Dear Neighbors,
On Monday, the City Council will convene its last of two meetings for the month of March. This will also be our last meeting of the Council year as our next terms of office begin on April 1.
Our Council evening will begin with a work session on collective bargaining from 6:15 to 7pm. The work session will be held downstairs in City Hall in Conference Room 12. We will move upstairs to Contois Auditorium at 7pm and convene a Local Control Commission meeting with the Council meeting to begin immediately thereafter.
The first item on our agenda is a communication from the Mayor regarding the appointment of Neale Lunderville to become the General Manager of BED. Neale has been serving in this capacity as an Interim General Manager since last summer. I was honored to be asked to serve on the interview and selection committee for the Mayor and am a former BED commissioner. Neale was the unanimous choice by our committee to be recommended to the Mayor. Burlington is lucky to have Neale at BED and I am hopeful we will be fortunate to have his wisdom, guidance and leadership at BED for some time to come.
Following two indoor entertainment permits, we will convene a Board of Tax Abatement Meeting. (Both the Local Control and Tax Abatement agendas have several deliberative items so these meetings may take some time. Often this agenda is only consent items.)
When we reconvene our Council meeting, there will be a public hearing and second reading on an ordinance to do with garage size and orientation followed by a Council vote. We have three ordinances coming to us for a first reading: one on inclusion zoning for institutional housing, one on downtown, neighborhood mixed use and enterprise district setbacks abutting a residential zone and the last on performing arts centers in the Enterprise – Light Manufacturing Zone.
We have three resolutions on our agenda Monday evening. The first concerns the Pension Summary Report issued by the Retirement Committee. The resolution indicates the Council’s support and endorsement of the recommendations in the summary report, our appreciation for the inclusive process of the Retirement Committee which included representation of all our Unions, and expresses optimism that the current round of collective bargaining can yield productive and substantive pension design reforms that will make the plan more sustainable for the City's employees and retirees and the City.
The other two resolutions relate to the Police Department, the first regarding a referral to the Charter Change Committee to consider the size and role of the Police Commission and the second in support of our civilian Police Department. Currently, there are five commissioners and the resolution asks to consider expanding it to up to 9 in order to be more inclusive, allowing for greater diversity.
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.
Clickable agenda items can be found on the City's website:
https://www.boarddocs.com/vt/burlingtonvt/Board.nsf/Public
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.
I hope you have a good weekend.
My best,
Karen
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