Dear Ward 6 neighbors,

I hope you are having a good albeit very chilly weekend. We always get a deep freeze for at least a few days in January. I hope you are all faring well in these cold temperatures and please do check in on your neighbors.

Tomorrow, Monday, January 22, we will hold a special meeting of the City Council. Our Charter allows for special meetings to be called and we use this allowance sparingly. The last time a special meeting was called was to vote on the police union contract, which was approved 10-1, in July of 2022.

There are three items on our agenda.

WORK SESSION ABOUT PUBLIC SAFETY TAX INCREASE – We are having a presentation and discussion on the FY25 budget and an Administration-proposed Public Safety tax increase. As I have mentioned many times, the next budgets will present some significant challenges and hard choices will have to be made that will require knowledge and foresight. We have to be transparent about the costs we face and the revenue that is coming in and minimize requests for additional taxation.

Following a very brief public hearing on a Town Meeting Day ballot item to increase the borrowing allowance for Burlington Electric, we have one item on our deliberative agenda:

A RESOLUTION TO PLACE AN ANTI-APARTHEID ADVISORY QUESTION BROUGHT FORWARD BY CITIZEN PETITION ON THE TOWN MEETING DAY BALLOT – If a citizen-led petition gathers the signatures of 5% of the registered voters in Burlington, the City Council must vote whether to place any non-Charter question on a ballot for the voter's consideration.

This is the question: Shall the voters of the City of Burlington advise the Mayor and the City Council to adopt the following pledge? WE AFFIRM our commitment to freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people and all people; and WE OPPOSE all forms of racism, bigotry, discrimination, and oppression; and WE DECLARE ourselves an apartheid-free community, and to that end, WE PLEDGE to join others in working to end all support to Israel's apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.

I will not be supporting placing this question on the Town Meeting Day ballot. My reasons are several, including the nature of the question which is, in my view, is one-sided, biased, and factually incorrect and will do nothing to build a positive feeling of community.

Councilors have heard from many residents who are concerned for their personal safety due to this potential ballot item. We know this ballot question has caused security challenges for our Jewish and Muslim places of worship, on top of the challenges they have faced in recent months. We are also seeing the intensity of this issue in the flood of emails the Council has received on this agenda item in the past few days. Hundreds of emails and they are equally divided in support and opposition, further confirming the divisiveness and fervor of this issue.

We need healing, understanding, listening, and recovery; we do not need anything that advances animosity and a climate of fear and hatred. As City Councilors, we are elected to address our city's needs first and foremost, including not knowingly allowing further tensions in our community. Now is the time for us to come together as a community, to work on fostering a future for our city that builds upon our greatest strengths, to work together toward unity, not division.

While I appreciate the efforts of those who worked on the petition and those who signed it and. know my vote will disappoint some, I do not believe bringing this question to a city vote to be in the best interest of our greater community.

I encourage you to review the agenda items at: https://burlingtonvt.portal.civicclerk.com . You can access the meeting by zoom, by livestream: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLljLFn4BZd2PwCge7lNoKug676jIf_iUA and in person.

PUBLIC FORUM WILL BEGIN AT 6:45. 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.

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

My best,
Karen

May 22, 6 PM to 9 PM, May 23, 2024

May 23, 6 PM to 9 PM, May 24, 2024

May 25, 5 PM to 12:30 AM, May 26, 2024