> Yes. >> All right. Are there any other nominations? Any other nominations? All right. Now we will close the nominations. Um, I believe we are joined here in City Hall by Joanna

Grossman. Um, is Margot Cunningham, Margot Anne Cunningham here in City Hall or online? If you're online and would like to address the council, please use the raise hand function. Uh, Joanna, would

you like the opportunity to address the council on your application? Sorry, sorry. If you could the mic's off, so if you could turn the mic on. >> Did I do it? Yeah. >> did it. >> Hey folks, my name

is Joanna Grossman. I work for Phoenix Books. I've gotten to meet a lot of you, but not all of you over the years. And uh yeah, Phoenix is really excited to participate and help support the city. I'm

happy to answer any questions. >> Thank you. Uh, any questions or comments from members of the council? All right. Uh, seeing none, um we will then turn to a vote. We take the votes in the order of

how the nominations were made. Um, this is the regular City Council, not the City Council with mayor presiding. And so uh this vote, I believe, requires seven yeses. As a reminder to councilors, um

excuse me well, it's a City Attorney Brown, could you confirm here? It requires a majority of those voting. Yes, okay. Um, so as a reminder to councilors, when you when the nomination comes to you,

you have the option for yes, no, or an abstention. Um, with that we will uh ask that the clerk please call the roll on the nomination of Joanna Grossman. >> Councilor Barlow. >> Yes. >> Councilor

Bergman. >> Abstain. >> Councilor Broderick. >> Abstain. >> Councilor Carpenter. >> Yes. >> Councilor Grant. >> Abstain. >> Councilor Litwin. >> Yes. >> Councilor McNight. >> Yes. >> Councilor

Newbiezer. >> Abstain. >> Councilor Sanchez Parkinson. >> Abstain. >> Councilor Shacter. >> Yes. >> Councilor Singh. >> Yes. >> City Council President Travers. >> Yes. >> Seven eyes, five abstentions.

>> Okay, so with the nomination of Joanna Grossman receiving a majority of the council, uh you are approved. So congratulations, Joanna. >> Thank you all so much. >> Thank you. We now turn to item 6.6

the Newski Valley Park District appointment for a term expiring on June 30th of 2027 and we will open the floor to nominations for this position. Are there any nominations? Yes, Councilor Barlow. >>

Uh I would nominate Robert Norman O'Brien. >> Thank you, Robert O'Brien. Are there any other nominations? Yes, Councilor Sanchez Parkinson. >> I'll nominate Bruce Wilson. >> Thank you. Bruce Wilson is

nominated. Are there any other nominations for this position? Any other nominations? All right, so we will close the nominations now. Is Robert O'Brien here? Or is Robert online? Robert, if you are

online and wish to uh address the council, I do not see anyone by that name. If you're under a different name, if you could use the raise hand function. All right. Bruce, I know that you spoke during

public comment, but would you like to address the council again on your nomination? Only for a Sorry. Yeah. Okay, only if you win. All right. Usually we do it before, but uh >> Anyways, um so if I

win, I think I guess if I win, um with uh Winooski Valley Park District uh as being one of the trustees, it'd be an honor to work again with Nick Warner, um who I worked with before and when he was at

Cedo and I was at um Outright for Community Justice Center. And in in all the trustees, um I have a lot of experience by working with parks and um and you know, Clean Water and Climate Council um

through the years. And I think I might have be able to um have some ideas of how maybe um I can help. Um and I know I will learn a lot because I when I was working on Clean Water, I thought Clean

Water was a a a glass of clean water. I didn't know I didn't I didn't know you know, clean water consists of so many things. Um and I want to my main objective one of my main objectives is to get

youth involved with Winooski Valley Park District. So that's it. >> Thank you, Bruce. Are there any questions or comments from members of the council? All right. Uh we will then go to a vote. We'll

ask that the clerk please call the roll on the nomination of Robert O'Brien. >> Councilor Barlow? >> Yes. >> Councilor Bergman? >> Abstain. >> Councilor Broderick? >> Abstain. >> Councilor Carpenter?

>> Yes. >> Councilor Grant. >> Abstain. >> Councilor Litwin. >> Yes. >> Councilor McNight. >> I'm sorry. I lost track of who we are voting for in this round. >> Robert O'Brien. >> O'Brien. >> thank

you. Abstain. >> Councilor Newbeezer. >> Abstain. >> Councilor Sanchez Parkinson. >> Abstain. >> Councilor Shachter. >> Abstain. >> Councilor Singh. >> Yes. >> City Council President Traverse. >>

Abstain. >> Four eyes and eight abstentions. >> So with four yeses and eight abstentions, Robert O'Brien has not received the seven votes necessary to be approved. So I'll ask that the clerk please

call the roll then on the nomination of Bruce Wilson. >> Councilor Barlow. >> Abstain. >> Councilor Bergman. >> Yes. >> Councilor Brodrick. >> Yes. >> Councilor Carpenter. >> Abstain. >> Councilor

Grant. >> Yes. >> Councilor Litwin. >> Abstain. >> Councilor McNight. >> Yes. >> Councilor Newbeezer. >> Yes. >> Councilor Sanchez Parkinson. >> Yes. >> Councilor Shachter. >> Yes. >> Councilor Singh.

>> Abstain. >> City Council President Traverse. >> Yes. >> Eight eyes, four abstentions. >> Eight yeses and four abstentions. Bruce Wilson has received the necessary number of votes to be confirmed.

So, congratulations, Bruce. Thank you. >> I promise I'll do a good job. >> All right. [laughter] You did get the last word. All right. Um so that brings us now to item 6.7. I will note for councilors

that I am anticipating on item 6.8 a motion to postpone that item until our meeting on November 23rd. Um I'll be turning to Councilor Litwin on that one. But first we have item 6.7 is an ordinance

regarding recycling collection requirements under Burlington Code of Ordinances Chapter 14. Uh we do have DPW Director Chapin Spencer and Division Director Lee Perry here. But before turning the floor

to you, Councilor Bergman as chair of the Ordinance Committee, could I ask you for a motion on the item? >> I move to waive the reading which is a first reading and refer the to the Ordinance

Committee um and turn it over to staff and only if there is a gap will I need to have the floor back. >> Thank you, Councilor Bergman. So, Director Chapin Director Chapin Director Spencer and Division

Director Perry, thank you for being here. >> Great. >> Thank you so much. Um what you have in front of you this evening is a uh relatively modest ordinance change to help continue with the

sustainability of the city's municipal recycling program. We've come in front of you a number of times with uh this topic. Um we have worked extensively with the TUKE, the Transportation Energy and

Utilities Committee on this proposed ordinance change. Upon your approval tonight we'll head over to the Ordinance Committee to formally review it. And to give you an overview, Division Director Lee

Perry will explain. >> Sorry, just one moment, Division Director Perry. We do need a second on Councilor Bergman's motion. So, thank you. Seconded by Councilor McNight. Um so thank you. And Division

Director Perry, now that that's out of the way we'll turn back to you. Thank you. >> you. So yeah, DPW is here to ask council to approve ordinance change to require all Burlington residents with

curbside total recycling to use the city's consolidated service. Um, legal authority this the city charter as mentioned in chapter 14 of the city ordinance give us clear authority to regulate solid

waste and recycling collection. The problem is over the past two years DPW has lost around 900 residential units from the recycling program as owners have opted to use private haulers or self-haul

themselves. Um, this was a gradual process. DPW annually budgets for the recycling program based off of the average number of RDU's reported by haulers over the previous fiscal year. Um, that's what

supports revenues for the entire recycling program. And >> Want to explain what an RDU is? >> Residential dwelling unit, I'm sorry. [clears throat] Um, lost my train of thought there. So yes,

annually, you know, over the course of a budget season you have some of these larger properties uh such as North Gate with over 300 residential dwelling units drop out of the recycling program and

paying the solid waste generation tax which at 300,000 or 300 residential units equates to about $43,000 annually that is not being contributed to the the solid waste generation tax and the recycling

budget. And it's created around $130,000 annual hole in the recycling budget revenues which as I said funds the entire budget including salaries, utilities, uh the upcoming recycling contract that

starts January 1st. Uh, the solution to this problem and budget stability is this policy change will secure an equitable funding stream via the solid waste generation tax which is currently set at

$12.01 per month per residential dwelling unit. And it's collected by the haulers who provide a trash service to city residents who uh receive city recycling service by toter and then those funds are

remitted to the city uh for their budget. Another benefit of this policy will create safer and environmentally friendly streets, consolidating routes, minimizes truck traffic and reduces neighborhood

carbon emissions. And as Chapin mentioned, the Transportation, Energy and Utilities Committee reviewed the recycling program status at their September and October 2026 meetings. Uh some of the

committee feedback and concerns were around enforcement. How do we get haulers and residents to um commit to this policy? DPW licenses all the private haulers in the city of Burlington who collect

trash. And if a hauler fails to comply with this policy change, uh the city has the power to revoke their hauler's license. Another concern was the dumpster loophole. Policy applies strictly to

toters. What would prevent a larger property such as North Gate to um go with uh dumpster recycling service? Um this policy is the least invasive step to stabilize the budget and meet the

environmental and community benefits. While there's not a current policy in place for um dumpster, uh to prevent this, the city could initiate alternative policies to address a potential scenario in

the future if it if it does come up. And as I mentioned, North Gate, one of the larger impacted properties, there are others, uh CHT, properties like that that are most impacted. And they prefer

private haulers because private haulers may offer additional services beyond just collecting the toter. They will pick up material that is outside of the toter, where the city of Burlington does not.

Um, long-term view, this will handle the immediate budget impacts and DPW will monitor the number of RDUs paying into the solid waste generation tax system and getting served through city consolidated

recycling collection program. If any shorter-term steps are needed to achieve the city's goals, DPW staff would work to advance additional policy recommendations. And in the long term, the city

council approved a comprehensive study for consolidated collection of all waste streams, trash, compost, and recycling, and is still on track to launch in early FY 28. Um, at the transportation and

energy utilities committee committee meeting, uh, they favorably reviewed this draft on October 27th and they made a recommendation to move the ordinance change to first reading and referral to the

ordinance committee. And as I mentioned earlier, [clears throat] we have, um, reached out to a lot of these larger properties, the three big properties in in the city of Burlington, uh, via phone. And

I also sent them an informational letter explaining the policy and the changes that are going to go on, and they've received that. And I've also sent that to all the private haulers that are licensed

with the city of Burlington and asked them them to forward that information to any of their customers that may be affected by this policy change. And those were sent out last week. Um, available? Any

questions? >> Great. Thank you for the presentation. Uh, council Barlo. >> Um, thank you and and I just want to, uh, ask you, um, to explain how recycling is paid for because this was this is

confusing to people and people reached out to me. Um, and I know I know we've discussed it at length and took, but if you could go over and oh how it's paid for and then where this $130,000 how this

$130,000 shortfall came to be. If that that would be helpful, I think. >> Sure. So as I mentioned, haulers are required to report monthly every residential unit they pick up in the city. So we have

five for trash. Um so we take those total numbers of reported RG RDU throughout throughout the fiscal year and create a average number and the $12.01 per residential unit is multiplied by the entire

amount of residential RDU that are reported by the haulers to come up with the recycling budget. So that those RDU multiplied by the 1201 is what entirely funds the recycling budget. So that that is

our revenues that support all the expenses. So >> And just if I may just cuz I think um the important part is that anybody who's got private trash service through a hauler is paying $12 on their trash

bill to fund city recycling. >> Fund city recycling and they are receiving city recycling collection services as well. >> Yeah. And and so anybody who decided that um like like you're saying these

larger properties that they decided that um they weren't going to use um like I mean this is the thing that's confusing to people. If they're not using the if they're using the private hauler, but

they're also using a dumpster service for the recycling, correct? And so then they're no longer they're no longer in our recycling stream cuz they're not doing >> Correct. >> presidential pickup. >>

Yes. >> Thank you, Councilor Barlo. Councilor Singh and then Shacter and And Carpenter. >> Yes. So my question >> is on those residents, you know, and I have a fair bit that have written me about

this, that haul their own recycling to CSWD. They're charged X amount when they go to CSWD to to bring it into their recycling stream, right? Is um and none of that is remitted. They don't You know,

you go up and you're like, hey, I'm a Burlington resident. None of that is remitted back to the city or it just stays with CSWD. I'm trying to understand that mechanics. >> For folks who do uh go to

the Burlington Drop-Off Center, CSWD is keeping track of uh the weight and uh or the volume of the trash and then using a calculation to assess that uh resident uh a kind of pro rata share of the

solid waste generation tax. So, it is not a perfect system in that if a Burlington resident goes to outside of Burlington Drop-Off Center, they are not getting assessed. Uh but if they do go to

Burlington, they are. We are negotiating with CSWD about updating their methodology for how it's assessed. Uh but so to your question in Councilor Barlow's, the lion's share of the budget for

recycling comes through the solid waste generation tax that homeowners pay through their trash bill. Some homeowners who self-haul and go to the Burlington Drop-Off Center also contribute to the solid

waste generation tax each time they go to the Drop-Off Center. >> But if they And when they cross city lines to other places, they are not paying that generation tax, correct? >> That's That is

correct. And you know, this program uh is uh is good. It's not perfect. And uh you know, I think we can look at once we have this long-term planning exercise on uh collection of all of our waste

streams, we can look at who funds and how for that more comprehensive of >> Okay. And just the last >> question on logistics, like if a uh a big complex uses their own dumpster recycling, they haul it

outside of Burlington, they're not going to be assessed that solid waste >> That is correct. It's not getting picked up by the city program and they're not assessed. >> Okay. Just wanted to be sure.

>> Yeah. >> Councilor Schacker. >> Thank you. I just have a very fast question, which is that this proposed ordinance change is not about those who self-haul their trash. This is about folks who would

be provided city recycling services, especially those large-scale developments that are not using their city-provided recycling services. >> Correct. >> for folks who are concerned, I had the same

question. This is not about like this is not going to impact folks who self-haul trash on an individual household basis. >> No. That is correct. There are people who have the right to self-haul and

continue to choose to do so. >> Thank you, Councilor Carpenter. >> Hi. I I need to wrap my head around how this works for large apartment buildings. But what I'm hearing is they some of them are um

having private haulers take their recycling in a dumpster. Is that accurate? >> Dumpster or a toter. >> Um and we can dig this in ordinance, but I just think we're going to have to dig in a little

more. For instance, um is managing 335 toters at a property like a North Gate, does that work physically? And for instance, it you know, 70 toters might not work at a Cambrian Rise or a Juniper House.

So there's some physical limitations to to how this might exercise out with a large apartment building. And I think that we've to kind of figure that out. Um, you know, not every apartment building

can go to Toters. And then if not every apartment building goes to Toters, do they all pay still $12 a piece um for the address? So I don't know if you've looked at that at all or not. >> Yes, uh

Councilor Carpenter, the the beauty of how this is proposed and how it currently operates is that if a large residential property is best served by a dumpster, they get the choice. They can have a

dumpster and they don't pay the city tax. If Toters are the best solution for that property and they decide it's the best solution, then they get Toter service. What we're saying here is if you get

Toter service, it has to be through the city and then you have to be assessed the tax. So property owners ultimately get the choice on whether they want dumpster or Toter. If they choose Toter, it's

through the city under our proposal here. >> Okay, thanks. >> Yeah. >> Councilor Bergman. >> Uh thank you. So I I think that what this does is it it closes a loophole uh but only one loophole. It

closes the two the Toter loophole. And uh I would ask and I'll ask the city attorney's office but also DPW to make sure that we include instead of as written in the ordinance when it comes to the

ordinance committee, the actual tax which is in section 14-14. I think that not not putting that in here makes it more confusing because and people don't be they can't match what um this requirement

is with the tax. So what you're doing here is you're saying okay, if you're receiving it, you're going to be required to uh you're receiving curbside Toter service, then you're going to be required to

use the consolidated collection service that is then subject to the tax under the tax provisions, and we'll look to just to make sure that that that this connection is right, you know, just so that

we're we're clear. So, by naming toters in this, we are leaving out all of the questions related to how you if you don't get your if you get trash out of your you get your your your recycling

collected out of your dumpsters or you're going to self-haul them. That's a whole different thing, and part of this is working up to the the place in the next year where we're going to have this a

consolidated collection study. But we need to do this immediate work now, and it will give us a chance to to to clarify the the statutory scheme, so to speak. Make sure that we are actually closing

all of the loopholes. So, and we'll we'll just take a real careful look at this language to make sure we're doing what we want to to do with it, and I'm not sure that we are perfect, which is why we

send this to the Ordinance Committee for a first reading. We we understand the concept of what we're doing through the TUK. Now we've got to make sure that the language is all set up to be right.

Thanks. >> Okay. Thank you. We'll go to Councilor Newheiser. Councilor Carpenter, do you have your hand up again? Would you would you like to get back in queue? Okay. So, we'll go to Councilor

Newheiser first if if you still have your hand raised, Carpenter. >> Yes, thank you, Council President. I just want to say I'm I'm supportive of this, and I'm supportive because I view it as a step

closer to publicly run and operated waste collection in the city of Burlington, and that's something I know we've had a lot of conversations uh about since I joined the Council, I um am really looking

forward to this longer term conversation about what options are in front of residents and how we ensure that our waste collection is efficient, um that we're reducing emissions, we're reducing stress

on our infrastructure, uh we're making community uh our neighborhoods rather uh quieter and more livable, um but that we're also ensuring that residents are paying um the least amount that we can

provide as a community to collect whether it's you know recycling but also trash uh and compost as well. And that's something I'll I'll keep keep pushing for. I think this is though a step in that

direction. So I appreciate the work on this. Um hope to see what comes out of ordinance and and hopefully this gets passed across the board. It sounds like there's generally that that seems to be the

move on the Council. Um don't want to speak too early. Um yeah and just again appreciate uh DPW's work as always I think you all do you know whether I agree with every decision here and there and

whatever and whatever conversation you all do really really uh good quality work and provide good quality information to this Council on a consistent basis. Um so thank you for that. >> Thank you

Councilor Nuñez De Yzer and before turning to Councilor Carpenter, congratulations to you and your family on welcoming your third child. So welcome to the three child club. [laughter] Yeah. Um >>

Thank you. I don't know how I'm going to fare but thank you. >> Well you know when I first joined the Council only Councilor Jang and I I think were the only two with kids in in sort of school age

kids I should say. Um but now I think looking around this table we have more school age kids than councilors. So that's that's a good change I think. Uh but congratulations to you and your family and

I hope everyone's doing well. Uh Councilor Carpenter it well first before turning to you is there any councilor that has not been heard on this item that wishes to be heard on it? All right Councilor

Carpenter uh we'll turn to you and then try to go to a vote on the referral motion. >> I just want to ask Liam Chapman to to follow through with the owners of particularly of the large senior housing

projects. They were early on you know requiring recycling, requiring composting. But they don't fill 12 toters a floor. You know that's a lot of them or whatever however many apartments they have.

They have all one bedroom apartments. So I just think there needs to be some perhaps ability to look at how much recycling some of those I I know you could argue that with individual homeowners, but

it's clear and present with the affordable one bedroom particularly senior housing that they're not going to generate if you have 100 apartments they're not going to generate 100 toters worth of

trash. I think a lot of the apartments depends on the floor size. They put two per floor, three per floor. So I just encourage you to look at that. >> Great. We we we do and there's no requirement to

have one toter per a residential unit. We I have a duplex. We have one toter and you know a large housing development could have many fewer toters to based on the need of the project. >> Great. >>

Yep. Great. Thank you and thank you Director Spencer and Division Director Perry. If there are no other comments or questions, I think we'll go to a vote. Again the motion is on waving the first

reading and referring to the Ordinance Committee. All in favor please say aye. >> Aye. >> Aye. >> Aye. >> Any opposed? That carries unanimously. Great. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Uh that

takes us to our last deliberative item which is item 6.8 which was consent agenda item 5.6 the Winooski Valley Park District's FY 26 annual report and FY 28 funding request. I will note um that um

there is no action item necessarily other than to accept the communication. There are uh materials that were uh added to the agenda. Uh Councilor Litwin, my understanding is that you have a motion on

this item. >> Yes. I have a motion to postpone, but I wonder if I might have a moment after the motion to explain >> It's debatable, so the you have the floor back. Um so there's a motion to postpone

to November 23rd. >> certain of November 23rd. >> Okay. Is there a second to that motion? >> Second. >> Thank you, Councilor Schachter. Councilor Litwin, happy to turn the floor to you. >> Thank you

so much. I just want to explain to my um council colleagues who may not have been looped in because this often as often we do, we are reading through all these materials on Sunday night and Saturday

night. Um I know it sounds riveting, but um over the weekend as I dug into this particular item on the consent agenda, I realized I had a lot more questions than I thought were uh answerable, and I

wanted to have the opportunity to ask the wonderful folks at the Winooski Valley Park District about both their budgeting, their budgeting process, but also and I think all members of the public, if

you're up late at night watching this, um should look at the item called funding formula summary calculations. Um I think it's important given the financial situation that we find ourselves in uh that

we be looking at these things and we be having these conversations. In no means am I suggesting that we should not be supporting um the preservation and conservation of um important land in our

community and stewarding it well, but um it's certainly for me part of the um the conversation and Burlington is paying in uh 30% of all membership dues from the uh the district. So the wonderful

folks there have agreed that they would love to come and give us a presentation on November 23rd, which thank you President Traverse for agreeing to that earlier today. Um, and be able to answer any

questions that any of my colleagues might have, um, but also for the public to benefit to better understand what is the Winooski Valley Park District and what what do they do and where where does

their funding come from? Um, so thank you for that opportunity and, um, they're aware and excited to attend, um, and they have given presentations to all the other membership communities, but that had

not happened here. So I appreciate that. >> Thank you Councilor Litwin. Is there any other councilor that wishes to be heard on the postponement motion? All right. Uh, we'll try a voice vote then on

the item. All [clears throat] all in favor of postponing to November 23rd, say aye. >> Aye. >> Aye. >> Any opposed? That carries unanimously. So thank you for that. Uh, that brings us to the end of

our deliberative agenda and item seven now, which is City Council General City Affairs, which includes our climate emergency reports and our public health and safety updates. Are there any councilors

who wish to be recognized on this item? Councilor Shacter. >> Thank you so much President Traverse. Um, I just wanted to say for those who have been following along for many months that we, um, the

council, uh, voted to support a series of dialogue sessions on the ongoing violence in the Middle East through the Community Justice Center who's been spearheading this effort. And for a variety of

reasons, it's taken several months, but that work is getting off the ground. Uh, so I want to make sure the community knows, um, that there will be two film screenings later this week of a documentary

called The Other. It's won a lot of awards, um, at Main Street Landing on Friday, November 13th at 6:00 and then Saturday, uh, this Saturday the 14th at 3:00 p.m. Um, and then there will be a

community dialogue session at the library on uh, I believe it's a Thursday, December 3rd at 6:00 p.m. It's all on the Community Justice Center's website and there's been some front porch forum posts

about it and I hope to post a bit more this week for any folks who want to sign up to register. So that work is underway. I encourage anyone who's interested to attend. >> Thank you, Councilor

Shacter. Is there any other councilor that wishes to be recognized on general affairs? Councilor Litwin. >> Thank you. This is a message primarily to my neighbors and constituents in the new North

End. The new North End plan BTV 2050 is moving right along. As folks remember from our last meeting, we scheduled public hearings, the first one of which on the plan that's currently posted. The first

one of which will be our next council meeting, November 23rd, followed by the council meeting after that, which correct me, December 7th I think it is. Okay, thank you. And so that is a bit of a

compacted timeline, but it has there's a lot of moving parts there. So I do encourage everyone. This has been a real just exciting piece of work that has generated a ton of community engagement in the

new North End. So I think the planning team and all the members of the public who have been involved in that, this is your opportunity, particularly the first hearing, to really like weigh in on any

pieces that are still something that you'd like to see changed or adjusted in any way, but also to weigh in on what you like and what you don't like. And if you cannot come to that, I recognize that

the first hearing particularly is on the first is is leading into Thanksgiving and that is often a time of travel. And I want to say that for the folks who have been emailing me, which I have been

getting quite a few emails, I am forwarding all of those on to Director Charles Dillard and Sarah Morgan, who are the leaders of that wonderful project, um good or bad and in between. Whatever you

have to say, I'm forwarding that on. Um you'll see in tonight's consent agenda, there are quite a few communications in there that are related to um that plan as well. And I want to be clear that

there's also some communication going on and the planning department reached out to us to make sure that there was no that we could help with some of that confusion, that there is a different process

happening for Plan BTV like completely 2050 right now that is not specific to the New North End. So so for folks who might be misunderstanding that, I just want to make sure that you know that. And

you can continue to come to me. Um I also recommend that you copy Director Charles Dillard and Sarah Morgan um as the the planners and executors of this of this plan so that they can see your thoughts

too. And those are all being added. I have been assured by um Director Dillard to the record. So thank you for that time. >> Thank you. Councilor Carpenter. >> Just to um attach on to Councilor

Litwin, I just want to make sure that we're clear among all of us that the proposals in that plan um most of them are presented as options or ideas, not done deals. And so I've asked or the planning

department is asked to be clear about the fact um that some of those ideas and options, they're not going to happen tomorrow. They're presented as as that, ideas and options. And fair to give your

opinion on them, but I think there's um been some misunderstanding that this is going to like happen tomorrow and it's a done deal. >> Thank you. Is there any other councilor that wishes to be

recognized on General City Affairs? Okay. Uh that brings us now to City Council President Council updates. The only council update I have is to uh just remind councilors that on our consent agenda

this evening we did approve an amended calendar for the rest of this year as well as into next year. Um the uh change, the amendment to the calendar is that we did approve moving our meeting that was

originally warned for December 21st to December 14th. Had heard a number from of had heard from a number of you about uh avoiding a meeting the week of those winter holidays and also by moving the

meeting up to December 14th it it allows us some additional options with respect to any charter changes to get them moving. Yep, Councilor Bergman, do you have questions on that? >> I I just want to

make sure you point out the Martin Luther King Day thing. Great. Thank you. >> [laughter] >> Uh I do also just want to name for folks that Councilor Bergman had flagged that as we consider the charter

changes and the fact that our calendar requires our warning two public hearings on any charter changes that um the document that's posted to our agenda proposes that Monday, January 18th uh could be a

date for a first public hearing. Uh Councilor Bergman and I were discussing earlier in Board of Finance that that is Martin Luther King Day. Uh and so um we will just need to be mindful of that.

Certainly the date for that first public hearing is not set in stone. Uh so we will need to work with the clerk's office with respect to the timing of those public hearings to avoid uh certainly any

any city and state and federal holidays. Um so we will think about that. But otherwise the calendar in terms of our council and Board of Finance meetings is now uh set heading well into next year. So

with that and seeing no other business before the council uh absent objection we'll go ahead and adjourn our meeting at 9:17 p.m. and beat Laurie's 10 p.m. deadline. So thank you all. >> [music]

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