The Burlington City Council Tuesday night tabled a new settlement agreement for the CityPlace downtown development project.
The settlement, drafted by the city’s legal team and CityPlace developers, would compel construction on the long delayed project. The city sued the developers over breach of contract last September.
Councilor Karen Paul, D-Ward 6, asked councilors to postpone action on the deal. She said some councilors felt more time was needed to work through the “complex and multifaceted” new development agreement brokered through the settlement.
“I think it’s important that everyone have as much time as we can to really absorb, ask questions,” Paul said.
Councilors tabled the decision in a 7-5 vote.
The settlement aims to hold developers accountable for building streets adjacent to the project.
A city block was razed in 2017 to make way for CityPlace. The Pit has remained empty since. Progress stalled because developer Don Sinex failed to find capital for the mixed use project. The latest version of CityPlace is a 10-story structure with hundreds of new apartments, retail space and a restaurant.
Sinex has said he would seek financing through the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust, but local union representative Don Van Duesen says the deal may not be moving forward. If the financing deal doesn’t materialize and private money is used to build CityPlace, unionized labor wouldn’t be promised.
Van Deusen is pressuring councilors for a guarantee in the agreement that unionized labor will build CityPlace, whether AFL-CIO finances CityPlace or not.
He called in during the public comment period of Tuesday night’s council meeting and urged councilors to vote against the agreement.
“Are you going to toe the line of an out-of-state developer looking to make money off the City of Burlington? Or will you stand with your local unions and fight to make sure these jobs are done right?” Van Deusen asked councilors. “This is a vote, basically, to tell the world if Burlington is a pro-union city or not.”
Others want the project to move forward as is.
Former councilors Jane Knodell, who previously served as a Progressive, and Kurt Wright, who served as a Republican, both called in to express support for the project.
“We need this project to move forward in a post-pandemic world where many downtowns will fail. This project is a lifeline to a better, more inclusive, more vibrant downtown,” Knodell said.
She said labor standards in the current agreement are identical to the original development deal that Knodell helped create and councilors previously approved. The protections sufficiently meet high labor standards, she said.
“People that work in construction need these jobs,” Wright said. “And don’t let Mr. Van Deusen’s last-second ploy here to derail this project work.”
Wright said if the council were to require only union labor on the job, the developers would need to bring in workers from out of state.
Tim Labombard, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council, pushed back on that assertion when he called into the meeting. He said there are enough local union workers in Vermont that could be employed in the construction of CityPlace. Labombard said hiring out-of-state union employees would be a “last resort.”
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger did not challenge the council’s decision to postpone the vote. His office is set to schedule a special meeting for the discussion sometime next week.
But he did warn councilors that they need to make a decision soon.
“This is a matter of active litigation,” Weinberger said. “We have essentially the court on hold. We have invested tens of thousands of dollars to get to this point. We need to make a decision as to whether we are going to continue with that litigation, or we are going to take this other alternative, the settlement.”
Council criticizes UVM cuts
City councilors also unanimously passed a resolution criticizing the University of Vermont for proposed cuts to faculty positions and majors at the institution due to Covid-19 budget pressures. The university is proposing to cut 12 majors, 11 minors and entire departments. It was introduced by councilors Jane Stromberg, P-Ward 8, Max Tracy, P-Ward 2, and Jack Hanson, P-East District.
The council’s resolution states that UVM’s actions have created “turmoil and suffering” for staff. It also criticized the university for not posting daily Covid-19 testing data. UVM posts data weekly.
The resolution calls for a statement to be sent to UVM President Suresh Garimella and the Board of Trustees requesting that the institution “prioritize protecting jobs, to respect staff’s right to organize, and to work with UVM faculty and staff to reverse regressive austerity measures aimed at vulnerable educators and staff, and instead make decisions with employees to keep our public university and the broader community intact during these difficult times.”
Stromberg strongly denounced the UVM cuts. She said the institution has not been transparent enough in its decision making, and the city has a responsibility to hold the university accountable to its values.
“The very fact that we even need a resolution to call upon the leadership of UVM to be responsible in a way that goes deeper than fiscal priorities is to me heinously disturbing,” Stromberg said. “We need to hold the largest institution in our city accountable.”
The council also passed some revisions to the Public Safety Continuity Plan approved by the body last week, which added new community officer positions to the Burlington Police Department but did not raise the 74-officer cap.
The resolution was amended in an 11-1 vote, with Councilor Franklin Paulino, D-North District, voting against. It moved $40,000 in attrition savings from the decreased officer staffing levels to the Police Transformation fund and approved a job description for a community support liaison position in the police department. Two other liaison roles, who will respond to substance use and mental health disorder calls, are set to be approved later on by the director of Police Transformation.
The council also unanimously passed a resolution which would no longer require those who have Americans with Disability Act-compliant service animals to pay a fee to license their animals with the city.