 obviously for better bike infrastructure and I know that's not really something that's on the agenda tonight. We're kind of focused on the Burlington High School redesign and how people will be getting to the high school in the fall when they maybe bus use might be discouraged. Do any of you know if that's something that's going to be on the agenda for the next meeting? Kelly, if I can speak, we normally take July and August off. It's unlikely since we are having a special meeting this month that we will have a meeting in July in August. It's still possible. We're able to if there's a need for it but at the moment there is no plan for an August meeting. So the first you might say regular agenda and that could include high school and school openings and so forth and we know the new superintendent of schools wants to address each NPA. That probably right now looks like the September meeting and it will still likely be on Zoom. That's all I can say at the moment as a steering committee member. Okay, thank you. I know that's something I thought I saw on the NPA for Ward 1 maybe but yeah we'll keep an eye out for the agendas and such. I don't see any other raised hands and I haven't received any more emails. I tapped the raised hand several times. Did you want to do it Tony? Did you have a raise hand? Yeah, after everybody else so I didn't want to jump in line. You can go, yeah. Okay, I just want to speak briefly. One, I'm having issues with my family not myself or my household but in members of my family who live elsewhere with the lack of quick testing and obviously no tracing. I know that's not going on and that's a difficulty. I think that even though we have two cases in Vermont right now the infrastructure that the state has is not very functional when it comes to testing and tracing that's very similar to other areas of the country. I specifically wanted to talk about briefly North Street. In the work that on the North Avenue corridor or the I should say the Wunuski corridors of plan which Jacob Flanagan and Alyssa Faber were our representatives. One of the things that came out of that was the finding that North Street which is our main street of commerce in the old North End. In our school we have schools, we have the old North End Community Center, we have a lot of businesses and a lot of residences. What we found was that every single intersection practically every intersection between North Avenue and North Union for four intersections including North Champlain and also North Street are all high crash intersections with at least one injury a year on each of those. That is probably the most dangerous residential slash commercial street in the city. And it needs to be I know that there's discussion from the Arts and Business Network in the past about what could what could be done for that street. Well I think that we now have reached the point where we do need to study that because of the high number of of injuries. Just note that there was going to be a demonstration at North Street which is in North Winniske which is one of the high crash locations in the city. We have 20 on the state list but that's been delayed now because of well we know why it's been delayed until next year. So we will we will have nine years of this particular administration. I sort of like look at the Weinberg administration as being nine years it's like nine innings of a baseball game. We're in the ninth inning and they have yet to address directly a strong improvement to any of the high crash intersections in the city. I'll stop there. Thank you. Perfect. Do we have one more raised hand? Molly you should be able to speak. Hi it's actually Alyssa Faber. I'm hearing. I don't think Melissa Cain did a public announcement so I just wanted to tell everyone that from last time we had the $1,500 from the NPA to do the mask initiative in the Old North End and so far Melissa has distributed 600 masks. We're pre-made and some we have volunteers in the community making and we probably have another 600 masks out in the community that people are making to update everyone on that initiative. If anyone knows of specific group families or organizations that need masks, let Melissa I know. That's all for raised hands. I see. Tony are you facilitating or is Kevin? I'm taking notes. I'm not facilitating. I hope that either Barbara or Charlie or Kevin would be willing to do that. I'm here but and willing but nobody has told me the procedure for these debates because I missed the steering committee planning meeting. All I have is a list of names. I'm just going to say I moderated the last meeting. It's not easy with the Zoom but you just sort of have faith. I think you have to have a little bit of faith and it will work out. That's not my question. How many minutes does each candidate have in the debate? I think Kevin said five earlier. Will you act as timekeeper? I could probably do that. It might be hard. Yeah, I'll do it. The agenda says 45 minutes for the House of Representatives and it says it's a debate specifically on the agenda. I don't know if that's helpful at all. That Emma Mulvaney's stomach will not be here until 7.15 so what shall we do? I would suggest start with the Senate candidates since we know there's some that are here. Okay I'm going to do that. So starting with them on the new agenda again does each of them have five minutes as well and is there time for questions and answers? At the steering committee we said five minutes for each candidate to present their views. We did not provide for a quest Q&A. If a candidate wants to use some of their five minutes for that then certainly that's allowable. It's out of their five minutes. Okay very well. I will start in the order of the list that I have on the last agenda that Kevin put out and it starts with Phil Baruth. Is he here? Hold on. Yeah I don't see him here. Okay next person is Tom Chastonay. Is he here? Some people might not be expecting to be on right now because the agenda said it would be an hour. That's very true. You're right about that. So I'm going to go through the list. If the person is, I know Earhard is here. So Earhard, would you be willing to begin? Sure thanks. Took me a moment to unmute. You have five minutes including questions and answers if you so choose. Sure great. Thanks. Thanks for the time. I really appreciate it and for I know a number of folks who are both attendees and panelists and appreciate the time on your agenda especially because Kevin is one of the folks that came in late on this. So for folks who don't know me, I've been a Burlington resident for over 40 years now. Served on the city council, spent a year as president of the city council back when Bernie Sanders was mayor. Really got involved in public policy issues and in community activism, community issues back in the early 80s when the neighborhood planning assemblies were first formed and was actually charter member of my ward 1 NPA. So really community engagement has been one of the things that has been part and parcel of my life for many years. For folks who know me, you probably know that I have been an affordable housing advocate and an advocate for homelessness issues for over 20 years. I'm actually a registered lobbyist at the state house. I spend virtually every day with Representative Krowinski, Senator Sorotkin, Senator Pearson, with Dylan, with the other Jean folks that I've worked with for many years. And in addition to affordable housing because affordable housing touches so many different issues and is foundational, I have a very broad public policy background. I also spent 11 years as legislative liaison for the city of Burlington. Part of my experience is also working for the city of Winooski back in the 80s and 90s. So I'm a really broad array of policy experience from my housing advocacy and from my work in municipal government and representing the city of Burlington. So we're in a unique moment. I think we all recognized that we're in a unique moment. The last three months of the pandemic have taught us many lessons. The last couple of months of watching with horror as African American men and women have been murdered by the police has been another defining moment. These are two of the things that have made me decide that I wanted to run at this point to represent Chittenden County. I think I have a lot of experience to offer. I would be, because of my involvement with the legislative process and the positive relationships that I have built up with many folks at the state house, I think I'll be ready to work for Chittenden County on day one on a whole array of different issues. And in terms of the issues that I want to focus on, I want to focus on economic justice, protecting everyday working for monitors from what may be an austere budget as the state faces its current revenue shortfalls. And also obviously I want to advance affordable housing from the other side, from the side of being an elected official. I've been doing that for many years and it's one of the big issues for Chittenden County and for the state. Also I want to focus on social and racial justice issues. I am a proud father of a 30 year old young black man, a successful social worker. I have seen what happens to African Americans in our state and I think as an elected official I want to focus on that and really subject all of our state policies and laws to a racial justice lens and continue the work that the legislature is doing this session on reforming police policies. Lastly, also going to be a climate change advocate. We were told two years ago by the UN that we have 12 years to save the planet. Basically now we have 10. Housing is one of the major contributors to the states. It's the second largest contributor to the state's carbon footprint. Transportation being the first and I think housing can help make a difference in that regard and especially if we continue to build in and near our downtowns in areas that are close to services and close to public transportation that will also help the state begin to meet some of its climate change goals which it has fallen woefully behind on. So I'll just stop there and see if anybody has any questions for me. Hopefully I've kind of summarized some of my experience and where I'm coming from as a potential candidate. Oh I should also mention I'm honored to have been endorsed by Rights and Democracy last week and then also just last night by the County of the Caucus of the Progressive Party. Okay thank you. Any questions anybody? I think you have probably about a minute left. Is that right Sydney? That was five minutes but whatever you guys want to do for Q&A. Okay do we have any candidates that have arrived from the presenting list? I don't think so so maybe we can do a minute or two of questions. Well I'm also happy I'm happy to stay on. I'm a candidate. If you want to take questions later you've got quite a few candidates here. June Heston, Chris Pearson, Senator Sorotkin, Dylan. Okay I'm going to continue then down the list. Is Phil Baruth here yet? Thank you. What about Tom Chastonay? Dylan Giambattista? Hi Barbara I'm here. You give me the sign I'll get right to it. Okay go on Dylan how are you? Sure yeah well first let me just thank everyone for having me tonight and for your community involvement it's really important and I know you're doing it at a distance which adds some logistical challenges but certainly appreciate the forum. I'm one of the many candidates running for Chittenden State Senate this year. I'm the only active state representative running this year and I have a lot of respect for everyone who's stepping up and putting their hat in the ring so thank you all for being here. My name is Dylan Giambattista. I represent the community of Essex Junction. I've served on the House Education Committee for the last four years. I'm a member of the Board of Trustees for the Vermont State Colleges Board of Trustees and I'm someone who has come into public service based on my experiences. You see if you had met me a decade ago I was living down on either Decatur Street or Ward Street in the North End and I was someone who didn't have much going for me frankly. I was working minimum wage jobs wasn't sure what would come next. I was at the Community College of Vermont because several years earlier I dropped out of high school. My path has been challenging growing up here in Vermont. I've worked odd jobs. I've worked in the trades. I've worked in restaurants. I know what it's like to work a minimum wage job and I've worked alongside many folks and gone to school with many folks at the Community College of Vermont who have faced those same challenges. I got involved with public service because I was fed up. I was frustrated. I was looking for opportunities to get involved and give back to my community and I've been fortunate. I ended up transferring up to Johnson State College after being at the Community College of Vermont and from there I embarked in a career in public service. For the last eight years I've worked in various roles. I worked for the Vermont State Employees Association which is the union representing public employees. I ended up working for our state treasurer in the Vermont State Treasurer's office. I am a state employee and remain a member of their union. I worked for a time as the aide to the Speaker of the House and in 2016 the voters in Essex Junction elected to me and we unseeded a incumbent Republican to ensure that our district represented the values that my neighbors told me they wanted to see. I'm someone who's focused on the moment that we're in and let me tell you something. We're in a bit of a pickle here. COVID-19 has impacted everyone and as a state rep I've been on the phones every day with folks in our community who have had challenges, who have been unable to access workers comp, whose children no longer can go to school or didn't have access to child care, with small business owners trying to figure out how to make it and at the same time COVID-19 has unmasked some of the institutional challenges we have in our state, how fragile the foundations of our systems are, our schools, our service providers, institutions that care for those with the greatest needs and as someone who believes that government is here to lift people up that's a focus in mind. So let me just give you a quick rundown of where I'm at. First of all I want to see a COVID-19 recovery that leaves no one behind and to do that we really need leaders who are willing to lead with their values, bring their lived experience, lift up the voices of those who are struggling and support bold policies to move Vermont into the future. I'm going to be focused on things like education reform because there's a high school dropout. I know that people need opportunities for whom school might not be a good fit. That means personalized learning that has off-ramps for our students who might find an interest in an apprenticeship, an internship in the trades around our colleges. We need to boost our investment in public education in this state and that means higher education. For too long we've ranked at the bottom for investing in our colleges and universities. It's no longer accessible or it's no longer acceptable either and it's actually saddling the next generation with debt. I will support increased investment in public higher education. We need to focus on the issues of housing. Erhard talked about it before. We need to ensure that renters can afford to rent here, that we have adequate housing stock that is healthy, that is climate resilient and ready to go. We need to invest in housing. We need to invest in broadband to ensure folks can access the data because COVID-19 has shown us there is a digital divide. We need to ensure that we are addressing climate change through action and while I've supported all the bills that have come through the legislature, it's not enough. It's time to invest in the green jobs revolution and ensure that we are tackling our climate goals and reducing our emissions. We need to reform our justice system. We need to hold the police accountable. We need to address systemic racism that runs throughout our systems and we need to ensure that we are treating substance use disorder as a medical condition. We need to stop criminalizing poverty in this state and we need to do it together. My name is Dylan Giambattista. I'm a state representative out in Essex. I believe I have the right skills to hit the ground running for you and if you want to visit my website check out the agenda. It's www.vtdillon.com. I hope I can earn your support and if I have any time, I doubt I do. I'm happy to answer any questions but otherwise call me text Manny Time 8027348841. Thank you very much for the opportunity. Thank you Dylan. I suspect it could be the de facto facilitator. What I'm going to do now is return to the original agenda because I see that both candidates for Vermont House are here. For Chittenden 6-2, both Emma Mulvaney Stanek and Gene Sullivan. Thank you for being here. We have 45 minutes for this debate. Are you both prepared with some kind of opening statement? Yes. How long do you need for it? Usually I would tell you but you tell me. Is five minutes good? I think five minutes is more than enough and also I'm excited to let folks at the NPA ask questions as well. So Gene, does five sound okay? Five or less? I'm all good with that, yeah. Okay. So what I would suggest is that you each have a five minute opening statement. Another five minutes to rebut each other and then we'll open it up to Q&A. Is that okay? Great. Okay. I don't know either of you well so I'm just going to call on Gene to go first. Is that all right? Of course. Thanks. Well I'm thrilled to be here. I got to say one thing. I miss our community dinners. The good news is two expats from the Ward 2 and 3 community dinner have now relocated in the Ward 4 and 7 community dinners and now we're having community dinners there too. I miss them. They're wonderful and I'm looking forward to them and I'm glad that it's moving on. I want to introduce myself. I'm State Representative Gene O'Sullivan. I'm a Democrat running for reelection for my sixth term. I currently serve as vice chair of the House Commerce Committee. I've lived in my house on Village Green for 40 years. Some of you might remember me from my first store, the Spring Discount Beverage on North Avenue, or my second store, Sweet Dreams, the Candy Store in Burlington Square Mall. I needed to raise my son and my daughter as a single mom. I bought Sweet Dreams because I knew retail would work well for me as a single mom. I was able to be home during the day. I worked night shifts. I had babysitters not daycare, which is a lot cheaper, and I got to volunteer in my kid's school and be home when they came home. The store didn't make a lot of money, but it kept the house and it kept food on the table. After Sweet Dreams, I did sell that store and became a stock broker at Merrill Lynch and eventually created O'Sullivan Asset Management and Financial Consulting firm. As my kids grew, I became more active in the Burlington Democratic Party. I started out as the Ward 4 chair. I was also the city clerk, the ward clerk for Ward 4 for 10 years running elections. Then I became city chair and county chair. Then I got to spend 11 years on the Burlington Retirement Board. That was the time that we invested in the land trust. Best investment we ever did. I moved over from there over to the Burlington Electric Commission. I served as vice chair and was on the organizing committee that started Burlington Telecom and Justice and Aside. We should have kept it. It was the best investment we had. It broke my heart that they sold it. In 2000, I got elected to represent Ward 7 and City Council. I served three terms. It was the hardest job I have ever, ever done. Bar none. It's politics. It's potholes. It's everything in between. You've got no support. You're on your own and you're working 24-7. I've got the utmost respect for everyone who served, including Emma served, so she knows we're actually smiling, so she knows what we're doing. In 2012, I was appointed by Governor Shumlin to replace Mark Larson in 612. I've been serving ever since. I started out on the House general and it was the General Housing and Military Affairs Committee. In 2013, I wrote first ever in the nation bill that required and held accountable a National Guard unit on an annual basis of how many sexual assaults, sexual harassment, and discrimination events happened and what the adjudication is. I am still working on that. I am not done. I later moved on to house commerce and I'm now Vice Chair. It is an interesting and tripartisan committee. The proudest thing I can say in COVID is the work that we did in house commerce and I spoke to a few people earlier before we came, but in the COVID relief package, there are three really wonderful things and I've got a shout out to Senator Sorotkin for the first one. It was Michael Sorotkin and I and I say that clearly got COVID workers comp coverage passed. If we didn't pass this, your grocery store clerk, if they got COVID, they wouldn't get workers comp. They would have to fight to get it. We changed that. We changed that and we also created a safer work environment because we put the burden of proof for the employer now is on whether they kept a safe workplace. That was revolutionary and we supported first responders and every single worker who goes back to work has the opportunity for workers comp and that's important because COVID has a long life. Ten years from now, someone could have one capacity problems with COVID and workers comp will cover that. That was important. Without Senator Sorotkin, we couldn't have gotten it done. I also put in a $5 million grant program for minorities and own businesses and women owned businesses. That was also a shout out to Kesha because Kesha is working very hard to reach out to the new American community. I also put $5 million into the restaurant and farmers feeding the hungry program, which is an expansion of what Skinny Pancake is doing that buys food from local farmers, goes to local restaurants, goes out to be insecure. That's it. Thanks. Barbara, I think you said Emma, though you're on mute. I don't want to talk over you. I did say Emma. Thank you. I'm a master lip reader now. I live on Zoom. Great. Thank you, everyone. Hi, neighbors in this virtual world for which we're living in. I first want to say my lovely wife is putting our baby to bed. You might hear a baby in the background. That is real life. I ask for your forgiveness if you hear him in the background. Hi, everyone. My name is Emma Mulvaney-Stanik, and I really appreciate the MPA holding this extended forum for Gene and I to talk around the issues and why we're running for state representative in this part of the Old North End and the New North End in 6.2. I know many of you from living in the neighborhood for nearly 15, 16, 17 years or so, all in the Old North End, and I want to just start by saying a little bit about myself, but then talk more about why I'm running and why I decided to step back into elected politics and are seeking your vote. Briefly, I live over on Front Street near Battery Park. I am an organizer professionally. I've spent most of my life working on economic justice. I worked for the labor union Vermont NEA for over a decade, advancing contracts and supporting workplace rights and protections for teachers and support staff all over this beautiful state of Vermont. I'm an activist. I was raised by a bunch of peace knicks hippies down in Barry Vermont and Central Vermont, and I am doing them proud by continuing activism work around racial justice issues, around showing up on peace issues, et cetera, and have never wavered really on that commitment to making sure activism is a part of my life, that it's a main piece of what I'm trying to instill in my children that I'm raising now. And finally, speaking of children, I am a mom, full disclosure again, that baby might cry in the background, and that has really radically changed my perspective and my sense of urgency of why it's important to run for office and have people who are in every stage of life elected and serving in the state house, as well as, frankly, on city council. You have a different sense of priorities as you move out throughout your life. You have a different sense of what's urgent and needed. And I think that's one big piece I have to offer folks in this race is to consider that valuable voice that's really lacking in that state house in terms of people who have children under five, who have lived through the struggle of child care expenses today, what they're like, as well as the struggle to meet basic needs. So with that, here are the three reasons that have really inspired me around stepping back into a seeking office. And that's to advance workers' rights and economic dignity for all. As I said, I spent my entire professional career working in that realm. I started at the Vermont Liveable Wage Campaign, advancing minimum wage increases, the first cost of living increase back in the mid 2000s on that minimum wage that was done through a legislative campaign I helped with organizing and leading in the state house. I really truly believe that when people have income inequality, our state does not do well. Our communities suffer. And it is an underlying cause of so many other issues when people can't have their basic needs met. So it's a multi-pronged approach around looking at things like minimum wage, to livable wages, workers' rights in the workplace. I'm glad that Jean has done some work on Workers' Comp. We can do so much more to modernize labor laws around unemployment, around looking at self-employed folks and business owners. I'm now a self-employed person myself, just really understanding the needs of working people today, no matter what age they are. And the other two issues I'm really focused on are working to advance equitable schools and progressive education funding. So that in the realm of both for my years of working within side-by-side with public educators are really looking at moving to the next level around understanding how we fund education in Vermont and understanding that there's so much more we can still do around making a progressive taxation system so that property taxes are not a burden to folks who are moderately incomeed and need that extra support. And in terms of equitable schools, that means really looking at what our schools are offering and what they're not offering. Who's not reflected in not only the teacher workforce, but what's not reflected in the curriculum that's being delivered to students who don't see themselves reflected in what is being taught. And also looking at school policies and other areas of bias within our systems that don't serve students today in the world for which we're living. And then the final issue that's near and dear to my heart is really looking to fight for justice for folks who've been historically marginalized. You don't have to be very far here in the Old North End. My house gets surrounded every time there is a Black Lives Matter protest next to the police department. It is in the air we breathe and it needs to therefore be part of every conversation I believe in the state house around how we must do better. We must look at where bias is within state laws around conversations to make sure that we're centering folks of color, Black, Brown, Indigenous folks, but also looking at other issues. It's at time related to LGBTQ and other issues. 30 more seconds. Oh, 30 more seconds. Whew. All right. Well, what am I going to say? Well, because I think the biggest piece to recognizing these times is that there is bias. We all have bias and there's bias within our institution that includes laws and how laws are made. So it's about centering folks who have been voiceless in that process and being true champions and allies even if we don't identify as an LGBTQ person or as a trans person or as a person of color, we must do better. Thank you, Emma. You didn't hear me when I was mutaging, but I thanked you as well. And you have some time, you have some time to say more things that you might want to say or to distinguish yourself from Emma if you want, where we're generally calling a rebuttal. I don't know if we do rebuttals in Vermont. You know, not so, I mean, first of all, I've known, Emma and I've known each other forever. I knew Emma in the minimum wage fight because that's the bill I reported on the house floor and that's that we got passed. So that I, we knew each other from that. I think, I think a couple of, she brings it, you brought up a couple of good things I'd love to talk about because one of the drivers for me in this next session is tech education and talking about equitable education. We have a system that it calls to sending school money to send a kid to tech. So consequently no kid goes to tech school. Children are not given, are not offered the full range of what they could do. Tech education is STEM education. And with the demise or somewhat demise of the state college system, I've been working with Dylan and also we're working with my, another co-worker on my commerce committee to, they're coming around to the idea that we, what we really need to do is marry VTC with CCV and adult tech and then the K through 12 tech and create an entirely separate tech education fund away from the regular ed fund. And as far as education funding is ridiculous, the property tax is supporting that. Chris Pearson for years has been putting in bills that I've been signing on to about this. I know that nationally we're looked at as being fair because we have a income part to our property tax. But in reality, if we moved in, we moved education off of the property tax and on to income tax, it would be more equitable and we'd get more money and it'd be evenly distributed and we would not have got the battles we have every time budgeting. The most important thing though is we need a tech program that is statewide that rolls out so that every one of our kids has an opportunity to have a career that is sustainable and they can raise a family on it. 100% of our graduating seniors have no clue how to make a living. So I'm working that I'm working very hard on that. The other thing about unemployment which I'm fascinated by is we had the pandemic unemployment assistance program, which the feds basically paid for and stood up and we've got the computer program for it. I will be working aggressively this year to make sure that we transfer that into a statewide unemployment fund for gig workers, you know, self-employed people and sole props. It's perfectly doable to do. So that's a very important part of what we want to get done. I'm working with Selena Coburn on what we would like to do and this will be coming in as an amendment and when we go back in session on August 25th is there's no reason why the state should be investing in companies that have a ratio higher than 10 to 1 from the lowest paid to the highest. We have the Veggies Vermont employment growth income growth initiative. We have the Vermont training program and we have the Vermont economic development authority just like our state bank. We are joining together with the workers caucus to make sure that every program that we invest in will only invest in companies that have a ratio of no higher than the highest paid person is not paid higher than 10 times the lowest paid person. That way that's how you build a sustainable economy. Okay, thank you. Emma is the one you would like to say. Yes, so it's so funny. Do we do rebuttals in Vermont? I think this is more of a conversation. So I'm glad, Jean, that you brought up around just issues of education and not only the funding side, but finding more pathways for students to find livable wage jobs and sustainable ways to stay in Vermont. That is really a modern day dilemma for all parts of Vermont. I grew up in central Vermont and there are so many folks who really struggle to be able to stay in the state and to really look at the priorities of the state rather than looking for attracting folks from outside the state. But how can we invest in young people here and give them what they need to not only be successful coming out of high school, but be successful in whatever job they choose to work in within the state. And that includes folks who work in childcare, for example, and folks who work in the schools and take jobs that have been traditionally undervalued and contribute to things like the gender wage gap and to be able to kind of put state dollars and investments in where people are working, jobs that cannot be exported out of our state. I do just want to mention in terms of education funding, I think a lot of the work there is UVM put out a study recently and the legislature has been I think briefly talking about it at least and requires and I think deserves much more discussion around examining how we educate or excuse me how we do education funding and to look deeper into Act 60 and looking at the issues of the different weights that are applied to per pupil calculations and not to get super in the weeds, but when examined, this UVM study really revealed that a lot of that methodology is outdated. The weight granted to students who are considered in poverty should be much higher so that communities who are working with and have high populations like the old North End and parts of the new North End of high poverty students populations get more resources because there's more of a more more struggles and more needs to invest in schools supporting those those students and those folks. The other the other piece I want to mention I also have in my platform a piece around unemployment and learning how we can adapt old models that we said were not possible to for example expand unemployment benefits to folks who are self-employed in the gig economy and I think we have to be bold. I think a slight distinction perhaps here is that I believe in bold progressive change and not incremental change I think we've seen that danger with minimum wage for years now in Vermont and elsewhere is that it doesn't get us anywhere towards people being able to really really meet their basic needs. It it's there are very small steps and it doesn't make the bold change that people are really begging for and and needing and so when it comes to unemployment benefits or paid family leave for that matter we need bold change and not sort of playing politics in the sense of worrying about what the governor is going to do or not we need legislators to stand up and say let's legislate what's needed to be responsive to Vermonters and then let the governor do what he or she someday will do so I think that bold leadership around economic policies really fundamental here and then finally when it comes to leveraging state dollars whether it be through COVID funds or through Pepsi or other ways that we support business development in the state I also think we need to be bolder there we need to do more I appreciate the ratio piece around the lowest and highest paid employees in a company but I think we also have minimum standards of livable wages and accountability where it's not just during the life of a of a grant or a loan from the state but an expectation that that businesses that benefit from public dollars are held to that standard as they continue to grow and prosper in the state and I think we need to do more for women and marginalized businesses I'm glad that there was five million dollars allocated through COVID funds but as I understand it that's less than one percent of overall funding that was allocated so I hope Gene we can do more because we know that there's already so many barriers facing women I'm a woman I own my own business on there are so many barriers facing us already to close the wage gap and to be successful that that least Vermont can do is to acknowledge that and then invest more resources into populations that that face those struggles hopefully that was a respectful rebuttal okay that's those were great I mean you're both so qualified and brilliant I don't know how people are going to vote but anyway I'd like to um first of all I'd like to introduce myself because we never did that I'm Barbara McGrew when I've been on the steering committee forever and um live in Ward 3 um what I'd like to do now is open the floor up for questions for about 10 minutes um max and um I'm new to facilitating I I facilitate virtuously but I've not done it virtually so I don't know how to um actually Sydney may I ask your help in in um yep I'm doing hands and recognizing people thank you and I'll keep time it's 7 30 now by my watch and we'll go to 20 20th I don't see any raised hands right now and just reminder for to raise your hands right is this for questions right Barbara right okay to raise your hand there's a button at the bottom of your screen um that says raise hands you can click that and if you aren't able to see that function you can always email or text mpa at burlingtonvt.gov and I will say if you're on an iPad it's um you have to click on your name on the participants list and the option to raise hand will come see you see you still see nobody okay then um oh wait oh erica okay good I'll ask a question uh earlier before the meeting officially started this is a this is a question for Emma um earlier before the meeting started people were chatting and representative oh Sullivan uh made a comment that we need to make sure to have a veto proof majority in the state legislature to be able to override a governor's veto and I asked if I commented that I was surprised that she thought that uh being able to override the protection provided by separation of powers that that was okay I was surprised that she that she thought that was okay where do you stand on the importance of separation of powers and uh do you think it's okay to advocate for the ability to override them thanks erica oh and jean well I called on her first before so I'll call on Emma first and then jean right if you have a reply to this okay thanks erica well thanks for letting me dust off my political science degree here um you know in in the most academic sense you know our democracy does better when every arm of government every every part of government does its job and comes to the table ready to really engage in democracy and yet we're living in very partisan times right so there's a reality check around um everyone needs to both be playing around the same rules and also um engaging in a way that's productive for again advancing policies that actually impact for mantra's lives and not getting stuck in the politics so in concept I'm I'm completely about supporting different arms of government and working with the governor working with and the governor working with the state legislature because that's when I think the best policy and the best work comes out we saw that with the moves towards gun reform in the state when Governor Scott was able to move off of I think traditional roles that he has held around that issue and we've also seen a completely breakdown around workers rights and the teachers teachers health insurance and that struggle where the governor didn't come and work in good faith with the legislature so it's a mixed bag and there's not an easy yes no answer to that I would I I think it also matters who's in the legislature because the legislature itself has to um both do the work in the communities with vermonters to say are we hearing you are we representing you are we moving the right policy forward and if that's the case then that same community in those same constituents should be speaking to their governor to um say this is a priority to pass whatever it might be family leave um whatever the the topic may be okay jean thank you uh I want to talk about family leaves we almost family leaves now that people have gone through covet 19 or are going through covet 19 people fundamentally understand what's happening to families and what family and medical leave would mean for them we needed to override governor's veto for that that's why we do need have to have a veto override majority in the house if you want to see honest to god big change we need that we need to really this is this is if the this is the economic equivalent to the great depression I sit on house commerce we have literally thousands of unemployed untrained workers out of the hospitality industry who will not have jobs we have to move fast and we have to move boldly and we the house need an ability to do that and that's what that veto will give us thank you um any other Barbara can I respond um excuse me Barbara do you mind if I respond to the family leave thing is that if that's not appropriate I can bring it up at another time yeah when you have your time to talk maybe um got it okay good um are there other questions so I'm gonna so Hannah's got her hand raised and I think Erica does too so we'll go to Hannah first Hannah you should and Erica's gonna hold your comments till she she's on for running okay okay um Hannah you should be able to speak hello everyone um I just wanted to ask a question to representative oh Sullivan um I just wanted to hear more about your work protecting women in the National Guard if you could elaborate on that thank you thank you so much when I got in in 2012 the sexual assault resource coordinator because I was in general housing and military affairs I asked a question with before don't ask don't tell and I asked a question what happens in your community or what's the climate if that gets lifted how safe will people be and she said in militaries to me on the record that's the least of my problems I didn't know what she was talking about it was 2012 I took that disc home and I had it in my car and I played it and played it and played it to figure out what it was and then the Invisible War came out and the Skeleton Report came out and the rapes and the assaults and now Vanessa Guilin's death came out we now know these things it's stunning and it's happening here at home we had a rape in the guard last year we had a physical sexual assault in the guard last year I know that because I wrote that bill no one else wrote that bill I reached out to George Till who's a guy who's an OBGYN at the hospital he knew what I was talking about and we did it we're not done yet what we're now trying to do is work with active members in the guard and I've got H401 on the wall in House General right now that will put a person hired by the governor in the adjutant general's office on gender diversity and and and sexual harassment and both for my not just for male and female but for minorities and to report back to us every year so we really know we have eyes on that so that's my push now I'm trying to get support it's a big deal the guard does not want it they think they can fleece the way out of this they can't they need to change the culture and I will work on that until I can say safely that one young woman young vermonter who sees an opportunity in the guard can go in there and can be valued and can have a career and most importantly can be safe one in four women get assaulted 100% of them get sexually assaulted sexually harassed sorry if I'm on a soapbox but this is I I can never let that go okay thank you are there any other questions we have just about left so I will comment on that as well of course go ahead thank you Jean thank you for your leadership on that and I would hope that also including in that is because there's assault and harassment of course with trans identified individuals is what as well as non gender binary identifying folks and I would hope that those same protections and naming that and bringing that into the policy discussion is is just as important because the harassment levels and and frankly violence against folks who don't buy by the gender binary is very true and very real especially in in those military spaces so thank you for your leadership on that I do have something to say about family leave can I take just one minute on family leave and then thank you Barbara okay I promise I'll try to be one minute less just just back to that issue since Jean brought it up you know I just want to be clear the way that that bill came forward and what was sent to the governor I actually would not have supported because it would have passed the weakest family bill law in the country and as someone who just went had a child less than a year ago I struggled to have family leave as a self-employed person and would have benefited from a program a paid family leave program that was universal and provided access for people like me to buy into a disability insurance program that was not in the bill sent to the governor and I don't think that Vermonters deserve a weak family leave bill I think it caused more damage if that had advanced forward and so I think we can do better and I want to do better because that is what families at least like mine truly need so they don't spend just a month off I had to go right back to work after a month of having my child last year so that's very real thank you um are there other questions okay I'm gonna I have a question I'd like to step out of my facilitator role a second to ask it because it will be my question for everybody who's running um it it's clear that we need more housing in this state and particularly affordable housing but what I have identified is a a triangle that says the way to get affordable housing is to make it easier for developers to build housing of any kind and the way to get them to do that is to do away or loosen regulations on them particularly the environmental protection regulations in act 250 and so I really like to know how um all of the candidates stand on eliminating or reducing environmental protections for for things that are built in downtowns I happen to live in downtown grollington and do you really think that that will solve any housing crisis and particularly the affordable housing crisis since developers tend not to build affordable housing as it is okay so if you can answer those quickly um I'd appreciate it do you why don't you go first okay you're absolutely right um and no they these they should not be limited these these standards should they should be improved what's one of the state the legislature is moving exactly in that direction a lot of the COVID money and I'm going to let Earhart do it because this is the master of housing this is the man you want to talk about affordable housing and has a voice for the people unaffordable housing in a practical way to get stuff done it's Earhart Monica so I just I will I'll just respectfully defer to him on specifics but what we are doing is looking at rehabbing housing and also working with the uh construction industry to up their standards that's we affordable housing is affordable not cheaply built housing that costs a fortune to run it's got to be safe environmentally sustainable housing so people are living in it are not spending a fortune and wasting you know valuable natural resources and that's we're going we're going in that direction about rehabbing houses and I I think that uh I think the the the standard business response is oh make it cheaper you know all of these regulations uh I think you just have to take that with a grain of salt and just stand to ground and I'm proud that this legislature is doing that the other thing we really need to have is we need a state registry of rental housing we inspect rental housing in the Burlington we don't in the rest of the state in many some cities but we we need that registry we understood that in tropical storm so we're working very hard I work in my committee I work very hard with all of the rehabbing of housing and because that's workforce development so we're spending a lot of money with the cap agencies the community action project agencies on on upgrading all of the weatherization programs because that also is a workforce development plan where people get jobs and that's the beginning of good contracting and a good career in contracting thank you you want to say anything about this summer yeah um my father would literally kill me if I didn't say something about Act 250 because he spent 30 years of his life leading the central Vermont Act 250 um he was a coordinator for that program uh so the way the way the coupling of regulation and deregulating somehow being the magical solution for finding a way to affordable housing is a false narrative um when we eliminate protections uh related to active 50 that built and and preserve the state that we all love and enjoy um when we when we relax those protections it will change the face of Vermont it will change what people find so valuable and why they want to come live in Vermont and why it's so land places like Burlington and even outside of Burlington are so valuable so I would not support deregulating active 50 I think it is a really important economic driver and investment and protection for our environment and I also believe that developers will still build they have in Burlington they still will build it's a valuable place at least in this um this area um without those loosening up regulations we don't have to make it easier for them we can set a standard that benefits our community we can set a standard that says you are it is necessary to build affordable housing you cannot just build high um high cost housing for folks because that is a value of our of our of our city and of our state and I agree with Jean on the other issues around um essentially expanding code enforcement and standards of living throughout the rest of the state it is something that doesn't exist outside of Burlington in any measurable way and having the increasing the quality of the housing stock is just as important as creating more housing because people are living in dangerous conditions and also weatherization I agree there that there's a lot more that the state can do because that also it's a wraparound issue around making sure people can afford to stay in their house houses and can afford basic needs like heat and making sure that they're they're in safe and um environmentally sound buildings thank you both very much thank you for your presentations and your answers I think we're really lucky to have candidates the quality of both of you running thanks thanks for being willing to do it okay we're going to move on um to the presentations on the list and first I have I see he's here now phil baruth uh so what it is you have you have five minutes phil including questions and answers okay okay so I will just quickly introduce myself phil baruth one of the chitin and county delegation six senators that we send to Montpelier that will change in two years and we will break up that chitin and six all the members of the delegation supported that idea and that will happen right after redistricting but for now I'm running with my with my colleagues and I just want to give a shout out to them and that is chris pierce and jenny lions and michael sarotkin um wonderful people to work with so I chair the senate education committee right now and if I can I just want to take my time to talk about something that Emma mentioned before and that is the waiting study that came out of the university of vermont and it sounds like a dry technical thing but in vermont we don't count students we count weighted students in other words there's a complicated formula whereby we regulate how much we give each district for each student and that has to do with uh whether a family is in free and reduced lunch status uh in other words needier families whether or not they are el learners a whole range of things including whether they're in elementary school or high school because it's more expensive to educate a high schooler so that formula hadn't been updated since prior to act 60 and people very I think credibly pushed for an update of that so I actually uh I passed a bill mandating that study and at the time the secretary of education um who is rebecca holcomb said that she wasn't going to do the study because she just didn't feel that she had the resources so it took an additional two years but we finally got the money got the study done and it revealed exactly what we thought which is that students who are english language learners often from other countries who have come here to live and have their families work in burlington they need much more resources than they are getting and fortunately the study also found that people in rural communities in vermont are similarly being underfunded because it's more expensive to educate kids in places where there are very few people so oddly enough it formed a working coalition between very rural areas in vermont and very urban areas in vermont like uh wanouski in burlington and so it seemed to me barely possible to be able to pass that I got it out of my committee on the very day that covet 19 shut down the state house and it is now frozen in finance but that is the number one thing that I want to work on when I go back it will be the biggest game changer for burlington and wanouski as well as rural areas in the county so that's a quick introduction the only other thing I'll add is that I'm also on the judiciary committee and I've been very active in terms of social justice changes to the correctional system and eliminating racial disparities and sentencing eliminating life without parole and I sponsored s219 which was the excessive force bill that passed just at the end of the last session and hopefully the governor will sign in a day or two thank you phil um do we have time for some questions um sydney anybody with a hand you only used um yeah there's another minute okay does anybody have a hand up a question for phil baruth I can I can blather on for another minute if uh okay you have another minute to blather on I wouldn't call it all right um I just want to uh touch on gun safety it's an issue that I've worked on since 2013 I put in an assault weapons ban immediately following the massacre in sandy hook and it was a huge donnie brook back then seven years ago every year the legislature has grown warmer and warmer to the idea of sensible gun laws and I was able to pass a universal background checks bill a couple of years ago that was also mentioned earlier I believe Erica brought up the fact that the governor actually rethought his position on new gun laws and signed s55 into law and so uh we have a whole series of changes that that made but it's not enough and one thing that I want to do when I go back I have been uh very concerned with the recent trend under which people show up at political gatherings political protests state houses bearing semi-automatic weapons and they view that as an expression of their rights as gun owning americans I view that as a distinct form of intimidation in the political process and so I had a bill in that I hope to revive to to deal with okay thank you phil okay moving on to the next candidate is tom chess today here I don't see him on the participants list do you sydney no I also don't see him on the attendees list okay so then I'm we've heard from dylan I'm going to go on to june heston thank you very much and thank you for this opportunity I um feel like I have a lot of um work to do on letting people who I know because I haven't spent my career in the political arena I am a native remonter I grew up in graniteville vermont and I was raised by um world war two bets both my mom and dad served in world war two my mom was a whack and my dad was in the army in our core and uh they met new guinea got married there and then came back to vermont and raised their family in the house that my father grew up on so I grew up on a farm in poverty and my parents worked hard um they were very involved in the community they were involved with the march of dimes uh because they lost their oldest son at age eight to polio about six months before the polio vaccine came out and um they were also very involved in the democratic party and I remember when I was about six governor hawk was at our house we were hand-making hawk for governor sines on our kitchen table and uh one of our um one of my parents friends had a farm and he had donkey so he brought a donkey down so there was a photo shoe and I didn't know then that that was interesting to have the governor and your driveway for a photo shoot um but that was my introduction really to um service and so my my life has really been devoted to that I went to school here in vermont I went to norwich university and then to st michaels college and I have then I started my career in higher education and then I started working for nonprofits I was the ceo of the makewish foundation in vermont and then vermont Henry network and then the chill foundation which is Burton snowboards non-profit working with um underserved views across north america and we also got programs going in japan and um in europe so my whole career has been focused on serving others I you know have worked with youth and families who are struggling with the health care system um they're struggling with affordable housing um they're struggling with um access to you know equal education and so I I know what that looks like and it was me I remember thinking we were lucky that I got three hot lunch I didn't know we were poor um and it took me until probably middle school to figure that out when we didn't get new clothes for the first day of school when other kids did um I married the love of my life like and we um we settled here in Richmond um we've been here 26 years ago we built our house and he was someone who also gave his life um to service he was a vermont state trooper for 26 years and he was in the military for 33 years most of which um he was in the marine corpus and then in the vermont army national guard and he achieved the rank of brigadier general and he served as our deputy adjutant general for a few years until he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer which was deemed a result of his exposure to toxins from the birth kits in Afghanistan and so he he took a medical um retirement and then passed away about four months later he worked through about two and a half years of treatment so during the process of the legislation that was introduced last year regarding burn pit exposure I was very involved in testifying and now I'm working with a group of 30 veterans um veterans organizations and nonprofits who are working on federal legislation and we met with members of congress a couple of times until COVID hit so that sort of sparked my interest in now wanting to serve a broader audience in vermont and so that led me here and and I feel like I have a lot to learn but I have learned a lot in this process I I believe that our top priority needs to be the economic recovery because you know COVID has devastated a number of industries but more importantly individuals and so we have a lot of work to do and not only do I think we don't have all the answers I'm not sure we have all the questions I think we've never been here before and I think we need to be doing a lot of listening because I feel like there is a lot to learn from the constituents and those are the people we need to talk to you know if we had issues with affordable housing before COVID those are bigger issues now if we had issues with access to healthcare we know those are bigger issues now I think this pandemic has also given us an opportunity to let you know what we were doing before how we changed and we changed quickly because of crisis we telehealth was predicted to take five years to figure out if that was going to work well it had to work because we were in a crisis so now we have this opportunity to look at how we've done things how and can we move it more quickly so is that okay thank you very much thank you um next on um there's really not time for questions but maybe there will be afterwards okay um next on the list I have Louis Myers but I don't see so he's on his phone and I'm going to allow him to talk right now he should be able to um speak can you if you can hear me we can hear you okay great thank you all right thanks I'm this is Louis Myers I'm um living top Burlington occupations position I grew up in the Washington DC area started my professional career as a social worker got a master's degree in social work from Catholic University and then worked for several years as a probation officer in DC and then worked also as a case manager with HIV patients went back to medical school and residency in internal medicine and then immediately after into primary care and had my own practice for many years and then moved to Vermont about seven or eight years ago and I've worked at Robert and regional hospital as one of their hospital-based positions for seven years I wanted to take just these few minutes to talk about healthcare because I think clearly that is on people's minds we are in the healthcare crisis of our lifetime for our community for our state for country the world I think we can take some comforts and some pride in Vermont in the way we have taken on the COVID virus the story is not finished but I think we're doing an exceptional job and I think it's not going unnoticed around the country but before COVID began and after COVID ends we have been struggling with our healthcare system here in Vermont trying to find a way forward to keep people insured to keep people healthy and I think we've taken the wrong path in 2016 as a parting gift former governor Peter Shumlin passed the an legislature passed the one care all-payer plan which is essentially a for-profit HMO which is based at the University of Ministry through the University of Vermont Medical Center and over the last four years this has cost hundreds of millions of dollars and all of the indices are now that it is failing on all of the major goals which include include increasing access decreasing costs and increasing the quality of care the problem is that it is run by a conglomerate University medical center which has already established a monopoly in Vermont and has previously driven up prices I favor independent hospitals and independent medical practices whenever possible I think the studies consistently show that they not only deliver more personalized care but at far less cost the all the Green Mountain Care Board is one of the whether unique regulatory agency we have here in Vermont which is supposed to be helping control prices but they have not been able to keep the cost of health care down and in fact now unfortunately you're serving more as reformer excuse me cheerleaders rather than regulators for one care too many volunteers are under insured I think we do a fairly good job at providing at least a basic insurance but underinsured in a sense that their deductibles are unaffordable excuse me their premiums are unaffordable and the deductibles and co-pays keep them from going through the most basic care I believe in talking to people around in county and around the state that more people are interested in exploring a single-payer plan or at least a public option to buy into a government-run single-payer plan I would add that we have not had a physician in the state senate in 37 years we have one physician in the house representative Dr. Tell who's mentioned earlier we have no physicians in the Green Mountain Care Board and I think that's been a big problem as we tried to I think that's one reason why one care passed frankly the legislature two people in Vermont even knew what it was and the legislators I've spoken to they don't really understand the plan I can promise you that if I'm on the health care committee in January and some of the high-priced officials from the University Medical Center testify they will not be leaving the hearing room until they answer some questions right now they are our state auditor Dr. Hopper has found that they have been less than the information we need to make sure that our state money is being spent wisely so I would like to use my experience as a physician I think being a physician does not automatically make you a good legislator but I think being a good physician means that you use knowledge compassion and common sense and I think that's a good place to start as a legislator and I'll tell you thank you thank you very much oh you um do you have one minute for questions is that what you were saying Sydney 20 seconds is the remaining time okay so then we'll just push on um the next person is Steve May hi folks can you hear me now we can yes okay fantastic so thanks for the opportunity for for me to be able to share a little bit about myself so I've really had a lifetime of service and my running for state senate is just a continuation of what I feel like has been part of that journey I was fortunate enough to have served in the New York state senate in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks on on the World Trade Center I was a legislative fellow to a senator from Bensonhurst Brooklyn and worked with folks that lost folks at ground zero in terms of my more local experience I've been a past member of the executive board of the Vermont AFL-CIO and I've also been fortunate enough you've been a past vice president of the central labor council here in the Champlain Valley I am a mental health provider I'm a clinical social worker and I've got 15 years experience working in mental health I run my own practice I have done agency work I've done community mental health I've worked at a methadone clinic I get the pleasure of working with addicts alcoholics and their families and I have had a front row seat for the carnage that goes along with the opiate crisis and dealing with the fallout every day and I will bring that experience with me if I'm fortunate enough to serve I took a sabbatical from my mental health practice and was lucky enough to be the first the director of advocacy for the New England Hemophilia Association which meant that I was responsible for the public policy work of the six New England states at our chapter in suburban Boston and then I picked up a promotion and wound up the director of state affairs for the hemophilia federation of America and picked up the other 44 chapter organizations around the country running their policy shop at the state level which was incredibly fulfilling work coming out of the bad blood era in the late 90s that led me to start my own nonprofit organization called the forum on genetic equity which dealt with genetic bias issues it's still a concern today even though the nonprofit been shut down and close to the home I've had the pleasure to be both a school board member in Bolton and I've been a select board member in Richmond wearing our side I share this with you to just illustrate that the depth and width and breadth of experience that I would bring to Montpelier on day one if I am in fact fortunate enough to serve in terms of an agenda that I'm running on there are really three major concerns that I am championing at this point they are universal basic income universal primary care and initiative to the legislature I believe that largely we need a refresh we need a reset in terms of how Montpelier works I think that there is a deep frustration amongst voters about how the legislature doesn't work and that it's time to see substantive change and that that conversation needs to be brokered and so I'm happy to start that process there is one other concern that I care very deeply about about my wife and I adopted a child through DCF and having gone through the process of being foster parents I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy having dealt with DCF and having gone through the legal process there are substantive changes that need to happen and as part of that experience in my clinical practice I developed a specialty around adoption infertility and surrogacy I'm happy to speak about it at greater length but I can tell you that it was a three-year journey that was frankly miss all and that having been said I'll leave it there thank you very much the next speaker on the list is Chris Pearson good evening everybody thanks for having me I hope I'm familiar to many of you nice to see your faces tonight prior to being in the senate as many of you know I representative I represented part of the old north end words one and two in the legislature for eight plus years and since 2016 I've been proud to be one of the six senators I approach the legislature not as somebody who's dying to be a politician or aching for a career in politics but really as somebody that sees the political process as something that belongs to the people that is in some sense not quite corrupted in Vermont I wouldn't go that far but has been taken over by people that do not frankly reflect the community if you look at age breakdown the gender breakdown the income breakdown of people that we serve with in Montpelier you don't find the average remuner is terribly well represented then like a lot of people with a progressive background sort of the step one is hey our elected representatives ought to better reflect our community I remain just a little bit shy of 50 one of the youngest senators which is rather shocking and not great in my career in the house and the senate I have focused on trying to stretch the debate trying to broaden the issues that we can put on the table and what legislators would consider realistic and always with my home in the old north end in mind so when it came to minimum wage peter shumlin and the speaker of the house at that point was talking about 1010 brock obama was talking about 1010 I introduced a 15 dollar minimum wage bill just last year over veto of the governor we managed to inch it up to 1255 in a year and a half from now so those kinds of economic issues poverty issues have been central to my work these days we're seeing it bear out in many ways especially in food security we should not be living in a state of Vermont where we tolerate a single family going without food during this pandemic or otherwise and I've been proud of the work we all of us in the legislature managed to put in money of cares money relief covid relief money towards food security I also am the vice chair of the senate ag committee where I've focused a lot on getting local foods into schools and diversifying our agricultural economy so that we're less dependent on dairy and frankly more able to take care of ourselves when we look at food security and food crossing the oceans and crossing the country to reach us in Vermont there clearly is a problem at the same time we have an ag sector that is struggling to earn a living and and so somewhere there's got to be a connection I would be remiss if I didn't mention climate change in 2012 I was one of the co-founding members of the climate solutions caucus legislative climate solutions caucus therein by the way lies a real tie to agriculture again trying to elevate an important issue that I think resonates with Vermonters but was not getting the attention they deserve in Montpelier and I'm pleased to see that we've made some inroads there including just two weeks ago the senate passing 24 votes the global warming solutions act setting it back to the house we've got to get that to the governor that is a planning document for how we're going to meet the Paris goals and beyond when it comes to housing my my strategy has been to talk to airheart manga and figure out what the affordable housing coalition is asking for and give it everything I've got they do great work and we have a long way to go I've been proud to back up senator bruce on gun control I have a good history of pushing for accountability for police reform getting citizen voices into oversight roles just a few weeks ago we did pass a mandate that the department of public safety come back in august with a strategy to reduce funding for police increase that money into mental health I've taken on pharma I've taken on corporate powers I I focused deeply on economic inequality it's been a great honor to work for you and fight for you in the senate and I'd be glad to have your support in august thank you thank you very much thank you um next would be case your mom I don't see her on the participant list however um would you check me on that Sydney I don't I don't see her okay then I'm going to move on um Erica reddick is next I'd like to give Erica an extra 30 seconds or so because she didn't get to address her issue around a separation powers before okay thank you very much Barbara that is very generous of you I really appreciate it um I my name is Erica reddick I am a resident of ward four that's the new north end of Burlington I am a fortunate owner of my grandparents triplex that they had built in 1963 so that's where my mom grew up spent a lot of time in Burlington went to Lyman Sea Hunt and very vested in making sure that Burlington and Vermont actually return to affordability and return to a place where the middle class can raise their families raise their children educate them and be safe and secure and not have to worry about public safety as we are starting to see now so some of my major policy um initiatives are going to be around the economy so everything to me sort of centers around the economy if we have a group of people if we have a population of people who have good jobs and the ability to make good money take care of themselves take care of their families a lot of these other problems start to work themselves out and as we build that um that wealth and that economy here in Vermont we're going to have the money that we need to pay for all of the initiatives that I've heard people talking about this evening one of the things that I love about Vermonters and being from Vermont is how much people actually really care about the environment they care about their neighbors they care about their schools they want people to be happy and healthy and people really are engaged in their community and what I found in my experience is that the best way to facilitate people's ability to participate in their community and really build up those those resources that we need to address things like the opioid crisis and um other systemic issues that we have in the system is making sure that people have enough and while the answer always seems to be to raise taxes our current administration and legislature don't seem to understand that as we raise taxes and raise regulations and fees and things like that the more it costs to run a business to build things and to get by and businesses and people leave they're leaving you know I think most people know that we have a negative population growth in the state of Vermont and that the only people moving in or the majority of the people moving in are are wealthy and they're remote workers and while that's great and that's a great tax base what we need are jobs and the middle income infrastructure to make sure that people are okay I think I believe right now in Vermont the the uh statistic at least before COVID was 50% of folks were on some kind of state assistance and 50% were working and that's just not sustainable if we want to pay for all of the things that we want to pay for we have to make sure that there are businesses who can thrive and succeed and so my policies are going to be about let's get some businesses in here that can generate some revenue and make it possible to have these things happen another big issue I really care about is our schools you know I don't think a lot of people understand so 75% of our property taxes go towards our schools but that's not the only funding mechanism it also comes from sales tax meals and use tax and a number of other taxes and fees that are raised around the state which have been demolished with COVID so we're going to be facing a huge shortfall in school funding uh not to mention how much Act 46 has really just has has really just put an iron yoke on our schools around the state and really harmed the ability for localities to get good educators good education in their areas and I think it was mentioned earlier the mechanism for the funding really is is often taking from poor communities and giving it to more affluent communities who just provide more services and that's really unfair that place like I thank you it's really unfair that places like chitlin county get more funding when we're actually more affluent I think it's really important that we have a look at the ways that we've created inequity in our system rather than solve it so I want to make sure I honor my time and uh just my last little thing is uh it's really okay to say that we don't care about separation of powers when it's your team that's in the legislature but eventually it's not going to be your team and you're not going to like it when the minority has the ability to overrun the majority with their policies because gridlock is intentional and built into the system so thank you very much appreciate you letting me be here thank you Erica um the next speaker is Adam Roof um hello everybody and and thank you for the awards two three steering committee for for putting this on um it's a shame that we have to do this over zoom I think the the two three neighborhood dinner is one of the the best things going in in Burlington uh community politics and so it's a bummer that we're not all uh snacking together but I suppose the zoom call is the new norm um I'd love to spend five minutes talking about uh separation of powers but I'm gonna restrict myself from doing that um I think maybe most on the call uh are familiar with me but for those who are not I'll just do a quick introduction talk about a few core issues and then just talk a little bit about why I'm committed to um the public service um I don't come from Vermont uh I come from Massachusetts and that might not be the typical way of starting off uh comments when you're running for state legislature but I do that because um we need to be thinking about how our how our communities are welcoming to more to more people and and how we're going to grow in the Vermont way and how we're going to have more people be willing to come and be apart and be included in our in our communities um it's something that I think a lot about it's part of who I am um I grew up in a small business family my my parents are in small restaurant and uh residential construction two sectors that are are taking a beating through this pandemic um so I've been thinking a lot about about small businesses and the people and the workers that make small businesses function um and then lastly uh for those that don't know I did serve on the Burlington City Council for five years which was uh a true privilege to to serve the community that has given me so much uh during those five years I I was active very active in my role there I served as chair of the community development and neighborhood revitalization committee I I chaired the public safety committee for many years working on a range of public safety issues including policing um and you know maybe I'll use that as a segue into some of the main issues that I've been focusing on and with less than maybe two minutes left I'll I'll move relatively quickly um and I'll talk about about justice reform and policing you know it was it was May 1st or May 2nd of last year that I got a call from um from a fellow city councilor at the time who said you really need to see these videos that seven days are circulating from that turned out being the BPD officers um what I would call five acting inappropriately um and that would probably be a overly nice way of saying it really assaulting some young black men in our community and and as chair of the public safety committee I took on the challenge of organizing a group to to put together an action committee a special committee on policing uh that was probably the most difficult thing that I had to to do as a as a city councilor bringing together people that had active disagreement um around an issue that was very sensitive and I think that that was uh something that uh with real hands in the dirt type experience I'd like to bring to the legislature building coalitions um of people with different ideas around issues that are absolutely critical uh we need to be doing that not just with policing but also with how we prosecute and how we imprison um our our community members and and I'll I'll move on from from justice reform to environmentalism which I think should start to less so be a campaign platform point but more so as a philosophy that's integrated into everything that we do um I think that Burlington does a good job in it I think that Chittenden County is a leader statewide I think we do need to make progress elsewhere and I like to talk about environmentalism not just as something we need to do to regress to climate change which we absolutely must but we also need to look at how we can be environmental in our economic development strategies I run BTV Ignite a local non-profit that does economic and community development in the tech sector um with workforce development programs and small business investments um the way that I think about the tech sector is that is a low footprint sector it is a sustainable sector that has good high paying jobs um and it's also if we work hard at it like I do with BTV Ignite we can create more pathways for those who have historically not been involved in that sort of sector and so if we can look at environmentalism as something to progress climate change as well as an opportunity for sustainable clean economic development we can start to address many problems at once and integrated an intersectional way the last thing that I'll that I'll see in someone one minute is that is that one minute yeah from my time left one minute left all right I'll go quick um you know when I talk about economic development um I also talk about workforce training when I talk about workforce training I talk about education and I don't think that Vermont does enough to focus on the full range of what education uh needs to be thought of I think zero to five is a critical uh time in a family's life or a child's life that we can do more in I was proud to help design the early learning initiatives that Burlington put together in 2017 or 18 and we've seen already the benefits of that program we should be looking at zero to five um as part of how we educate and support our families certainly more investments in our education system when you look back historically how have communities and states gotten through recessions or depressions it's investing in their education system and investing in their workforce development training and job retraining which we're going to desperately particularly in the sector of the service sector where that represents as of May half of the 40 000 jobs that have that remain lost right now so uh investments in those sectors I think are important um I think my time is up so I'll hold off there but let's take any questions when the time comes thank you so much okay Adam thank you yep and the next speaker I have is david sheer thank you uh very much for having me here today and and I want to extend my thanks to the ward 2 3 npa I'm sure I speak for all the candidates when I say that we are grateful for the opportunity to get together at least virtually and talk to community members about why we're involved in the race um you know the reason why I'm involved in the race really stems from the formative experience in my professional life which was my work as a public defender and I did that work in here in shenton county and also actually all around the state and had a view of some of the challenges that the most vulnerable for modern space uh and the very low income for modern space and some of the obstacles that are present and it gave me a real insight into the work that I've been doing more recently around criminal justice reform and as a motivator and driver for me and it also gave me a lot of insight into the economic challenges and the necessity of economic opportunity economic justice and affordability and some of the intersecting environmental initiatives that we need to take on if we're going to have a holistic approach to the problems that people face I think especially as we are emerging from a will be hopefully emerging from a serious economic downturn we need people present in the legislature to have a real understanding of the challenges that are out there you know I'll just talk for briefly about the criminal justice system and some of the work I've been doing with respect to that I think one thing that's not super well known is that 85 percent of all people who pass through our criminal system in Vermont are appointed a public defender meaning that we have uh very low income uh individuals coming through the the criminal system almost exclusively and we have a system that polices and prosecutes the poor but what's really going on here is we have a system that is failing to address the underlying reasons why people get involved in the first place and that's poverty substance use disorder mental health issues and on top of that we have a system that it fails to keep us safe it fails by its own terms because it isn't addressing those underlying issues we are seeing high rates of re-offense you know in the last few years I've been working as an assistant attorney general really focusing on making change to the system that's included bail reform increasing access to expungements of people who haven't had issues for a while can get out from under the burden of a record and have much more economic opportunity and stability and increasing restorative justice programming and divergent programs more than doubling them and keeping thousands of remoders out of the regular system and giving them a chance to succeed and I'm proud of that work and I've also and I also understand in building those programs that you can't solve all the ills of the criminal system from inside the system you have to take a broader look and look at the economic inequities and economic challenges that people face one of the other issues that really motivates me and drives me is affordability in Chittenden County that is such an obstacle to people who are trying to succeed on all income levels from Washington's all income levels but certainly low income and middle income individuals I talk to business owners who will say that we are essentially exporting jobs in Chittenden County because it's so difficult to find affordable housing I know from the work that I've done working with low-income clients who would be much better off if they could get to the downtowns in the places like Chittenden County the places within Chittenden County where there are a lot of jobs simply can't do it well because it can't achieve that because affordability is a is a block they can't get there and so I'm a strong proponent of growth and making sure that we have housing of all kinds from permanent affordable housing to environmentally responsible growth of all kinds focused in downtowns and village centers one other aspect of that that's very interrelated is our public transportation system that's both an environmental concern environmental priority and it's also an anti-poverty initiative so many people who are stuck in difficult circumstances are there in part because of the unreliability of private vehicles and we need to do a better job of allowing for everybody to have access to public transportation both on the environmental front I mean in Vermont your average Vermont uses a lot more carbon and commuting than say somebody in New York City even that we think of ourselves as being a much greener place and we need to focus on that issue on both those fronts and the final thing I'll say in the last minute is I think we really need to focus on an investment in recovery I think there can often be a reaction in difficult times to move towards austerity and to reducing government investment and I think that's exactly the wrong thing to do I understand we face difficult choices and challenges but we need to have governance in Montpelier that is focused on investment and making sure that we are a backstop for the economy and for our working people and I will thank you all very much for your time and I'll leave it right there okay thank you very much David and we're right at 8 30 when we said we wanted to adjourn however I am willing to hold the meeting open for another 15 minutes or so if people have questions for any of the candidates um first of all if anybody has any objection to that speak now or forever hold your piece um if not um Sydney can you see if anybody's raising their hands with questions no one right now okay oh actually um Michael Serapkin was supposed to be the next speaker I didn't see him on the list is he on the list I don't see him on our list and Keisha Ram has not um arrived either right I don't see I don't see her okay seeing no questions I will um again pose my question about the connection between affordable housing eliminating environmental standards under 250 act 250 for downtowns and um developers wishes and I'd like to like anybody to answer that but particularly Erhard Manke because people have deferred to you as the affordable housing expert so I'd like to hear from the affordable housing expert thanks Barbara um I try not to think of myself as an expert though I have been working in the field for over 30 years and I totally appreciate the shout out from center person and from uh representative Stalin um yeah there that is a false dichotomy there is no reason that uh you need to think about housing and environmental protections and environmental responsibility and sustainability in uh opposite opposite terms and in fact Vermont has been a leader on that for well over 30 years um early on in my involvement with housing uh the state of Vermont created uh something called Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and think of housing and conservation uh both together uh housing advocates and conservation advocates that wanted to protect Vermont's important open lands uh our agricultural heritage our farms our important natural spaces got together and pervaded the legislature in the late 80s and then Governor Madeline Kuhn and and her administration to create what we refer to as the BHCB Vermont Housing Conservation Board is not a contradiction at all and our affordable housing developers that are funded through that as well as some for-profit developers that have also um gained access to affordable housing funds to provide affordable housing um develop in around our downtowns and our village centers in order to maintain those open spaces and protect our our agricultural heritage and our farm and forestry economy which is such a huge part of of Vermont's of Vermont's economy for working Vermonters um in terms of activity uh folks who are following the processor you know serving currently know that they're um in fact um Senator Saratkin's committee created a an omnibus housing bill that addressed some of those act 250 issues there is some duplication we have very sophisticated development review processes in places like Burlington for instance um where the act 250 process is not necessarily one of the things that helps protect our environment um our development review process is is good for that um so in uh designated downtowns and in so-called neighborhood development areas um uh we want to encourage development in those places and developers will tell you that in uh some situations where there's a duplication of local and regional review processes that cost money it increases risk um and it discourages the kind of difficulties that we want in our downtowns and in our village centers well I'll stop there I don't want to complete the conversation um but um yeah I just say that the reason we need this state is that local processes who seem to be duplicative are fought with conflicts of interest in local politics that's why we need the state which is removed from that to continue to protect us from um um you know possibly predatory developers and um cities that are now themselves cutting back on the protections because of pressures from the development community so I just thought I would mention that Erica has her hand raised I'd like to go ahead and answer as well um I agree that there definitely should be some protections in place for our environment I think we can all agree that those are important I as a matter of fact got my parents to start recycling back in the 80s in Milton when it was not a thing so I'm going to take credit for that uh but in all seriousness um the problem with affordable housing is it's not the environmental impact that we want to be careful of because obviously we do um but most economists even very liberal economists agree that minimum housing affordable affordable housing units often end up driving up the cost of housing and so my concern about affordability is less about um are we making sure that we're being responsible in our building and more about are we having a responsible policy that actually gets us the ends that justify the means and whenever you require a builder to have a number of affordable housing units what happens is the other units in the building then have to be more expensive to cover the cost and in Burlington and in Vermont generally well actually I'll speak to Vermont in particular since we're at the NPA meeting we don't just have state guidelines our guidelines go well above and beyond what they are at the state level to the point where they're unconstitutional and against the law and so the city is regularly uh in litigation with landlords because they they pass policies that are unconstitutional and against the law and so again that raises the cost of housing I can tell you in my own case that 1963 triplex the city has been trying to force us to turn it into a duplex for the last 18 months to the tune of about $20,000 in attorney fees so in case anybody is curious why rent is so high that's one good reason uh I would be happy to do a number of the environmental upgrades and in fact that was our intention to do with renovations last year but the city doesn't want a 60 year old triplex to remain a triplex they're trying to force uh the fifth generation of family to renovate the house so you can see that a lot of the affordable housing issues are not just regulation they're not just environmental they are government overreach policy overreach and overregulation thank you thank you anybody else want to weigh in on this or anything else yeah adam I'm sorry I'll let you do it Sydney I I stopped myself from talking about separation of powers but I'm going to indulge and talk a little bit about affordable housing and you know I think you bring up a good point Barbara um around the the uh you know act 250 and the and the different processes that are in place and I think that you know one thing that I love about Vermont and I think that one of the greatest things about brahman urs is that we tend to want to fix things that aren't working and when things don't make sense or when they're clearly not working for um you know working for the community whether it's due data or stories uh and I think there's plenty of stories and statistics that we can look at uh in our housing market that points to this um before politics we try to be pragmatic and I think that one of the best things we could do is to is to eliminate the the the duplicative processes around review um you know I'm generally a proponent for local control but not always I do think that there's an opportunity to improve how the how the review is done but I also want to reject and push back on the notion that it's that it's only environmental high environmental building standards that are leading to our affordability crisis is it a contributor probably at some at some small portion but I think the forces of our market are are far more impacted by other things namely our our unwillingness to want to consider what long-term growth looks like in our community um some people call it smart growth some people call it sustainable growth I look at it as a necessity from an affordability standpoint and we can do growth the Vermont way we can do it in a right size manner and I think before we go down that path because a conversation about growth in Vermont is one that has to be done the right way we need to look at the housing market from from truly the entirety of what the marketplace is which I think of it as homelessness to high end and if we're not doing what we we need to be doing at each sector or each section of that of that spectrum then we're losing out we do generally a good job in in county supporting the homeless and finding them transitional housing um we generally do a good job with policies like the inclusionary zoning ordinances that handles this um you know the 60% AMI level we the high end marketplace tends to take care of itself I do think where we're missing is a focus on that middle income that workforce housing I don't think we focus enough there I do think that there is a hole in our housing market that you can you know if you qualify for an IZ unit or an affordable unit that is that's helpful it does push the cost on to other people we need to have programs in place that are providing the workforce and middle market housing opportunities and that's not just with rent we need to find ways to condos build more properties that young people can't find their way into not just for all the benefits that coming with a stable home but also the the wealth that's generated owning a home is still one of the best pathways to long-term wealth and breaking generational poverty and in Vermont right now if you're a 30 something or a 20 something you cannot afford to buy a house certainly not in Burlington probably not in Chittenden County and that is one of the driving factors that's pushing people out of our communities and we need to be more inclusive as we think about these things so thank you for that that question and thanks for letting me indulge a little bit thank you um I said uh Molly has a question okay Molly and I want to ask the questions I did not hear a lot of people talk about racial justice in your platforms I'm wondering as state leaders what you think about the reparations anybody want to be in on that I'd be I'd be happy to speak as a state representative Dylan yeah I mean I I would just say um my apologies if you didn't catch it earlier we had a conversation and I know we touch on a lot in a very short amount of time so thank you for sticking with us here um I actually think it's appropriate now to begin to look at the systems we have how they have disadvantage people of color and I think it is time to enter into a process first of reconciliation formal reconciliation as a state as well as explore opportunities where we can provide reparations the key area that I see right off the bat it's it's actually appropriate in this conversation is around housing if you look at federal housing laws the discrimination that has been allowed to happen historically that's an area where state policy has an overlay and we need to begin to think about how all of our systems all of them have contributed to this marginalization because it's put people further behind I had someone say to me the other day they were sort of illustrating the situation here and really what we have is we have a you know we have a situation where perhaps a white person in Vermont might start on third base but a person of color might actually be starting one first and as a society it's time for us as policymakers to accept it address it listen to the voices of those who have been marginalized and take action so I actually think it's appropriate to begin that conversation and as a state legislator both in the house right now I feel that way and if elected to the state senate it's something I would want to work on understanding that we need to do a better job as an institution in the legislature of listening of allowing those voices to lead the actual debate because if you look at the makeup of the general assembly and we dealt with some bills recently we've either been rushing through them or the makeup has not actually always represented the voices who have cast the votes and elected us to be there so this is a partnership we need to do better and we need to work together thank you Dylan um just a few more minutes if anybody wants to weigh in on the question of reparations all right um it's hard if you don't do virtual hands but I see Edward and then um David I'll be brief um Molly David and Chris I think we have to stop Molly thanks for the question I'm lying earhurt thanks for the question Molly um sorry if you didn't hear my uh intro earlier but you know as a father of a young black man I you know we had the talk um we uh I got to pick him up at the police station uh when he got targeted by the police I I understand how um in many ways that you know most of my uh white friends and colleagues may not have had that personal level of experience with the kind of discrimination that um especially young black men but young black women um all are subject to I totally think that reparations is something that needs to be discussed I completely agree with everything that Dylan Dylan said and thank you for that um Dylan uh you know one of the things that we forget we always think that you know slavery was in the south and it built the economy of the south well you know our new england mills spun that cotton and the wealth of new england the traditional wealth of new england in large part is also due to um the sweat and the slave labor of our african-american friends ancestors so I think it's it's time for that discussion to happen here and I think we need to continue the bottom to top review of our state laws and policies uh with a racial justice lens and continue to work on police uh reform and police practices that were begun in the general assembly this year okay um David, Chris and Adam I think what's the way in thank you very much and I won't reiterate what has already been very nicely said by both Dylan and Erhard I just add one aspect that I've been working on and I've been able to been pleased to be able to help some of our leaders of the color on is racial disparities in our criminal and juvenile justice system we have one of the most disparate rates of incarceration for black people in the nation but 1.5 percent of our population is black and 8.5 percent of the population in our jails is black which again puts us I think around fourth or fifth in the country in terms of racial disparities we have a lot of work to do on that a couple of things that I think we need to do specifically are changing our sentencing laws to frankly I'll say bluntly reduce the discretion of prosecutors and judges to make the sentences more consistent and secondly I think we also need we have been gathering data about what police do not enough but we started doing that we need to start gathering data about how prosecutors are making decisions and how judges are making decisions it's largely a closed box once somebody gets into court um to the time that they are sentenced we just don't have data to see how people are being treated desperately and where those disparate decisions are being made and we really need to scrutinize the lawyers who are involved in that system the lawyers have escaped scrutiny too much I say this as a lawyer myself and we need to scrutinize them as part of the process to getting towards equal justice okay Chris just quickly because I know we don't have much time uh you know I hope Vermont can begin a discussion around reparations I think it needs to be a national conversation and we have at many times been national leaders pushing hard conversations I think closer to home in a more immediate way building on what David is saying it's one of the reasons why I've been pushing expungement and actually the senate passed a pretty far reaching expungement started talking about cannabis charges but looking much more broadly actually because criminal records we know are disproportionately saddling black community with records that interrupt housing opportunities interrupt job opportunities etc also to the point about police data we passed several years ago a mandate that Vermont law enforcement collect racial data traffic stops just as passed a few weeks ago we actually went further and said any agency that's not abiding by that mandate will see a cut in funding so we finally put some teeth into it so I'm pleased to have been part of that there's no question there's more work to do but there has been some promising steps thank you Chris Adam you want to wrap it up yeah really quickly and and I agree with the the sentiments of others that I've spoken I just want to point to the power of you know talking about reparations I think the the the core goal at least as I see and I think most would agree that the goal of reparations it often is thought of too abstractly or it's not defined quite quite well enough and I think from a from a high level it's restoring trust and I think that that that especially rings true in the world of policing but you know the trust of our black and brown communities it has been eroding for generations and maybe is there's a moment that if we can meet it we can start to repair that trust in one way that it can be done in addition to the ones that have already been noted about criminal justice policing housing and so on is how we invest and focus our economic development resources through Ignite that I that I run here locally we do have a small investment fund and a small grant fund and the the the power of investing those dollars towards the communities that if historically have been left out of those opportunities is great and you know if you look at and I won't go on and on about this but I encourage you all to look at the impacts of programs like providing micro loans for startup businesses that are directed at communities that have historically not been able to get access to capital and looking at the data and the outcomes of in proper full investment opportunities for businesses that are focused on black and brown communities and immigrant communities is a great firm called unshackled that looks just at this in the outcomes of those programs are well they speak for themselves I encourage you to look at them and that speaks to a few things that's not just doing right in repairing our societal harms but that also helps build our economy and in a time where so many of the people who have historically been disadvantaged are just getting continually saddled with with the uh the impacts of COVID those sorts of outcomes and in a range of different ways so I encourage everyone to look at those sorts of programs I think the state can do more in investing our economic development resources into those communities thanks thank you thank you um I'd like to thank Sydney Hinckley for being our technical support from CEDO and being a great timekeeper I'd like to thank um steering committee members Tony Reddington and Kevin Duterman and Charlie Ginoni who put this meeting together and I'd like to thank all the candidates for being willing to serve Vermont and our community in the way that they do so um meeting's over we don't know if we're having an august meeting traditionally we don't but we might so I'll leave you with that um good night keep safe and keep well it's marvelous thanks everybody see you everybody