The Burlington, Vermont Board of Finance met this week. The panel, which includes members of the City Council, reviewed a number of items including contracts for a road construction project and police body cameras.
The Board considered whether approval of a final construction contract for the Champlain Parkway project should move to the full council. Burlington Senior Public Works Engineer Corey Mims told the board it would complete and tie together Pine Street and I-189 work.
“We received really competitive bids compared to only one bid that we received on the initial construction contract,” Mims said. “All four bids were below what we had estimated for the engineer’s estimate for the contract, and the lowest responsible bid came in just under the $14,400,000 and we are looking to proceed with the said contract.”
North District Independent Mark Barlow supports the contract but asked Mims to address constituent concerns about anticipated increases in traffic.
“Are there any plans with respect to mitigating some of the effects that might be caused by the projected 9 percent increase in traffic?” asked Barlow.
“The 9% anticipated increase that is shown through this traffic study to be incurred in that area is anticipated based upon a number of factors, one of which is further development in the South End that the city hasn't quite seen yet,” explained Mims. “So some of the features that are in there has mechanisms that we can modify as necessary in order to help facilitate the flow of traffic to better respond to the actual conditions versus what's being modeled.”
The Board unanimously approved a motion to recommend that the full city council authorize the $14 million contract.
Another item on the Board of Finance agenda was approval of a five-year, $1.3 million contract to buy new police body-worn cameras with unlimited storage of footage. Burlington Police Department Executive Manager Shannon Trammell explained it is a renegotiation of a previous agreement.
“The camera system and the storage is only part of the problem,” Trammel said. “The BPD initially rolled out their use of tasers in 2015 and they are currently out of warranty and out of date in regards to modern and effective devices. So we have literally been working with Axon for about a year and trying to renegotiate how we could kind of do all of this and realized that the expenditure on this is almost $1.4 million over five years.”
The Board unanimously voted to refer the contract to the full council.
Finally, the board considered allowing so-called lateral hiring to the Burlington Fire Department. Deputy Chief of Administration Stephen Petit said the idea is supported by department administration and the union.
“Lateral hiring means we would be able to attract and recruit employees who come as experienced firefighter EMTs,” Petit said. “We would be able to look at individuals who have actually worked this job in a similar environment. We'd be more likely to know what it is that we're getting. It would also allow for us to reduce the amount of time that is spent training before these new employees count toward our minimum manning. There is some cost savings. There's efficiencies. We believe this will allow for us to cast a wider net, not limit ourselves. We can try to diversify the department as well as gain experience which is much needed. We have a very young organization.”
The Board voted unanimously to recommend the action to the full council.
The full Burlington City Council is scheduled to meet Monday to review these and other items.
