 Good evening everybody. My name is Akal Agwit and I'm the moderator for tonight forum for Ballington City Council, Ward 6 and Ward 4. The two candidates that will have the conversation with me tonight are Sarah Coffenter and Karen Paul. Both of them are in combat. It looked like they are running an oppose. So this is a conversation between them and the citizen, their constituents. So let me just read the ground rule here. The ground rules are the candidate will be allowed, meaning both of you will be allowed for a one-minute opening statement. Then all of you will have two minutes to respond to questions. The questions that I will ask you or the question that will come in from the members of the public. Then each candidate will be given an opportunity to ask questions. If you want to ask each other, you are not running against each other, but you sure can. And then you are allowed a 30-minute rebuttals. And then at the end, you will have 30-minute closing comments. Questions. I ask the moderator will select from the question given below as well as take questions from the members of the public. You will have to respond within two minutes or less. And you will have, as a candidate, you will have the option for a rebuttal for a 30-second. So let me go to the questions right away. If no question has come in from the members of the public, again, this will be 30 minutes. So we will end wherever we ended and we'll cut it off when we read 30 minutes. The first question is, can you tell the members of the public watching this why you are running for re-election for the seat of the city council and what will be different for the city of Wellington this time? Let me give you the floor, Sarah, since you were the first to arrive in the studio. Okay, well, thank you. And I really appreciate being invited and I appreciate serving with my good colleague Karen Paul from Ward 6, a colleague that I work very closely with and agree with. And I'm very happy to be running for re-election. This is my second term, having run in 2020, right at the start of COVID. So my entire tenure has been COVID related. And I certainly would love to think that maybe this next term we can be focusing on other issues and not be with the veil of COVID. I love this town. I grew up here, went to school here and want to serve the town. I had a long professional career with the state housing agency and prior to that with a cathedral square housing in Burlington. So I have tremendous concerns about affordability and affordable housing in the town. We've got a lot to do to keep this committee running, community running. And I think I can contribute to that. My first term was sort of like drinking from a fire hose and I have a little legs under me now. So I'm hoping I can go into my second term with a little more knowledge and a little more stability about how we accomplish things. I think I'm balanced counselor, one that can compromise and communicate. And I think more than ever, our city council needs that. And I think those are skills that I bring with me. I've had the opportunity to serve on many committees and I think I can really want to continue that going forward. Thank you so much, Sarah. Exactly two minutes. Karen Paul, your two minutes. Okay, I will try to keep to the, I will try to keep to two minutes. You have to appreciate that city counselors don't usually get limited. So we are not always good about it or as good as the public is. First of all, thanks. First of all, thanks. Thanks also to channel 17 for giving us the time to, to connect with voters. That's what we enjoy most. And, you know, I've been on the city council for some time for about a dozen years and I'm proud of the work that I've done with the residents of ward six. I'm grateful, very grateful for the confidence that they have here year after year have shown me. And now you can't do this job alone on the value of constituent interaction is really invaluable on, you know, like Sarah, I grew up in this in Burlington and in this ward. In fact, watch my dad serve on the city council in the same seat that I occupy. So I remember as a little kid watching him go to city hall when I was very young. So public service has always been a part of my life and one that I've tried to pass along to my children as well. You know, there's so many things that I could talk about obviously can't talk about all of them in two minutes my, I think if I had to give bullet points of what is important to me and what I try and strive to do. I think it would be a commitment to fiscal responsibility, a commitment to housing as a human right on and working very hard to see that you BM holds true to its, its commitments to the community, primarily but also other housing initiatives, and then many other things the, you know, the solutions that I've written promoting public safety and working with our progressive city counselors on racial equity and justice on the, the role in terms of bringing the sworn officer head count a few months ago, up to a number in line with the report. And as well, the other highlights would be my support and work to bring a cahoots program to Burlington, as well as one of my proudest moments I think is the work I've done on harm reduction and the hopeful on creation of an overdose prevention site in the city of Burlington so those are just a few of the things that I hope to continue in my next two years on the Council. Thank you. Thank you so much, Karen. Again, you start to two minutes. Let me go right to one of the pressing question right now. What do each of you make of the fact that there is a proposal or a ballot initiative to raise tech rate by 4%. What is your take on that two minutes each of you. Councillor Paul, you have the floor. Well, I am, you know, I am supportive of the tax increase. I don't think any of us enjoy the idea of asking the voters for a tax increase, but I think that it is something that is critically important. And 71% of the tax increase that we are asking for, which amounts to 5.5% of the tax rate, 71% of that is due to pressures be way beyond our control, wage pressure inflation, we're seeing the highest price index that we have seen in 18 years. And, you know, I think to not ask for a tax increase would not be fiscally responsible. We are using some of the ARPA funds were using other revenue sources. But to do anything more than what we are doing with other revenue sources would not be fiscally responsible. So the, the prudent thing to do and the fiscally responsible thing to do is to ask for the increase. And we are hoping that residents will understand why we need the tax increase and also appreciate that with the school budget, the school tax increase going down, that we will still be seeing an overall tax decrease of 1.5%. Thank you. Councillor Carpenter, you have the floor for two minutes. Thank you. And Councillor Paul really said it all. I totally agree with her. As a new councillor, I am not on the finance committee, but I've made a commitment in addition to my other committees to sit in to really learn the city budget process, understand how we spend our money, get our revenue. And it's been a real learning experience. We wouldn't ask for this tax increase unless we really needed it. And as Councillor Paul kind of pointed out, most all of it is really from beyond our control. A huge part of it is simply wages. We need to respect our workers, pay them well, and meet the demands. Like every other business, we have supplies we need, and this is below inflation. We have been very prudent. And again, overall, it will be actually a tax decrease, even though the city portion this year is going up. And it would not be responsible not to ask for this. We've filled in where we can with federal dollars. And I think we've done that prudently. We forget that the city has other revenue sources than just property taxes. And those are weighed down. It amazed me how much revenue we used to get from things like parking. We're short on that. We're short on meals tax. And that's been COVID related. And we've got to deal with how we patch through some of the revenue for a really basic expenses. This is not a fat budget. We're really keeping things where they are, where they need to be. So I'm proud that we, the council, we, the finance committee really did focus on protecting the taxpayers. Thank you. Thank you again, Councillor Coffin. Let me stay on these a little bit. Who is paying their taxes? Who is actually being? Who is being asked to pay it? And who is not? I mean, again, we have lots of you. Okay. Councillor Paul probably knows this in more detail than I do, but big picture. First of all, stepping back, almost 70% or over 70% of our property taxes go to the school department. So that's a whole conversation to really keep in mind. About 30% of the property taxes go to fund the city services. And then in addition, we've got a number of revenue sources like room and meals, parking fees, all of those kind of things. So there's a lot of focus on the property tax, but we do have other revenue sources. And it's mixed. We may get questions about the reappraisal and I'm happy to answer those, but in the short run, it's obviously property owners that pay property taxes and get relief from the states. We cannot forget that through the Homestead Credit Program, but we get much more revenue also from these other non-property tax resources. Thank you. Councillor Paul, can you weigh in? Yeah, I mean, Sarah, you pretty much said, said it. The interesting thing is that over the last six, seven, eight years, we have tried very hard to diversify our revenue sources. That is good and bad because that means when you have a difficult economic period, those are going to shift and change and they are more volatile. The reality is that the property tax is very stable because we know where we're getting the money from and our grand list doesn't grow by leaps and bounds. So it's a very, very stable, predictable source of revenue. However, it is people, people like all of us who live in this town, property owners, and whether you are a property owner or you're a renter, you are in one way or another paying the property tax increase. So it affects all of us and that's why we have had very, very few tax increases over the last 10 years. We have been under the rate of inflation and even with this increase, we will still be under the long-term rate of inflation for the past 10 years, which is not an easy thing to do. Thank you, Chancellor Paul. Well, that conversation will continue, I assume. So let me move on to the next question, which is another very, very important question, which is to say, I came to Burlington, Vermont 20 years ago, I still stay here, which means this is a great place to live. I came as a refugee. The city, over the 20 years that I have lived here, the city or Chinatown County as a whole has become more diverse. And so the question is about racial justice. Where do you see opportunities for addressing racial justice in the city? And how will you use the city council seat to meet these challenges? Since you are incumbent, you might as well speak to how you have used your position in the past to address the racial justice in the city. You have the floor. Chancellor Paul. Yeah. All right. Well, I would imagine it's possible that Sarah and I might answer this question to some degree in the same way. During the summer of 2020, as we all remember, there was following the murder of George Floyd and a number of other things that also happened at that time. There was a resolution written by our colleague, Councillor Hightower, what has become known as the racial justice resolution. It was passed nine to three, and both Sarah and I joined Councillor Hightower and a number of our colleagues to co-sponsor that resolution. I think what we really need to do is really acknowledge that we walk much, we can walk much farther on this issue if we walk and work together. You know, we have to some degree, you know, and even as a community had trouble doing that lately. I would say, you know, there's a strong desire to maintain the status quo. And there's also a strong desire to move forward. And then there's many that are in between want to want to do a little bit of both. I've been happy to work with a couple of counselors on a resolution which worked on police oversight. That is something that is at the heart for many people at the heart of racial justice is police accountability and oversight. Chair of the Public Safety Committee, we have been working on the CNA report for the stakeholder group, and I will continue to work on that. As I say, I mean, I think our greatest opportunity really isn't working together to address the work that was brought forward in the racial justice resolution, which is also about the racial equity inclusion and belonging department. We created that it has been an enormous success, and I think it's incumbent upon us to continue that work on and as an end to make that not to make racial equity, not an afterthought, but a part of all the decisions that we make. Thank you. Thank you, Counselor Paul, Counselor Carpenter. Well, again, I certainly concur with Counselor Paul. I mean, she's been a real leader. And it's it's been a personal area for me for many years through what through my work in affordable housing. And, you know, we can't have economic justice and racial justice unless our residents are well housed and we know, of course, many, many folks who are marginalized are the most affected by that I do serve on the Community Development and Neighborhood Revitalization Committee. And that's our key focus is, you know, in particular, dealing with the houseless. Again, a group that disproportionately is affected through racial injustice. We can't figure it out. We can't do it alone as a city. We can't take the burden on of the entire region, but we are really got some, I think, innovative things that we're looking at. And I hope that it should really be a background to provide some equalized stability for all families in the city. If I'm fortunate to have a home, I can move on from that many families can't. And so that's really what we've got to have as a sort of a key priority, not easy to do in the middle of a university town that gobbles up a lot of housing. I'm anxious. I've worked a lot on those initiatives last year and hope to do more of it next year as chair of that committee. I think the city has to own up to own up to making sure that all of our citizens are well served. The racial justice resolution councilor referred to as really a backbone of that. And again, the establishment of the REIB office, something we really didn't have much before that. And I'm proud that we were able to really invest in it and continue to invest in it. Even through the tough economic times, it needs to be a priority for the city. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you again, Councillor Carpenter. The next question, we only have nine minutes and I want to squeeze in two critical questions here. And this question you can speak to again as in comment because I might as well pass this question even if you were not running. And that is about policing and community safety. And as councillors, what do you make of the appointment of police, Wellington police, Chief John Murat? What is your opinion on that? Do you want me to go? I'm happy to. Okay. So, you know, I supported Monday, that was Monday in the evening, I supported the appointment of acting Chief Murat, because, you know, I feel a responsibility to my constituents, they are the people that I serve. I want them to be their voice at the City Council. And my constituents overwhelmingly want stability within the department. They see what is going on in terms of the officers that are leaving. They want to move on from this decision. And they were overwhelmingly supportive of me voting for Chief Murat to become the permanent chief. And I do want to also acknowledge that the those who voted against his appointment that there were, that were, there were valid reasons for some of the, of the reasons why people didn't were unable to support him. I think there are challenges within the, with his appointment, but I'm a big believer in second chances and giving people the opportunity on to address the issues that, that he knows we have which include acknowledging racial disparities that we have in policing and in working to improve the relationships that he has with the police commission with counselors within the broader community to build trust. And I hope that he will take this opportunity to do that on and to work. And I believe that it's incumbent upon every counselor to work to ensure his success. Thank you. I, again, I would would concur. I mean, one of the remarks I made the other night, I know that the search process in the fall was messy. It wouldn't have been how I would have done it. I think in, in, honestly, we probably didn't do much of a service for the finalists, including John Mirad by how we handled it. But we have a candidate who's recommended came with again strong, strong support from my constituents as well. And I think we do need to both give a chance and, you know, hold the chief accountable and the mayor accountable in this next year to really reach far and get some of those goals that we articulated. And we as a council need to help that succeed. We need to provide the supports that a chief may need like a public information officer and a recruit desperately needing a recruit officer. I think the counselor poll recommended the foods program. That's something we've got to reach out and really do quickly. We've got a wrestle with and honestly deal with police oversight. This is not about bad police is how to make the force stronger and better and more transparent. We've got to own up to our issues around bias and acknowledge them. I believe the chief wants to do that. So we've got to really support that. And, you know, there's go forward with a, maybe a fresh face a fresh slate and help that happen, not go backwards. We need to go forward. Thank you. Thank you very quickly. I think site. I can make this disclosure that if you don't know for the members of the city that know he John Murad is a personal friend of mine. He's a classmate of mine. We went to graduate school together. So he's a friend. I'm just asking this question based on the script I was provided. So you might have seen this out there. Me taking pictures with him. I'm just asking this question objectively, but I thought I would acknowledge that he's a personal friend. Thank you. And a classmate of mine. Now let me move to the last question and you can just answer it with because we have four minute just one minute. What can you do about the housing you can I spoke to that earlier. Councillor Carpenter, which because it was your area of expertise. What is the solution to the housing problem in Burlington, Vermont. There is no silver bullet people want I mean, we need to get online hundreds if not thousands of units that takes a long time. We've got to collaborate regionally I think really got to look at our neighbors are all sides of us and say, build units and you've got to do it too. Under fundamentally underneath it are things like performing some of our zoning laws, supporting getting things like ad us and just more units online. We cure the house's problem by having housing, we don't care, but we really just plan to have to make it a priority we've got some things on the line we're going to be asking the finance board and the council to appoint a person who will be really the lead person on this initiative. There's a number of them already in the docket with the CETO office. We've got to support that and we can't sort of kick the can down the road, and we've got to hold our neighbors in the state of council, we're the biggest city. We have lands in our lap. And we can't be the only person trying to solve the problem. I am optimistic. We have some new resources. So we've got to work quickly and work together. Get more stuff done. Thank you. Thank you. I would just add in the brief minute or so that we have that I think that's why, you know, I mean, all of these things we have to be doing many things. And one of the things that I think is critical. And what I think we have made some progress on and hope that we will soon is the acknowledgement by the university that they must build housing that is attractive that students want to live in. And we're not talking a couple hundred we're talking several hundred units that will free up space in neighborhoods to attract other people to be able to live on and want we have we have one of them. I guess, I guess it's a good problem in the sense that we have a lot of people who want to live here. And hopefully we can accommodate all of them. Thank you. I guess we have one minute to wrap it up. So if you can have one, 30 seconds to say one, nothing to your contributions, you can go ahead, 30 second each. Just, I welcome the chance to continue. I, as I said, I was on a, it's a steep learning curve and I'm hoping in my second term, it won't be so chaotic and I will respond to you quicker faster and I feel like I can really manage a system a little better than I did the first term. And so I'm anxiously waiting to do that. I would just simply add that it's been an honor and a privilege to do the work that that I have done together with the residents of board six I do not do it alone. I look forward to continuing to do that over the next two years and I'm grateful for their confidence and support. Thank you. Thanks to both candidates. Thank you, Councillor Carpenter, Councillor Paul. They are running on a pause. So I would congratulate you in advance and look forward to seeing you save our city. This is 7pm. We are exactly on time. And again, members of public, thank you so much for tuning in. We will have conversation another time. Thank you. Good night.