 Hey good evening and welcome to Montpelier Civic Forum and we're on the road to town meeting 2020 and as always Orca is going to cover it with the candidates. We've got some really good shows coming up. We have District 3 which is tonight's show and it's one of the rare opportunities when one district has two races and we have a show with Connor and Donna who are incumbents who are running unopposed and Watson is going to tell us why she should be mayor again and then we're going to have a good show with the school board candidates and then we have Bill Fraser and we have Libby talking about cities and school budgets. So if you want to you can watch them all they're all worth watching in terms of learning our civics before you head in for town meeting day. But tonight it's my distinct honor to welcome Bruce Sargent who's running for the two-year term in District 3. Bruce. Thank you sir. Thank you for coming. Oh it was my pleasure. All right Bruce Sargent what part of District 3 do you live in? I live on Street 3 up behind the radio station I've been there for 12 years and I've really grown to love some of the land that's up there. How so? Are you speaking of District 3 or right behind you? What? Are you speaking of your area or District 3? The area behind the house, you know there's the deer run through, I saw a coyote just past spring and that may be a little nervous because I've got two cats but it's a very wild space and it's a short drive to here. It's a wonderful place to share Vermont. It's unique and it's a little niche up there I think. I'm pleased to be there. District 3 has a different character in a lot of ways than District 1 and 2. Can you talk about District 3? Well I'm very comfortable with District 3 because I grew up in District 3. I grew up in Northern Michigan which is down to earth people not necessarily the wealthiest people. We had one wealthy kid in my class and he didn't really fit in. He ended up going to a private school, God bless him, and he went on to the military and became very famous for his work in Vietnam. He was awarded medals for it. I'm proud of him but it was very unusual to have money in Northern Michigan. Where in Northern Michigan? It was Marquette. It was the grand city of the North. I felt myself a city flicker and my town population was 12,000, counting maybe 2,000 of the prison population that was there. It wasn't very big. It's very similar to Montpelier in terms of Essex and speed lines. There are some wealthy places in Montpelier and my district also has some of the wealthiest on Park Street. It's beautiful. It's an interesting combination. I did knock on the father's door at the church looking for signatures and the man said we don't vote. He said I'll give you a blessing. I was struggling with being so new to politics and I said yeah. All of a sudden things started to be magical. Things started to turn up. I couldn't really solicit people in the senior center. Even though they're many of my friends it's against the rule. A person that I especially wanted on my signature list turned up at the co-op. I've never seen her before. She was there. I happen to have my clipboard so she signed my signatures and her signature added to the list. She volunteered to take a blank sheet and get people to fill it in. Boy, that's a blessing. I called her. I said no, I have an agreement that I won't campaign in the center and that would be breaking the agreement. To be impeccable I'm going to ask you not to do that. That's another thing. I'm a former Boy Scout, Eagle Scout, Order of the Arrow visual member which is about the highest in that honorary group you can get. I value my integrity deeply and I have since high school and I still do. That's one of the things that I think could help City Hall because my experience with them has been that a lot of times decisions are made without due process and they're made for political convenience and I'm uncomfortable with that. I didn't like that experience. Can you give me an example or two of something that didn't have due process? We had an experience with the neighbor shifting the water course and damaging my friends. There were things like Mr. McCartle said. Now you're speaking of our former director of Public Works, Tom McCartle. He said there's no erosion being caused by this. I measured it three and a half feet. Then he said I visited and I saw no erosion. It was like Alice in Wonderland. It was things that I felt weren't true. We've been having a three-year conversation about this and we're still having it. I just wrote a letter today pointing up some of this and it's turned into a horrendous difficulty. The boundary was not really settled in my mind by the resurvey that was done there. The more we got into it and today, just recently, I began to really realize that a lot of it looks like a scamp of an elderly person to me. They got Maggie to agree to a shrinking of her rights to the easement from 396 to 340 feet. It happened to be because I found a map that said the street was accepted at 340 feet. Nobody knew that before it found the map. But I'm an honest man and even though it was against what my goals were, I made sure that was presented at City Hall because it was a fact. The resurvey went through at 340 and Maggie was in agreement with a compromise. She lost 56 feet of land along what her deed said was hers to use. And then a year later, the rest of it was deemed a park, a trail. She loses her easement in a park or a trail. She said I would have appealed the decision if I'd known that. What was the evidence of a park or a trail being there? It was the surveyors' plat. In the little square describing that little parcel, it was filled with writing and numbers and it said fourth class city highway in that little square. But it didn't have the two lines for easement. So this is a little bit like fine print. This is beyond fine print. It's expecting you to look at a map that doesn't have those lines on it. And recognize it and therefore say, oh, it's a trail. Would this be an issue that would go before environmental courts? Would it be an issue that wouldn't? That would be appealed before environmental court in Vermont? That's a good question. We did appeal to the natural resources and they said that it was so small, the water course, even though it's hugely damaged. It's caused my friend $100,000 in damage and plus the loss of that easement is roughly $50,000. $25,000 for the $340,000 and another $24,000. So the surprise, oh, this is not really a fourth class highway. The research said very clearly that this piece was a fourth class city highway. And then it's defined as a trail. And Mr. Gillies, who was an attorney, is written that a trail is no way a highway. It's a fifth class category. So there's games with where it's going on here. And frankly, it all benefits the neighbor. He gets what Maggie loses the neighbor game. In terms of console, did you speak with Ashley Hill or with Glenn? We did. She was very busy and she was very ill. And we've talked to Glenn and he agreed with us about this at the beginning. But he hasn't been able to change Bill Frazier's mind at all. Now, this isn't the most important thing of why I came here. I want to finish on this. This was a precipitating event in my life. How would you have dealt with this different than Glenn dealt with it? How would I have done it? Yeah, if you were on console and someone were to present this situation to you, as a representative of District 3, now Ashley was ill, so take Ashley out. But how would you have approached it differently than Glenn did? I would have liked more detail and more understanding to make a decision. And when I had that decision and I was very clear, I would have told Bill Frazier that I'm the boss. I'm the decision maker, not you. And that it is not a trail. It is a fourth class highway. And some of the things that are happening are really unlawful. I would have done that. And I've got the courage to stand up for that kind of position. The position that I'm the only one and everybody else will disagree and make the argument. Now, it doesn't mean I'm always right. I'm always willing to listen to lawful descriptions, but I've not really got that from City Hall. They've not presented, they just repeated the thesis. It's a trail without really giving me a lot about why it's a trail. Bruce, when did you come to Montpelier? What? When did you arrive in Montpelier? Twelve years ago. Twelve years ago. What was Montpelier? Nothing of it like this was happening. What was Montpelier like twelve years ago to you? It's different than the Montpelier of today. I was so happy to get to Vermont. I'd lived in Massachusetts Boston area all my life, and on holidays I'd go up to New Hampshire. I didn't really want to be living in an urban environment, but that's the place I was earning my living. I was a school teacher. And I ended up with my own school in Salem. I found it. The Phoenix School of Salem is still there. I left it about fifteen years ago. Both my wife and I and her friend started Barbara McCall, and when our marriage ended, I had to leave the school as well as the marriage. That was a precipitating event there. So I've been off on a life of adventure since then. Probably a peak experience in that was helping John Irving and John Irving begin their school in Manchester Center. I was one of the founding teachers. That's not the author, John Irving. Staffed dinners at his house. He is such a wonderful man. We're full of writing. Pardon me, but I always wanted to be a writer. I'm in the middle of beginning a novel for the last few years. But it was fun talking to John. He had the most incredible imagination. We had a shadow puppeteer come and he was delivered, and he delivered a child there. He looked at it and he waxed eloquently for about fifteen minutes on the insulation that was put on the back to hold the sticks of the shadow puppet about how it looked like cheese. I never heard a discourse like that, and I said that's the kind of mind you have to need to have to create fiction. It was just an unbelievable moment. The Mount Perry of twelve years ago. What did that strike you like when you first arrived as a resident of the town, not as a visitor? I loved the Langdon Street Cafe at the time. I loved the people there, I loved the music. That's where Sweet Ballistas is now. That's where Sweet Ballistas is now. You asked me twelve years ago. I put my mind back there. I think it was the musicians that were multi-generational. They touched me. This was the place where the generations weren't separate. It's so profound. The problem with education, the industrial setting for it, where all the kids are at the same age, there's a whole lot of kids are taught they're not leaders because they're not leaders in this little small group. If they're mixed ages, they become leaders because they're helping the younger kids. We deny people their experience with their leadership ability by the way we structure. Only ten-year-olds are going to be going to this class right now and if you're nine-year-old or twelve-year-old, you're not going to be in it. It's very unconscious, but it builds from there. That's what touched me. I think I had the good fortune when I started teaching. I taught at the Fairwood East Street School in Cambridge, which was a very new school at the time. It still was, I think. It was on the British model of mixed ages, family grouping. That came out of World War II when they moved out of London. They had a hundred kids in a class. What were they going to do? They went to their brothers and older sisters and they'll teach them. That worked. They could have a class of a hundred with one teacher and organize it so education was going forward. That was something that happened in the 70s. I happened to have the good luck of having Abby Hoffman's kids in my class. Abby Hoffman of the Terry Group. Was Abby Hoffman on the run at that point or was this before? Abby Hoffman was never really there. Sheila was there. Abby came and said, he promised that he would pay the tuition that he missed the previous year and get the next one. Well, he had problems and he didn't do either one. But Sheila and those two kids, and Abby as kind of a catalyst, there was some of the most wonderful kids I taught in my life. Very sensitive, very kindly and lovely. So I was happy to know the kids. And I was happy to see the charisma that Abby had. I was totally convinced we were going to get paid. Now, what year would this have been? Oh, gosh. It had to be in the 70s. At 77, I can't nail it down for you. This is something that's very unique. We have a unique candidacy here. Bruce wants to read several of his poems to define himself. I think I want to read them because I think it reveals myself. When I first came to Montpellier, I was pretty isolated from politics. National politics or local politics? Everything. I wanted nothing to do with it since the Kennedy assassination, which did a good job of breaking my heart. And as that unfolded, there's some very strange things that happen around the truth of that. And we're still working on that as a nation. We need a resolution to that that we haven't had. So what I've got here, there was a reference. There was a William Pepper, an active state, the execution of Martin Luther King, which is in the collection at the Kellogg Harbor. I read that, and I was so moved that I wanted to write this poem, which hung on the city hall last year during the poetry month. On December 8, 1999, in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, four weeks after hearing testimony from more than 70 witnesses, 12 jurors in less than an hour reached a unanimous verdict finding the U.S. government guilty of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King. The U.S. government was required to pay damages to King family for Martin's wrongful death, which the government did without pursuing an appeal. Ask yourself why. You never knew this fact of American history until now, when I wrote it, more than 16 years later. I read this from Ruben Jackson, who was a noted African-American poet in the area. He said the black community knew this, the white community. That's Ruben Jackson who used to have the show on VPR. It's a sadness that this has been buried. It's a sadness that what actually kills JFK has been buried. It takes very skillful propaganda to hide it, and my government is more than capable of doing that. But that lack of integrity is very destructive to ordinary life into getting things done. And we end up with a country that you can't even elect a Bernie Sanders. We have elected a Bernie Sanders over and over and over. To the vice presidential run, when he clearly won it statistically, 77 billion to one, that's a false statement. He won that election in 2016 and was stolen from him. Now, I thought about bringing this up as a representative. I thought about bringing it up as a Vermont convention. I had a proposal that would change some of this and vacate elections that were false. And I knew that it would just rip the place apart. So I withdrew it. And I brought it to the platform committee. Which platform committee? Democratic Party Platform Committee. It was accepted there. People weren't ready to think about what had happened of Bernie being denied the nomination. So there was too much for people to think. Do you believe that that corruption of spirit has happened on the state level in Vermont? Or on the local level? Statistically it did. The only state that was 100% okay with the results was Oklahoma. And I have to say in Vermont, Vermont wasn't as bad as 90% certain. Vermont was only 50-50% different. And I did bring that information to John Connors. And I don't know what he did with it. I think they told me he did do study because the next year there were anti-hacking things. Because that election can be hacked from a car outside of the polling area by radio. Which election? What? Which election can be hacked? Any election can be manipulated with this account by a car and a radio. And that was done. We have 9,000 voting districts in the U.S. and there's a lot of work that has to be done to make sure that there are all as honest as Vermont and as honest as Oregon. So you believe that when we go into City Hall and we mark our ballots and we put them in the machine? Those are paper ballots and they can be checked. When there was a one-vote difference? That was Ashley. Yeah, I regretted not working harder for her. I was ashamed of myself. I think she deserved one more vote and I should have got it for her. But I'm losing my thread. Forgive me. Bruce, what's your other poem that you brought? Okay. I think it all wound up in politics. And I get upset with it. But you're making the positive step to actually put your integrity onto City Council. Well, that's the most valuable thing I have. I tell people I don't have a lot of money, but I have integrity. And I won't keep it up for any price. So if somebody tells me something and they don't charge me fully, I said you didn't charge me fully for the price on the counter. And I'll do it the opposite, too. I'm honest about it. I don't try to benefit. The world divides roughly into people behaving to overcome trauma. And I had a very serious trauma when I was young and it took me a lifetime to overcome it. And that's the experience of most people. And then there's a miracle that's happening with my partner's infant. He has been so lovingly and care-for, burst in water, a father that loves him spectacularly, that he operates from joy and pleasure. Now you can see this in people's eyes. When people are in joy and pleasure, their pupils go to a pinpoint like a cat purring. And when they're working from trauma, the pupils are bigger. This little fellow is operating entirely from the parasympathetic nervous system. And he's delighted with life and he has no reason not to be. Now that's a tremendous job of work. We could revolutionize a lot of what's wrong with the world if we could raise children like that. So that's happening in my family. And not because of me, but because of Ezra and my partner Maggie's son and his beautiful way of living that came from her. So, to the next moment, I'm talking about love. It isn't about anger or frustration. On an autumn walk today, I chance to see a sway of purple flowers along the way. And promised myself upon return, with errand done, I'd pick each bloom for my darling one. When I came back, I saw every purple flower held a B and bound to some higher law than romantic love. Let go my need and let them be. And I write these words down nonetheless to you, my darling, will know and bless. This is as splendid as purple flowers at the bottom, my love, words of an abunch, poem, parable, a bower of rhyme that you might cherish to the ends of time to your final day. And you might recall and say, I was loved anyway without bouquet. That's lovely. Bruce, I have a question. I have a couple of them that I ask every year. For people who are watching this and have watched this before, they're waiting for this question. Is Mount Pilier a city or a town? Is Mount Pilier a city or a town? Which do you consider it? Well, it's legally a city. But I confuse the word I call a town. I'm not sure what the legal distinction is. Sociologically, do you consider it a small city or a town? I think of it as a town. I know so many people here in Plainfield. They come and fire on ice with families and kids and adults, the inner general. It's more of a town feeling than a city. A city is anonymous. You could do bad things and nobody knows. And if you do bad things, your neighbor knows. And your neighbor knows their neighbors. There's a saying that comes from the Mayans. It reminds me of Vermont. The Mayans say that they know the color of the pea before you pee it. They have an opinion about it. So, Vermonters are that way. They know the bad things about you before you do them. And they have an opinion about it. What are the town's strengths? What are Mount Pilier's strengths? I think it's in its inner generational families. And I think that one of the strengths is its council and its mayor. I think they have their heart in the right place. I wish they were stronger. Stronger in what sense? What's that? Stronger in what sense? I wish they were not so committed to making it easy. Because things aren't easy, from what I can see. It's a difficult issue to bring up, but I've heard of Bryce being solicited. On the local level? In this town, on the local level. I've heard of it. That's hearsay. It's not evidence. And when I mentioned that I'm very aggressively interested in putting in another ethic statement that would make it more difficult and risky for people to solicit the bribes, I've actually had a man come to me and admit to a bribe. I won't nail it down, but well over $100,000. I must have been shocking to you. Please don't tell me that. I don't want to know. I have to weigh it. Was it a believable source? Well, it's believable enough for me to want to act on defeating that kind of thing. And what I think about your needs is a stronger ethic statement. One was chief in it. One that requires people to respond to an ethics officer if they become aware of this sort of thing. And there's a series of things that can be done that I want to bring. So that's one. I'm here to make a change if I were elected. That's one of the things I'd like to do. This is quite a small town corruption. Now, if it exists, and I think it probably does, it's on a very, very small, you know, 2%. But it's enormous increase on taxes for getting... Well, I think the subtitle is more interesting in its own way. A calm, obtaining accountability, transparency, and oversight. You're right. You should be my teacher. No, no, please. But you're right. I should have gone into that, and that's what that does. It would develop at Columbia University. And I think people in the council... So that would be your mission is to work on accountability, oversight, and transparency? Exactly. And yet people were all up to sleep. We were joking at the beginning, you know, it was just two other people were voting. And I said, I don't know them. They may be better off than I am in getting this done. You know, I'm going to make a decision about who I'm going to vote for myself or the other two people. And it's not necessarily me. So I don't necessarily think that I'm the most likely person to get some of this done. If I am... Those are your aspirations. But if I am, I'm going to go after it. And at the age of 77, you will get the best I can out of me. And I'll do the very best I can to protect people from this kind of behavior. You have to make it high-risk. And I don't think it's high-risk enough. Bruce, you've been in town for 12 years. There's been a lot of consulers on our city council. We've had a number of mayors over 12 years. Is there somebody who stands out in your mind? Not so much, perhaps in the present council, perhaps on past councils, as a role model for you? Well, I think there's two role models for me. One I met in gathering signatures. And he's known as Mr. Montpelier. And that's Mr. Sheridan. In the long-time District 3. And we had a long discussion. And I could see he was still interested in government. And I said, if I were elected, I would really like your help. And he agreed to help me on that. The other person that stands out for me is Glenn Hutchison. A present District 3 who's leading the council. I think it's one of the reasons I ran, because he stepped down. So I think his background with the friends and counseling is incredible. An incredible value. And I've asked Glenn if I should happen to be elected. And that's not certain in my mind. Help me take on that responsibility that he has done so well. He met with people at Bikidu on a regular basis once a week. Exactly. As Anne Watson, our mayor, has hours now where you can meet the mayor. Yeah. And I love the Irish music that happens. But Glenn is also from the Boston area. He's a wonderful artist. He's very sensitive. We had talks about Boston, well-belonged, beyond what we were talking about in Montpelier. And I admire him for his ability to do what he's done. If I could do half the job he could do, I'd be proud of it. Because he's very special. Now, I would be remiss, and I don't know whether our producer can shoot in. Can you move your scarf? You're wearing a badge. And I would be remiss if I didn't ask what is that badge that you're wearing. Could you tell us what it is? It's just supporting workers at the co-op. I come from a working-class family. I told you about my father taking nine years to get his degree. My grandfather mined coal in Great Britain at the age of 13. By 19 he had a master of his craft. And if he stayed in that job he was going to die within a decade from black lung. So he and his brothers came to this country. One came to Vermont to mine marble. And the other one took... Did he live in Barrie? What? Did the one who was mining live in Barrie? He may have, but I haven't tracked it down yet. But I think he might have been down in Dambi with the marble as well. And the other one moved through Colorado to mine copper. And my grandfather went to northern Michigan to mine iron ore for making cars. They shipped down through the Great Lakes. He went to work in the dark. He worked a 12-hour shift in the dark. And he walked home in the dark. He saw a sun on Sunday. Any time I want to complain about my workload I just have to think of my grandpa that got me. So you're supporting the workers at the co-op? I support workers. And I'm disappointed that they were more aggressive in the Democratic election in 2016 and supporting workers. Absolutely. The minimum wage at 15? Absolutely. That's just the beginning. And there's so many things that we could do if we stopped having wars. We've had this incredible 15-year war, which is great for people that make tanks and weapons. And that keeps the economy going on that level. But it's not great for the kids that have to join the military because it's an economic draft. They have no else to go. And God bless them. I have friends in Northern Michigan that the whole family has gone into the armed services. It's a hard way to be able to get your college degree. Bruce, you're running for office. I merely have this television show. But I thank you for spreading your integrity, trying to establish your integrity in our town, to cure the ills that you see. Thank you. And I thank you for coming. And I'd like to speak with you. And that deals with Town Meeting Day that's coming in early March. I hope that you'll watch all of these shows, including the show on the city budget and the school budget. And all of the candidate shows as well as the one that Ann will present her case to remain our mayor. And I certainly hope that you'll come out and vote and encourage your family and friends to come out and vote. That's the bedrock of our democracy is participation by those of us who are watching this show and those of us who are producing this show. Thank you very much for watching.