 |
|
|
|
May 13, 2010
Champlain Senior Center
Meeting was called to order at 6:30 P.M.
Welcome and Agenda Review
Thanks to Janet Hicks and Multi-Gen Center for space and dinner,
also to people running the camera, doing sound and taking notes.
Announcements
Housing Discrimination Project - Marcia Curtis
reported that Vermont Legal Aid is looking for volunteer testers for
housing discrimination practices. Testers will attempt to rent
apartments and report the results. Groups most frequently reporting
discrimination are mothers with children and people with
disabilities, Legal Aid interested in testing with other protected
groups. Recruits get 2 hours of training on housing law and
reporting practices and a $50 stipend for in-person testers, $25 if
done by phone. Legal Aid will report results to HUD & provide
community report. Contact Marcia if interested.
School Board Update
Meredith King, Ward 2 school board member since November reported
that this week’s board meeting had much discussion of principal
hires, as the community is concerned about lack of diversity among
teachers and principals. The school population is now about 25%
children of color, community wants to see more diversity and
cultural competence in hires. Public and board members have many
questions about process, and the board tabled discussion of
principal hires for two weeks. One of the hires was a recent school
board member, and board members wanted to make sure that procedures
were followed. Candidates were qualified, questions were more about
who else was in the pool and how the final candidates were selected.
There also needs to be more clarity about the role of the school
board in making sure that hiring policies are being followed. There
will be a public meeting on May 24, at 6:00 p.m. Other items:
Approved bid for Edmunds elevator, finally! Kindergarten classes are
almost full, may need to open another class, possibly at the Arts
Academy. Union negotiation meetings are open, residents can look at
proposals or get schedule on the district website (http://bsdweb.bsdvt.org/Board/Negotiations/negotiations.ph).
School board isn’t representative of community, either, so the board
is interested in recruiting candidates to run. Contact her at Mwking@bsdvt.org
if you have questions or comments.
City Council Update
Bram Kranichfeld from Ward 2 thanked everyone who participated in
Green Up Day, and also folks who put in applications for boards and
commissions. Wards 2 & 3 are traditionally under-represented on
boards and commissions, so it’s good to have people apply. The
council set up Blue ribbon committee for Moran Project oversight.
They are also looking at ways for City Council to have some say in
who the mayor appoints for department heads. Budget reports coming
in over the next few weeks. Contact him if you have questions or
comments, best bet is cell phone at 802-338-1992.
Community Health Center
Alison Calderara, Director of Community Relations & Development
and Jack Donnelly, Executive Director described the Health Center
plan for a new “gateway” building at the end of North Winooski Ave.
They are now at the end of the design phase and beginning the
permitting process with City, which will probably take through July
to complete. Artist’s drawings of the proposed building were
circulated. It will be a two story building that will cover most of
the site, with two levels of parking under the building - about 74
parking spaces, up from current 33-34 now on site. The are looking
at whether they can afford LEEDS certification , the building will
be built to LEEDS specifications but it would cost more to obtain
the official certification. The current building had major
renovations in about 2000, but the basic shell is old and there are
issues with heating, ventilation and space allocation. Construction
expected to start in September 2010 and last through about November
2011. The project is complicated because services need to continue
throughout construction. They plan to expand medical, behavioral
health and dental services and increase health care provider jobs.
There will also be space in clinic designed for small physical
therapy operation, a meeting space for wellness activities, and
space for specialty clinics/consultations and other collaborative
work.
Fresh District
Abbey Duke, Co-President of Sugar Snap, and Glenn McRae,
executive director of the Intervale Center spoke about a proposal to
develop a neighborhood identity for Riverside Avenue and the
Intervale. A group associated with the area is working on ideas such
as planting street flowers, hosting events, and creating a logo &
banners. There was a planning process a few years ago focused on
safety and access on Intervale Road that stalled due to lack of
funding. This project is more about creating identity and
distinctiveness, connecting Riverside Ave to everything that’s
behind it, and improving safety, cleanliness, access, and
visibility. District boundary would be from Community Health Center
to Winooski Bridge and down the hill behind. The working group is
reaching out to NPAs, businesses and then will get in touch with
residential developments/Champlain Housing Trust. The group chose
“Fresh District” to capture feel of neighborhood, not exclusionary -
could be fresh ideas, fresh flowers, fresh food.
Intervale Updates
The Intervale is something different to everyone - includes many
activities, community gardens to compost program, wood chip plant,
13 farms, conservation lands, and trails. The Intervale Center
receives no city or state funding, it pays full property taxes, and
leases lands to farmers, most of whom live in Wards 2 & 3. Glenn
distributed the Intervale Center summer schedule of events and some
background facts on Intervale.
The compost project is currently run by the Chittenden Solid
Waste District, will be leaving the Intervale by June 2011. They
will continue to have a drop off for leaf and yard waste. The
Intervale will gain about 25 acres of prime agricultural land for
additional farms.
An Abnaki heritage garden will open May 24 at the Ethan Allen
Homestead. The Intervale Center has a good ongoing relationship with
historic preservation folks and an Abnaki group in Swanton.
There will be an archeological field school this summer open to
the community. Archeological issues are managed issues as they come
up, lots of small finds.
In response to a question about district heat, Glenn reported
that McNeil plant generates a lot of waste heat in the process of
generating electricity. There was originally a plan to pipe steam to
UVM & FAHC for heating, but now CEDO is looking at possibly doing a
community heating district for ONE as well as proposals to use waste
heat directly in the Intervale - possibly for green houses or food
processing.
Voter Turnout
A panel of ward clerks and inspectors of elections requested
ideas for improving the very low voter turnout in the ONE. The panel
included Bob Bolyard (Ward 3 Inspector of Elections and Justice of
the Peace), Wendy Coe (Ward 2 Clerk), Julia Curry (Ward 3 Clerk),
Damon Lane (Ward 3 Inspector of Elections), and Megan Humphrey (Ward
2 Inspector of Elections).
- Presidential elections are biggest turnout, mayoral next, if
just school board &city council, turnout is smaller
- Someone new to Burlington suggested that better previews of
candidates and positions would help. She found it hard to get
information, especially for city council, and suggested asking
everyone the same questions and publicizing the answers. Others
reported the following sources of candidate information:
o Forums on Channel 17, played repeatedly, the schedule is
available at
http://www.cctv.org/welcome
o The Burlington Free Press always runs candidate bios, Seven
Days and the North Avenue News do as well
o Channel 3 TV has a Sunday morning program
- Critical to help people understand their part in the
process, basic civic education needed in schools and community
- A lot of residents are not citizens, we could change our
city charter to allow residents to vote in municipal elections
- Young parents at HO Wheeler school don’t come to vote on
school budget
- People at Roosevelt Park didn’t feel it was worth their
while to go to vote, feel they have no impact
- Civic education may be the answer to a large part of the
problem, people don’t vote because they don’t have a stake in
the community.
- People vote most in the elections that make the least
immediate difference.
- In 2008, as a national experiment, Burlington participated
in setting up polling places in long term care facilities to see
if going to voters improved turnout.
- ONE has lower turnout than New North End, so New North End
voters have more influence over the city.
- Not all people in district understand what they are voting
for, need to bring it to voters level
- Community outreach is probably more important than mechanics
of voting.
- Fun ways of connecting with people - working through school
programs
- South Burlington school debating teams do public
presentations on issues.
- Transient population is not as invested in the community
- Crisis in democracy spills down and affects local voting,
because national level voting doesn’t matter much, because
nothing changes. Democracy is radically broken, and until higher
level things are fixed local level cynicism will be hard to
overcome.
- We don’t vote because it doesn’t matter. This may not be
true at the local level.
- Because voting is on Diebold computers, voting isn’t
transparent. People shouldn’t participate, just let the system
fail.
- Machines we use are scanners, not networked computers. But
paper ballots can be counted and verified.
- Go back to more traditional town meeting day type voting,
where everyone hangs out or big dinner or something
- Many people can’t get to the polls easily, have debate, food
event with absentee ballots,
- Tuesday is a problem, why don’t we have week end voting?
- Direct public attention to local elections as different from
national elections, have advertising campaign to point this out.
- Outreach and education strategies
- May need to do some surveying to see what are the barriers
to voting, could be a student project.
- Quite a few people in Burlington are disabled, can’t get to
polls, mail ballots out.
- Many absentee ballots are not legal and don’t get counted,
because voters don’t put the ballot inside the signed envelope,
need a bigger envelope, larger font for instructions.
- Anyone can vote early at city hall.
- Could we do a door to door survey? What groups are available
to do it?
- Secretary of State’s office theoretically has budget to
increase voter turnout.
- Can city charter change move voting to a weekend? What would
the process be?
- Could we start a survey with customers at local small
stores? Or sit outside school and survey parents?
- Have a mock election in elementary school the week before
the election, sample ballots go home, kids involve parents?
- Comes down to the issues, Wards 4 & 7 are turning people out
because they are passionate about the current issues.
- Issues may not be the driving force in ONE, more sense of
empowerment, people are used to being put down
- Many ONE residents are not homeowners, so don’t feel an
immediate direct financial impact of budget votes
- Wards 4 & 7 feel like they are a group with shared interests
and more organizing, have 14 people on NPA steering committee,
website, etc, use resources effectively. How could we build
neighborhood cohesion?
- Issues and opportunities are different, could we organize
around ONE pride?
- Need neighbor to neighbor outreach.
- How about non-partisan absentee ballot/voter outreach/door
knocking campaign.
- Mechanics and physical set up of voting - goal is to get
people in and out as fast as they want to move through voting,
get them in the right line, divide up the alphabet.
- Turn pre-voting dinner into a party, music, dinner,
candidates.
- Go back to old scanners.
- Could we combine wards for pre-voting parties?
Next steps? Committee - Get Out the Vote Old North End
Alicia, Julia, Charlie volunteered Wendy will find out if mini
mobile polling stations are allowed at non-traditional sites. Alicia
will organize the next meeting - give her your contact information
if interested. Try to organize over the summer and get work done in
the fall, put on Front Porch Forum and in North Avenue News. Contact
Jenny Davis jdavis@ci.burlington.vt.us in the CEDO office if you
want to be involved.
Meeting adjourned at 8:30 P.M.
Back to Agenda
Page last updated
May 19, 2010 |
 |
|
