Dear Neighbors,

Our next City Council meeting is this coming Monday, March 13.

You are welcome to attend in person at Contois Auditorium OR Remotely via ZOOM at the following link: https://zoom.us/j/94499826763

You can also join us via Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLljLFn4BZd2PwCge7lNoKug676jIf_iUA

You can sign up for public forum via this link: https://www.burlingtonvt.gov/citycouncil/publicforum or in person by completing a sign-up form inside Contois.

We will begin our meeting at 6:30pm and have six key items on our deliberative agenda:

• WE WILL VOTE TO CONFIRM A NEW FIRE CHIEF – The mayor has appointed Michael LeChance, currently Deputy Chief of the Department, to be Burlington's next Fire Chief.

• APPROVAL OF THE FY2022 AUDIT – We continue to make great strides in our financial controls. Our Management Letter did point out some areas where the city can improve, and those recommendations are already on their way to implementation.

• ACCEPTING FUNDING FOR THE CAHOOTS CRISIS RESPONSE – We will be accepting two-year grant award of approximately $670,000 with the Vermont Department of Mental Health to create a Medically Enhanced Mobile Response Crisis Team (MERC). (This was modeled on the CAHOOTS team located in Eugene, Oregon). This is a major step forward in seeing the CAHOOTS inspired program come to Burlington.

• RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF LBGTQIA+ AND CONDEMNING TRANSPHOBIA – In response to recent targeting of LBGTQIA+ in our community, which has included placing hateful anti-trans stickers in City parks and around schools, this resolution extends our unequivocal support to the LGBTQIA+ community, our commitment to begin observing Trans Day of Visibility annually on March 31, and supports the continuation of tracking all transphobic and other hate speech in an annually published report available to the public to ensure the ongoing commitment to decreasing the amount of hate speech in our City.

• RESOLUTION REGARDING THE EMERGENCY WARMING SHELTER AND REITERATING THE CALL FOR OVERDOSE PREVENTION CENTERS – In this resolution, the City Council extends our deepest gratitude to the city staff and community partners who acted quickly to get our houseless neighbors out of the cold when the temperatures dropped well below zero a few weeks ago, preventing fatal overdoses. The City Council reaffirms its endorsement of all forms of harm reduction and urges the Governor and the Legislature to move forward in establishing life-saving overdose prevention measures, including overdose prevention centers.

• RESOLUTION CALLING ON THE VERMONT LEGISLATURE TO SUPPORT AN EQUITABLE, AFFORDABLE, AND ACCESSIBLE EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION SYSTEM – In 2021, the State Legislature passed a bill which laid the foundation to achieve an equitable, affordable, and accessible early childhood education system in Vermont by the end of 2025. Taking this bill, combined with a study estimating high-quality early childhood education system which considered alternative sliding-scale subsidy options, this resolution calls on the Vermont Legislature to use these studies and other work to move forward in solving the childcare crisis by adopting legislation that supports educators, affordability, accessibility and strengthen equity through programs that support families of color and other marginalized communities in accessing childcare.

I encourage you to review these agenda items at: http://www.boarddocs.com/vt/burlingtonvt/Board.nsf/Public

As always, I welcome your questions, concerns, and comments, so please be in touch. Your voice matters and I am grateful for your input.

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend.

My best,
Karen

Apr 22 to 24, 2024

Apr 26, 2024, 2 AM to 3 PM

Apr 26, 2024, 5:30 to 7 PM