Dear Neighbors,
This coming Monday, the City Council will convene its first of three meetings for the month of June.
We will begin our evening 6:45pm in Contois Auditorium with a worksession to update the Council on the sale of Burlington Telecom. The deadline for submitting a Letter of Interest to participate in the deliberative process for the sale is June 5. The Council will receive an update from Terry Dorman of Dorman and Fawcett, the consultant the City has been working with on BT since 2011. The Burlington Telecom Advisory Board has three planned meetings in June to review the proposals we have received. Proposals will then come to the Council. There will be an opportunity for the community to hear from possible suitors for BT as this process moves forward.
Our Council meeting will begin after this worksession and a brief Local Control Commission meeting at 7:30pm.
The first item on our agenda is a communication from the Mayor regarding Department Head reappointments and a memo on residency status. We will then have a communication from Beth Anderson, the City’s Chief Innovation Officer, on permit reform with a resolution on the same immediately following. Several Councilors, including myself, have long advocated for permit reform. The process is not as user-friendly as it could be. Most users of the permit system are property owners who may only use the system once or twice. We need to make the process much easier to navigate. A month ago, the Council got an update on permit reform and a list of initiatives to undertake over time to effect this reform. Some of the costs have been built into the proposed budget so we can begin to move forward with this initiative.
Our next item is a presentation from Zoe Richards, a member of the Conservation Board on Burlington’s natural areas to be followed by a resolution on a conservation initiative to recognize, connect and offer proper stewardship to Burlington’s open, natural and wild spaces.
Our last deliberative agenda item is a resolution on mandatory wheeled covered recycling toters. The resolution and accompanying ordinance would require owners with 8 or 9 units on a property to provide a toter for every three units or an equivalency (such as a large recycling dumpster) by September 1, 2017. Owners of 6 or 7 units would be required to do the same by March 1, 2018 and owners with 2 to 5 by September 1, 2018. Tenants would be required to use these toters and enforcement would be overseen by the Department of Code Enforcement.
As with all Council meetings, please keep in mind that you are always welcome to come and speak to the Council on any subject you wish during our Public Forum which begins at 7:30pm. Clickable agenda items can be found on the City's website via board docs at: http://www.boarddocs.com/vt/burlingtonvt/Board.nsf/Public All Council meetings are televised live on BT Channel 317 and streamed live to your computer or phone.
As always, I welcome your questions and concerns. Please be in touch over the weekend and on Monday.
My best,
Karen
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