Hi Neighbors,

Our next community meeting will be held on 11/8 from 7-9PM at the Friends Meeting House at 173 North Prospect St. Come early for comestibles! CEDO did a great job of managing the hybrid connection last month and we are confident of the Zoom alternative for those of you who want to tune in. Coordinates will be posted in our meeting agenda on Civic Clerk shortly (and below):

https://burlingtonvt.portal.civicclerk.com/event/6617/files

The agenda snapshot looks like this:

We'd like to start out by electing a community member for the 2024/5 CDBG Advisory Committee (Community Development Block Grant). This committee reviews applications and recommends grants for Federal HUD funds that come to Burlington annually. Read more about it here:

https://www.burlingtonvt.gov/CEDO/CDBG-Program-Overview

Lacey Smith, the Community Support Supervisor for the BPD's Crisis, Advocacy, Intervention Programs (CAIP) will come for a casual conversation on what's going on in Burlington, what resources the city has, what some problems are, and answer any questions. We expect she will be up front and honest about the state of things from her perspective. Information about CAIP can be found here:

https://www.burlingtonvt.gov/police/CAIP

City Councilor Ben Travers will come to discuss the resolution affecting NPAs that City Council passed on 10/23, "Maintaining Open and Accessible NPA's". He will help us understand motivation, context, purpose, and expectations. The resolution can be found here:

https://civicclerk.blob.core.windows.net/stream/BURLINGTONVT/857da75d-8745-430c-9afe-128aa96[...]%3D

In their updates, Tim will discuss the work of the Public Safety Committee (Doherty, Paul, Grant) on developing short- and mid-term actions to address our public safety/health crisis. Zoraya will give us an update from the Community Development and Neighborhood Revitalization Committee (Hightower, Magee, King) on homelessness initiatives. Both of our councilors are members of the Joint Committee on Police Oversight (as is Ben), so they can tag team a status update as we approach the deadline for considering a charter change at a March vote. Gary Golden will update us on 2024-2025 school budget planning.

As ever, there will be plenty of Speakout time for anything and everything you want to talk about. And excellent comestibles.

AGENDA
Wednesday, November 8, 2023 7:00 - 9:00 PM
In-person at the Friends Meeting House, 173 North Prospect Street
And Zoom online
https://zoom.us/j/96245939050
Webinar ID: 962 4593 9050
Or by phone: +1 929 205 6099 ID= 962 4593 9050

6:30 - Welcome and Food: Sam Ayotte

7:00 - Formal start - Introductions, Announcements: share events, meetings, activities of interest to Ward 1 community.

7:05 - Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Advisory Board - Elect Ward 1 representative

7:10 - Speakout - An opportunity to raise concerns and appreciations about Ward 1

7:30 - Public Safety - Conversation with Lacey Smith, Community Support Supervisor - CAIP
(Crisis, Advocacy, Intervention Programs), Burlington Police Dept

8:00 City Council resolution - "Maintaining Open and Accessible NPA's" - Ben Traverse,
City Councilor, Ward 5

8:30 City Council updates - Zoraya Hightower & Tim Doherty

Tim - Public Safety Committee update
Zoraya - Community Development & Neighborhood Revitalization (CDNR) update
Both - Joint Committee on Police Oversight

8:50 - School Commission update - Gary Golden and Aquilas Lokossou
Upcoming School budget

9:00 - Adjourn

Please join us!

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