 Welcome, I'm Diane Meyerhoff, host for TownMeetingTV's Essex Select Board Candidate Forum, part of our ongoing TownMeeting 2021 coverage. The show is being aired live on TownMeetingTV and streamed live on our YouTube channel. We welcome your comments and questions. If you're watching this program live, please join the conversation at 862-3966. We also ask that you mute your computer prior to calling. The ground rules for tonight's forum are the candidates will make opening statements of up to one minute each, and they will answer prepared questions for up to two minutes with a possible 30-second rebuttal. I am joined by Tracy Delphia and Elaine Haney, the incumbent. Thank you both so much for joining us. Thank you. Thanks for having us, Diane. We, Tracy and Elaine are running for the three-year select board seat, so that's what we'll be talking about tonight. We are going to start with opening statements from each candidate. So tell us why you're running and how Essex will be different if indeed you win the seat. And we will start with Tracy. Good evening. I grew up in a very small town where my father was a volunteer firefighter and he sat for years on the town council. I've always believed in service above self, and I walk the walk in that respect. I'm always giving of myself to the benefit of others. I'm a nationally certified public sector manager and will not only bring those skills, but my experience in process improvement, leveraging efficiencies in state government and municipal government, relying on data to make decisions. I'm an advocate for increasing transparency by expanding public involvement in our community. When I interviewed for appointment to the select board in June of 2020 after Annie Cooper's resignation, I stated that I was already planning on running this march, and I strive to fulfill the promises I make, so this is an example of that. Great. Thank you very much. Elaine, your opening statement. Thanks Diane, and thank you town meeting television for hosting us. So I am running for reelection to the select board because Essex has so much good stuff happening and some of which I helped start and I want to see it through and I want to see it grow. Some of the things I'm thinking about are the continuation of our conversations in the community about racial equity and inclusion, as well as the start of our housing commission and helping that get off the ground and continue their work and revitalizing the economic development commission and including business support for all of the businesses in the entire town. I'm really eager to work on those initiatives and of course, depending upon the outcome of the vote in March, if merger passes or if merger fails, there is still a lot of work to be done on taxation and representation and if merger passes, it's going to be a very complicated process and it's having been there at the present to start the process. I'm really looking forward to seeing it through. Great. Thank you both very much. Appreciate it. I'm going to go on to the prepared questions and talk about ballot items. So of course, the big question that we've already alluded to is the merger of Essex Junction in town of Essex and over the years, certainly in the forums that I've done, we've talked a lot about the work that's already been done to consolidate communities. Talk us through your position on the merger, what you encourage voters to do on town meeting day and we'll start with Elaine and that's two minutes. So you're right, Diane, consolidation over the last several years has saved Essex taxpayers a lot of money. We estimate it's around $3.4 million over the last several years and we've also done that with no decline in the quality of service. We are still plowing our streets and sidewalks. We are still delivering high quality child care. Our libraries are open, except for COVID and we are doing everything that our residents expect and want from us and I expect that to continue if merger passes. One of the goals of merger is to maintain the high quality of our services and I support it because I also want Essex to be prepared for the future 25 years from now, 50 years from now. We need to take steps today in order to be fiscally responsible, increase our efficiencies and eliminate whatever duplications we can so that we're ready to meet the challenges of the future. Communities in Chittenden County are talking now about regional partnerships that will take the entire county into the future and so Essex needs to do the same thing in order to be able to maximize the value of our taxpayer dollars to maximize our purchasing power as two entities joined into one and to ensure that our taxpayers are paying fairly across all services and that services are delivered equally amongst all residents. So I do support it very much. Great. Thank you. Tracey, we're talking about the merger. As is everyone. Yeah. I do agree, Diana, have been great strides to consolidate community service over the years and I fully support the continuation of that consolidation and streamlining delivery of those services. This better serves the community, the population. The current merger plan doesn't have any details as far as how those departments will be reorganized and consolidated. And from my experience, a plan that doesn't include all of the details is full of risk. Also absent is planning for how those services will continue to be equitably delivered throughout the period of consolidation. As you know, when you try to consolidate two large departments, you need to find, you need to do a gap analysis. You need to find out where the gaps are, where the overlap is as far as public works is concerned, where the route separation will be, where the new routes will be, where staffing levels are for those routes. There's a lot of details and the current plan simply says that the departments will be reorganized and consolidated in that way. I'm not opposed to merger, but I feel that these details need to be part of the plan. I've not advocated for or against merger for a very, very simple reason. The topic will be decided at the same time as I'm hopefully elected. I firmly feel that the person elected needs to have not advocated for one position or the other. We are a community divided by this issue and advocated, advocating for one course of action before the voters get to speak and decide on that final decision. In my mind only serves to perpetuate the divide. We really need someone who is impartial, who has not taken a stand, and who has the experience with these large projects to be able to see it through one way or the other. I'm ready to do that. I have the experience and I am very willing to hit the ground wanting. Great. Thank you. You both are doing excellent on your timing. I appreciate that. Elaine, did you want to have a rebuttal? Not a rebuttal. Just a clarification. Okay. I just want to point out that the information that Tracy is saying is missing from the charter is actually not stuff that's really supposed to be in the charter. Organizational development and the personnel organization and the way consolidation is supposed to occur is the purview of the town manager. The select board does not have authority over that. And so we know that the town manager will be bringing in experts to assist in organizational reorganization of various departments, particularly the fire department. Because we are not experts in fire departments. We are not experts in wreck departments. We are going to be using the town manager's expertise and his authority as well as the expertise of people who have, who understand how these kinds of organizations grow and develop. We will rely on their expertise to do that work and take their recommendations. But that's not something that really belongs in the charter. And Tracy, did you want to respond to that? I do. I fully understand that those details do not belong in the charter. What I would advocate for is that there be a comprehensive, all-encompassing plan that presents it from speaking with many, many people over the last month. I'm surprised I'm not hoarse yet. People are craving those details. They want to know what these services are going to look like, how they're going to be delivered, how wreck programs will be consolidated for their kids. So, yes, I understand that it's not in the charter, but I would like to see, as many people, I'd like to see a comprehensive, fully thought-out plan that doesn't belong in the charter. That's how it happens. It's important for many people. Lane, do you want to respond to that? I know this is a big topic, so I don't want to cut this one short. Just to say that, we definitely know that residents are dying for more details. We are at a phase of this process. The charter is needing to be approved by the voters, and then when consolidation, if it passes and consolidation is on the table, the community will be at the table to help talk about what they want to see in their wreck department and what they want to see in their fire department with the help of the manager and perhaps some outside expertise to help us make those decisions together. But it's not something we can put in the charter now. Tracy? Just to state again, I'm not advocating it from the charter. I would just like to see a supplement plan in combination with that so people know exactly what they're voting on, because there is that on loan. OK, I think we'll wrap that one up for now. But I should let folks know, of course, we'd love you to call in if you're watching the show live at 862-3966, because we just talked about the big question, so I have this feeling there might be some people out there who want to talk more about it. But we'll move on for now. Let's talk again more about town meeting and that's this year's town budget. Do you support the Australian ballot? What's the impact for residents who like to perhaps bring amendments to the floor at town meeting? So we'll start with Tracy, your turn. I do support the budget. I'm even more supportive of the time spent receiving feedback in the back and forth with Mr. Adams during the budget public hearing to see that in action was really something. It was great to see. I voted in support of moving to Australian ballot back in November. And I'm glad that it's here and we're going to be voting by Australian ballot in March in a community of our size. Australian ballot does make the most sense to truly capture what the entire community wants. It's hard for people to show up on one night and cast their ballot. I see this as an all encompassing collection of everyone's ideas and feelings on the budget rather than just who shows up that one week. Do you feel it's more scalable? And again, it also allows for more voter input. And that's something that I will always, always support in getting input from more people. OK, great. Thank you much. Elaine, we're talking about the budget. Did you support it and Australian ballot? I absolutely do support the budget. I'm very proud of some of the addition that we have to the budget this year, like stipends for volunteers and increased funding for racial equity discussions. I also am happy that we're going to be eliminating the highway tax, which is a tax that is paid by residents who live in the town outside the village and that will be moving, hopefully with voters approval, moving the village's rolling stock fund into the town budget for allowing people the entire community to pay equally for all of the public work services that we have. Australian ballot is great. We have been advocating it for quite some time. I had been thinking about it as a part of the merger package, but it's something that can happen independent of that. And as part of the Essex governance group several years ago, that was a recommendation that we switched to Australian ballot. I'm so glad it finally got here. Essex has had traditionally low turnout at town meeting, you know, about 175 to 225 people, and that's like 2.3% of registered voters and they're deciding a $15 million budget. The growing pain of that, however, is that when we did our first set of public hearings regarding the budget, Tracy referred to Mr. Adams. He was one person who affected a change in the budget, and that felt difficult to me because we were trying to move to Australian ballot so that more people could have a say on the budget, but it's a growing pain. We're shifting and we're moving to something better. If you're deployed, if you're a single mom that can't go out at night to go to a meeting, you're an elderly person that doesn't want to try to have at night, Australian ballot is the great solution for that. And we are a much larger town and it's a better fit for us. Okay. Anything more with that? Looks like that one's pretty good. Okay. So again, you know, let's remind everybody, we'd love you to call if you're watching the show live, 8-6-2-3-9-6-6. Let's move on to racial justice. What are the opportunities for addressing racial justice and how will you use your select board seat to meet this challenge? And Elaine, you'll start us off. Thanks, Diane. So in the summer, after we all witnessed George Floyd being murdered on television by municipal police officers, I got a lot of emails from residents saying, what does Essex do about use of force? What is Essex's policy and do people of color feel safe in Essex? And so not seeing a lot of action in terms of interest in starting up the conversation at the board level, I instituted a conversation about it. And it was a difficult conversation, but the end result of it was the formation of a racial equity task force. I'm really proud of that. They have gotten started. They are speaking with the community. They've done surveys. They've done listening sessions, and they have a retreat next week to continue their work. It's a partnership with the school district, the police, the community justice center, residents and representatives of the boards. So I'm really looking forward to the recommendations that are going to come from them. And moving forward in the budget, as I said earlier, we've included stipends for volunteers for committees so that they can pay babysitters for their kids when they need to come to meetings. We have increased the budget for facilitating racial equity discussions, and we've included funding for body cameras and video storage for the police. So I feel like our community is making really great strides there, and we still have a long way to go, but we've gotten started. Tracy, we're talking about racial justice and Essex. There are some very encouraging conversations happening in our community around this important topic, and I'm grateful to be a part of that. Initially, I took a step back after that meeting to allow the BIPOC community to engage on a level in which they were comfortable with being very understanding that I'm, dare I say, a middle-aged white woman, and I did not want to interpret incorrectly. I did not want to influence what was being said simply by my presence in the room. So I'm starting to join in on those ongoing conversations, and I'm very happy with what I'm seeing. I'll use my select board seat to create a space to continue and expand the listening sessions and learning opportunities. I would also like to form a standing committee to research and make recommendations on how we as a community can improve in this area. I'd also like to implement a training on implicit bias so that we can better identify our own biases and those around us. It will allow us to name our biases, own them, and move forward while being aware of them. And I think that that is really the underlying concern that we all have to deal with, because we all have time. And I see that my time is about up, so I will yield. You've got 30 seconds if you like it. Yeah, I just wanted to make a comment that when this topic did first come up, I was a bit concerned by the initial reaction that I saw in that meeting. The initial reaction wasn't how can we help, but it was when can we find time in our busy schedule. And I for one was a little embarrassed at that reaction. I made this comment that evening and I'll make it again now. But when members of our community do not feel safe or feel they're singled out simply due to the color of their skin, the response should be to make that topic an absolute priority, not a scheduling concern. So I'm glad to see that this is moving more into focus. Okay, great. And we have a caller. So we're going to go to our caller for now. I believe we have somebody queued up. And please mute your TV or computer before you ask the question. Almost. Pardon me? Yes, there you are. Please let us know your name. Welcome. Betsy Dunn. Hi, Betsy. Thank you. What is your question? Oh, this is to Elaine. And it is, you are saying that we give high quality child care and want to do it equally. And in previous meetings at the select board, you said that people from the town outside the village, the TOV would have equal access to the childcare. Today I learned that there's a long, long waiting line and that they cannot just get into the childcare. They're going to get on the end of that waiting line. And that there is no room for the people who are on the waiting line at this time. So how is that going to help the, how is the childcare going to help the town outside the village? Okay, Elaine, you can get started. Sure. So I cannot speak specifically to the very big details about how the childcare system would be put into operation. However, what I can say is that if merger passes, the recreation departments will come together and talk about the needs of the community and be able to make adjustments to staffing and locations and timing and cost. So that all of the families that are in need of childcare can at least have an idea of what the availability is and that they will have room in their enough spaces and enough instructors and classroom help to put that all together. There is definitely a system that needs to be developed to accommodate larger numbers of children. But I'll also say that during COVID, the childcare provided by the YMCA to the town outside the village families ceased to exist because the YMCA was not able to fulfill their contract in a way that would meet safety requirements and so they pulled out. And town outside the village childcare was left with no providers. So EJRP stepped in and provided childcare almost seamlessly and they were able to do it very quickly. They were able to accommodate all of the children and my expectation is that should merger pass, we would simply continue with that and then work together to build it into a system that is reliable and has enough room for the demand. Okay. Tracy, would you like to answer that? We're talking about the availability of childcare for those outside the village. Sure. This is sort of a culmination of what I was speaking to earlier about the details not being there. I understand that in COVID times, we do have a system that's working. But what that will look like post COVID, what that will look like down the line when we're in that transition phase of consolidating the department, how will that change? How will services be delivered? When you're talking about childcare for working parents, nothing is more important than knowing that their children have childcare and that they're safe. I also heard on that, Betsy, I think the same meeting that you're referring to where, instead of the blanket statement of, oh, everyone will have equal footing in EJRP for childcare, it's my understanding that only slots as they open will be equally available for town inside the village and town outside the village. So I would really like to see more details on exactly what that plan is and how those services will be delivered going forward. Okay. Well, people are calling in. So we have yet another caller. So we're welcoming another caller to the discussion. Hello there. Do we have another caller? All right, we'll give it a second. Oh, there we go. Hi there. Who's calling us tonight? Hi. Hi. Sure. Mike, are you ready? Yes, please. Okay. My name is Patty Davis from Essex, town outside the village. And my question is to Tracy and I'm wondering since we've lived here just under five years, I've noticed that Essex merging of services and all this consolidation happens now without public input. And I want to know how you, Tracy, would change the current setup of the select board that makes these decisions of combining services without voter approval. That's my question. Okay, thanks so much. Thanks so much, Patty. Tracy, please start us off. Patty, thank you for that question. I think it's all about taking a multi-pronged approach. We could have numerous listening sessions on any topic. We could have, it doesn't have to rise to the level of the public hearing is what I'm trying to say. What I would like to do to gain community input and have sort of a level playing field where folks don't feel it necessary to come to an official select board meeting but have listening sessions once or twice a month go and sit at a coffee shop, host a Zoom meeting or a team meeting just to sit and listen and listen to really learn and understand the input and the advice of the people that I would represent. There is also the opportunity to put advisory items on ballot just to gauge input and feedback from the community in an official capacity on items that we're working on and we're thinking on. And I would really, really like to see that. During my time speaking with residents, I have received a lot of feedback that members of the public do not feel as though they don't feel comfortable coming to select board meetings and speaking up to voicing their opinion. They fear reprisal from their neighbors who have a different opinion than them, which is a problem. We need to fix the divisiveness in our own community and allow for that open exchange of ideas and communication in a way that's not threatening, that's not, you know, as overwhelming as going to a select board meeting and speaking on the record but having that capacity to have that bi-directional interface. Great. Okay. Thank you. Tracy, Elaine, we're looking at Patty's question about transparency and public input for the merger. I think it was more about consolidations in general, actually, is well, at any rate, I agree with Tracy that having conversations with community members is essential. And until COVID came along, we were all able as board members to be out in our community talking to our residents. And that is something that I've done for a very long time. Having folks attend meetings is important, but you also get a lot of opinion from just being out in the community, using the library, going to the rec department, being out at the high school, picking up your kids. I mean, it's an important thing to be every day in the community, listening and having your ear to the ground. Another important aspect of the consolidations in general and in merger is, you know, one of the goals is to make the service quality maintained throughout, regardless of the changes. And that doesn't necessarily impact residents so much as it impacts our staff. And so the goal is to maintain services, but how are we going to keep them maintained if we're consolidating? And staff members are essential to the conversation and we talk to them all the time about, well, what would it mean if we did this? What would it mean if we reduced the budget here or if we moved that over there or if you started sharing equipment? And in the end, the voters always have the final say because whatever consolidations we come up with end up in the budget. And when we have, for example, I think in 2016, we did the public works budget. We moved the village public works into the town general fund budget and we had a long conversation at town meeting. We had lots of conversation about it prior to that and we had Q&A sessions for the public and then the public voted yes. So when the public votes yes on our budget, that is one way that they are weighing in to say they approve of the changes we're making. Okay, great. Thank you both and thank you for the callers. We appreciate hearing from the voters of Essex and Essex Junction. We are actually coming to the end of our time so I'd like to give you each a minute to do a kind of a closing statement and anything we didn't get a chance, we didn't cover as much as I'd hoped but we got the big topics. So let's start Elaine with you. Sure, I want to just take a few seconds to address the comment regarding scheduling racial equity conversations. That was not a comment about scheduling. It was a comment about the dedication of enormous amounts of time to the most important conversation we should be having in our community and just whipping it off with a few public hearings is inappropriate and not having the time to do it is something really important to talk about and so we budgeted money to call on facilitators and to help us do it right. So in general, I'm running to be re-elected to the select board so that I can continue the good work that we're doing together. I'm looking forward to working on continued racial equity conversations, continued work of the housing commission, continued work of the Essex Economic Development Commission and building a strong community regardless of the outcome of our merger vote on March 2nd and I'm hoping that our community is going to continue to look forward to the future and we'll all work together on becoming as sustainable as we possibly can financially and operationally and to grow forward together as one community. Great. Thank you, Elaine. Tracy, closing statement. Thank you. As I said before, I've been speaking for a lot of people in the last month. There's a general feeling from many people who don't speak up, that don't feel comfortable or even welcome making statements with the select board. Things have gotten pretty divisive and heated lately. This to me is a huge problem that needs immediate intervention. No one should ever feel as though their opinions aren't welcome or taken seriously and they shouldn't be afraid to speak up. Any candidate stance on any issue is far outweighed by their level of integrity and character. While I can't tell you how I would vote on any specific topic, I can promise you that I will approach every decision with common sense logic and eye on the financial implications and looking at the data. Every decision we make should stand on the solid foundation of data and community input and open session that backs up that decision. I've spent my entire life serving others in one capacity or the other. I have the skills, experience and dedication to serve everyone in Essex and I would very much appreciate your vote. Okay. Thank you both so much for joining us tonight. We really appreciate it and we should tell everyone out there to stay tuned to Town Meeting TV, sorry, for more candidate forums. And most importantly, to make sure they vote early in early ballot or in person on Tuesday, March 2nd, Town Meeting. And I'm told that the voters in Essex should be getting their ballots by next Tuesday and if they don't, you should call the Town Clerk by Friday if you don't get your ballot. So they're all being mailed to every active registered voter. So it's important to let folks know that but you can always vote on Town Meeting if you prefer in person. And very importantly, Tuesday, March 2nd, we will have Town Meeting TV, we'll have its live results show beginning at seven o'clock. So we hope everyone will join us. We'll have results early and we'll have them out as quickly as we can. So again, thank you both for joining us and thank you all out there for watching. Good night. Thank you.