 There have been a few people so far today, but it seems like a lot of people filled in their mailed ballot. People are trickling in, but it's still early. Yeah, I think during this time it's really important to get out and voice your opinion. Voting is the best way to, I think, enact change to our community and broader U.S. environment. Why do you come out to vote? I actually mailed in my ballot, but I wouldn't come out here to vote. I'm coming out here today to hold a tiki, and I voted for Weinberger for mayor, and I'm happy with all that, and I hope you see a lot of people today. Well, specifically today, obviously there's a lot of local elections happening, but also the issue around no-cause eviction. I'm a landlord in Burlington, and I don't know that people really realize what the impact of that could have on our community in the long run, so that was an important cause for me today. I wanted to make a difference here, so. My last question is, do you have any strong feeling of any candidate? I'm really supportive of Max. I think that he has some really good ideologies, and I just really think that he's going to do a really good job. Well, it's an amazing opportunity to have input into the things that will affect my life and everyone else's life in my community. I'm very excited to re-elect Perry Freeman for city council for the Central District. I think they are doing incredible work around economic justice and racial justice, climate justice, and I want to see them get to continue doing that. Oliver, my question is, what makes you come out to vote? Particularly here in Burlington, we have a lot of opportunities for progressive change, both in all the ballot items and in the progressive candidates who are running, and so we're really lucky here that we have this opportunity to make a better future through our votes. So we've had probably about 50 people come in. It's been unusually slow, but we are, the tally inside is about 922, and that includes all the absentee ballots as well. I guess some of the reasons that I'm voting today are, I'm looking for change in the Burlington area, and I think that my vote matters, and yeah. I think that the students in the area have a lot of, you know, like, poll because there's so many of us, and one of the bills on the ballot today is about renting, and we're both renters, so I think that that's an important reason to come out and vote today. I first got involved as a University of Vermont student in local elections. I actually didn't vote in the first presidential election because it didn't attract me, it didn't interest me enough. I didn't think I made a difference, and then I became a student at University of Vermont, and Bernie Sanders was our mayor, and that's why I started voting. So I really was happy to see that we have questions on the ballot, which really impact people's lives and matter to people a lot, and that means a lot to me. Thank you so much. Yeah, sure. Thank you. Thank you, Megan O'Rourke and Olivia Alamasi with the Exit Voices from the Central District today. It certainly was a chilly one out there today. Thank you for joining us. This is live at 525 on Town Meeting Television, where we're preparing in an hour and a half the polling will be finished and we'll be starting to present you the results tonight. I'm Mark Johnson here along with Diane Meyerhoff and Diane, what a strange year, what a strange town meeting, but we certainly have some really interesting items and some interesting elections. Let's start in Burlington. Absolutely, because what are we looking at? We're looking at the mayor's race, right? I mean, that's the big story, I think, for Burlington. So obviously, a Democratic incumbent, Merle Weinberger, is trying to retain his seat. I think this is his third term, if I have that right. Going for his fourth. Going for his fourth term. Yep, yep. And major competitors, Max Tracy, President of the City Council, Progressive from Ward 2, right, and also Ali Jang, who is a counselor from the New North End. So the council is very busy trying to take away Merle Weinberger's seat. In both of their cases, the challengers, they're not up for reelection, so they will retain their seats if they are not successful in unseating Weinberger. That's right. So no worry about, for those parties, losing those seats, which is kind of an interesting, that's often an interesting dynamic in these races. But in this case, that's absolutely true. And there's actually all the candidates. So even though the ones we didn't mention, Will Emmons, Kevin McGrath, Heik Bedrosian, who I wanted to mention, in 1995 was the youngest elected City Councilor, 22 years old, served for two years. Yep. Ran for mayor at one point. That's right. Ran for mayor as well. Yep. Had a credible bid, wasn't successful, but is now back, as you say, in politics. We do have four interesting races in Burlington. We do, for City Council, yes. So we have one uncontested, the East District, Jack Hanson will return, aggressive. And then we have the New North End, which Franklin Polino, the Democrat, has vacated his seat. So we've got two candidates there. Up there they are, Kenan Christensen and Mark Barlow. And Kenan is running as a dem Prague. Mark Barlow is running as an independent. But there are some interesting endorsements and such, which we'll talk about later on in the show, I'm sure. And a full ballot, too. And a full ballot. That's right. That's right. And a full bunch of ballot items. Yes. It's going to be interesting to see how they all fall. Yep. Let's move over. We have in Essex, in Essex Junction, Essex Town, we have another attempt at the merger. A 20th attempt, someone told me, 20 times, yeah. So interesting. So the village has already voted in favor of the merger. This is the chance for the town to vote as well. Any predictions? Do you even want to try? Yeah. You know, it has been successful before. It's a really interesting argument. There have been communities in the past that have decided to separate. These two are, again, as you say, making another attempt to work together here. I mean, the real dynamic, it's easy for the Essex Junction people to vote in favor of it. But the town, which includes the people in the village as well, too, this will be interesting. So those are, I think, probably our two big stories tonight. What else in Chittany County are we going to be keeping an eye on? So we're going to also look at the Champlain Water District. They have a bond out there for a million dollars for capital improvements. That's eight communities, I believe, in the county. Everybody almost but Burlington. So that will be interesting to look at. Obviously, money's cheap. This is a good time to do that. It won't raise, apparently, rates at all. So that's what we're hearing for that one. And then there's town budgets, school budgets, mostly pretty small increases across the board. I think everyone realized this was not a time to put big items on the agenda. So I think we'll see those being smaller and we'll see if the people go for them. It's been a tough year for everyone. One item I know, then, of Richmond is in a few other communities as well to this whole idea of commercial retail sales of pot. That's right. The cannabis spill, yes. So the legislature has passed the legislation, but you have to opt in. So a number of municipalities are trying to opt in with this. And I think it's still a long way off, right? Because there's not even a committee put together yet that's going to make the rules, a commission to make the rules about how this is all going to happen, where you can sell cannabis, where you can't. There's a lot yet to do. So it's a ways off, but a number of the communities are in now, trying to get in now. Right. As we mentioned, it is an unusual year. The campaigning was certainly not what it was before. Our coverage tonight will be a little bit different. It isn't quite like the Golden Globes where Diane looked like we're sitting right next to one another. We're a good six feet apart here. That's actually how far we really are. Exactly. Yeah. So we'll keep you apprised on how things are going to proceed as we go along tonight. We're going to head now and check in with the Secretary of State, Jim Condos, who spoke with some of the students with my brother's keeper. Another question is, how is town mirroring this different because of the pandemic? Well, we recognized early on that it was going to be different. Obviously last year, when the pandemic first hit us, we sat in place working with the legislature. They allowed me to have some flexibility in changing some of the laws that we had to help protect voters. So we set some ground rules, if you want to call them, for the towns back in March of last year. I think we all thought that the pandemic would be by. We wouldn't have to deal with it after November. And obviously it reared its ugly head again and we had to do something. So right after the November election, we began working with the governor's office, with the town clerks, with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, and legislative leaders to come up with a, if you want to call it a menu of options that towns could use for this year. Remember, we have three overriding principles that we used when we were making any decision. One is to protect voting rights of every eligible Vermonter. Two to protect the health and safety of every Vermonter, not just the voters, but also the town clerks and the workers at the polls. And three to protect the integrity of our election. So it was a constant tug of war in essence to make sure that we could make sure that we were following those principles to ensure the integrity of our elections, but while protecting people. And for instance, this year, we allowed some towns who have what they call a town meeting where they actually vote from the floor. We allowed them to change to a ballot so that they could vote by ballot instead. We allowed some town, well, we allowed any town that wanted to be able to mail their ballots directly to their voters, like we did in November. And, you know, Burlington is one of those towns that has taken advantage of that as well as South Burlington. And we also allowed towns to be able to to postpone their town meeting day from March 2 to say sometime in April or May, when they might be able to have, when the pandemic might be getting into a better place or they can move it outdoors. So, you know, we just what we did was provide a lot of options. Because of the pandemic, unfortunately, we're not going to be able to have guests coming into our studios like we usually do during town meeting night. But because we're all living in a virtual world, we've taken care of that. And it's our great pleasure to welcome in tonight, Seth Leonard, the former Mayor Winooski, who's going to be in charge of Studio Z and interviewing their candidates as they join us throughout the evening. Seth. Welcome to TownMeetingTV's Studio Z live from Winooski. We'll be your hub all evening for live interviews with candidates and policymakers as we cover the results of TownMeeting 2021. Leading up to TownMeeting, you've been counting on TownMeetingTV to bring you information here directly from candidates and the policymakers. Whether it's a budget presentation, candidates in a contested race or advocates for a ballot item, TownMeetingTV's been here to make sure you're ready for a town meeting day 2021. That's not stopping with the casting of your ballots. We'll be back bringing you live results and interviews live with candidates and policymakers. Getting elected is only the first step. Listen and learn how the candidates reflected on the race and what comes next. We'll welcome Burlington candidates, Joan Shannon, Perry Freeman, Kenan Christensen, and also Elaine Haney from Essex and the mayoral candidates from Burlington, Mayor of Winooski, and perhaps many more. So we look forward for you to join us later this evening. And now back to Diane and Mark in Studio A. Thank you very much, Seth. We'll be checking back with you later as we proceed throughout the course of the night. Diane, as we were mentioning the top story tonight, we're going to be following is the mayor's race in Burlington. And I think it's fair to say this has not been an easy year for incumbent Mayor Murrow Weinberger. No, it certainly hasn't. There's been all this debate about the whole or the pit or the previous mall, I guess, as well. There seems to be some movement on that, but it's been a long haul. And I think that that is really that's been tough for folks. And I think some of this also looks back to we were talking earlier about the young new progressives and their interest in activism sooner rather than later, where some of the older progs are looking at change, but maybe not as quickly. And I think that's going to also play a part as well in the mayor's race. So it's going to be really interesting to see, you know, do our people looking for kind of what we've had along the way? I think Murrow Weinberger or a complete really a big change, much more to the left and a much quicker pace of Max Tracy, for instance. Yeah, you're right. It really is interesting to see people like Brian Pine and Jane Nodell, you know, these sort of elder statesmen of the Progressive Party, who, you know, we're certainly part of the, you know, the young crowd. Many years ago, the police is also clearly a big issue, too. Absolutely, absolutely. And really, you know, that again, how do we make the decisions about what the police force looks like and the numbers? How many people should be or how many police should there be? I mean, all these questions are out there and some people want to study it more and some people want to act and some people are in between. So I think we're and then, you know, there's a little bit of fear mongering in there, too, about what happens overnight. And, you know, nobody wants someone breaking their house in the morning and not being able to get someone to call. So there's just a lot. And also the whole idea of the mental health issues of a lot of the folks that that the police have to deal with on a regular basis and how can we address that as well? So I think we're hearing a lot about that. And I think that's going to be a continued issue, certainly in Burlington. Max Tracy is the president of the city council. So certainly carries some significance there. Allie Jang, he's been on the city council from the New North End. What's what's his campaign's pitch? I think, you know, I don't completely know, to be honest with you, I know he does a lot of racial justice work. He works for the schools, I believe. And I think he's probably trying to play the game between Merrill Weinberger and, excuse me, and Max Tracy. I think he's trying to be a more a more middle of the road centrist, if you will, in Burlington, which is a tricky. What does that mean, right? Anywhere else would be way off to the left, right? So I think he's trying to play that. And we see that a lot from folks from the New North End. I mean, we certainly see that in the New North End race as well, that discussion of, you know, can we be more centrist, move a little slower? So, yeah, I think that's the that's the place he's trying to stick out. He hasn't raised anywhere near as much money as the other candidates or the other major two candidates, right? So we'll see. Does money matter in Burlington races? I don't know. We'll find out. We're going to find out a little bit more about the three major candidates or a mayoral forum that was held here on Channel 17 in conjunction with the folks at Seven Days. The biggest gain toward racial justice will be made when core city appointed positions reflect the racial diversity that exists in this great city. And an ongoing coordinated training for the city staff and our partners to understand that racial equity is actually a gift and it is also the future. Well, I will be going through the police department with a couple of police and citizens that I know and addressing all racial profiling incidents as well as priority number one. That is priority number equal and equitable enforcement of the rules is imperative to a thriving city. Can't have it without it. You know, we need to de-escalate the tensions between law enforcement and the residents. We need to help have people accountable. We need to have, like I say, changed the nature of law enforcement to public safety. I'm committed to uprooting systemic racism across our city by making sure that institutions are held accountable for their actions. Our police department, for example, must be held accountable through real independent community oversight. To the disproportionate use of foreign armed officer positions into social support roles that better address community needs like trauma-informed mental health support, substance use disorder treatment to address the dire, the dire, opiate crisis that we face and outreach to individuals experiencing houselessness, among others. As we continue to fight the virus and attempt to build our way out of this economic recession, every day we need to make sure we are looking at the work we're doing through the lens of racial justice and make sure that we are having a racially just public health response and racially just economic recovery. I launched a plan to do just that last June. We've tried to stay true to that every day. We're doing it right now as we try to distribute the vaccine and more. Probably one of the most important things you can do is hire a racially diverse staff. That includes police, importantly. The more diverse the police force, the better. And I think the city should continue to utilize and strengthen its relationships with organizations like the Africans living in Vermont, the Joint Urban Ministry Project, Boys and Girls Club. I'll focus on the three P's of a progressive housing agenda to produce new housing with a specific emphasis on homes that serve low and moderate income families, preserving existing housing stock of affordable housing and protecting those who are marginalized and vulnerable through expanding tenant protections. Bring in new business, encourage new business, show businesses how to stay open. That's going to encourage tenants and ownership units, more building of ownership units, which will also benefit contractors that are currently building rental units, primarily in the city of Burlington. We need to have a new attitude towards housing in a city. We need more owner-occupied structures in different ways of doing things. Housing is an issue really my whole professional career has been focused to from the time my first job out of college was really wasn't even a job. I was a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity in America, Georgia. And from that time forward, I really believe that housing it should be a human right. But if we're serious about that, if it's going to be more than just slogan, we have to build a lot more homes. That is the that is the core of this issue. The core of this issue is not capitalism. The core of the issue is we don't have enough homes. Housing and rental is a vexing problem. And I'm not sure that the answer is simply to build more and more housing because I don't think this necessarily follows the classic economics of supply and demand. We can build more and more housing, but more and more people are just going to come. And what we need to strive for is to bring those experts who are in this field together and to explore how do we increase the housing supplies in here in the city of Berlin and also have metrics that we could work on to achieve. A reminder that the polls are open until seven o'clock tonight and Vermont does have same day voter registration. So you still have an hour and 15 minutes to get to the polls if there are issues that are of importance to you. Diane, let's head back out to Essex and Essex Junction. My gosh, any prediction you want to make on this one? Oh, no, no, I don't want to. Not that it's gone back and forth over the all the years I've lived here. It's been a topic back and forth. It's a really tough one. And, you know, they have also, let's not forget, they have combined a lot of departments already, right? They have a single town manager, etc., etc. So a lot of this has kind of happened behind the scenes. It's kind of interesting that they vote against it. I assume those things are still going to stay combined. So it's kind of a hybrid, almost. Yeah, I was really surprised that the amount, because if you live in the village, you pay village taxes and you also pay the town taxes, too. And I was surprised how much more somebody who lives in the village pays in taxes. I think they had a $280,000 house and it was, you know, hundreds of dollars difference. Interesting. You know, and that's interesting also because the budget that's on the ballot is a $16 million budget and it's a 4% increase in the village and a 1.7% increase in the town. Significantly less in the town. Yeah, well, they've come up with some sort of plan, which I hope nobody asks us to explain where they have somehow smoothed out the effect of this. So it isn't an abrupt change and they've spread it out over 12 years. So that may be part of the reason why it's not as significant. There's also some elected offices in S6 and S extension, too. There are there are two select board seats and they are both contested. So incumbent Elaine Haney, she's looking at a second term and she faces a Tracy Delphia and for a three year seat. And I actually did the form for them. Tracy is a info technologist for the state and she's also on the zoning board. And she talked a lot about increasing transparency in government. That's that's her angle, if you will, on that particular seat. There's another seat that's only a one year seat and Don Hill Flory was appointed to that seat when someone else stepped down. She's a woman. She's active in the town government. She's retired. She's facing Mark Nado who hasn't responded. We haven't got much information from him, but that is also another contested seat in Essex along with, of course, everyone's looking at the merger. Right? Yeah, yeah. Interesting that there's some real competition out there. I mean, even, you know, here in Burlington, there's an uncontested city council seat. So that's that's encouraging to hear. Yeah. And, you know, this year also not having to have signatures for to get on the ballot. I think that is maybe why at least in Burlington, the the Merrill candidates, there's such a wide number of folks. But then there's then none of the school board seats are contested. So it's an interesting, I can't quite put my finger on what's going on, to be honest. We're going to hear from some more people out of the polls. We're going to head out to exit voices in Essex. I think it's just I've always voted in person and there's something real about being here and filling out the ballot. So it's, you know, it's relatively quiet. I felt totally safe doing so. And it's just sort of a tradition I have liked to keep. Are you out here to vote today? Just to vote on the merger. So I didn't believe that merger was a thing that we wanted what I read and what I heard. So I voted against the merger. Well, definitely the merger is I think on everyone's mind. So that was definitely an issue that was important to me. For the budget, I went yes on the budget. I felt that was probably OK. And I went yes on the bond as well. But that's the kind of thing that there's probably no matter what they're probably going to do if it's close, they're probably going to do what they want anyway on the budget. And I would look forward to them making the right decisions of people that are actually sitting looking at the numbers. Article two states, shall the town of Essex adopt the plan of merger of the town of Essex, Vermont and village of Essex, Junction, Vermont, dated January 11, 2021, and the proposed charter for the merged municipalities. I will work as hard as I do for this merger as opposing any change in the 12 year, 13 year mitigation of taxes. I would not at all. This is what I'm voting for. This is what I want. And fair is fair. I would question some of the statements that I've heard that consolidations have minimized duplications and that you found efficiencies and service delivery. Essex for decades has run its government on a shoestring. Taxpayers and board members who preceded me in this town would have never stood for much less paid for efforts being duplicated and they were not. Streets in the town weren't being plowed by two different departments. Two planning commissions weren't deliberating over the same development approval. Two zoning boards weren't determining where a single waiver would be granted. In fact, the village and town governments each had and still have their own spans of control, which don't overlap with the other. I understand that some folks choose to believe that consolidations began in 2014 did something more than save money on the backs of existing staff. But that was not my experience. My question concerns the population figures of these two words we're talking about. Do we have an estimation of what those populations are because we have a constitutional mandate that we that from Avery versus Midland County, that we have to have if we have special districts, we have to have equal representation. And is there a remedy for that should the village or town gain a surplus of population over the other? So the words would be, as you heard during the presentation, the geographic boundary of the village as it exists now and then the boundary of all of the other parts of the town that are not in the village. Currently, we are waiting for census figures to adjust to to understand exactly what the populations are. But currently, the populations are very, very close in number. And so there is a certain percentage that voting wards need to be within before we need to adjust boundaries to make sure that proportionality is being honored. Like you said, in the constitutional amendment, that we must have the proper proportions in each ward. That was a little taste of the Essex annual town meeting. We also want to thank Aidan White and Skylar Wolf from the exit voices in Essex. Diane, the Champlain Water District has a decent size bond. They're looking for they do. They're looking for a million dollars for water collection and distribution projects. That's eight member municipalities, basically taking advantage of very low interest rates to borrow that million. And it will not impact the rates at all. So pretty uncontroversial for what I can tell. OK, that's one of those you say to yourself, I wonder how people are going to what's the what's the opposition going to be? Exactly. We will be carrying results for you throughout the course of the night. We encourage you to stay tuned here at Channel 7 or at Town Meeting Television. We also want to head over to our friends at Mount Mansfield Television, where they have an overview of what's going to be happening in Jericho, Richmond, as well in Underhill. As in the rest of Vermont, Town Meeting Day 2021 is different from the past in Jericho, Underhill and Richmond, Vermont. February has been full of virtual meetings related to the budgets and Australian ballot items in the towns, as well as their shared Mount Mansfield Unified Union School District. All three towns have encouraged absentee ballot voting. Here's a look at what's at stake on March 2 in each town. In Richmond, there are contested select board, Constable and Library trustee positions. The ballots, seven additional articles include Article 2 for the approval of a $4.2 million budget up from just under $4 million the previous year. Article 3 is for the purchase of a dump truck not to exceed $110,000. Article 4 has to do with formalizing the establishment of a town center reserve fund which was created through rent paid by town center tenants in the past. Article 5 is related to the fund and future town center tenant payments. Article 6 has to do with the approval of cannabis retail in the town. Article 7, which has been on the ballot for several years, asked voters if they would approve funding the conservation reserve fund through assent on municipal tax. This same structure raised $40,000 annually in the past and dates back to 2005. Finally, on the Richmond ballot, Article 8 is related to a bond for up to $400,000 in 800 feet of waterline on Bridge Street. In the smaller town of Underhill, there are no contested elections on March 2. Article 3 proposes a $1.28 million town budget from 1.18 the previous fiscal year. While Article 4 looks for approval of a highway fund expenditure to the tune of $2 million down from $2.87 million the previous year. Articles 5 and 6 in Underhill have to do with the allocation of surplus funds to the highway and general contingency funds. Article 7 seeks funds for up to $180,000 for a dump truck, while Article 8 and 9, if approved, would establish a tree warden reserve fund. That article is in part inspired by the ash borer insect issue. The most controversial of the articles on the Underhill ballot is Article 10, which would establish a change in the town charter to allow for an elected town officer to be removed from office through a petition with 15% of the population signing followed by a majority vote. This followed a turbulent year on Underhill select board, currently made up of Dan Steinbauer, Robert Stone, and Peter Duvall. Finally, in Jericho 2, town business is being decided via Australia ballot this year. Apart from articles related to the approval of the $3.74 million budget up from $3.65 million in fiscal year 21 and the town's portion of the Underhill Jericho fire department, there are two key articles to keep an eye on. Article 1 in Jericho is a non-binding advisory vote authorizing the Jericho select board to work with the Vermont Land Trust for a conservation easement over the majority of the Mobs Farm property, which the town owns. Mobs Farm is made up of forest, meadows, and varied habitats with miles of trails for public use. This article's purpose as the ballot states is, quote, for the purpose of protecting its natural resources, wildlife habitat, trails, recreational and educational opportunities, productive farmland and forest land and scenic value. Another item which in the past would have led to discussion is article 4, which is focused on creating a reserve fund through attacks for capital improvements to the old red mill, local landmark. This would establish a fund for inevitable future repairs for the mill, which currently has major structural issues. The Jericho ballot has one contested election with longtime select board member Timothy Nolte on the ballot, along with newcomer, Eric Johnson. A reminder, you still have an hour to vote and we encourage you to follow us tonight. After seven o'clock, you can follow the results on the World Wide Web at ch17.tv or you can just join us live right here and Diane and I will tell you all about it. That's gonna wrap things up for here right now, live at 525, we'll be back in about an hour. Thanks for joining us.