 Welcome. I'm Diane Meyerhoff, host for Town Meeting TV's Essex Select Board Candidate Forum, part of our ongoing Town Meeting 2021 coverage. The show is being aired live on Town Meeting TV 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. I'm joined by Dawn Hill-Flory, the incumbent. Thank you, Dawn, for joining us. Thank you for having me. Dawn is running for the one-year Select Board seat. Her challenger is Mark Nato, who was unable to join us tonight. So, Dawn, we're going to just jump right in, I think. We're hoping some people might call in because we didn't get all the questions last time, but we'll certainly stop if they do. Tell us some big question on the ballot, right, merger. What are you thinking about that? What's your position? A lot of work's been done. Where do you stand? I support merger, but not the form that we have it in right now. We have been trying to do merger correctly since 1958, and I think this should be the last time. And I think if this is going to be the last time, everything needs to be correct. All the little problems need to be ironed out before we vote on it. It needs to have equal services for equal pay, all the departments need to be merged, because a merger is when you join completely together. And the way that it is currently set up, the fire departments don't merge, the libraries don't merge, the rec departments don't merge, and we haven't even done any work on ordinances to see if town and village ordinances align. It's stuff like that that needs to be ironed out, that this vote is final, there are no hiccups along the way, and it gets approved across the board. So is it too late to do that? I guess I need a little bit more detail there. It is the way, the select board voted three to two to present it to the voters the way they designed it, so that's what will go to the voters in March 2nd. So it's up to the voters to look at it, and if they're happy with it, then I'll work with it, but I just feel that to be a true merger, everything should have been worked out, and no more hiccups along the way, and everybody gets equal services for equal money, and tax equity. So still some issues there for you? There are, yes. Okay, but you'll listen to the will of the voters? Yes, that's what I'm here for, I'm here to represent the majority of the voters. Okay. I wish I could have more personal input from the voters, you know, because you only get to hear from a certain few that are, you know, on Zoom with the select board meetings, or you happen to see in the grocery store, you luck out, but I just wish we could have more personal contact with people about the merger. It's been a tough time to try to pull this off. Yes. Yeah. Okay, how about the town budget, supporting that? I support the town budget. Okay, and the Australian ballot, how are you feeling about that for the budget? Well, let me see. I haven't worked on it for last two days, stuffing ballots. Now, I think I have pushed for our budget to be on Australian ballot for at least 20 years now. I've always said that, because I've always been the person that checked people in at town meetings, and I always said, there's only 100 people, there's only 125 people, there's only 220, and they're voting on these millions of dollars for the whole town that only these two people are having input in, because not everybody could come to town meetings. So I'm looking forward to more people having their say on the budget with Australian ballot. Good, all right. Thank you. And are you concerned about people not being able to make budget amendments from the floor? No, we had two public hearings that people could have put their input in before we actually passed the final budget, and people did ask questions. They were also welcome to join us on the, we spent all day working on the budget initially that was open to the public. And then we've had two hearings where they could have their input, and we did change it. Thanks to Mr. Adams and Sarah Macy being very, you know, excited about his recommendation, we were able to lower the budget even a little bit more. So I thought that was great. Okay, great. Good. Let's talk about racial justice. What are the opportunities for addressing racial justice? How will you use the select board seat to meet those challenges? Well, I have to be honest, at first I didn't realize it was even a problem in the town of Essex, which is probably not a good thing to say, but having been to the training and having listened to the presenters, I'm looking forward to continuing this work and to working on the problems that became apparent that I didn't know a thing about. So I'm glad that we put extra money into the budget to continue training. And I'm looking forward to working with the community and the police department to improve our outreach. And were there things that particularly surprised you from the training? Yeah, that there was actually a problem in Essex to tell you the truth and that how some people look at different forms of inequality, you know, as things I never really thought about until I went through this and it was very eye-opening. So I'm looking forward to more. Great. Good. Well, and sort of on a similar line, I guess, is to talk about policing, community safety. I know that this is something that you all have been discussing. And, you know, what more do you think can be done to look at community safety? Well, I think it's important that the officers are also included with, you know, the training as well as the rest of us. But I think that I think with our Chief, the Chief Hope, that he is very up to date on training and of issues that are going on. And he does a lot more outreach than a lot of former Chiefs have done to keep on top of things and to help his officers do a better job with policing in Essex. Good. How about we're going to cover a lot of topics tonight? I can tell. Well, certainly interjective. There's something else you want to add. Please do. So, housing, does Essex have a role to play in the housing needs at the county? And if so, what's your vision for that? We do have a role to play. We need to come up with more affordable housing. And by affordable, I'm not saying $1,200 for a one-bedroom apartment. I'm saying something that people who are earning lower wages can afford. I just, when people get a permit to build affordable housing, affordable housing is something you can afford to live in. And we don't have that really here in Essex. And I think that's an important step that we need to take, especially if Essex wants to continue growing, which obviously they do, because that's what we're planning for the future. We do have the Susan's Place for the homeless that is down off Pinecrest Drive in Suzy Wilson Road. And I think that was a good thing to do. But I think we need to do more because there is a homeless problem in Essex, and there is a low income problem in Essex. And it's become more apparent during this COVID that we do need to do more. And what have you seen in terms of COVID and homelessness or lack of affordable housing? More and more people are having to share their homes. More people have had to move back in or share with family members because they didn't have the money to keep their homes. I've also noticed during COVID, more and more people are coming to our food shelves. It's been a huge spike. So they're struggling to pay their rent to keep a roof over their head, but then they can no longer afford the food, so they're having to go to a food shelf for help. And that's not right, especially in a town as affluent as Essex. We've got to do more outreach with this and help more. Okay. Thank you. We have a caller on the line. So welcome if you're out there, and please mute your computer before you ask your question. And just give us your name and ask your question of Don. This is Ken, and you may mute, not unmute. Sorry. Yes. Thank you. So I have a question? Yep, you got it. Sean, I'm a newcomer to the town of Essex. I've only been here for 15 years. That makes me a neophyte, I think. And I've never seen you running for anything else prior, and I think you have some history. And it will be nice to know a little bit more about your history and connections to the town. Great. Thanks so much for calling. Don, tell us about your background. If I give you the whole history, I don't know how old I am. I started in town politics at the age of 17 when people, I got volunteered to start checking people at a town meeting, actually. And from there, I ran for justice of the peace when I was 18. And I've been a justice of the peace for it'll be 50 years. It's 48 and a half years right now. So we're working on two. And then from being a justice of the peace and serving on the board of civil authority, I served on the Essex County School Board for seven years and then three years. So a total of 10 years. It's kind of funny because I was serving on the school board just before they merged into the unified school district. So I'm working on a second merger now. Yeah, I'm not sure about that. But I just I love being involved in my town. And I have since the very beginning. As a matter of fact, when we first decided we were going to have our own fire department and our own police department, I used to go door to door knocking on doors to get people to sign the petition so that the voters could vote on the police department and the fire department. So I've been around a long time and I've been involved and I just I love this town. So you're originally from Essex, it sounds like. I have we've lived in the TOV for since 1959. And we lived on Prospect Street in Essex Junction two years prior to that. Well, okay. Awesome. That's a lot of that's a lot of experience you bring. Enjoyable years. I've learned something new every time I do something different. Well, and this is probably a question that that's probably new considering you spend so much time on the school board is the Champlain Water District Bond, the general obligation bond for their their upgrades. Are you supporting that? Yes. And it's a water plant. Are you up on this? People need to know that it only impacts the people that actually use Champlain Water. Okay. I don't believe it impacts anybody that does not have Champlain Water. And is that a small subset? That was my understanding. Yes. Okay. In the which which area? The TOV. It's larger in the in the village versus the TOV is smaller smaller now. Okay. Okay. So let's see what else biggest challenges you see in the community as you're moving forward. What do you see? Well, the biggest challenge is if merger doesn't pass is to getting everybody to work together again and to be friends again to be one community. You know, because it has been a very tough subject for many people. And I think regardless, people are going to be have hurt feelings on either side regardless of the both. But we are still Essex. We're still the town of Essex and we need to learn how to work together and go forward from here. But I also think that like you said earlier, housing issues, you know, people affordable living in the town of Essex is very important. But I also like to see more people participate in committees and town government and outreach work here in Essex. How can you That's straight. That's hard. That's tricky. People have busy lives and it's hard to, you know, have meetings at night, especially if you have families or other obligations, or you have to work and I, you know, they're going to be giving stipends to people for joining committees. So that if they have to pay a babysitter, they can use the stipend money to pay a babysitter. You know, I have mixed feelings on it, but I'm willing to give it a chance to see if it helps boost participation. But I also find that some people as long as, you know, it doesn't directly impact them, they tend not to get involved. So Yeah. Well, the way people can get involved is to vote on town meeting day, right? Exactly. That's the best way. There you go. You've been involved with the ballot. So tell us what people should expect in terms of voting by mail. They should, everyone in Essex should have their ballots by Monday if they do not have them. Well, be the 16th because Monday's a holiday. Yeah. Although you can't call on Monday. You're right. The town clerk is closed. So if you don't have them by Tuesday morning, call Susan at the town clerk's office and let her know so that we can get one out to you. But we did mail a ballot to everyone who has actively participated in an election before. Okay. Hopefully. Super. So thank you so much. Yep. They can mail them back and or they can also drop them. We have a lockbox by the town clerk's office. They can be dropped there too. Okay, great. So thank you so much for joining me tonight. We appreciate it. We should let everybody know yet again to vote either in the early ballot room person on town meeting Tuesday, March 2nd, and we will have our live town meeting TV, our live results show beginning at seven o'clock on town meeting night. So we hope everybody's going to watch that too. So thank you again, Dawn. Thank you all for watching. Good night. Have a good night, everyone. Thanks.