 Hello and welcome to ongoing election coverage by Town Meeting Television. This is one in a series of forums brought to you in advance of the general election on November 8th. Town Meeting TV hosts forums with all candidates and covers all items on the ballot so that you can meet community decision makers and get to learn about issues that affect your community. Tonight's forum is between the four candidates running for two available seats in the, excuse me, house seats in the Chittenden District 2. I'm your moderator Emily Brewer. I'm joined by Angela Arsenault, Aaron Brady, Tony O'Rourke, and Bruce Roy. Thank you all for joining me tonight. Really appreciate that. I just want to remind folks who are watching this live that we welcome you to call in with questions. Please call 802-862-3966 and we'll get your question answered by the candidates live on air. And you can watch Town Meeting TV on Comcast Channel 1087, Burlington Telecom Channel 217, and 17 as well as youtube.com slash town meeting TV. With that being said, we'll jump right into the opening statements and Aaron, as the incumbent, we'll start with you. And so for the opening statement, can you please tell us why you're running and what experience you bring to the position? Great. Thanks for this opportunity. It's great to be doing this in person. I don't think Tony and I got to talk in person until Election Day two years ago. For the past two years, I've been really honored to represent Williston in the legislature and we've been working hard to fulfill the commitment we made to all Vermonters and their communities to build a strong statewide recovery. We've made historic investments in the economy and workforce in housing and broadband and in climate action. We've made important progress on racial justice and I'm especially proud of the work we did to support children's and families, including the creation of a new child tax credit and the continuation of the universal meals and schools program, which I took a leadership role in getting passed. I'm a high school teacher now in my 16th year and one of the most important lessons I've learned from my years in the classroom is the cumulative impact of inequitable opportunities and experiences on young people and their families and subsequently then our communities. I'll continue to be a strong advocate for families and children. In addition to being a teacher, I'm also a school board member of seven years elected to represent our community, a parent of two school age children. And before COVID made things a lot more difficult, I was an active volunteer in our schools. Well, it's been challenging at times to be raising a family, working as a school teacher, balancing a campaign and legislative service. I believe it's important that we have more voices like mine and Montpelier from working families. Thank you very much, Erin. Next we'll move over to Angela for your opening statement. Can you please tell us why you're running and what experience you bring to the position? I'd be happy to and I also want to thank town meeting TV. Thank you and thank my fellow candidates for being here. As he said, my name is Angela Arseneau and I'm running for state representative because I care very deeply about every single person's ability to be or to become the person they truly are. And through experience and through observation throughout my life, I've realized just how deeply policies and laws influence that ability. And we know that some policies and some laws have more of a negative impact on members of marginalized communities in their quest to become or be who they truly are. So I bring to the legislature an awareness of that as well. I've been a journalist for 20 years. So I've really practiced the skill of question asking. And it's been my job to take in information, to talk to people, gain perspective and then share that information, share their perspective with readers. And I look forward to doing the same thing for voters as a legislator. I'm also a school board member who's learned a lot about policymaking and keeping people who will be impacted by policies at the center of those policies as you're crafting them. And finally, as a woman and a mom in our culture, I bring a perspective to the legislature that has been missing from far too many conversations for far too long. Thank you very much, Angela. And next for the opening statement, we'll move right on to Tony. Why are you running and what experience do you bring? Well, thank you, everyone, again, viewers at home. I've run before and the reasons are consistent today. As they were then, I view this as community service and a chance to represent our constituents, our friends, our family, our neighbors. I believe that if you're willing and able to throw your hat in the ring, that you should. So here I am again, doing just that. I'm currently serving as a justice to the peace in Williston, which gives me some opportunity to do a little bit on that on a very local level. But this is an opportunity to reach a little bit larger group to service in Vermont. My background is predominantly in the hospitality industry. I've worked in the restaurant industry for many years. It's what brought me to Vermont 25 years ago this year. Currently, we have a small family wine business. So I'm really out there, talk to a lot of business people, what their struggles are, what their goals are, and that's a moving target, as we all know the last couple years have been very uncertain. And I watched people work really, really hard for many years and pour their life's savings into a business and watch it crumble, in some cases, and it was difficult. I think we're getting in a better position, but I think we've got a long way to go. My approach is one of engagement and civility and inclusion. I think everyone should have an opportunity to throw their hat in the ring. It shouldn't be based on income or education. It should be based on will and ability to do it. So, thank you. Thank you very much, Tony. And finally, for opening statements, we'll go over to Bruce. Why are you running and what experience do you bring? Thank you, well, I'm Bruce Roy and I've been a resident of Chittenden County probably longer than I care to mention because it'll date me and I don't want to do that. My gray hair does that all by itself. And I graduated from Essex High School, graduated from UVM, was on the Essex School Board, and was a computer science instructor at CCV for the longest time. I'm retired. I spent 30 years in the Vermont Air Guard, retired as a full bird colonel. And one of my last jobs at the guard base was doing base operations. I managed approximately 400 folks and we dealt with all sorts of base operations issues. I had the fire department, the security forces guys, communications team, the human resources guys, they all reported to me. And so I learned how to run a large organization across a diverse skill set. I'm also a retired IBM engineer, manager, business line leader. My last job at IBM was the profit and loss manager for just shy of a 10 digit profit and loss business. Why I'm running is, I just go nuts. The Vermonters are being pushed to the limits on providing the basics needs to their families, cost of living expenses are out of control, general inflation up 8%, groceries up 13%, taxes are up almost 5% for folks in Williston. Gasling prices are up $2 a gallon. I mean, this is a huge, huge burden on the typical Vermonter. And I decided to get off the couch after being retired and see if I can't lend my expertise to solving some of those problems. One of the things I see is that doesn't seem to be a disconnect between what Vermonters need and what's going on in the legislature. I mean, in the middle of this madness of skyrocketing prices, it was brought forward to do a carbon tax, a clean heat standard tax, which was going to pass taxes on to already challenged, financially challenged folks. I thought it was nuts. I'm glad the governor vetoed it, but the governor was in just a hair just close to getting it overridden by the legislature. So part of what I want to do is be part of the balance that has to be in the legislature. We all trust the governor. We all think he's a great guy doing a good job. We shouldn't take away his constitutional approval process. I was conscious to override veto process. We can override that too easy now. Thank you very much, Bruce. Appreciate that. All right, great. Thank you, everyone, for your opening statements. Let's move right on to the first question. And we'll start with Angela for this question, which involves education. So the legislature can make impacts on how education is funded statewide. Do you see the need for changes to how we fund education? And how would you use your office to move changes forward? I really appreciate this question, of course, something I think about a lot as a school board chair. And I first want to lift up the work that Representative Brady and her colleagues have done in the last legislative session to really get the wheels in motion to move toward fully funding universal school meals. We have universal school meals this year thanks to the work of Representative Brady and others like her. And it's a bit of a pilot year, if you will. And we're still, I know that there's work to be done as far as seeking sustainable long term funding for universal meals in schools. And so that's one funding, I would call that a funding change. And I'm excited about that. I think it goes a long way toward recognizing nutrition as one of the building blocks of high quality education that it truly is. And secondly, we have coming down the line in a few years, the revised pupil weights as a result of the pupil weighting study, which will really change the equity in funding throughout Vermont. It's very complex in a lot of ways and kind of hard to sum up in 90 seconds. But what I'd like to see is it's a great start, really great actually more than a start. But I'd love to know that there's a little more accountability built in to the equitable school funding law so that we're sure that the increased tax capacity is being used to direct resources to the kids, to the students who have been identified as needing extra support. And then kind of big picture ideas maybe just to offer a couple. I would really love to see increased funding for career and technical education in our state. And the governor himself has mentioned this. It seems to be gaining traction at the state level. And I just think it's so important to offer very robust options to folks who are not necessarily on the college track and to stop making it seem as if that's the choice to make. I think my time is up, so I'll stop there. Thank you so much, Angela. I keep going. Thank you very much. And yeah, just try to keep it as close to a minute and a half as possible. And you guys are doing great. So next for this question on education, we'll go to Tony. Do you see the need for changes to how we fund education and how would you use your office to move those changes forward? I think inherently the sources of funding are fairly acceptable to most people in Vermont. The vast majority of that is coming from Vermont from our property tax. We probably all see a little increase in that, which isn't always welcome. But we spend, we're one of the highest per student spending in the country. Two schools of thought on that. We should be proud of that because it's very important to provide education for our students. We also want to make sure that we're getting a return on our investment and making sure that that money is netting quality education that prepares young folks to go out to college or into the working world or to start a business. It's a really hard thing to measure. Customer satisfaction, per se. Do you go to the parents? Do you go to standardized tests? They all play a role in that. We have teachers and my family. My sister teaches fourth grade in Saratoga, New York. So we have these conversations. I think, again, I would like to see perhaps at the federal level a little bit more money come into the state of Vermont based on reaching hurdles and exceeding goals that make sense and are achievable and attainable. But overall, I think the funding framework is OK. It's what we do with the money that we take in. Great. Thank you very much, Tony. And next, we'll move on to Bruce for this question. Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of good things happened as a result of the Act 127 passing. I think that was a good deal. Maintaining control of the budget in the school board level is a great idea. I'm glad we're doing that. And the idea of having equitable funding across the state for folks less fortunate and less capable is a great idea. I think we're going to have to tighten our budgets, sharpen our pencils, and try to understand that this is not an unlimited spending we can do. Certainly education is important. It's our next generation of leaders and workers and doctors and all that. So we have to focus on that for sure. But we can't keep raising. We can't keep taxing the taxpayers and give more and more money with a budget that grows and grows. I think we're going to have to take an approach maybe a little different. Right now, the budget gets created. The folks look at it, we figure out how the tax. Maybe we just say, this is the tax we're going to print. And let's make the education fit the budget. And as part of 127, I think there was a discussion that the Department of Taxes is going to go look at other funding methods. And I think that's a really good idea. We should look at all sorts of stuff, whether it's an income tax, an income, or whatever. It's a good thing to do. Great. Thank you very much, Bruce. And finally, for this question, we will finish with Erin. Thank you so much. I came here straight from teaching all day, so I'm passionate about this one. And I appreciate a lot of what's already been said here. We have a really complex education funding system here in Vermont. It's one of the most progressive in the country, but it is quite complex. We took some important steps in the last session to make it more equitable and created a glide path for districts like ours, CVSD, that will see potentially a decrease in taxing capacity. So I think we need to see that system come into be put into place and hopefully distribute resources in a more equitable way. We also have a bipartisan study group working now on the source and how we fund our education system, because it is quite complex. And parts of it come from property tax, but it's actually smaller than a lot of us probably realize. And the study is looking at an income, as you said, an income-based tax system. I think we need to look carefully at those results, because it would potentially be more transparent. And it would potentially mean that we are asking those who can afford it more to be the ones who are carrying the higher burden. I want our tax system to value work over wealth. And certainly when it comes to funding our schools, I think that's particularly true. We were able, last year, with a huge surplus in the Education Fund to fund universal school meals, as Angela said, and return $20 million to the taxpayers in the form of not increasing the yield and then impacts the property tax rates. So there was hard work done in the legislature last year to be very careful with our collective resources. And on a statewide level, I have to say, while we do have a very well-funded K-12 system, and I really like the way you put it, and the challenges that forces us and things that forces us to ask ourselves, I think we do need to find some efficiencies in our K-12 system. But I'm really concerned about our statewide investments in the bookends of our system. I think we need to be spending and prioritizing much more in the early years. And we need to do more in the post-secondary, like Angela talked about, career and technical education. I know all too well how hard it is for high school seniors to go on and realize their true potential, to go on to higher education, or some kind of post-secondary training, and it would be good for the economics of this state if we make more of an investment there. Thank you so much, Erin. All right. I would just like to remind folks, before we move on to the next question, if you're watching this live, we really welcome your questions. Please call in at 802-862-3966. And with that, we'll move on to our next question, which involves health care. And we'll start with Tony for this one. So the increasing cost of health care is putting pressure on Vermonters and the state's economy. COVID has sharpened our focus on inequities in health care. What is next for health care changes in Vermont? And please be specific if you can. OK, well, if we thought education was complex, we'd go with health care. Again, best practices are always something I look to. How do we bring professionals in? How do we get roundtable discussions on this? My wife works in the medical electronic record side of this. So we have conversations about that, about efficiencies. A few years ago, Vermonters will remember very well the attempt at single payer here. Around the same time, Massachusetts was rolling out something called Romney care. One worked, for the most part. One didn't. Cart before the horses are the things that we really need to try to avoid. And this has so, so many moving parts. But truly, it's heartbreaking to see people that have family members that get ill and they're setting up go fund me's. I mean, I don't know how anyone can watch things like that and not feel for that. And no one should go bankrupt because they get sick. That's at the core of this. So how do we get more efficient? That's a really difficult question to answer. It's access. It's a personal responsibility for taking care of yourself to kind of keep your medical care down. But sometimes that doesn't even play a role in this with certain illnesses. So going after catastrophic coverage, absolutely. That's number one. And then from there, we look to kind of layer underneath that with things like prescription drugs. I mean, I know people that go without their prescription because they can't afford it. Their copays are sky high. So we have a lot of work to do, but we need to get some really intelligent, invested people at the table from both the public and the private sector and put the politics aside and get this fixed. Great. Thank you very much, Tony. And now, Bruce. Yeah, thank you. You know, the promise of affordable health care for everyone has never really been fulfilled by, you know, evident by our bills today. No matter what the administration is or whatever, it just hasn't happened. And I believe COVID not really focused us, but rather kind of detracted us from solving the problems that we've got going on today. And we all got invested in COVID. We all dealt with it. And the system just kept on rolling along. And one of the things that I'm encouraged by though in Vermont is the establishment of the all-player model and the usable accountable organizations in one care of Vermont. I think the combination of government and private insurance agents and folks who give the care is important. You have to have that combination. And sadly, because of COVID, that work kind of got pushed to the back. And we're really going to get a good chance to see if it's working, what the metrics are. Are we improving? So, you know, with the advent of COVID and you know that we found out that telemedicine, telehealth is a good thing. I read an article today about some young man who started a mobile health center that's showing up at companies. Good deal for employees. Good deal for the employers. You know, you show right up, get your heart, your blood pressure taking, get your shots, whatever. It's a great idea. So there's things we can look at, but I really think we need to give a chance to the organizations that are already in place and give them a couple of years, maybe, you know, whatever, give them an extension. And let's see in two years whether this all-pair model is gonna work for Vermont. Thank you, Bruce. And next for this question is Erin. Thanks. I may be a junior, maybe a senior in education policy and funding, but I'm definitely a freshman when we talk about healthcare. But I think we absolutely have to value access and affordability and those need to be the driving components of our decisions. It's a human right and we need to continue to increase access to healthcare and to mental healthcare in particular to make it more affordable and to focus on prevention and public health. But it's a highly complex system. We have about 20% of Vermonters who are on Medicare, which is entirely regulated at the federal level, about a little over 20% on Medicaid, which is a combination of state and federal action and decisions. And then a bit over 50% on private employer provided a private insurance. So we're dealing with a really complex policy issue here and not something that a state legislature alone can address. I appreciate your comments, Bruce, about telehealth. That was something the legislature dealt with last session and realizing the huge shifts that happened because of COVID. And so we instituted or we passed some new telehealth registration and licensing requirements in order to allow that practice to continue, but make sure that we are protecting Vermonters and patients. We also invested pretty heavily in nursing programs because we have a real shortage of nursing and we are forecasting to have a shortage of nursing in the near future. So those are important investments that will take time to come online and to see the impact of, but I think we need to continue to invest in our healthcare workforce and our mental healthcare workforce in particular where we have particularly dire shortages right now. Thank you very much, Erin. And finally for this question, Angela, what's next for healthcare changes in Vermont? Well, I know we'll get to this eventually, but I think immediately the next big healthcare change and I do consider it a healthcare change is the passage of Article 22 or Prop 5, the Productive Liberty Amendment. I think that is absolutely a healthcare issue and that's a change that I hope to see. And I know we'll talk more about that later. So more specifically to your point and to the question, as we've all been saying, access and affordability, I think are two of the biggest issues when it comes to healthcare in this state. And again, it's a very complex problem, but I think what I would seek to do and what I hope we can do more and more in the legislature is to take a really holistic approach and to say, for example, we need more practitioners in the state that will increase access and presumably improve the affordability factor. Okay, so now we need more practitioners to move into the state perhaps or we need to educate folks who already live here so they can become practitioners. So now we're talking about housing and we're talking about education when we started talking about healthcare. So that is the approach that I would take to really any of these complex issues, to zoom out a little bit, to really consider the full picture and then to build that puzzle as the full picture rather than handling smaller vignettes whenever possible. Great, thank you so much, Angela. And now our next question, we're gonna start with Bruce and it rolls around criminal justice reform. How does Chittenden County address crime? Is there a problem with policing that needs reform and how would you address community safety? So as far as reform within the police department, I support our police, our first responders, all these folks who put their lives on the line every time they go out 100%. And actually one of the things I talked about with Chief Foley and Williston the other day was concerns about accountability of police officers. And I think there's already a law in the books that pretty much handles that. I think it's called Act 56 in June 2018, which has a council that is responsible for investigating and doing a judgment on whether a police officer or a law enforcement officer or had some professional misconduct. And I think that's, give that a shot too. Maybe the council itself needs to be adjusted a little bit, but I think there's a mechanism for that and I don't think we need to go any further. I think what we have to keep in place though is the focus on who are the victims of crimes. You know, it's not the criminals who are the victims. They may have sad circumstances as to why they did the crime, but they're not the victims, they're not. We need to enforce laws that we have, detain and prosecute criminals who break the laws and get them to a court and go through judicial process. If found guilty, they have to suffer the consequences and then if we can rehabilitate them. So we have changes that can be made, but I think there's things in place. I don't like solving problems over again. We got other problems that are right out there in front of us that need to be dealt with. So I think this one, I think Vermont has done a decent job in holding police officers accountable, but we've got to have, I'll be blunt, we have to have prosecutors that prosecute crimes and hold criminals responsible for their acts. Thank you very much, Bruce. And next we'll move on for this question over to Erin. And I'll just repeat it one more time. How does Chittenden County address crime? Is there a problem with policing that needs reform and how would you address community safety? We ultimately need to find a balance. Restorative justice has an important role to play in making important long overdue changes in our criminal justice system and law enforcement plays a vital role in all of our communities and I value their service. These two cannot be at odds. We have to find the balance there. I supported Ted Kennedy's candidacy for state's attorney because he seemed to understand the balance was perhaps off a bit in our county, but regardless of the outcome of that election, this is a really complex issue. We have extraordinary mental health needs. We have systemic inequities. Things as Angela pointed out, you take one issue and start peeling back the layers and we're talking about issues of housing. We're talking about minimum wage, healthcare access, and it's often our law enforcement members who are the ones who are on the front lines or the only ones responding in situations that are really complex and are multi-layered societal problems. And the legislature has been and will continue to work on police reform as well. We commissioned a study in the past session on whether qualified immunity prohibits adequate police accountability or not. So we'll need to look closely at the outcome of that study. And I saw the news just today about an officer from Williston who's been permanently banned from certification, which tells me that, as you mentioned, the Vermont Criminal Justice Council is working. And when we've set up a process that maybe can start to do some of this work and make sure that we do have accountability as well. Thank you very much, Erin. And next for this question, we'll go over to Angela. Well, and I think we've started, I think the first part of the question was addressing crime in Shending County specifically. And so for that, I say we leave a lot of that in the very capable hands of our state's attorney, Sarah George. I think, and the answer for me is because, yes, there are problems with policing that need reform. And as Bruce and Erin have both mentioned, the addition of the Vermont Criminal Justice Council is important and they've acted just this week. I will say that that same officer was also cited, or, you know, state's attorney, George, had written a Brady letter naming that officer and saying that she would no longer accept testimony from him because of incidences. And this all, the result this week bears that out. She was right. And so I think that you address criminal justice reform in the same way I've been talking about addressing so many of our issues and concerns, which is holistically. And as Erin just said, you have to look at the underlying and contributing factors, which will include, as you know, housing, availability of guns, mental health issues, substance misuse issues. And as to the use of restorative practices, I'm a volunteer with the Wilson Community Justice Center and I believe wholeheartedly in the power of restorative justice. And I will rebut a little bit, perhaps, of what Bruce was saying, that criminals are not victims. Very often, people who perpetrate crimes have been victims of some thing. You know, you can take the incident that you're talking about and say they're not a victim, but they are often, you know, experiencing challenges and trouble, if you will, that are largely in some ways out of their control and have to do with these underlying issues that I'm talking about. So it's all a big picture thing and I think it's important to approach it all with compassion for everyone involved. Thank you. So let me respond. I mean, I understand what you're saying, though I think we spend too much emphasis on relieving the criminal of his responsibilities. Certainly he might have had a bad life, he might have been, you know, who knows what went on in his life, but let's solve that problem versus making it a problem that we have to reform the police system, we have to reform judicial practice. Let's solve the problem of the stress and strain that's going on people where they feel the need to do these things. Yes. Thank you, Bruce. And we'll finish this question with Tony. How does Chittenden County address crime? Is there a problem with placing that needs reform and how would you address community safety? Well, first of all, the men and women of law enforcement have an immense amount of responsibility and stress to protect and serve. And when that's violated, they have to be held accountable. They have to be held accountable on a higher level than the average citizen does. That being said, there seems to be a movement to categorically condemn people of law enforcement. In some cases, it's resulting in less people wanting to get into that as a vocation. There's cities and towns and villages all across our country that are struggling to find people to enter into that world. And for good reason, I have several friends that have done that and most of them have retired early. The stress level is higher than it's ever been. So we have to hold them accountable and we know that. We know that. We've seen bad instances of law enforcement. So we also have to provide training and that includes mental health training. I mean, what job is more stressful than that? I honestly, outside of being in an active military situation, I can't think of a single one that's more stressful than that. So we owe them a lot of gratitude. And we also owe, we have a responsibility to make sure they have the tools. And we may be failing there. I think in some cases we are. And that takes, requires money and it requires commitment and it requires some patience. But the clock is running. I've been here 25 years, 25 years ago. I never heard anyone say, I don't feel safe going to Burlington. And unfortunately, I hear that on almost a daily basis. That's a problem. Thank you, Tony. You're welcome. I just want to rebut that. Absolutely. I believe that people say that but I also believe that statistically, Burlington is actually safer now than it was maybe 25 years ago. I don't know if that's the exact timeframe, but it's a perception rather than a reality. Well, I can tell you're talking to police officers that worked in Burlington and what reasons why they left. It had to do with a morale situation. And the fact that they didn't believe their community supported them. So whether there truly is an increase in crime or not appears there is. I mean, it appears there's more violent crime going on in Burlington. But it all started 18 months ago when the city council made it said, we are going to, they didn't say really defund the police. We're going to let things go, let people leave and not support the police department, not refund them. Police officers are not stupid that Tony said they put their lives on the line and then without support, they're not going to stay and they left. Thanks Bruce. I just want to give Angela a quick chance or anybody really a chance for a 30 second rebuttal before we move on to the next question. Otherwise we'll keep it rolling. All set to go. All right. So we're going to start back over with Aaron first on this question and moving on to talk about ballot issues. So two constitutional amendments, constitutional proposition two and proposition five will be in front of voters this November. Do you support or oppose these propositions? I wholeheartedly support both and was really honored in my first session in the legislature to be taking such momentous votes, particularly proposition five in terms of a momentous vote. I believe deeply that reproductive health decisions are between a woman and her medical healthcare providers and team. And they are deeply personal decisions and they are not government decisions. And the process by which we amend the constitution is ultimately democracy at its best here. This is the ultimate expression of democracy. It requires the legislature to consider the measure in two separate sessions. So it had already happened in the session previous to mine and then it goes to the voters. So will Estonians will have their chance to have a say but I will enthusiastically be supporting proposition five and appreciate the foresight of some of our legislative leaders several years ago in anticipating potentially the political climate we're in and the Supreme Court climate we're in and the challenges to reproductive liberty that now are starting to exist around the country and that we hope to hold at bay here in Vermont. I also supported proposition two and I just wanna make sure I get the wording right because it was one of the more powerful speeches I've heard on the floor of the house and it was representative Hal Colston from Winooski when he was presenting the bill report and really giving us, okay, what's in this and what are we voting for? And quite simply, it says slavery and indentured servitude in any form are prohibited and he had a beautiful speech but he ended it really well and because obviously we don't have slavery as we would anticipate in any form here in Vermont today so why do we need this? And he reminded us that language is powerful, tremendously powerful. Thank you, Erin. And next for this question, Angela, do you support or oppose proposition two and five? I, like Erin said, wholeheartedly support both propositions and wanna be sure that voters know that these questions will appear on your ballots as articles so proposition five which is the reproductive liberty amendment is article 22. It is an amendment to the constitution that simply affirms and protects the position currently held by the majority of Vermonters that reproductive healthcare decisions are meant to be between the patient and the provider and that there is no place for government interference in those decisions. There is a concerted misinformation effort afoot if you will and I just wanna say flat out that article 22, proposition five, the reproductive liberty amendment does not encourage, condone or otherwise even speak to late term abortions. It simply does not. That's not, late term abortions are not currently practiced in Vermont. And again, that is, it's something that's really just is not a part of this amendment. Article one will be what we've just referred to as proposition two on your ballot. It will be article one. And as I've heard said before it's hard to believe that in 2022 we have the opportunity to place this vote but we all do have this opportunity and I will be taking it and I hope everyone else will vote yes as well. Thank you Angela. And next for this question, Tony do you support or oppose proposition two and proposition five? Well of all of the items we're gonna discuss today these two certainly carry the most emotional weight. I don't think there's any debating or denying that. That being said proposition two I think is probably one of those rare instances that's gonna have just about universal support which is really encouraging to see that. It's much needed. It's apolitical in a lot of ways. It's vast reaching. So I fully support that without hesitation. I think that is one of those rare moments where you will see loud and vigorous applause for kind of a historic moment. And I don't think I'm reaching by saying that. Proposition five, this year has seen some great and immense changes, greats not the right word immense changes with the decision at the Supreme Court level. My instance of thought with that is I believe that most people felt leave well enough alone and it wasn't, it was changed. So here we are in the state of Vermont which tends to be on the progressive end of the spectrum for sure. A couple years ago act 47 was passed. I thought the wording in that was quite strong quite direct and quite encompassing. Personally, I feel that that was enough. And now we have some verbiage in proposition five which is it's a bit vague. And I know where it's going. I understand that. But my worry about that is not what it's meant to do and to protect rights and access to abortion which I support. I worry about the vagueness leading to some type of litigation down the road where something comes up that may not be in the fold now because of the vagueness of the wording of that. Great, thank you, Tony. And finally for this question, we'll finish with Bruce. Do you support or oppose Prop two and Prop five? Yes, so I definitely support Proposition two. The wording is reasonable, precise, everybody can understand it, it makes sense. So it's gonna conflict with Article 13 of the U.S. Constitution. So maybe there's gotta be something to fix Article 13 of the U.S. Constitution and it still talks about indentured servitude and that sort of things. But the reason I support Proposition two because of the precise language, just as Tony says, Proposition five's language is very imprecise, very vague. I think it's gonna cause unnecessary confusion and impediments to any ability for the legislature to respond to changes for the most liberal abortion law in the United States right now. I don't think we wanna take that voice away from the legislature. I mean, everybody's upset about Roe v. Wade being overturned but even Roe v. Wade had a thing there that says you have to protect, the state has a responsibility to protect the child at a certain level in gestation. So I don't understand that really the personal reproductive autonomy term, I think that's gonna be debated for a long time and it's gonna cause confusion. And I don't, I look at the rest of New England. The rest of New England abortion are laws and all six of our neighboring states, abortions are legal up to either a viability or some time limit. Vermont, we don't have, we allow abortions up until the time of birth. I think people are gonna respond to that. I don't think people really understand the severity of that law. So anyway, I'll let it go and we'll probably have a good discussion going forward. I'm sure. Erin, would you like to respond? Yeah, thank you so much. I think this is a really important one for us to all be crystal clear on and there are perhaps more than some of the other issues, some differences among us. And again, I just wanna be really clear, I absolutely support Proposition 5 and Article 22 and reproductive autonomy. But I just wanna clarify in terms of our policies and practices here in Vermont. I was just talking with retiring representative George Till who is an OBGYN at UVM and leads all of their students there. And the only place in Vermont where any pregnancy can be terminated after 21 weeks and six days is at the UVM Medical Center. And that only happens after a thorough review with the ethics panel. And those are in gut-wrenching, horrific cases of fetal abnormalities that are incompatible with life or threats to the mother's health that could be fatal. Again, only at UVM under, after the guidance and deliberation with an ethics committee, would that ever happen after 21 weeks and six days in Vermont? And this constitutional amendment would not change that. So there is absolutely no practice in this state where abortion is allowed or performed to the end of a pregnancy and this would not change that. So I just wanna make sure that we have a chance to clarify some of that. Sure, and let me jump in there too as well. Even if you say you won't be allowed, but the law allows it to happen. The current law in the books of Vermont would allow it to happen. Now somehow there's some level of control going on, whether it's doctors being reasonable or a board that's being evaluated, but the law says it's okay to do it. Our neighboring states have laws that say draw a limit, draw a limit. And nobody's saying that you shouldn't have abortions as the result of the things you just said, mother's life is at risk, the baby has severe fetal abnormalities that just isn't reasonable. Nobody's saying that, but we can't respond to that. If it's now moved to the courts, just as they upset over, the courts had control of Roe v. Wade in Planned Parenthood because this legislature in the United States didn't take action. We've got to be able to take action if we want to respond to the will of the Vermonters. And whether it's a late abortion situation or whatever, I just think that law has to have a mechanism for being fixed, not fixed, that's fixed as the wrong word, of being reformatted to the will of the people and putting it in the court system as a result of Proposition 22 and put it in the Constitution, just, it makes that difficult. Thank you, Bruce. I want to give Tony and Angela a chance to respond if either of you would like, otherwise we'll. I would just say quickly that I know I have, I've talked to other people who have concerns about the language and I have a lot of faith in the team that crafted this amendment and that they paid very, very close attention to the words they were choosing and that reproductive autonomy is actually, it comes from settled case law. These terms have been defined by case law and so this is not some, I just don't think it's the free for all that some folks would like to paint it as and it's not as dangerous as some folks want to say that it is like, well, what does this mean? What could happen in the future in the courts? That's been decided and that's why the language was chosen. Thank you, Angela. Tony, would you like to add? I'm fine, thank you. All right, we'll move on. We'll move on to our next question, but before I do that, I'm just gonna remind anybody who's watching at home, if you'd like to join our discussion tonight, please call in at 802-862-3966. We welcome your questions and I'm sure the candidates would love to answer them. So that being said, we'll move on to our next question, which is on language access. So we'll start with Angela for this one and what do you believe is the value to Vermonters in supporting language access to information about health, local government, and education issues? I think the value to Vermonters is a state living in a state with increased equity, inclusion, understanding, and ultimately participation. You know, there's no question, I think we can all agree that more voices mean more ideas, means a very important step towards improved equity in our state, which benefits everyone. I think we had a very real example of this during the pandemic when it was realized that certain materials, communication assets, if you will, were not being translated into all the languages that were needed to communicate with various communities. And so those Vermonters were missing out on vital information about how to keep themselves healthy, keep their families healthy, and contribute to the health of the community. And so that's just a real world example just in the last couple of years where a small, I don't like to use cliches necessarily, but language access in many ways is kind of like low-hanging fruit when it comes to equity. And it may seem revolutionary now when it hasn't been done, hasn't been practiced with fidelity necessarily, but it's now we know. And so yes, let's do better and be better. Great, thank you, Angela. And Tony, moving on to you. Well, as most of us know living in Vermont, we're not the most diverse state in the country for years. It was English and Canadian, French-Canadian that was spoken here, but that certainly has changed. In the 25 years I've been here, I've noticed a lot of things like resettlement that are here, especially from Bosnia, for example. There's nothing more frustrating than to not be able to communicate. I think as a whole, our country is way behind in being bilingual and multilingual. When we travel, we expect everyone to speak English. I think that's a bit pompous on our part. I was very excited when I first moved to Vermont to see that second language was taught in elementary schools, at least it was 25 years ago. We've got a long way to go. I think there's a huge opportunity for jobs there. We can't rely on Google Translate, which we all probably do at times. So again, picking, prioritizing what languages need the most attention. But yes, you have to understand and be able to communicate to get access to things that are available to you, because then you feel more vested in your community, more successful, and you tend to want to give back. So I think it will repay itself, if not through currency, certainly through action, through society. Thank you, Tony. And Bruce, what do you believe the value to Vermonters in supporting language access? So there certainly is a lot of value. An informed citizen is a strong, steady citizen, and we want that. And I know there's programs out there in the judiciary and in the Department of Health Services and a few other places that have the ability for interpreters to be called in in critical situations, and I think that's absolutely important. I think what we need to look at, and coming from a family, my mom came over from Italy when she was five and had to learn the language on her own, and actually, my grandparents never did. I think we need to facilitate folks learning. One of the things that I saw in Act 127 was a focus kind of on English as a secondary language, and I think that's important, and we need to do that. I think we've got to get people to, I mean, English is our language in the United States, and I make a good comment about if you're bilateral, you speak bilingual, you speak two languages, if you're trilingual, you speak three, if you speak one, you're American. I mean, that's very true. And I think we should focus on the communities, the communities that aren't speaking English, be able to provide them some sort of training, and maybe it's location, maybe it's ESL instructors, whatever, to help with the whole community. And then it starts rolling as they learn, they teach their relatives, they teach their friends, and we get to a point where we're not in a crisis when somebody's in front of a judge or somebody's being pulled over by the police. Great, thank you, Bruce. And finally, for this question on language access, Erin. Language access is tremendously important, and it's critical to addressing systemic inequity. We want our systems to work for everyone. I vividly remember before I had children, I was a volunteer with the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Agency, and I worked with a family that had been resettled in Winooski from Somalia, and it was a mom who had seven kids, and I would go over to work with her on English. Granted, I only speak one language, so I am. I'm American. I only speak one language, and she already spoke two or three languages, but English was challenging, and yet her children were often the ones translating things and were learning quickly at school, so I think we absolutely need to make language access a priority. We have good programs in our schools. Some of our schools have been at this and have had to be at this in big ways longer, like Winooski in Burlington, and are doing a fantastic job with our students who are, English is not their first language. It's unbelievable how fast students pick up languages, and the students I have in my classes who are, they are bilingual, trilingual, multiple, multiple languages, so anything we can do to increase access for all of our mentors is tremendously important. I believe what my political hero, the late Senator of Paul Wellstone, said, we all do better when we all do better. Thank you, Erin. Can I just add one thing to what Tony was saying, that you know how diversity, we're experiencing an increase in diversity, and I think it's possible that few Willistonians know that in our school district, in the Champlain Valley School District, Williston schools actually have the highest number of English language learners, and there are dozens and dozens of languages spoken in homes all around Williston. Yeah, it's interesting if I could just add to that, when you travel a bit and you have an Uber driver from somewhere halfway across the world, and they're apologizing that their English isn't very good, and I said, it's a heck of a lot better than my Cantonese. That's a true story. All right, well, thank you guys. We'll move on to our next question here, which is, it revolves around community access, and we'll start with Tony for this one. So community access TV is currently funded primarily by cable customers, and revenue for community TV is in decline. How would you see the legislature supporting community access TV, such as programs like this forum? Yeah, this is a home field question here for sure, and I thought of that, and I know what our cable bill looks like, and I'm thinking, boy, there's some money left on the table, so perhaps some legislation could be enacted to direct some of that money to community access television. I also was thinking that, and had this conversation with some musicians during COVID that were not able to really make a living in the traditional sense of playing at clubs, and they're trying to reach, they're doing web gigs, and I thought, boy, community access could be a great venue for them, even if it's a pay-per-view type thing to give revenue, it will expose them to a larger audience. So I think, again, if you want to hire me as your marketing person, that's how I would think of creative ideas like that that may not be traditional, and I'm sure you're probably doing some of them already, but that could kind of do a collaborative approach to creating revenue and entertaining your viewers, too. Thank you so much, Tony, and next for this question is Bruce. Yeah, I think a little different spin on it. You know, it's a question of relevance. I think, you know, in the United States, we're used to getting massaged, censored, filtered data from news from cable networks and whoever, and I think programs like this are showing raw, honest information, and I think that's important. Be that as it may, it's a dilemma. How do you market something like this? How do you get funding for it? I'm not totally convinced that legislature is the place for it, but I do think that there's a real value. I mean, it's been a long time since we've had a Walter Cronkwright that we believe in, you know, and programs like this, and again, thank you for doing this. It's a great experience, and I hope lots of people are watching. I don't know. Well, I'll find out later. I know my wife is. It's four family members, right? That's right, exactly. It's a question of relevance. There has to be an effort to make that this is important to residents. Great. Thank you very much, Bruce, and we'll move on to Erin for this question. I agree. It's important, and it would be wonderful to have a way to support it better. This is a great way for us to talk about issues that's far more robust and meaningful than the money that we're probably all gonna spend on mailers and the money that we're trying to fundraise, quite frankly. So, you know, if we had a publicly funded campaign system and we could use our resources for things like community forums, actually talking with candidates, you know, I'd take that all the way up to the federal level, but certainly I think that would be a better use of our resources than even we spend on local campaigns here in Vermont. So, I think there's interesting questions to be asked there. Thank you so much, Erin. And finally, for this question, we'll finish with Angela. Yeah, so I took this question as an opportunity to answer with something that I learned when my kids were in first and second grade, which is IDKY, it stands for I don't know yet. And I think it's really important that we, as legislators, certainly as parents, as people, feel the ability, the vulnerability to be able to say, I don't know the answer. I can also tell you a little bit about how I would go about finding an answer. As a legislator, I would, you know, I think it's wonderful that the way that committees work in the legislature and that you can call into your committee professionals, experts, you know, people with lived experience to give you answers, just as I did, as I mentioned, as a journalist. And so I would start asking questions like, well, who benefits from community TV? And, you know, is it, how could you serve a larger portion of our community? What kinds of services are you providing? And are those services attainable anywhere else? Is anyone else providing those services? So I would love to have that conversation because as everyone has said, like, how cool is this? You know, it's so great that this exists. And I would not wanna see it go away. So yeah, I would be really excited to have that conversation in the legislature. Thank you very much, Angela. And we have, so we have about five minutes left on our forum and I wanna get to, through some of the questions that are on the lightning round, so we can just end with some energy and then we'll do closing statements and we'll wrap up. So I'm gonna skip ahead here to... Oh, of course my, I'm gonna forget what order we were just in. I'm gonna, well, since it's a new round, we'll just start from here. And so we're gonna start with the question on accessibility and just to remind our quick 30 second or less answers, which is kind of hard for some of these questions, but the key takeaways. So accessibility, a vibrant democracy relies on widespread understanding of complex issues and participation by many. What are three ways we might improve accessibility to local politics, Erin? I think we've had some great innovations from COVID having a lot of public meetings on Zoom has its disadvantages, but it has made things far more accessible. And for people to be able to tune in, people are busy to be able to go to a school board meeting, a conservation commission meeting is really challenging. So for people to have that kind of access is fantastic. I know that we're short on time, so I wanna take this opportunity to also address the issue of accessibility and serving in the legislature. It is, I think of it as more of, I'm not sure it can be simplified just as community service. We're asking folks to take four or five months of their life, in my case, to take a pay cut from being a public school teacher to take a hit on my pension. If we want a legislature that is representative of Vermont, we need to really think about that structure, because to say that we want volunteers for five months of the year is gonna lead us with a select group of people that are not necessarily going to be representative of Vermont. It is challenging and hard for folks to afford to serve. And we saw a lot of young fathers just step down after serving in the past session for that very reason. So there are some real access and representation issues that we have to grapple with in the legislature. Thank you, Erin and Angela. Thank you for that, Erin. I had that going for that citizen legislature question as well, but I would say to improve accessibility, I would consider three things, place, process and privilege, place meaning where does, where does politics, where do politics happen, where are decisions being made? And I think about a lot of town offices and how they're situated next to or joining police departments. And that for some folks, that is not a welcoming space. That is not a welcoming place. That's just one example. Process, I think that we often in politics, in government use process to diminish participation in a way and to sort of intimidate people. And I think that we could, we should, must come up with new processes that are more inviting and inclusive and finally privilege. We have to understand how to, right now, because of the processes and systems in place, access to politics and government and decisions really are primarily for those who are white, those who are male and those who are wealthy and we have to change that. Thank you very much, Angela. And Tony, on accessibility, top three, or excuse me, three ways you might improve accessibility to local politics. And I would add one thing to what Angela just said. I've recently heard that in old, so old white, wealthy, male. Who said that? I don't think I'm only, I'm not sure how many of those I check the boxes on. I'm glad I'm not old. Accessibility, it's getting involved. It's civics classes in high school, teaching people that it's not unattainable. I'm the first person in my family ever do this. I was the first person to graduate from college. You know, I didn't have a 4.0 GPA, but I had a commitment to do that. And I felt very fortunate to have the opportunity to do that. I think a lot of people have checked out. They feel that either they can't, I said before, willing and able. Those are very, very important. There was a reference to a part-time legislature. I think that's, there's some legs to that perhaps, being part-time, not having to give up your job, not having to, you know, maybe you're fortunate to get a sabbatical and you can go back to your job. Some people can't, not everybody is retired. We wanna get as many people at the table as possible. We have to be smart about that. Absolutely, social media changed that. You can, look how many people work from home now. You could attend a meeting. You could attend those three or four meetings without even leaving your couch or your dining room table. That was a huge plus in an awful way that we arrived at that, but people are working differently, so maybe we can legislate differently too, so. Thank you, Tony. And we'll end this question with Bruce. Sure, and Erin, I wanna thank you for your service. I mean, what you described is what you have to give up to do this is absolutely right. Thank you. And I'm gonna play that for the advantage for Bruce Roy. Sure. I'm retired. So I can devote myself to this job full-time. I know I'm gonna be prepared, I'm gonna be on it. I can do it all year, all day. You know, I'm excited I'm getting off the couch after eight years of sitting on it. And, you know, to where I am in my life, this is something that I can do and, you know, without the hardships that a lot of folks are gonna have to go through to do this. And I think I can do it effectively. And I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Bruce. And I think that's a good question to end it on because I wanna give folks enough time to have closing statements before we wrap up. So we will start with Angela for closing statements. Yo. Wow. Okay. You're right. I wasn't expecting that. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you to my fellow candidates and to CCTV. I'll try to be brief. There are so many questions that we didn't get to. That would be so fun to talk about with all of you. So maybe we'll have another opportunity. But I will say that this is like that funny thing where I guess I'll look right at the camera and say I do believe that a vote for me to serve as your state representative is a vote for inclusion, it's a vote for equity, for integrity and importantly, a vote for compassion. And that I would, I promise, I pledge to you that I will always lead with curiosity and an open heart in everything I do as your state representative. Thank you, Angela. Thank you. Tony, your closing statement. Thank you, Emily, Town TV, viewers and fellow candidates as well. If you haven't learned from the last hour or so, I am the unapologetic moderate running. That gets me in trouble with the far ends of the political spectrum on both ends, but that's where I am. I'm a father of five, I'm a small business owner, I'm a Justice of the Peace, I'm a former union member. I've seen the world from a lot of different point of views. And there's nothing more important to me than making Vermont vibrant and affordable and safe and that includes the environment as well. I work in an agricultural business. We talk and practice and live sustainability. We understand it, we have to do that. I was on the phone the other day, the fires in Oregon and Washington are starting again. These problems are real. So I'm one of the most apolitical politicians there are. I'm probably the worst fundraiser at this table, not because I couldn't do it, because I understand that the breadth of affordability right now to pay your bills is more difficult than ever and the net is wider. It's not just the stereotypical people that are struggling, a lot of people are struggling. College tuition for dual working families that are making a really good income is eroding. So there's so much of that. And I'm doing this again because it's community service. I love going out and talking to people. I love having people say thank you for getting back to me. This is really important. And if I commit to someone on something like fighting to have military pensions untaxed, then I'm gonna fight for that. If I'm gonna fight for eliminating wanton waste with the fish and wildlife, and that's the committee that I would most like to be on, then I'm gonna fight for that with as much vigor and tenacity as I possibly can. So reach out to me, ask me the questions, say hello. And I really thank everyone for the opportunity to do this. Thank you so much, Tony. And Bruce, your closing statement. Thank you. So I believe I have a unique combination of experiences, organizational skills. I'm fiscally conservative and want to help everyday Vermonters be able to pay their bills. I mean, structurally, I mean, we have a problem with that today, as I said earlier. I'm used to making critical timely decisions that have high consequences. That's something that my experiences in both my business and military life groom me for. I believe in studying preparation. That's something I'll always be ready for. I'll always be ready for anything that comes across the table. And I won't be afraid to voice my opinions. I will not be hesitant to vote against the herd, whether it's the majority or my own party. I'm gonna vote with my heart. I'm gonna vote with my brain. And I've taken this step of actively saying I'm not gonna accept money from PACs and I'm not gonna take endorsement from them. I don't want to be accountable to anybody, anybody but the citizens of Williston and the state of Vermont. And that's a commitment I'm making today. Thank you so much, Bruce. And finally, we'll finish closing statements with Erin. Thank you. Government is often reduced to sort of a cynical caricature these days but that's pretty far from what I have experienced in the legislature so far, which was a largely bipartisan process and a lot of collaboration between veteran legislators, state employees, the state agencies, advocates, students, policy experts. Government is us. It's the people we elect at all levels to do the best they can in making decisions for all of us. So during this campaign, I'll continue to outline my beliefs and I believe substance matters. I want Williston to know where I stand and I'll readily answer policy questions any day. I wanna be clear that I support Proposition Five and I feel strongly about women's reproductive rights and we didn't have a chance to get to it tonight but I also just wanna make sure that I'm clear about my support. In fact, I'm working now in between the sessions on gun safety measures to address gun violence in our communities. I'm open to civil dialogue with anyone and I wanna represent all of Williston even though I know we will not always agree. I will always commit to answering an email, taking a phone call or stopping to have a conversation on the issues that matter most to you. Thank you. Thank you very much and thank you very much to all four of you, Aaron, Angela, Tony and Bruce for joining us here tonight and thanks everyone for tuning in and watching town meeting TV's ongoing coverage of statewide and regional candidates and ballot items. You can find this and more forums at www.ch17.tv. Now don't forget to vote on or before November 8th. This year ballots will be mailed to all registered voters in the state and to confirm that you're registered you can go to mvp.vermont.gov just to double check and get registered if you're not already. And again, thank you for watching and sharing town meeting TV. If you're not already, please subscribe and have a great night.