Dear Neighbors,

This Monday, the City Council will convene its first of two regular meetings for the month of November.

The Council will begin its evening with a work session on the Public Investment Action Plan (PIAP) from 6 to 7pm downstairs in Conference Room 12 in City Hall. The purpose of the work session will be to give Councilors a update on how the process has been going. There is approximately $7 million in Tax Increment Financing money available for the waterfront district of Burlington. This TIF money is to be invested in infrastructure improvements to allow for waterfront improvements. The PIAP is a process began at the beginning of 2013 with a request to the community for anyone to submit a concept for an idea for the waterfront. There were 53 submittals by the time of the deadline for concepts in early February. A team of five community members, each with an area of expertise in development, mobility, architecture, finance and green space improvements reviewed the 53 ideas and narrowed the field to 29 who were invited to submit a response to a Request for Proposal. October 18 was the deadline to submit the response. There were 9 responses. The purpose of the work session is to update the Council on what I have detailed for you as well as to discuss the 9 proposals and the process going forward. There will be several opportunities for the public to view the proposals, ask questions and get information from the proposers during the month of November.

After the work session ends at 7pm, we will move upstairs to Contois and convene our Council meeting. First on our agenda are two City Commission annual reports: one from the Airport and the other from the Burlington Electric Commission.

We will then hear a communication from the Mayor on the proposed "Maker Space" in Memorial Auditorium. This is an amazing and very innovative idea to bring incubator space for makers in the arts, in technology, robotics, metals and woodworking into a space that will foster creative collaboration. There is a highly successful Makers Space in Somerville, Massachusetts that our space is modeled after. I would encourage you to view this video from The Economist if you are interested in this very exciting concept. http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/08/community-start-ups

We will then be voting on four ordinances: one on adaptive reuse and residential bonuses, one on conditional uses in mixed use districts, one regarding downtown transition district expansion and the last is on recreation greenspace lot coverage.

We will then have council committee reports, comments from councilors and the Mayor. Please keep in mind that you are welcome to come to a council meeting and speak to the Council on any subject you wish during our Public Forum which begins at 7:30pm.

At the end of our meeting, we will have an executive session on pending litigation and on Burlington Telecom.

Clickable agenda items can be found on the City's website:
http://burlingtonvt.gov/CityCouncil/Agendas-and-Minutes---DMS-Documents/City-Council/2013/20[...]da/ Please keep in mind that at all Council meetings are televised live on Channel 317 on Burlington Telecom.

As always, I welcome your questions and concerns. Please email or give me a call over the weekend or on Monday.

All my best,
Karen

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