 Good evening and welcome. Town Meeting Television offers continuing coverage of election season, town meeting and general, and special elections such as this one for Burlington's Ward 3. We have three candidates who are running for an open seat. Vacated by Brian Pine is now the city's CEDO director. The election is the 17th, Tuesday the 17th of August, so if you haven't yet gotten your ballots in Ward 3 you're gonna want to look for those in the mail or to show up at the polling place. I have here next to me Owen Milne who's running as an independent, Christopher Aaron Felker who's running as a Republican, and Joe McGee who's running as a progressive. Welcome, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having us. So we're gonna start with Joe McGee with opening statements. Tell us why you're running and what qualifies you to be city counselor in Ward 3. Thanks Joe. Thank you. My name is Joe McGee and I'm running to be a voice for working families in City Hall. I grew up in Vermont and I was raised in a union family. When my grandfather who was a Boston firefighter was killed in the line of duty on June 17th, 1972, my grandmother was left a widow and a single mother of six. Had it not been for the pension and the city support fought for by the firefighters union, my grandmother and eight other widows would have been left with no safety net. So when I talk about issues of economic justice and the issues facing working families, I'm talking about the realities of my family is also faced. For too long, Burlington has responded to the concerns of the wealthy and the well connected while working families have shouldered a burden that's gotten heavier each year. I'm running to be a voice for those folks in City Hall. I believe that we need to invest in our communities, invest in our people and invest in our public assets. I think we have an opportunity to do that as we recover from the pandemic and continue to uplift working folks, uplift marginalized communities. And yes, so thank you very much. Joe, thank you very much for being succinct. I appreciate that. Christopher Aaron Felker, welcome. Thank you, ma'am. My name is Christopher Aaron Felker. I am a husband, a veteran, a member of St. Joseph's Cathedral in Burlington. And since 2013, I'm your neighbor. And currently I'm your candidate for city council in the war three special election. I love our neighborhood. I love the people in our neighborhood and the friendships that I've developed over the last eight years getting to know you all. I'm proud of the life that my husband and I have built in this town here in Burlington's Old North End. I've entered this race because we must do better as a community to ensure public safety, to provide housing security to our community and to be better stewards of our resources here in Burlington. I have, I have been a navy veteran and working in the armed forces, it's one of the most diverse background, one of the most diverse jobs you could ever take from a it's the military is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse employers I've ever worked for. We come together from all backgrounds from all around the United States to fulfill the mission. And that's what we can do here in Burlington. For the last year and a half, 18 months I've been attending the mayor's weekly coffees where we're able to come together as a community, provide feedback as to what's going on, any problems and and the mayor is receptive to this. He's taken and make an actionable our our suggestions in the last. Since this election has started, this campaign has started, I've been attending city council meetings regularly following up on what's what's been going on in city council and so I'm up. I'm current on all on all the issues that we're facing. Can you just say what qualifies you other than what you've just described? Other than my experience in government service and working in our community. Okay. Sure. Wonderful. Thank you. All right on Milne independent welcome. Thank you. So I'm running for city council here in Burlington because I believe deeply in the idea of servant leadership and as I've gone through this campaign a lot of people ask me what does servant leadership mean and people know when they see it. They say that person leads by example or they say that person is always present when I'm talking to them or that person picks up the phone and helps solve the problem that I've put in front of them. It's a type of leadership that we've started to see oftentimes people prefer to be focused on large issues and the work of answering the phone and listening to your constituents and moving things forward is sometimes things that people prefer not to do. Well, I actually really want to advance that idea of servant leadership. I have a long background in community service. I've served on the boards of organizations like Spectrum or the United Way or the Vermont Korean Building Network or the Governor's Committee for Employment for People with Disabilities. I have a long history of also in leadership in actually running organizations. I'm currently the executive director of the Community Sailing Center here in Burlington. So I'm going to be bringing that experience in leadership as well as this true belief in servant leadership to the City Council in Burlington. All right, thank you very much, Owen Milne. I'm going to remind our viewers you can give us a call at 8-6-2-3-9-6-6 if you have questions for the candidates for the Ward 3 special election. So Christopher, do you prefer to be Christopher Aaron or Christopher? Whichever is easiest for you, ma'am. Okay, Christopher Aaron being a Lauren Glenn. I'm going to just call you that. That would be great. So why don't we talk about the F-35s? That seems like a good one to start you being a military person. Sure. What do you hear from the constituents about the F-35s and do you think there's anything and what would you do? Do you think we have any ability to change the situation for folks? So yes, I do hear a lot from in our community regarding the F-35. I understand that they can be noisy at times when they pass overhead. And that can have a serious impact upon some families and their well-being. So I'd like to point out that our entire congressional delegation, Senator Leahy, Senator Sanders, and Congressman Welch, all supported the positioning of F-35s here in Burlington. The mayor approves of it. I support their guard and their mission. Yet I understand and hear from Burlingtonians about the sound and the way that it impacts their lives. So I've reached out and talked to the mayor on this multiple times before. And there are resources available for Burlington families to upgrade their soundproofing, upgrade their windows, which is great for weatherization also. But it gives that peace of mind and more safety inside their homes. It also protects your investment. Your home is most likely the largest and most important investment that you have as a family. And if we can connect Burlingtonians with the resources to upgrade their soundproofing and have better windows, we're protecting their investment and we're protecting their mental health and their overall well-being. So that's the route that I would take with this because anything that the city council really does to try and condemn the F-35, that's just pure virtue signaling. We really don't have much that we can do. But we can connect Burlingtonians to resources to actually make their lives better and easier. Thank you so much. Thank you. Owen, what's your position on the F-35s? And what, if anything, would you do or could you do at city council? So, you know, I would not continue to try and support the F-35s. I know this is deeply political. And for me, this particular year, I have fellow colleagues of mine who have worked from home during this pandemic. And on multiple occasions, during, you know, video calls, we have to stop the call. And so while some might call it a nuisance for, I've come to learn it is a complete disruption of our lives. So while there is an illegal path to getting anything done, as it relates to reversing the decision on the F-35s, the city of Burlington can create collaboration between the city councils of Winooski and South Burlington to make a collective effort to approach our congressional delegation. You have to understand this is probably one of the larger populations of the city. And as a city, you collectively go to the congressional delegation and ask them to take another look at this. The other element of this, too, is I know that part of the crux of the reason why people want to keep the F-35s is an economic one related to the emergency services that are available that they provide for the airport. Well, with the growing economic development that's coming to Burlington's airport through beta technologies, I think there are other opportunities for us to engage other people to make up the difference of that emergency service operation. So it starts taking a little bit of the discussion away from this is an economic issue towards one of the well-being of the people who live in Burlington. Thank you, Owen. Joe McGee, let's talk about the F-35s and we'll take a call from the outside world. What's your position and what influence do you think the city council has? Sure. So, you know, I think that we should have honored the will of the people in 2018 when Burlingtonians overwhelmingly voted to not have the F-35s based at the airport. I think it was a lack of leadership that really resulted in this happening. And I think we need to acknowledge the fact that this is disproportionately impacting Black, Indigenous, and people of color. And, you know, at a time when nearly 60% of households are tenants in this city, you know, while we might have these programs that help homeowners soundproof, there are many, many residents that don't have the opportunity to do that for themselves and might not have a landlord that is willing to do that. And so I would support writing a letter to the governor to ask that these training flights be halted and that we work with our federal delegation to get this mission changed for the Vermont International Guard. Okay, very good. Thank you. Good evening. Do you have a question for the candidates for the Ward 3 Special Election? Hi. Hi there. Hi, how are you? I'm okay. I'm pretty well. I'm learning the new phone system here at Downeating TV. Oh, good. Yeah, what's your question? My question is, I will start off with saying that my name is Sherry Lamarch, and minus a year and a half I've been born and raised in Vermont. I've lived the last 17 years here in Burlington and my concern for my city is at an all-time high. I expect things from people that represent me and one is respect. Respect to me is honesty. Honesty means no lying and no deceit in being good role models. The city council, minus a couple, have disrespected me, our city and other Burlingtonians with illegal actions they committed which were deceitful. Their apology was reluctant and with excuses. They broke the state's open meeting law which violated the executive session rules on September 8, 2020, and then the counselors met with no public notice and another violation of the law on September 16, 2020. Furthermore, the counselors had actually been meeting illegally in the days leading up to September 16. Their actions were disgusting, are disgusting, and I expect better. Those actions and others have left me not trusting them. I and the people of Burlington are entitled to have a council that is true and just and not filled with those that feel they are above the law. Sherry, what's your question? It would be nice to know if you would just be another deceitful counselor by asking just one simple question that has a yes or no answer. Okay. Do you condone the illegal actions that were perpetrated by the city council? Yes or no? Thank you. I'm not sure we're all clear on what those actions were. It's violation of public meeting law. I just listed them and they're also in seven days. Okay, so you all understand the question. All right, very good, Sherry. Thank you so much. Let's get an answer. We'll start with Owen, I think. Yeah, so I would not condone any actions that aren't that are in violation of public meeting law. Also, in addition to this, through most of the board work that I've done, I'm oftentimes the person that ends up on the governance committee, in addition to any issues related to whether they did or did not do it out of in a malicious way, even if they did it because they didn't know that they were breaking law, that is also a problem. So one of the reasons why, and again the thing that I bring to this seat, is this deep background in understanding in public governance, especially as it relates to boards and commissions. Thank you, Owen. Joe, your view on those illegal actions. Sure, you know, we need to do everything that we can to ensure that our governing processes are as transparent as possible. You know, I don't condone the actions of the council in violating open meeting law in these instances, but you know, I also commend the council for governing in the middle of a pandemic in Zoom and, you know, recognize that Zoom has given us more access to our government than we didn't have before. So I would like to see our city council and our boards and commissions find a way to have a hybrid process that gives the public more access to our meetings, making it possible for them to participate in public forum without being physically present at the meeting. I think, you know, that's something that the pandemic did show us, is that we have these ways to use technology to really increase access to our democratic process, and I think we need to amplify that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Just for Erin. Yes, ma'am. So the caller asked for a yes or no answer, and so, no, I would not continue to engage in the same way that the city council has in the past. I would not approve of any violations of public meeting laws. All right. Thank you for the question. Thank you so much. All right, we're going to start with you, Joe, and the next question. Let's go downtown to the mall. What vision will you bring to bear in your role as city councilor for the central core and downtown Burlington, and what role will you play as a city councilor in achieving this vision? Appreciate the question. You know, I believe that the city place project has been a failure. You know, we are stuck now several years later with a pit in the middle of the city that doesn't seem to have any resolution in sight. We have our high schoolers going to school in Old Macy's, and we have Memorial Auditorium, which is condemned and is a public space that has been sitting empty for several years, and we have 242 Main, which is a youth program that has been closed down and that we've lost for the last several years. So, you know, when I think about what we can do downtown to really support the community, I believe that we need to have an ethic of investing in our public resources in a way that we have really shied away from in the last several years, and I think we need to do everything that we can to support local businesses. I think we know when we support local businesses that that money stays in the community several times over. I think there are models that we can pursue for cooperative business models to have businesses sharing spaces downtown. You know, when we see a recession or like we saw with the pandemic, national chains will leave Church Street. They'll leave downtown. Local businesses will do everything they can to stay here, and I think we need to do everything that we can to make that possible for them. So, along that line, I would make sure that CEDO gets the funding that they need to really support those businesses and build those programs. So, yep, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Christopher, Erin, your view of the downtown, your vision of the downtown core and the role you will play as city counselor. So, yes, the city place development is 400 new homes, and it has been held up a few times in the past due to lawsuits, and but this is 400 new homes here in Ward 3 that we desperately need homes, including I believe 69 affordable units that are below market rate. So, this is a lot of homes that will have a sizable impact upon our housing in this ward and in Burlington as a whole. My role as a city counselor would be to stop obstructing the process because we need those homes. Burlington families need these homes. Supporting this build and this project supports the businesses around it. If you support city place, you're also supporting the businesses all around that have had the deck stacked against them for the last few years, including a single pebble who is right across the street from that build. And if you've never run a business across the street from a long-term construction project, it really affects your bottom line. If you support city place, if you support a single pebble, support city place. When it comes to Memorial Auditorium also, we need to do something with that. It's a city asset that's sitting there in decay, and there are many ways that we could handle this situation. A public-private partnership is the only way that we can actually try and revitalize that building and provide that bring revitalization to that resource in town. If we don't have the funds as a city to actually renovate it on our own, and if we sit and wait for that day to come, that building will just collapse upon itself. So we need to reimagine a new way to revitalize the downtown core, and we need to do so in a way, like my opponent said, that supports small business. Because if we support small business and we keep adding new homes downtown, which we need as a city, then we're supporting Burlington. We're being good stewards to the future of Burlington. Thank you. Thank you very much. Owen Mellon, your approach to downtown and your role as a city counselor and make that happen. Yeah, so I actually am one of the three candidates I live in the downtown core. I kind of experience it every day, and while I can appreciate conversation about city place, you know, it's a private development as a city counselor don't have until there happens to be a run up against a development agreement. City Council doesn't have a dramatic role to play in that at present. Morrill Auditorium is a very challenging project, very expensive. My preference would actually be to focus attention towards the intersection of social service and police and mental health. The thing that I actually hear more often from the neighbors that I'm calling who also live in the downtown, say that issues around mental health and substance abuse are far more challenging to our day-to-day experience than what happens to be going on in the pit for not happening with Morrill Auditorium. I know as the night goes on I'm sure we'll have questions specific to mental health, substance abuse, police transformation and social service, but I actually think by increasing our investment in social service and addressing issues of mental health and substance abuse we actually can enhance the experience of the visitors that come there and actually make downtown a little bit more of a welcome place for people to spend money and visit the businesses that work there. Thank you very much, Owen. I'm just going to remind folks our numbers 8028623966 if you have any questions for the candidates for the ward three special election. So Christopher Aaron why don't we go to that question about policing and community safety then. What do you think of the recent approach by the City Council to issues of public safety and how would you have weighed in and how will you weigh in on these conversations and policy decisions? Sure, thank you. So my opinion on the City Council's position and their actions that they've taken is that these actions have been reckless and irresponsible that they did not have a proper plan in place to keep our city safe. We are currently at historically low staffing levels in our police department. Businesses have hired private security to keep their staff safe and ensure that they can get to their cars and homes safely. They also have these have hired private security to ensure that customers and clients that come in can feel safe. It is imperative that we increase funding to our officers. My campaign has put forward a positive policing policy where we are increasing funding to the Burlington Police Department so that way the officers can have current de-escalation strategy training. We are adding officers to the police department including the street patrols, the street crimes unit, and an animal control officer. We are adding, we are proposing to add more mental health workers and social workers in the department because the numbers that we have currently are inadequate. We are at a turning point. We have historically low numbers. We need to act now. We cannot wait another six, nine, 12, 18, or 24 months. However long it takes for the reports to come back and for council to act, we need leadership that acts today. We need somebody who's going to support our public safety team and I'm the candidate who's going to do it for you. Thank you. Thank you very much. On Mel and your view on the policing approaches for the city council and community safety. I mean you've already started to talk about it but can you say more? Yeah, so I've been working on a comprehensive police reform and transformation plan. As I've been reaching out to the people in our neighborhood over the course of this campaign, I hear that they have experienced issues where the response time for issues has gone up. So we need to address response times that have gone up as a result of the decision that was made. And then the plan that I've put forward changes of what police are accountable for. So to not be accountable for just drug seizures and the number of tickets we write, actually I would be looking to engage public input into how we hold police accountable. Secondly, I would actually create a traffic division that takes the responsibility of traffic law away from police and actually moves it into a separate department similar to what we've done with parking enforcement. And then lastly I would work towards creating a merger of the other public safety entities into one department of public safety. So that would be moving fire, police, create a department of social service and move the traffic division in to actually create that so that the police are accountable not to just their own department but actually to a broader department that focuses on issues of health and safety. All right, thank you very much. Joe McGee, your view of policing and community safety 2022. Sure. So I supported the council's decision last summer I think. You know, the decision they made was to reduce the number of officers through attrition. So as far as if the city council decided to fire these officers they've chosen to leave. You know, we need to do more to invest in community service officers. We absolutely need more mental health professionals on our streets. We shouldn't give into fear-mongering messaging that is saying that our streets are more dangerous. We absolutely need to continue moving in the direction that we're going in because we need to recognize that status quo policing hasn't worked for so many in our community. And so the answer is to not just go back to where we were. The answer is to move forward with a vision for community safety that involves the people that live here, that invests in community programs that provide people access to housing, community services, and doesn't just return to status quo policing. Go ahead. Thank you very much. Christopher, Erin. I'd just like to follow up. Both of my opponents have radical views on how the police department should be handled. One of my Mr. McGee believes in abolishing the police department. Mr. Milne seems to believe in dissolving the police department and has demonstrated a serious amount of contempt for officers on the beat. We aren't talking about fear-mongering. These are facts. In the last year we have seen a sizable increase in assaults, simple aggravated and sexual assaults. We have seen an increase in quality of lifeprimes. This is not fear-mongering. These are called facts. This is the city that we're living in. And if we want to talk about having a safe environment for Burlingtonians, we are going to do that by rebuilding our police department and rebuilding trust in our police department. The only way we're going to do that is by adding funding and adding officers. The path that we're going right now is down. Less officers and more crime. That's an unacceptable outcome for me. That's an unacceptable direction. And, sir, your policing policy, while having good ideas to it, there are, there, you need any charter changes in order to even get these accomplished. Do you think that you have the votes in Burlington to get that? I do not. I don't think you have the votes in Montpelier to do it either. You talk about listening to people in Burlington and finally you're admitting that people are complaining that the response time is extended. But that's only after months of you stating that you wanted that you don't believe that the officer should even be armed. Traffic stops and domestic violence are actually the most dangerous instances that police can respond to. So if you have officers, unarmed officers approaching cars during traffic stops, you're putting them in harm's way. That is not good leadership, sir. Okay, so I'm gonna thank you. That's good. So, Owen, why don't you respond to that? I didn't actually hear you contempt in your proposal, but maybe it was there and missed it. Yeah, I don't carry any contempt for officers. But you don't think that they can be retrained? You said that in the last debate. So, I have- Or you said that you don't think they're capable of being retrained. I have friends in the police department and who work in public safety. In fact, a close friend of mine is an EMT and he tells me time after time when he responds to a job that when he gets there the police officers are saying, thank goodness you're here, we've got three other calls that are coming in. So when I talk about the police transformation plan that I put forward, what I'm talking about is actually realigning the resources towards what the reality is on the ground. If those officers had with them accompanying to a domestic dispute issue social service officer who was trained enough to be able to manage a situation once stable, we wouldn't have to take away from those critical moments when an officer then needs to be able to move on to the next component where emergency service and immediate response would be necessary. So, what I'm talking about is actually realigning how we spend money towards what our needs are. When we get the report back from the consultants later on this fall we'll have a much better idea of what the reality is of how response comes in and what the community needs are as it relates to public service and as it relates to the transformation piece I know that officers would prefer not to have to be the person to do all of the different things that are that are required of an officer. They would prefer to be able to do a tactical response and then move on next time something comes up. Okay, thank you. Jomagie, your response to Christopher Aaron's comments? Sure, so I do envision a future where we don't need a police force. That's something that I am hopeful for. I recognize that we're not going to get there tomorrow or next year or maybe even 10 years from now. But this is an ethic that I bring to my ideology and my belief system and my work on the council. My belief is that if we invest in people that we can get to a future where we have less interactions with police overall. And you know I just want to make a mention also of the efforts by people for police accountability to get an independent community control board on the ballot for a special election in November. They're collecting signatures right now for that. That would be the charter change that the mayor vetoed in January. I believe that is something that we need while we continue to transition away from police. We need to take that sole power away from the chief of police to discipline officers and instances of misconduct and make that process much more transparent in public. So I think, thank you, I think that Christopher Aaron actually raised an interesting point about getting support for your positions and I just would like to hear about your approach to working with a city council which has a variety of positions and how you would try to move other members towards your point of view. What's kind of your kind of theory of collaboration or making democracy work on a city council level? Sure. So I firmly believe in organizing the grassroots and getting out and talking to folks in the community and having those sorts of conversations about where folks are at and sort of explaining what I think and what we're organizing for and kind of forming a coalition of folks that are organizing for this sort of collective approach to change. So once you're on the city council and you're working with people who might not agree with you, how would you bring them around to your position? Sure. I think, you know, it starts with community meetings and meeting folks where they're at and talking to the community and, you know, we, there's also an initiative to get proposition zero which is would allow ballot signatures to have questions put directly on the ballot. I would support that. I think that is something that we need that would give more power to residents of Burlington, to voters in Burlington, to impact change. And so I believe that that's something that we need. But so I think it starts with building support in the community and having community members call their counselors and make their hopes heard. Okay. Thank you so much. So, Christopher, Erin, what's your approach to working with people on the council that may not share your views and building consensus? I think we have a very positive policing policy that we put forward. It includes, it includes areas that members of council from all parties have addressed that they have spoken on in behalf of wanting to have more training for officers. That's right in our policy so we can compromise together. We want, we all want to have more social workers on staff. Now Mr. Milne wants to also. I'm glad that he's taken on part of our policy proposals. I think that it's smart to have more social workers and mental health workers literally embedded in the department to go with them to the scene so that way they can work together. But we need more officers and I trust that the officers can be properly trained. I trust that we need more officers on staff. We're currently at 67 historic lows and the path that we're going with more being lost this year is not where we should be at. So we're going to compromise. We're going to work together and we're going to let other people know on council that this is the way that we should be leading in our city. All right. Thank you very much. Owen Milne, your view to building consensus on controversial topics. Yeah. So I did answer your question. My approach towards servant leadership is one where my policy directions are going to be based by taking the time to listen and engage with the people of Ward 3. Over the course of, since I started this campaign, I have incorporated new ideas into the platform that's that's been online. And in a lot of that comes from the things that I hear during the phone calls that I make. I as an independent feel that I'm in a unique position to be able to put people before politics and it's put people before a party to actually bring those stories directly to the city council. So I find that stories resonate louder than data so often. And I've changed minds by through stories in other boards that I've been on. That's the approach that I'd be taking is to take the stories and experiences, the people that I live around every day and bring those to the people in City Hall. Thank you so much. Why don't we start with you on this next question, which isn't in our list, but I had an interesting interview with the head of Department of Public Works about the proposals on trash collection. The Department of Public Works has completed a study that suggests a hybrid approach to collecting trash and compost and recycling. There's also support for a municipalizing trash and compost and recycling. Where do you stand on this question? The City Council is taking it up in a week, a week and a half, may not decide in a week and a half, but certainly are pressed to decide soon. So if you were a City Councilor, how would you how would you go roll on this question? So and so backing up a little bit too on the question, which is when I talk to people in the neighborhood, nobody loses sleep over trash consolidation. So I don't know how this made its way up, but I can tell you it wasn't like people in Ward 3 saying solve this issue or nobody's going into City Council meeting and keeping the counselors up till 2 in the morning. So I'll just say this isn't like a hot button issue from the people that I talk with. But it might be soon. So I would say I don't know that there is enough relevant information from what I can tell to support the City taking over the entirety of the services. I have spent time reaching out to people in Department of Public Works to learn more about it. Their preference and I feel as though my responsibility is to do provide the best service that I possibly can to the people in Ward 3. From the two options, I do believe that a hybrid approach and letting the Department of Public Works move forward on delivering that model. All right. Thanks so much. Joe McGee, your view on consolidating trash collection. Sure. I support a municipal operation model. You know, I believe it will create 14 new union jobs in the city. The union members that could be used to plow our streets and, you know, create the capacity that we need for some of those other essential services that DPW performs through the city. And, you know, I think it comes back to this question of investing in our public utilities and our public assets in a way that puts the residents of Burlington ahead of profit. You know, the way the hybrid model would work is that the rate payer would pay the trash collector, Cassella, and then Cassella would pay the city. I don't see the value in a system like that. I think, you know, in the long run, the municipal operation model will be better for Burlington. It will be better for the rate payer for residents in the city. And I think that is the way that we need to go. All right. That's fine. I have a follow-up to that, but I'm going to go to Christopher Aaron. And what's your view on consolidated trash collection? Should that be hybrid or municipal or some other option? Perfect. Thank you. So I don't approve of the municipal option, the municipal monopoly option. I don't. That would require it'll ultimately stifle the free market completely. It'll cause costs to go up, taxes will go up, and the municipal option would require the city to take on a new site down off of Flynn Avenue, and the amount of high traffic coming from these large, heavy vehicles going back and forth down Pine Street, that corridor, and the traffic that would build up there, I'm unconvinced that would be a smart option. As far as the hybrid model goes, I have reservations. I've been following along also reaching out to the Department of Public Works and talking to Director Spencer on it. I'm not convinced that that is the appropriate model for the city either at this point. I think that Burlingtonians, anything that any either of these two options that are available right now, the municipal monopoly or the hybrid model, both are more likely going to cause cost increased shoulder on the Burlingtononian families. And that's not something that I'm willing to put out there for people in my ward to have to bear the burden of. So just a quick follow up before Joe, do you think the city should be doing municipal recycling? Christopher? Yeah. Do you think the city should be doing municipal recycling? The city already does municipal recycling. I mean, what's your view on that if you don't? I mean, it's perfectly fine with me right now, the way it is as far as that goes. But when we get into having the city take over multiple avenues of waste collection, we also start talking about using split-use trucks. Now, the trucks have a finite amount of capacity. So if you have a truck that's taking solid waste and recyclables, one's going to fill up before the other. And it's not as efficient. And I question the amount of efficiency the director's putting out because I don't see that actually panning out with the number of trips that go back and forth. Also, the hybrid model speaks specifically about how the exemptions of any building that has less than four units, anything that's industrial, they can still charter on their own waste collector. Any building or residential structure that has more than four units, they can still charter their own. So I really do question the numbers to see if it's going to be as efficient or reduce emissions. Like they said, I'm not willing to comment on whether I approve of the hybrid model or don't approve of it just yet, but I absolutely oppose the municipal monopoly. All right. Thank you, Joe. I would just like to point out that it would in fact save ratepayers money. We can do three services for the price of two, the way it currently stands. Folks pay anywhere from $28 to $39 for trash and then another $15 a month for compost. And so the municipal model would cap at $41. And we would have the ability to adjust that based on residents' ability to pay. So when we talk about this, I want to make sure that we're getting the numbers correct. So I just have a follow-up question for you, and that is given the recent tax increases, what do you think the appetite for the public is to pay for municipal infrastructure that would be required in this case, given all the other infrastructure proposals and needs the city has? I mean, so that's just sort of a question I have about your view of the taxpayer's appetite to pay more for service. Sure. You know, this is a model that is used around the country. In fact, most municipalities, I believe, use a model that has the municipality doing the collection of all three. And I think we have an opportunity with lots of money coming from the federal government over the next few months that we might be able to leverage for this. On the topic of the property tax increase, you know, I serve on the Board of Tax Appeals, so something that I've heard a lot about over the last week and a half. And, you know, I absolutely understand that we need to do more to support folks that saw a sticker shock. And so I hope that we're able to find a solution to have folks, to help folks who might not be able to afford their tax bill. I'm open to having conversations with other counselors and maybe coming up with a way that we can create some sort of fund to help folks that aren't able to afford their tax bill. So what's interesting about this trash hauling is really how much there is to say. There is a lot to say on it, yeah. So we have to wrap up, so I'm going to go to closing comments. And please use the opportunity to say any issues that you care about. I'll give you a couple minutes each for those closing comments. I'm going to start with Joe and then we'll wrap up there. Closing on the trash issue or just altogether? We wrap up. Oh, wow. It's 45 minutes and we're going all over, but that's okay. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I know. It doesn't time fly. It does fly. It does fly. Anyway, Joe, before you, closing comments, please. Good morning, Glenn. Thank you so much for moderating tonight. And thank you to Channel 17 for this first in-studio broadcast. So I'm running to be a voice for working folks in City Hall. I think we have an opportunity over the next several months, with the rest of this term being about six months. I think we have an opportunity to really chart a course for how we support people and how we support uplift our communities and invest in our public assets in a way that we haven't been doing in a way that the pandemic has exposed so many of the inadequacies that we need to address. And I think we have an opportunity to do that over these next few months. And I really look forward to that conversation. You can learn more about my campaign at joemigiebtv.com. I really look forward to having conversations with folks on your door, on the phone, and really hope to earn your support on August 17th. So thank you all very much. Thank you very much. Christopher Aaron Felker, your closing comments. Thank you. Thank you for having us here tonight. My name is Christopher Aaron Felker, and I hope that I was able to convince you that we have a new direction that we can go as a city. Regardless of your party affiliations, we're all Berlingtonians coming together to try and provide a different vantage point to solve our problems. City Council is a body of 12 individuals. It currently doesn't have any conservative representation on it. We would like to come to the table and offer our perspective on how we can solve Berlington's problems together. If public safety in supporting our police department is a priority to you and your family, if trying to hold the line on taxes is a priority for you and your family, if you want to reinvest in our city's infrastructure, I ask for your vote. I ask for you to take a look at our website, www.felkerforward3.com. You can even send me an email right there. I'm happy to hear from any Berlingtonian any day. I'm always willing to reach out. So thank you again for having us here, and thank you to my opponents for coming to this session. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Oh, I'm Mel. You're closing the comments. Thank you for hosting us. And is this really the first? I think so, yeah. Your first time getting out of the house and coming in and doing this? I thought it was remote. Right. We heard. That's why I drove. So I'm sure you kept with the speed limit the whole way, didn't you? Yeah. Yeah. So thank you for doing this. We're so glad to be able to meet back and doing this in person. I am genuine when I talk about this idea of servant leadership. And oftentimes, when I have an opportunity to talk about it, sometimes politicians measure their impact by how many times their name is in the press or how many interviews they're getting at Channel 17. For me, success would look like the people in my neighborhood having my name and phone number on their refrigerator, because it's the place where they call to get problems solved that they experienced in the city. Instead of thinking about success in city council, about how many times you stop something you don't agree with or how many times you move a policy forward that you agree with, I would measure my impact on city council on how many times I've actually helped a family get whatever it is that they need from the city. Servant leaders look at the world in a very different way. That's the approach that I'm looking to bring to city council. And if you'd like to learn more about me or my platform, I invite you to go check out my website at www.ownforbrillington.com. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Owen Milne is running as an independent in the word three special election. Jill McGee is running as a progressive and Christopher Aaron Falker is running as a Republican. I want to thank the three of you for joining us. I'm always deeply honored by the people who choose to run for public service. So thank each of you and thank you for watching.