 Hi! This is All Things LGBTQ, our interview show. We'd like to acknowledge that we're taping in Montpelier, Vermont, which is unceded Indigenous land. And I'd like to welcome you to the show. If you have any suggestions about who you'd like to see interviewed here, please let us know and we'd be glad to check it out. Thanks for coming and I hope you enjoy the show. For this episode of All Things LGBTQ, our interview show. This whole show, we're going to be talking with people who are part of the mainstream political process and people who are active candidates during this coming election. And remember the primary is August 11th. You can do mail-in ballots. And so I am so delighted to welcome back a frequent guest for All Things LGBTQ, the majority leader in the Senate, Becca Ballant. Welcome, Becca. Thank you. Thank you. I'm very excited to be here. I always love to be on the show. Gay TV. Yes, I know. You call it gay TV and in my mind I call it queer TV. I'm trying to like the older folks who are trying to get the queer, you know, the queerness because it's expansive. So let's just start by saying that where you are with this legislative session is not where people had anticipated. So what's it like right now trying to conduct business in the Senate? Yeah, there are two answers. One, it's really freaking hard because we need to be able to be in the same room with people to see facial expressions, to understand the nuance, for me to look around the room and know, oh, I can tell that that senator wants to weigh in, but they're needing an opening, right? You don't get that on Zoom, right? So there's a barrier and you can't be looking at everybody at once in the same way that you can scan a room. So the first answer is it's incredibly difficult. The second answer is, and we also did an amazing job, I have to say. I've got a couple people in my chamber who definitely had never been on Zoom and don't even email. And so the day that I got my last older gentleman on Zoom and he was there and we could see him, it was a big victory to feel like, okay, we can do our business now. We can work together because people are willing to stretch themselves. There's been a lot of stretching of comfort zone. And if you haven't heard it yet, in the early days of the pandemic legislative efforts, there was a VPR short that was done about all of us trying to legislate over conference call. And so if you do VPR conference call pandemic Senate, you'll have such a good laugh hearing all of us like somebody needs to mute. What is that noise? Stop the dog barking in the back. So when I think about how most of our time in those early calls, we're asking each other to stop talking or stop sneezing or turn down the volume. And then we move to actually passing out legislation to help people during this time. We came a tremendously far away. And so I have to be honest with you, I hate legislating over Zoom. I miss seeing my colleagues and seeing people come into the room, constituents come into the room and telling their story. And that's really hard for me. It is, I feel a loss. I feel some grief about it. But I know that we're one of the few legislators, legislatures in the entire country that continue to work remotely and that we were able to figure it out. And so this is where I put my plug in for all of those folks who are in the IT department at our legislature who are truly the folks working behind the scenes that allowed us to do that. And those folks went for days really with no sleep just trying to get us connected because they understood how important it was for constituents to see the work that we were doing. So I feel a sense of accomplishment. And I also know we weren't able to get nearly as much done as we could have if we had still been in the building. And that's where I would like to go next. But for those, you know, as one of those people who is an advocate, one of the things that we really lost was access to all of you. Yes. You know, those casual conversations in the hallway, just brief conversations about language, you know, have you thought about, but there were some things that you couldn't get to. Well, some of the pieces of legislation that you really had hoped could be accomplished that just because of COVID and circumstances are going to have to wait. Well, so some of the ones I haven't let go of them, perhaps, you know, passing in August. So we have a bunch of work that we've been doing on expanding housing. And so one of the things that we learned during the pandemic was that we actually could get every single person out of homeless shelters in Vermont and get them into housing. Yes, it was temporary housing, but we got them all out. And what we realized is, if we were able to do that, then there's really no reason why we can't invest that money to have more permanent housing for these folks. And we would be helping with wraparound service for those for mental health issues, keeping families together, reducing the possibility of infection, you know, around COVID and other things. And also giving people a sense that their lives can move forward. When you are using a voucher to stay in a motel for a couple nights, and then you're shuffled on to another place, it's a horribly hard way to live. And we ought to take this opportunity to figure out how to invest the dollars that we're getting from the federal government into some of these long term solutions around supporting people in a pandemic. And so one is around housing. Another we have much more work to do around childcare issues. What we learned was we have no system, right? We have some people who are able to find a slot and afford it. A lot of people who can't find a slot or if they can, they can't afford it. Or in the situation we're in now, we've got, if you have a two-parent household, both parents are trying to work from home while educating. I put educating quotes because I know it was like in my house. And a colleague of mine in the Senate, we were texting one day, he's like, I'm so glad the school year's over. So you and I can stop this farce that we're actually like being able to educate our kids because we're not. But so I worry that a lot of Vermonters are telling us in really urgent voices like you want to open up the economy. However, there's still nowhere for our children to go if the schools aren't open or child care centers don't open. So it's an opportunity for us to look system-wide and say, we got to be investing more in child care because now is the time to figure it out for a worst case scenario because that's what we should be planning for. So housing, child care, certainly you and I, we had talked briefly earlier about the importance of the racial justice issues. And so we did pass out a series of bills on the Senate side around use of force, body, camera usage on police force, some other pieces around use of force, and we passed them over to the House. Now, I know from speaking with Representative Coach Christie this morning, who heads the equity caucus in the House and Senate, it's a pretty big caucus of House and Senator, House members and senators looking at issues around equity, LGBTQ rights, racial issues, economic justice, and he and I talked this morning, he really wants to use the equity caucus to have some more public hearings about the work that the Senate did to see essentially, what did we miss? What did we get wrong? Because my concern in the immediate aftermath of the horrible murder of George Floyd was that there was a lot of pressure for us to move something quickly. And I know I was one of the voices in the Senate saying, it's better that we get it right than we get it quickly. And we need to be hearing from people in the community that are most directly impacted by these decisions that we're making. And Coach really picked up the ball on that. And he's trying to get that done on the House side so that we are hearing voices from people in the field. And it isn't legislators, mostly white, mostly fairly privileged, many of them straight, sitting around trying to figure out what marginalized communities need in policing. And so I'm feeling like the conversation has shifted and I'm excited about that. And you would be pleased to know that I got an email like half an hour before we started taping from Farron and Partial Policing forwarded from Coach Christie, inviting me to participate in one of, and I believe they have already have four scheduled. Yes, yes, great. But what I would like to move into quickly there is the Farron and Partial Policing. And you have been actively involved in this since Gary Scott and Ingrid Jonas have started it. Many people from within the LGBTQ plus community aren't willing to engage law enforcement in the conversation. Why did you feel it was important and what do you feel the police have gained by your participation? It's a great question. And so I would attribute my first involvement in through an impartial policing directly, certainly have worked on racial justice issues, my whole adult life, I had a variety of places and organizations, but I met through Curtis Reed, who's done a tremendous amount on racial justice issues in Vermont, he runs a equality, I'm going to get the title wrong, fairness and equality conference, I'm getting it wrong, I apologize it's funny because I've been there like nine years in a row, but he runs a conference in the fall in its multi-day and you are meeting with people from all over Vermont who care deeply about issues of equity. And he introduced me to Ingrid Jonas there at one of the early ones and he said, you've got to meet this woman, the only woman. So at that point, she was the only woman who had ever made captain in the Vermont state police. And she said, she's trying to do work inside an organization that in many ways is culturally hostile to women and to men who, you know, they perceive as being effeminate. And so she interviewed, I don't know if it was seven days or digger early on. And I read the interviewer was like, I got to get to know this person because I don't know if I'm allowed to say this on career TV. But see, they said, well, what's it like being a female cop in Vermont? And she said, well, I've been called Cunt more times than you can imagine. And they were like, what's that? I said, you're allowed to say that. I'm allowed to say that. And some people were frustrated with her and felt like, why are you saying that? It makes us look bad. She's like, I'm not just saying I was called Cunt by my, you know, my coworkers. I'm saying that's what it's like to be out in the field to when I'm trying to just do my job. And so Curtis said, this is a person who has to deal with sexism all the time. She's already bringing a different lens to this work. And I just think you'll really hit it off. So I ended up being a workshop with her years ago. And I thought, Oh, whatever train she's on, like, I'm getting on that train. And she invited me to participate. And I was really impressed with just how much Vermont State Police was trying to do better. And I'm with the first to admit, we still have a long way to go in Vermont. But in terms of law enforcement around the state, they were really taking the lead in saying, we screwed up. Here are the things that we're getting wrong. We've got to do it better. And then we get the data back. And I'd say, we're still, we're still not where we should be. Because one of the things I appreciate about Ingrid and Gary is that they'll say, yeah, we've made improvements. And also, we're not there yet. And so as a queer person, but as a white woman, my interaction with law enforcement is usually pretty easy. And I'll give you a quick, quick story. I was driving down from the Rutland area down to Brown Whirl for a candidate forum. And I can't remember what year it was, but I was running late. And I really needed to use the bathroom. And I had way too much coffee. And maybe TMI, but I was, it was, you know, I didn't have that much time to get to where I need to go. And I got off at the exit in Putney. And I'll never forget it. I was like making a beeline to the Putney co-op to use the bathroom. And I cruised right through the stop sign, right through. And, and I saw the lights go on and pulled over. And he said, you know, I pulled you over. I said, I absolutely do. I went to the stop sign. But I really need to use the bathroom. Like, can you, can you follow me over to the co-op so I can use the bathroom? And then you can write your citation. Like, first of all, crazy privilege for me to even ask that, right? Crazy. And he said, yeah, that's fine. And I couldn't stop thinking about it. And I thought, that is intense privilege that I could say to him, yeah, I know I broke the law. And I just ran through that stop sign. But, you know, I got to use the bathroom. So that really got me thinking about what it is to be someone of color in Vermont. That they, they don't, they don't get to do that. And it made me so much more hyper-aware of the work that I needed to do as someone who is given that, given that pass. And I also bring my incredible worry about the trans community. As we know, they are the people most often on the receiving end of violence. And I want to do anything that I can to be an ally to our, to our trans community. So I know we still have a long way to go, but I have a lot of respect for both Ingrid and Gary. And I would encourage people to don't check out of the conversation. That's what I want to say. Don't check out. These are people with integrity. And they want to do better. And as you and I talked about before, they're, when we say defunding the police, we're talking about shifting resources so that communities have the support that they need. That's what we're talking about. And I don't think anyone on either side, if they understood what we were talking about or asking police to do things they're not trained for. And in the end, we suffer for as, as community members. So that was a long answer, but that's, that's what got me into the work and continues to push me to do better work. So with that, I actually have to say, thank you for spending this time with me. I know whenever we get started, you just get going and run out of time. So I want, I want a commitment. January, you are going to be my first guest, so we can talk about what it was like to try and campaign during COVID. And that you and I get to talk about the historic event where the Senate just elected its first woman and out lesbian as his president pro tem. I hope, I hope. Good, good luck. Thank you. And as always, thank you. My pleasure. Hi, everybody. I'm here with Ember Quinn, a multi-generational Vermonter who's lived in Milton with her spouse Elise and her two children for the last four years. As a proud Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity family partner and homeowner, Ember brings her commitments to affordable housing and a livable wage for all Vermonters. Her work with the Pride Center of Burlington and several diversity group initiatives demonstrates her vision in building kinder and safer communities. I think we all can get behind that. A self-taught environmentalist, Ember studies the latest technologies in recycling and composting methods from the Chittenden Solid Waste District and countless other sources. Ember is dedicated to creating a greener Vermont. Ember has been an active participant in local government and educational issues such as equity in educational funding, diversity training and learning communities for school and local officials and helping to create a greener Vermont. Her diligent work with local organizations such as Milton Inclusion and Diversity Initiative, White Caucus which is a branch of the Black Lives Matter of Greater Burlington and SOAR Education Task Force have shown her dedication to serving this community. In addition, Ember Quinn is running for State Representative of Chittenden 10 which is Milton. So welcome Ember. Thank you Ann. It's delightful to be here. It's great to have you. Would you mind telling us a little bit about your early life, your Vermont born and bred? Oh certainly. I was raised in, well I was born in St. Albans. My dad was in Vietnam so I didn't ever meet him until I was almost two years old and I grew up. My mom had to drop out of high school because she had a family and it was scandalous to be married and be in high school back in the 60s. Our family moved to Enesburg Falls when I was seven and Enesburg Falls like a lot of northern Vermont communities and small communities. I had a few friends but it's hard being an outsider like being treated like an outsider even though you're only 18 miles away. And I was always an odd child. I liked art and I liked music but I was quiet and soft spoken. Of course as I've been transitioning these past few years I have realized that a lot of that, how much gender paid played a part in a lot of that. Like I was trying to be somebody that was of course exacerbated when I went through puberty and which was blessedly late. It was like 16 or something. But still it was a rough time and I was different. I had earrings. There are things I just wanted to do and I couldn't explain it and it brought a lot of targeting toward me. I was assaulted eight times once to the point of unconsciousness. In Enesburg Falls? Oh in Enesburg Falls. Absolutely. And so I left there when I graduated high school. My parents couldn't afford to help us with college and it was just known we weren't going to college. And so I left and I started working in restaurants and it was fun being out in the working world as a young person because I got to excel. Like in working environments they just wanted results. It was different than being in the greater world and certainly than being in my family. So I really enjoyed that. I met people and I moved to Chittenden County and I met my partner back in 1990 and we've been married since 1992. She's been delightful. Is still delightful and will always be delightful. We've got two kids which we've raised diligently. They're marvelous people. My 21 year old is like my campaign manager. He's terrific. He was the first in the family. He came out pansexual. He didn't really come out because he's young and he's like oh it's just what it is. But we didn't know anything and that really took me down the rabbit hole of gender and sexuality. It was delightful. Both of us in fact my partner and I you know we realized oh we're not we're not straight people. It was fascinating and it's been we've had this has been this is like the best time of our lives and I've always been a troublemaker. So I've been involved in in a lot of well protests Black Lives Matter protests here in Milton and in a lot of public discourse online which hasn't gained me any. Well it's gained me a lot of followers but it's also gained you know people think I'm an outsider. You know when I was when I was I was in the march for our lives and I was targeted because I had a picture you know that said you know it was oh it's over here somewhere I wish I would have gotten it out but it said kind of you know F this S and but it was artfully done you know it was a family get together and so I was targeted around here because I was like you know I wanted to take people's guns away and that sort of thing and then it went on and on with the Black Lives Matter and then I came out transgender here in Milton when people already knew that I was a troublemaker so it's been interesting being so public and I've got to meet transgender youth and queer youth and and I've had them come up to me you know and thank me for being out and we're friends now so I get to mentor and it's like you know it's really it's so it's such a good time um it's such a great time to be alive and I wanted to help I never thought about running for office except maybe um you know school board or or village trustees and but the opportunity came when I was eating dinner it was a text from Emily Hecker who's also running as a Democrat in town she's lovely we got her elected to the um the school board here back when we have the rate we had such a racial uproar that of racism in the schools that over half of the school board just you know quit they're they just resigned they couldn't take it anymore um and we got a better school board so it was neat to see the power of change and when the opportunity came to run as the representative for Milton I'm like I I can do this I love working in the schools and interacting with kids and I would so love to be a part of making policy um I'm going to win like I feel that and I believe that you know it's time people are sick of it they've been introspective all these months of quarantine and they know what's going on the Republican party is not I mean not that I ever agreed with the Republican party but it's going down this xenophobic rabbit hole where you know nothing matters except guns and control and and you know fundamentalist religion and it's just too much you know we have to you know and to see them trying to strip away rights of transgender folks and and others it's it's brutal it needs to stop and it's because it is filtering down through our local government um there's a lot of people who are scared and angry and they're upset at anything that's other and we see that right here in Milton we see it in assaults and in vandalism and we see it in hate speech online and some of it comes from children and they're not getting it at the schools they're getting it from home and it's this generational hate and we need to we need to have an inclusive school system I'm I'm allowed to tell kids I'm transgender but I can't explain to them what that means um you know I sound like a boy I look like a girl I act like a girl I said you know it's that sort of thing some kids know and a lot of parents are really appreciative I've just sat there and talked to transgender youth in schools and I know you know we exist all over um and we're just Vermonters and we're we're part of communities and to think that we're not is a ridiculous idea and it needs to be stopped through education people are either they're either queer or they're going to know somebody that is you know so you need to know um what we're all about um you know our history has been taken away from us over the years it's been straight washed and whitewashed um in our schools and you know you can look up I opened up I was substituting in social studies I opened up to the glossary to look for the word gay it's not there there's nothing you look up family and you see this white nuclear family it's it's it's intentional it's not by accident people like to think it's by accident and they're just but it's it's an intentionally established default um that needs to end I'm sorry I talk too much no it's wonderful um and this is a good opportunity to remind the audience that on August 11th primaries will occur and we want to encourage you to vote for ember um and also in the general election because it looks like uh you're going to be running again in the gender in the general way oh indeed and it's super important I know I talk about um you know we just talked about that a lot but but a lot of that hatred toward queer people toward people of color and black people is because people are hurting because they don't have enough money they don't have enough health care they don't have stable housing these are things that have turned people scared and angry and the hatred toward us and other marginalized groups is not real it's fostered to keep people from you know basically rallying against our you know corporations and stuff so we need to help people um you know honestly we've been helped tremendously through habitat and Champlain housing trust we now have a zero interest in mortgage we have a safe house not a flooding moldy apartment and we actually my partner just finished her master's in education and we're it's just from a little bit of help not even from tax dollars there's no even tax dollars that go into these programs it's about people helping each other and that's not a new fangled liberal idea it's a really old old-fashioned Vermont idea that you help your neighbors you don't turn your backs on them and you don't create them into something that's ruining society um you embrace them and you help them and they go on to make the community a better place that's what i want to do well let's talk about your campaign platform there are 12 issues on your website that you address um including the minimum wage you say a lot about education can you talk a little about each of those issues absolutely um so i know the minimum wage issue i'm for a livable wage i must support a 15 dollar minimum that is a great start i know and i know people say that's going to hurt small business but the fact is is that people don't have money to support our small businesses because they don't pay enough and if your small business that you know you are operating can't take care of your your employees then what is it doing exactly you know it's it's it should be more about profit and that more than about profit um it needs to be you know something workers are important workers make they make products they make services and they make money for for other people um and really poor working class work and low-income people make all the money for all of you know the billionaires and millionaires they don't make it from each other they make it all off of us and all we ask is that we can have some dignity while we're working um people love their jobs but it's hard to you know when you have to worry about your family when you have to worry about your car breaking down or whether you're going to get pulled over because it's uninspected because you can't afford to fix it or whether you're going to get home and find out that your electricity is shut off these are real things they're real things that have happened to us and they're real things that happen to everyday Vermonters simply for lack of funds in the three minutes we have left please tell us what your philosophy of education is and what uh you would change as a legislator yay so when I first started substituting it was because I was an angry parent because my child was getting bullied and I was like the school system needs to be changed I didn't know what was happening in the school system my partner is like why don't you just substitute I'm like they're not going to have some weirdo transgender person using they them pronouns substituting but they let me do that and I got in there and I noticed that all of the teachers and the professionals and the administrators were dedicated they were trying to create this family atmosphere um and the children were coming in with lots of trauma mainly due to poverty um anger some abuse a lot of things were were having to be handled by the school um schools need more funding but we need to break away from currently when when schools need more funding like right now we we're cutting our classes in half due to hybrid learning so basically what that's telling me is we need twice the space for our children in schools we need twice the teachers for our children in schools so we can have small classes that work all the time we need to not just go and scare struggling homeowners saying oh it's either this either you're homeless or your kids have a terrible education those are two ridiculous choices to put against people we can the funds are there we can get we need to get them without pitting pitting struggling families against education there's nothing more important than education in my opinion in this in this world you know kids these are kids that are going to take care of us when we're old and I want them to be better than I am I want them to be the best they can be because I'm going to need it I'm going to be living and dying here in Milton Vermont in our little 1200 square foot house regardless of what happens in my political career or life and I want it to be I want the kids to be proud of me and I want to be proud of them and I want them to be kind and safe and and to be happy wonderful well that's that's those are good parting words are there any last quick messages for the audience before we close the interview oh absolutely um yes well so I love you all even though I haven't met you one two if you'd love to give to my campaign anything at all um you know I don't I don't want thousands of dollars from you all but I had a little girl send me one dollar she was six years old the other day I'm going to keep that dollar for the rest of my life I cried and cried I've loved five dollars ten dollars any donation and we'll send you ember Quinn stickers and we'll send you oh sorry where is that ember Quinn stickers and we'll also send you buttons you can see that I'm wearing them we'll send you a little pack of four designs they're lovely you can see them on the website emberquinn.net it'll help us I'm very frugal I don't plan on blowing money I'm not going to have Cadillacs and limo rides and such but you know it does take some funds to get signs out there so donating is great right to me you can email me from the website and tell me your problems that would help so much you know to get anybody's input we're all in this together and I'm just like you and we're going to we're going to change the state and this country together wonderful ember that's a great note to end on thank you for joining us thank you and hi we're with Brenda church Hill hi Brenda how are you hi I'm good I haven't seen you in person in a long time this is really hard isn't it it's one of the harder things I have to do is the zoom meetings and not see people yeah so we're going to talk about your running for the two offices you're running for which are select board for Bakersfield and justice of the peace for Bakersfield okay and when did you first get interested in politics was it something you're always interested in or something that came to you as you got older I remember running for a sixth grade president of my elementary school and winning to no I'm sorry I lost the steeple floor but I was able I was able to be the vice president of whatever student council we had at that point in time so part of it was I believe we had a civics project and I got to go run town government for a day which was kind of fun living in a suburb of a large city they did those sort of things back then it was good so you kind of always had an interest well definitely besides voting I mean yeah yeah more than a casual interest and um what does emerge I know that you're involved in emerge and I know it has to do with funding women running for office but would you like to tell the audience what emerge actually is and did it help you and was it effective thanks yeah emerge recruits and trains and provides a powerful network to democratic women who want to run for office basically we give them the training and the skills to run for any office from statewide office right down to select board and justice of the peace so I've gotten some good coaching from from my peers and we remain as a network that helps candidates I'm currently involved with three other women's campaigns and going back and refreshing myself on what I'm doing to campaign as well a little different when you're running for a very local office than it is for a statewide office but we have we have emerged candidates all over the place this year it's pretty exciting it definitely helps and what else what else was your ask asking well did you find it effective did it help you did it give you like some ideas about how to run this campaign we'll see if I get elected as well as running against you anybody is there a republican running no there's well I don't know they haven't really aligned it by party yet but there are two folks that are running against me one is a long time bakersfield resident all her life she's been here and the other one is a recently graduated college student who also has been in bakersfield all their lives so I've been here longer than the younger one has but not as long as the older one has and how do you think like like being transgender is going to affect this campaign positively or negatively well much like the way Christine ran her campaign there's nothing about gender that is that is respectful to to mention or to be I don't even know folks other than my fellow democrats that I'm part of in bakersfield know much about me or know much history about me I mean that they googled me they find out all all the stuff they want to but I would have to say it doesn't have any effect other than the select board like many select boards in old old Vermont I'll say are all white guys all older white men and have been part of that political dynamic for decades at least since the decades I've been here I don't believe there's any but any woman on select board so now there's now there's three running so one of us has a chance of getting on and and uh what county is it are you in minn Franklin County uh my my county chair David Glidden awesome awesome chairman very very supportive he's also running for office I don't know if you knew that but David and I work on Christine's campaign together David did communications and I was a outreach director I'm being well supported in town we had a meeting for the justice of the peace in town democrats and we've got we've got seven slots we've got seven people running so I'm pretty sure I'll at least get elected to that one in November but the august one which is the primary date for the state is also the date to select openings chosen as a date to select openings on select board vacancies which is what I'm doing I'm gonna have to turn around and run no matter what I do in seven months again for select board and hopefully I'll have that slot secure if not I'll be running I'll literally be running again right after I get elected for select board and one won't affect the other right I mean you could do both I actually sent a letter to the secretary of state yesterday and they got right back to me and they said no conflict at all and they cited the they actually cited the statute that was that was effective for that I know that I can't count any votes that my name is on and if you haven't voted yet I really recommend it you can vote early in Vermont and you should you should go to the secretary of state website and request a ballot or through your town uh town clerk I wish I could I wish I was in the county you were ready because you'd have my vote you have to live in Bakersfield specifically the county uh the county wide office I haven't run for a county wide office and I don't know if that's in the plans or not but I thought that having gone all ahead at the state level over the past few years with the alliance LGBTQI alliance of Vermont that it was time to get in touch with my roots so to speak and this this was a good way to do it the first meeting I went to we talked about sugar bushes and ATV traffic and those are those are two things that are near and dear to my heart so I was able to be involved the first meeting that I went to and I know you were helping Christine um Paul Chris once you ran for governor of Vermont that wants to give you a lot of experience about how to run what to do what not to do um and um how to working for her help you now do you think or does it have any relevance to what you're doing now and is this a stepping stone for you those are all great questions I think the difference in a statewide race compared with a very very local race uh is immense there is some relevance in that um you know getting your message out talking to people understanding what the issues are these are all um you know common to anybody's campaign um one of the things that I like to think I know what's going on particularly with roads is because I drive them all the time so roads are a really big issue in in any town uh ATV traffic has recently come into focus I mean these weren't things that were part of a gubernatorial campaign with with Christine but yet they are something that affects local people town people um and having that having that global picture sometimes is helpful man I don't know if it's as helpful this in a small town race well like what about in your area are there problems with computer connections and things like that is that something that a that your local city government would be trying to work or at least access for people who live in that area is that some was is that a concern for your area yeah telecommunications in any um any rural area in Vermont is at best for and at worst non-existent uh and we have that here um there's there's legacy phone lines in most cases which will bring uh some speeds of computer usage into the house that's what we're talking on now is old copper wire as you probably remember I'm from a tele telecom background that I worked right for several different phone companies uh during during my time in the workforce and uh rural telecommunications has always been always been at the forefront of local county statewide politics because nobody's been able to fix it or figure it out and it's really a pretty simple formula throw a lot of money at it and we'll have it fixed I know and and you know I guess part of the problem is is that like Comcast doesn't really want to argue you know some of the big places don't want to bother with rural areas because there's no money in it or it's correct so we almost need need some state kind of uh company or something that would we already had um back when telephone went in mandates and government funding that that helped build the network new taxpayers our us taxpayers built the the current copper pair of wires that we've got now what they did was they they didn't retain the government didn't retain control of it but allowed private companies starting with AT&T to take over the local networks and then of course the small companies as well in this area it was New England telephone which which took possession of the wires and ran the network and right what people don't realize is that it it it became no longer tax subsidized once the network was built once like rural rural electrification once the network was built private companies needed to step up and and take over and the model with in the context of maintenance and everything is where your fees and and costs come from now what yeah what of course hasn't happened was enough fees or money weren't uh allocated upgrading networks to fiber optic everybody knows what fiber optic is everybody knows what cable is uh all of these infrastructure improvements came in larger metropolitan areas the trickle down into the country didn't happen until they figured out some sort of technology that made it work right now i have fiber out to about a mile down the road and from that last mile to my house um is where the copper takes over so that's that's a limiting factor anyway so i'm not going to get in the weeds on this because yeah yeah i get it but you know it's a concern i think for local governments in this time of coronavirus you know whether to go to school or not go to school i mean whether kids can even do online i mean there's probably a large part of the community that you're in there probably can't even do school online uh so you know that would be a concern for local governments i would think also um absolutely in some municipalities have solved that by uh going with their own uh broadcast wi-fi uh cambridge did that a few years ago a good friend of ours justin marsh was instrumental in getting cambridge and jeffersonville let up lit up on their own network but that required somebody to still work at it and be on it and because there's no there was no paid position for that that whole uh the whole system fell apart and is no longer working that requires that requires money what don't people want to pay for telecommunications i know well we have a few more minutes so i would um do you have any last words for our audience um i know you can't i know you can't go to door to door and like knock on people's door and say hey i'm brenda and you know but i'm using a megaphone in my jeep just say it out maybe we can all come up with cars and put banners around and drive up and down and be a paper plate with my name on it would be fine yeah fling them up so is there any last words you would like to tell the audience um about your candidacy and who you are and uh well as you know as the uh as a third time person on your show and i i want to just yes note that um i i've i've really enjoyed working within the community but now i have the opportunity to work with another community which is my my rural bakersfield community and uh there's a bunch of diversity here there's folks who have been in politics for a long time you probably know my friend you and bear uh she's been a fixture in bakersfield for decades and she's a strong member of the lesbian community and yes she's led my campaign and told people about me and rallied around me and um this next well we got uh the 11th so we got about 10 days 10 and 11 days left uh i'm just going to start reaching out uh reaching out throughout the community in other ways that i can i'm going to go to uh one of the days when they recycle trash and stand there with a sign and talk talk to people because there's a ton of people that are going to come do their trash and recycling and they get to say hi uh and that's yeah it's all on public property so i i think that may gain me a lot of the walk-in votes that come in i'll put a little bit of signage up to the day of the election um but for the most part it's it's uh literally word of mouth it's people who know me getting the word out for me and continuing the well we'll do our best on all things lgbt to spread the word so brenda church health i hope you win i'm we're all rooting for you here we love you take care and we'll talk to you soon i hope so i'll talk to you about the election later if you want great that would be fabulous bye brenda bye guys thanks so that was our show for this week thank you for joining us and linda and as our weekly reminder do not forget to resist