 Welcome to Channel 17's continuing coverage of the General Elections 2018. We're so glad you could join us tonight for the Governor's Debate. This is the first debate that features all of the candidates for the Governor's seat. And I am happy to introduce them to you. I just want to also let you know you can give us a call tonight. Today is the 18th. Is that right? The 18th of October. And our number is 802-862-3966. If you have any questions for the candidates, we're happy to take them. The candidates tonight have all been given the questions in advance. They'll have two minutes to answer. They'll have some opportunity to cross-examine each other. And we invite your questions. We're airing live on YouTube right now and Channel 17.tv. And also we will be sharing this with our colleagues in community access channels across the state. So hopefully you are watching this from the comfort of your home in some beautiful remote corner of Vermont. So without further ado, please let me introduce the candidates. We'll start with Chris Erickson. She is from Chester. We have Steve Marks from Straford. Trevor Barlow from Cavendish. Emily Payton from Putney. Phil Scott, our Governor from Berlin. Christine Halquist from Hyde Park and Charles Laramie from Fairhaven. Welcome everyone and thank you for joining us. So we're going to start tonight with opening statements. Chris Erickson, we will start with you. Please tell us why you are running for Governor and what experience you would bring to the position. A lot of you know me as the United States Marijuana Party candidate. And I have run with the United States Marijuana Party repeatedly in the past. Now, this past year, Governor Phil Scott signed a little marijuana law. And I thought people wanted to sort of digest that first and see how that went. So I thought I'm going to have a whole brand new platform and I'm going to be an independent this time. Now my new platform is the most brilliant, sharpest, clearest plan of any candidate in the United States of America. Whether you're running for statewide office or federal office, listen up. Look at my website, NDVT.com, NDM Racing to Win Vermont, INDYVT.com. Now, what I'm talking about is if I'm elected governor, I'm going to hold a governor's conference and I'm going to get everybody together to sign a petition to the United States Congress demanding that they write up a bill based on my new plan. And this is it. You pay your federal tax dollars. The federal government lets the United States Congress decide how to spend them. They give billions of dollars to the NIH, the National Institute of Health. They give billions of dollars to the Pentagon. And each of these gives out millions. The NIH gives out millions to pharmaceutical companies. The Pentagon gives out millions to the defense contractors. They use them for research, design, and development to design new products. Now, whether they're pharmaceutical prescriptions or defense products, they start out with either a blueprint or a written design. Any blueprint or written design falls under copyright law, under work made for higher law because we pay for it, we own it, we deserve a share of the profit. They're making trillions of dollars, trillions of dollars. We deserve a share of the profit. And that money has to go back to the 50 states to pay for health care, education, low income housing, etc. Thank you so much. Steve Marks, your opening statement. I'm running as an independent on the Earth rights ticket. I am trying to get a constitutional amendment in Vermont to give the Earth rights. If corporations are considered people, the Earth should be considered a person. And what I want to do is I want to make sure that we take care of the Earth. The most important thing that we have, our mother, is the Earth. Everything that we own comes from the Earth. So my whole platform is to take care of the Earth, to clean up the pollution, and to help us all. What qualifies you to be governor besides your strong feelings? I've been a selectman in Stratford for four years. I'm the health officer in Stratford right now. I've been on the planning commission. I love community service. To me, being an America is community service. It's taking care of the people around you. And taking care of the people is taking care of the Earth, and it's all the same. Thank you very much. Trevor Barlow, why are you running and what qualifies you to be governor? Thank you. First of all, I'd like to say that I believe in Vermonters. So having grown up here and gone to school in Springfield, Vermont, and a time when innovation in our rural areas was something that was to be aspired to, I left, went around the country. I've worked in the startup technology world for the past 20 years. And I've been able to see how amazing innovation is out there with regards to ideas that can change our communities. And what I found when I came back to Vermont was a changed economy. And I think we can do better. And so the reason why I'm running for governor is because I believe we need to shrink our government a bit. We need to lower our taxes and we need to take existing funds within our budget and invest it back in our communities and innovation centers. So in order to do that, it's not something that can be done in a single two-year gubernatorial term. But it is part of a longer-term plan in order to bring prosperity back to the full state and not just certain areas of it, let alone, in my opinion, the state government should never be the largest employer in a state. Thank you. What qualifies you? My experience in business, having run companies and founded companies, as well as I throughout my life have been involved in volunteerism and community development. Thank you very much. Thank you. And Peyton, tell us why you're running and what qualifies you. Well, as many of you might know that I have been in gubernatorial races before and I actually stopped out of disgust at the state of our democracy that was not actually fully democratic. So the type of integrity that I believe we need to have in democracy is to have a fair competition with all candidates. So I'm very thankful to be here today and there are seven of us and that's how many should be at every debate. So I've been working for environmental justice, for economic justice, and in 2008 I became quite angry at the kind of economic injustice that was happening as long as a lifelong fire in the belly about the destruction of the earth. And to that end I've been studying how we can use our social technology for means of exchanges so that we can effectively end the economic rat race and put people into a position where they can fulfill their life purposes with the freedom of fulfilling all the work that we need to do in these very trying and hard times. So essentially if we continue to be chained to the U.S. dollar working as hard as we can just to get a few dollars we will not be able to do the work that we really must. So I bring two leadership systems of economic exchange, knowledge of that. I also bring an integrity that comes from being a person who has personally housed homeless people over eight winters. Ten seconds. And I will say this, we have a lot of work to do and we need to step into a new paradigm to do it. Thank you very much. Phil Scott, why are you running for reelection and what experience do you bring to the position? Well, thank you very much. Twenty years ago I didn't have a political bone in my body. I had absolutely no interest in politics whatsoever but I was complaining a lot about what they were doing to me in my pillar. So I stepped up, decided to be part of the solution and haven't looked back since. I served Washington County in the state senate for ten years then as lieutenant governor for six years and then I decided to run for governor because I thought Vermonters really need a break. We need to live within our means and we've been doing some great work over the last two years. We didn't raise a single tax or fee for the general fund. We cut income taxes by $30 million. We eliminate the tax on social security for low and moderate income Vermonters and we prevented $71 million and increased property tax rates as well. We made the single largest investment in housing Vermonters has ever seen. It's going to be about $100 million when you couple that with private investment and we passed tuition free college for national guard members as well. So we have a lot more to do. Two year term isn't enough and I look forward to if I'm re-elected to continuing in that respect trying to make Vermont more affordable so that Vermonters can live here, stay here, work here, play here and have a much more prosperous Vermont. Thank you very much. Christine Halquist, tell us why you're running and what qualifies you for the position of governor. Well, I love Vermont. In my 42 plus years here I've done everything from serving on the local school board to sharing mental health board. Past five years I've been town moderator to name a few. I've a long history of leadership experience but I will tell you in 2004 I went to the Intergovernmental Climate Change Commission report out in Quebec City and I realized the electric grid would be key to solving our climate change. I became CEO of Vermont Electric Cooperative the second largest utility in Vermont. It's a cooperative just like a food co-op in 2005 it was on the verge of bankruptcy had the highest rates in the state, highest number of outages. I pulled people together using a collaborative leadership model hiring the best people and when I left in March of this year we were 96% carbon free. We were offering incentives for people to move away from fossil fuel heating, cooling and transportation and we did that without a rate increase for five years. Essentially proving you can solve climate change but it does not need to cost more money. But the events of November 9th, 2016 changed everything for me. The following year I did a lot of marching but I realized seeing some white supremacist activity in late 2017 and then listening to the Muslim girls making change doing slam poetry about what it's like to live in Vermont I decided to run for governor and I voted for Phil Scott but I'm highly disappointed because I looked when he talked about affordability he vetoed the minimum wage bill he vetoed a family leave bill he vetoed a bill to print toxicant toys and make polluters pay so it looks like affordability we're not talking about the people in the lowest rung of the income ladder. So what I do for Vermont is I would definitely focus on two thirds of Vermonters live in rural Vermont. I would focus on growing Vermont's rural economy connecting every home and business with fiber optic cable rebuilding the downtowns continue to move to improve Medicare for all ensure every child receives a quality public education and we'll solve climate change on the way because we can. Thank you very much. Charles Laramie. My name is Charles Laramie I'm an independent candidate for governor I grew up in Vermont family of 11 went into military I served in the Navy in the Air Force so I have leadership skills from there I worked roofing for 10 years before I went and taught in our public schools for 25 years I just finished in June and what brought me into I like Mr. Scott had never thought of running for public office but on April 5th I met with Mr. Scott in his office for an hour and we talked about education and I told him education Vermont public schools were really in dire need that if they mentioned anymore that we had the best school system in the country it would be a lie that's continued it is a lie we don't have the best public school system in the country actually all the schools are in pretty bad shape but Vermont's also I have ways to fix them Mr. Scott, Ms. Holocaust they have no experience in that area and they don't have any idea about fixing it also the economy they talked about Heather Bushy just wrote an article I answered it on April 12th she said we had Vermont currently has a strong economy and the best education system in the country per capita incomes 25 to 30,000 Vermont has a terrible economy Vermonters are suffering I got into it because I want to correct the education system and fix the economy so that people can start to be able to get by without scraping by every week wondering where the next bill is coming from and that's why I got into it thank you very much so we're going to now go to the question about the economy this is an issue that some of you have raised just remind folks we're watching our numbers 802-862-3966 and of course we have a live studio audience we love that so much if you have any questions please give them to Barry who's sitting there with the red computer thank you so much so the next question has to do with our economy Forbes magazine has said that our economic outlook is projected to be the second worst in the US over the next five years while income growth is expected to lag behind the rest of the country starting with Steve Marks do you agree with this assessment and what is your plan of action to strengthen Vermont's economy promote income growth and generate a sustainable economy what does sustainable mean to you well sustainable doesn't mean that it will keep going and I personally think that Vermont's economy isn't in terrible shape but it certainly needs improvement and what I would like to do is there are a number of things I would like to do is bring young people into Vermont and by getting a constitutional amendment in Vermont giving me earth rights I believe that a lot of young people will move into Vermont because they believe in that and they believe that that's that that will help and I feel that instead of giving thousands of dollars for people to stay in Vermont and work on their computers at their home which I think is a good thing I think we need an apprenticeship program we have plumbers and electricians and carpenters are over 50 years old so it would be great to have an apprenticeship program that brings people into Vermont says if you stay in Vermont for five or seven years you will not have to pay for this program and Vermonters will help out by helping local people that do the apprenticeship program pay for that because there's health insurance there's things that they can't afford because my local carpenters and plumbers have told me would help them and I mean that's just the beginning there are so many things if we sit down and talk together and figure out there's so many little things but I think the main thing is getting people in Vermont sorry that's right you can keep going just hold your mic then we'll clip it on yeah near your mouth this is new to me folks you know I just want to tell people that I live in the backwards of Vermont I don't own a computer I don't own a cell phone but I love this state it has just changed my whole life the people I met I was a literacy teacher and the people I met by being a literacy teacher amazing people great thank you so much all right Trevor Barlow you spoke a little bit about the economy and your dissatisfaction with it in Vermont tell us a little bit more about what you will do to strengthen Vermont's economic outlook and what does sustainable economy mean to you so I think we have some wonderful examples in Vermont of what a sustainable economy can be we've obviously in the past 20 years of our history through one of the most significant technical transformations or technological transformations we've ever seen in human history and so I think we need to leverage that as a state that has always had a history of innovation to bring that out to our rural communities and so as a part of that you can look at incubators that particularly Chittenden County is a great example of how things are working quite well where you can grow companies like mywebgrocer dealer.com and not just strictly technology but we can get into healthcare and other options where we can do things that businesses can be created in the rural areas and so my idea for accomplishing that is that we create a venture capital type fund that is started by the state and we leverage our 12 regional development corporations that are already existing as the conduit for this and so we give each of them a million dollars a year that we say do what you want to improve your communities. Make that a fund with a goal of trying to find matching funds within the private community as well as allowing because of the new financial laws for monitors in those communities to invest as well so we can start to create a virtuous cycle that we're starting to see up in Chittenden County as well. When a company does well and when the creative economy is unleashed and people see that happening they tend to want to reinvest in their communities for the betterment of all and I think that is something I personally have witnessed all around the country and there's no reason with our existing infrastructure in Vermont and with our current budget that we can't account for that type of situation here as well. Thank you very much. Thank you. And Peyton your thoughts on the sustainability of Vermont's economy and what you would do to move us towards that picture. Okay there's broad picture issues that as a governor I can deal with and one of those broad picture issues is coming up with a legal definition of greed versus abundance financial abundance and I believe we need that at this time when does capitalism become destructive and when is it an appropriate healthy competition amongst businesses. Now all the social technology that we need for an environmentally and sustainably just society exists for us to create an abundant mechanisms of social exchanges so we mustn't be limited by the by only using US dollars to get the work done that we need to do. I believe that we need many more apprenticeship situations and we need exactly what Trevor is also talking about and probably also Christine's work too. So one of the things that's marvelous about being a governor is that one can pull from the strengths that we have in our state to pull together and work together. Another thing we need to do at the educative level where we are educating for compliance I'd like to remove that burden of educating for compliance which is essentially feeding a pharmaceutical industry as children are often drugged just to comply. We need to encourage the creativity encourage the future generations to begin even if it's experimental to work on sustainable just economies. Thank you. Governor Scott what's your assessment of the health of the Vermont economy and what will you do to move us towards a sustainable economy? Well again this is exactly why I ran for governor. I believe that we were spending more than we were taking in we needed to the knee-jerk reaction was always to raise another tax or a fee and so that made it more unaffordable for us to come and stay in Vermont. We have to recognize we have to face our challenges we have to recognize what those challenges are. First of all we have a workforce shortage we have fewer people working today than in 2009 that's an issue we have a population that's stagnant we have a demographic that's shifting we're getting older so we have fewer youth I mean you look at the canary we have 30,000 fewer kids we have in our K through 12 education system that should tell us something about what's wrong with Vermont we need more immigration we need to attract more families into Vermont it's not that there's a brain drain in some respects it's that we don't have the crop coming in so what we need to do regardless of your political stripes is to focus on the demographics bring more people more families into Vermont because there are jobs here we have jobs whether it's Mac molding down the southern part of the state looking for 100 people GE aviation looking for 100 UTC aerospace looking for 150 up in the northeast kingdom we have NSA revision and so forth everyone is looking for employees but what we need really is people to fill them and that's our challenge right now it's not as though there's no jobs which has been a problem in the past we have them but we don't have the people to fill them so we need to continue to businesses want certainty we need to make sure that we give them that Vermonters need certainty we need to make sure we're on a charted course ahead that they can see we need to grow the economy make Vermont more affordable and protect the most vulnerable and if we adhere to those principles work on workforce development bringing more families in making it more affordable we'll have a much more prosperous Vermont thank you very much Christine Halquist what's your assessment of Vermont economy and what's your plan of action well I'm not going to make any judgment on the Forbes article and what they say about the Vermont economy but I do know I've spent 10 years on a technical advisory committee at the national level I looked at all of rural America the problems we're seeing in rural Vermont are microcosm of what's happening in rural America we're seeing increasing rates of poverty flights to the city and an aging demographic the same thing happened in the 1930s excuse me and so when we connected every home and business with electricity we saw growth return to rural America today we're facing the digital divide that's why it's so important to get every home and business connected with fiber young people and entrepreneurs aren't going to come to Vermont if they can't get connected you know if you look at connectivity today it's as important as road sewer water and electricity for development so and it's got to be fiber our copper infrastructure is wholly inadequate for competing with the urban areas today and I also will work to rebuild the downtown similar to you know if you see what's happened in White River Junction, St. Albans using a tax increment financing model we've rebuilt downtown so I envision a Vermont where you know we've got entrepreneurs and young people who are able to work in their homes and come to their communities and we'll have shared working spaces where I just saw get commissioned in Bradford Vermont this Saturday we shared working spaces where people can share ideas, congregate and meet and use teleconference facilities I'm very bullish about Vermont you know we're the safest state we do have the highest education performance we're the healthiest state we're an amazing state with amazing views we've got an incredible outdoor recreation economy once you get people connected we will grow Vermont and it's very important I tell the folks in Chittenden County we grow Vermont it's going to benefit everybody because we'll have more resources a good business person knows you've got to have a way to grow things and that's the way we're going to grow Vermont thank you very much Charles Laramie what's your assessment of the Vermont economy and what will you do to promote income growth and a sustainable economy well I'm going to go back to education a lot because that's you know I taught for 25 years and our current your current education system is going to reflect your future economy and currently based on that our future economy is in deep trouble in the 1980s I was making $10 or $11 an hour 1989 that was good money because consumer prices were comparable today people are making maybe a couple dollars more an hour consumer prices have skyrocketed and a lot of small businesses companies want to tell you that they can't raise the livable wage because then they would have to raise the prices but they don't have to raise the prices profits have been shooting up we need a $15 an hour livable wage I've argued this with some small business owners Mr. Scott because he's a Republican his party says he can't do that Ms. Holocaust she's going to do that because the Democratic party says to do that she's also going to institute a carbon tax which is going to take care of the $15 minimum wage because that's going to chew that up what we need to do is introduce a $15 livable wage start to fix our education system so kids coming out have the skills to take the jobs Mr. Scott says excuse me that are out there and this is a big thing I talked to a gentleman who said don't forget the manufacturing jobs that Vermont has already would manufacturing jobs that we can do I think I've talked to him Peyton about producing hemp and legalizing marijuana in the businesses that will come from that and these are all things that we have to look at you're done thank you very much Chris Erickson tell us your assessment of the Vermont economy and what you would do to promote sustainability alright we've got to make all colleges and universities free for the students where are you going to get the money for that we have to have a fund part of the general fund that people can apply to to start a new business people have to be able to say I've got a great idea I just need the money to start a new business now to accomplish those two goals with zero tax increase we have to go back to my first plan if I'm elected governor of Vermont I hold a conference of all governors of all states and say look I'm going to get all money we're going to get ROI return on investment of federal I'll run it by you again we pay our federal taxes the federal government allows the United States Congress to give billions of dollars to the national institute of health the United States Congress gives billions of dollars to the Pentagon the Pentagon and the NIH give millions to each pharmaceutical company and defense contractor they make copyrights which we have a legal right to ownership of because under work made for higher laws we own a fair share of those copyrights therefore we own the patents and we have a right to a share of the profits they're making trillions and trillions of dollars selling prescription drugs worldwide they're making trillions of dollars selling defense products worldwide we have a right to 50% of that ROI return on investment federal taxpayer dollars divided up among the 50 states and you can make free college and you can have investment funds in every single state for people to apply to to start new businesses when you say Vermont's sitting on a gold mine come here show us your new business plan lots of people will come to Vermont thank you all right we have some questions from the audience just reminding our viewers 802-862-3966 we are very happy to hear from you and let's start with Trevor with this question how will you protect the most vulnerable considering the tax coming from federal level federal government well without knowing specifically what attacks we're talking about from the federal government can you speculate what they might be speculate I guess in general the way I would take care of the most vulnerable is my experience tells me that the fastest way to take care of a problem is closest to the problem and that's by empowering our local communities to once again be able to sustain themselves and have services where they can go out and help and I think there's a variety of issues that that brings up when it comes to employment housing, health care, education and knowing the time limits I can't go into details I think with regards to each of those subjects but in general I think all of us as human beings know that we should be doing a better job of taking care of the less fortunate and I personally fall on the side of innovation being the best way to take care of that where if you empower your communities to find creative solutions to problems that are unique to them then you're also going to get your best outcomes. Thank you very much and Peyton how will you protect the most vulnerable considering the attacks coming from the federal government well one of the reasons why I'm standing for governor is because I've been looking for a stronger backbone coming from the leadership state where we have families that have been separated at the border I'm looking for a leader that will stand up and say that isn't who we are and Vermont will not stand for it and we will not continue to support any federal activity on that level also that we are currently in war at war with seven countries dropping 144 bombs a day and we're not even declared war and our our children are coming back with eight times higher amount of suicide rate we have changed from being a land of the opportunity to incarceration nation this is a huge problem we haven't been talking about much on this campaign trail but we need to stop having incarceration as a method to provide profit for private industry we also need of course to empower the next generations to be as creative now Chris eloquently described the way we can justify a universal basic dividend the universal basic dividend is so important so that we can begin to have the freedom to do everything that's in our heart that we know is possible and that must be done as a governor there's many things I can do to speak to the crimes against humanity that are coming out of Washington climate change being one of them is there more time? ten seconds so I ask for your vote and I ask for your support to make a profound change in democracy where all your choices are the choices that you have to choose from in government Governor Scott what will you do to protect the most vulnerable considering the attacks coming from the federal level? we have a moral obligation to take care of the most vulnerable and that's something we pledge to do it's part of our DNA in Vermont we hold near and dear to our hearts we're very compassionate giving in many different ways we're independent by nature as I said we're fortunate in some respects we've set ourselves up pretty well in Vermont with Medicaid having the global commitment that was put into place during the Douglas administration and improved upon during the Schumann administration so that's given us some flexibility and latitude to take care of the most vulnerable about 200,000 people in that program in Vermont we're moving towards an all-payer model giving us more flexibility that's something that is somewhat of a pilot project that the federal government's watching what we're doing, that could be helpful but the elephant in the room obviously is about the pushback with the president, some of the initiatives but we took action when there's a push against immigration we passed S-79 with a tripartisan support progressives, Democrats, Republicans coming together to do that pushback against Obamacare the elimination repeal of that as well opposed the transgender band for the military I opposed the withdrawal from the Paris Accord and we joined the U.S. Climate Alliance as well again showing our independence I've opposed the EPA budget cuts I just called them as I see them I spoke out against the potential of not having a NAFTA agreement with Canada our largest trading partner would have been detrimental to our economy but we're through that and again, there's been talk about potential cuts to Planned Parenthood which I've opposed as well so we'll continue, I'll continue to pushback, call them as I see them and when it's wrong we'll stand up to it we're being sued today by some of the large telecommunications groups in terms of net neutrality we passed that bill I had an executive order as well and we're being sued as a result Thank you very much. Christine Hellquist what will you do to protect the most vulnerable in our state? Well, you know if you look at where we are today in terms of health care and the living wage we have a lot of work to do you know, first of all making a profit off of people sick and dying is not the way we should be running our health care system developed nation in the world that does this so I will push hard to get us to Medicare for all the United States spends 18 cents of every gross domestic product dollar on health care the European countries spent 8 to 9 cents and they provide health care for everybody we also spend 31 cents of every dollar on health care for administration in our state Medicare is 5 cents so I absolutely committed to move us to Medicare for all and we can immediately put in a universal primary care bill I've done the numbers on universal primary care for the little increase that it costs to employers after the savings from not having to provide primary care it more than pays for itself because people are going to the doctor right away so also I will point out that the minimum wage if adjusted for inflation since the 1960s would be $22 an hour right now that's why I would immediately ask the legislature to bring the increase in the minimum wage bill back when I ask people in housing partnerships and folks in construction what is it cost to live in a two bedroom unit in Vermont it's $22 an hour so basically if you're not making a living wage we have to make investments in housing today with a $35 million that spawns $65 million in bonding that meets about 20% of our need we need to significantly make more investments in housing and also when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable I'll also be very supportive in terms of ending racism and addressing marginalized communities in school having an independent from the governor third party commission to look at the the data in policing schooling and employment in terms of how discipline is applied by marginalized as well as address the substance use disorder issues thank you it's difficult to answer these complex questions in two minutes I understand but everyone's giving it a good go so thank you very much Charles Laramie your view on how to protect the most vulnerable in the state considering the federal threats the taking care of the most vulnerable of course comes at a this is kind of a serious time to take a look because we look outside and you know tonight it's going to be 29 degrees when we have a lot of people living on the street and you know how do we go about taking care of those people and and one of the way of course is affordable housing coming up with it but also what we need to do when you have people who are living on the street we have to go out to them so in that's not easy a lot of those people there cautious about being approached by people there they're nervous because they've been in homeless shelters you know they're not trusting of that they wonder what's going to happen to them so we need we need people who can go out even police officers sometimes to try and help these people gain their trust get them into some affordable housing that they can that they can live in and you know some of of course a lot of these people are alcoholics how are we going to help them then at that point and and it's difficult because you know I know I was talking to some people up here in Burlington and in a two bedroom apartment that's not even a great one is you know 1350 dollars a month and that's 700 dollars they said they had to spend for parking so these are all difficult things but those are things that we have to start to undertake with with these people to help them the best way to help those who are vulnerable is to give them the skills to take care of themselves and this is what we need to do as a state to to get these people back on their feet thank you very much Chris Erickson all right everyone's ideas cost money so number one voters are always asking me where are you going to get the money to do this where are you going to get the money to do that and again ROI return on investment of taxpayer dollars where we are getting cheated the pharmaceutical companies and the defense contractors who are using our taxpayer dollars to make trillions of dollars for them are screwing us over because we have a right to share the profit now if you're a well-to-do person and you can afford to buy stock on the stock market you expect ROI return on investment you expect to get a dividend but who's really paying their dividend we are the poor people and the hard workers of Vermont have their taxes gouged out of their paycheck they go to Washington DC United States Congress votes to give them to the NIH and to the Pentagon they decide to give them to the pharmaceutical companies and the defense contractors they make trillions of dollars and they pay their people who own shares in their company dividends so our taxpayer dollars are being given to the people who own shares of shares of stock in those companies as dividends we are getting screwed royally I'm going to call conference of all governors of all states and put a stop to this when we put a stop to this we're going to demand our share we put money into these companies we deserve ROI return on our investment we deserve a fair share of the profit and that's going to pay for all of these programs that everybody's thinking of thank you my name's Chris Erickson please vote for me Steve Marks I was a literacy teacher for 20 years with adult basic education in my area and Stratford and West Feraldy and Vershear and Tumbridge and Chelsea and what I found out was that there were a lot of people who were very vulnerable and if you get somebody in their home to help them to show them what they need it can change their whole lives you can stop child abuse or you can certainly change child abuse you can get people to understand different things so I think that as a state we should be looking at social services not going out and really working with people and I think we need more social service people we certainly need more therapists and I have a plan that we should get the colleges that have those programs like UVM to say the state of Vermont will pay for your college if you stay in state for 7 to 10 years and at the end and I think most of those people once they're in Vermont will stay in Vermont but all those people will help with opium addiction with all the problems that we have and also that when we talk about vulnerable people I'm a firm believer in helping people to create their own reality I mean I believe we create our own reality with people and I remember one family where I did budgeting with them and I showed them that if they could stop doing things like one case of beer a month and stop smoking one pack of cigarettes a week they wouldn't lose their house but they couldn't do that but I wasn't a social worker I couldn't get them to change so I really feel that we need to get people in there to help people on a one to one basis and I'm just going to remind folks you can give us a call at 862-3966 that's 802-862-3966 we're going to go to the question what will you do to dismantle systemic and institutional racism in Vermont and we will start with M. Payton well first of all we ought not to I would stop sending anybody out of state to prison work on an entirely restorative model for justice and again to help us understand that the cultural nourishment that we get from people of different cultures is so important to our understanding of the variety of expressions of human culture that there are again we got to go back to an economic standpoint where we don't in fear that somebody is going to take work from somebody else and we cannot tax ourselves to get there and we cannot go into debt to get there so we've heard from candidates about the justification and how we would justify a universal basic dividend so I want to also discuss a couple of other options that we have that are working within the current U.S. dollar system one we have a Vermont public bank so that our taxes go into the Vermont public bank and our money stays in state and supports loans going through local banks we have a Vermont credit card we'd have many tourists having a Vermont credit card again the fees for credit card will go into this treasury we have make a system of simplified self-directed IRAs so the people who do have money to invest don't know how to do it then we start thinking about moving outside the limitations of the dollar system and there's absolutely no reason that we should be limited by a U.S. dollar system then we get into a complementary currency we get into a work exchange system we get into how do we create community so coming back to how do we eradicate racism we begin with some economic justice thank you very much Governor Scott what will you do to eradicate institutional or dismantle I think is the word systemic and institutional racism in Vermont well Vermont is a very special place we're known for compassion the way we treat each other but unfortunately we have to accept the reality and understand that we're not immune from racism and bias here in Vermont and it's disappointing to say the least we look at Kaya Morris representative from Bennington who decided not to to serve she in fact resigned and decided not to run for reelection because of the racial slurs her and her family had to endure and it's just simply unacceptable I called her and told her even though we're 180 degrees apart in terms of our political affiliation and outlook and views but I told her that if she would reconsider that I would support her publicly because I think it's important not to let them win and so we have to support each other in doing that we also had the packed family camp in Stowe where a group was in Stowe at a retreat or camp and they were subjected to racial slurs as well and again this is not becoming a being a Vermonter we desperately need more diversity in this state I've talked about the workforce challenges we have we need more people here and it's clear we have much more to work to do to become a more welcoming place I signed the racial equity bill which will identify and offer solutions to address this systemic racism that we're suffering from but it's a basic we need more civility we need more respect and bullying and so forth in our schools and throughout and I'm sure that we'll hear more about that in our schools we need more refugees as well we need to be more welcoming I reached out to the White House after they reduced the number of refugees that they were going to and I asked them to consider putting Vermont on the top of the list because we've been successful in this area in doing so so I think it's about us treating each other with more respect and civility and also becoming more welcoming and following through on each and every endeavor thank you very much Christine Halquist what will you do to dismantle systemic and institutional racism in Vermont well you know after November 9th 2016 we ended the political depression and in 2017 I did a lot of marching I marched in Washington the women's march the climate march I did a lot of marching in Vermont but I was a bit in denial because I thought we would be protected from these headwinds of bigotry and racism that were coming out of Washington but in late 2017 we started to see white supremacists activity in Vermont and then on January 20th 2018 I listened to those four young women high school seniors Muslim girls making change talk about the harassment they see in their schools and community and that's when I cried and that's when I decided to run for governor now there's what I'm committed to do in terms of dealing with institutional racism is first of all I'm committed to have people of color on my transition team and in my administrative team I'm committed to take this have an independent commission that oversees the data in terms of policing schools and employment and how discipline is applied and how growth opportunity occurs and I'm committed to increasing the diversity of Vermont all together I do believe Vermont is a loving and welcoming place but I do think we need to be very active in recruiting people of color to come here I would target our tourist dollars to people of color and I know that people who visit here sometimes live here and so I would take very active process and I also will form a union of states there are many states that are very upset with what's happening out of Washington and I would take an active role as a governor to organize those states to push back on some of these policies that are coming out of Washington and I would ensure to use that union to protect immigrants and migrant rights thank you very much Charles Laramie what will you do to dismantle systemic and institutional racism in our state well for one thing you know nobody is born hating somebody because of you know the shape of their eyes or the color of their skin kids play together when they're four or five they have no understanding of such a thing they just like playing together and that's all it matters so obviously racism is something we learn and we learn it from generally speaking our family so racism and fixing is about education and as a teacher of 25 years in Vermont schools to say I don't see racism in our school it would be a lie I mean I hear it all the time walking in the hallways I hear it stock it's blatant racism a lot of times things they're saying and it's disturbing to hear it but I grew up in Vermont in the 60s and 70s and it was very common to hear those jokes and things and you never thought about them and when in the military and when I went to boot camp in Chicago it was quite a culture shock for me to walk in and live with 80 guys of different ethnic groups and you learned and then I traveled all over the world and now I have friends in Jordan and in China and Japan and different places and you know racism is about fear you fear somebody and this is what causes it and we fear things in Vermont you know I grew up here I don't find Vermont that welcoming and wonderful place all the time people in Vermont aren't always welcoming they're kind of standoffish and if you have to approach them they'll help you out but they don't always go out of their way so this idea that Vermonters are always open you know there's a lot of states like that so education is what we need to do we need to teach people that everybody's the same we all have the same hopes, dreams once doesn't matter thank you very much Chris Erickson your approach to dismantling I have a great idea again people say to me every time I bring up one of my great ideas they say well how are you going to pay for that Chris well it all gets back to the RO I return on investment of our federal taxpayer dollars that are going to the defense contractors the pharmaceutical companies they're making trillions of dollars we have a right to half of those trillions of dollars they're making we have a right to return on investment what I'm going to do if I'm elected the governor is approach all 40,000 homeless United States military veterans now there are a lot of nonprofits that are taking care of some of the homeless military veterans on any night but on any given night in the United States of America there are 40,000 homeless US military veterans and some of these are women a lot of them have a pension a lot of them might qualify for MSI I'm going to invite them all to Vermont but guess what are you really prepared because half of them are black and Latino people of color is Vermont really ready to have 20,000 US military veterans who are black or Latino think about it because I will bring them here and I will find housing for them I will get a return on investment from federal taxpayer dollars and until I get that I will have Vermont prisoners we've got 1200 prisoners in the state I will hire people to teach those prisoners how to build log cabins I will use some of Vermont's land we've got big forest I'll have them the prisoners building log cabins and we'll put solar panels on the roofs for electricity and I will bring 40,000 homeless US military veterans to Vermont now start thinking about it a lot of them have pensions or they qualify for SSI so that's 40,000 people that ends up being 40 million dollars a month into the economy of Vermont 40 million a month of their SSI or their pensions coming into the economy of Vermont thank you vote for me Chris Erickson thank you very much Steve Marks your approach to eradicating institutional racism education education education and not just educating kids but educating the police force getting you know I was born in New York City and I went to a high school that was 50% people of color and what I found was that my best friends were people of color and so for me it's really hard not to fathom how you can and then I went into the economy and it was amazing to me how wonderful everybody is I mean we are an amazing group of individuals and but a lot of people are not they're not taught what what they should learn they're taught to hate and hatred is the worst for me is the worst thing so we need to get rid of that we need to do that is to educate and I also believe that we really need to bring back our prisoners and we need to educate them and we need to find them jobs because that will bring us all together thank you very much Trevor Barlow your view on eradicating institutional racism in Vermont I agree with everyone on the panel so far who has talked about education as being of the utmost importance and I think it gets directed towards where you start it and I think it gets into our schools and curriculums where we have to have a mandatory multicultural curriculum I know myself from having grown up in Vermont and Springfield when I grew up there it was a fairly homogenous society and the irony is that Vermont is still somewhat homogenous compared to the rest of the country but the minute I was able to leave the state and travel my eyes were opened as far as I was able to engage in and I've lived in urban areas similar to some of the commentary tonight and there's a different ethos and I think it just is an intent of a community as you have to decide that diversity is something that you seek because it's the benefit of your community and as such you will not tolerate discrimination and I think that brings about the change within the governmental aspects of how we manage ourselves as a society to eradicate this type of behavior but ultimately you have the leadership of the governor that says it's unacceptable which I think everyone on the panel agrees which is a beautiful thing about our state but then there's the second part of it is how do you make your population more diverse to reflect that initiative and personally I come at it from the perspective of innovation because I think if you approach small towns and rural communities and you say we're going to give you an opportunity to build a beautiful lifestyle that is diverse and is rich in ideas and solutions that will help to attract a more diverse population to our state Thank you very much We're going to take up the question of water quality in Vermont and so everyone's going to have an opportunity to answer that but while you're thinking in your mind while other people are answering I want you all to come up with a question that you have for another candidate because that will be our next round So here's the question we start with Governor Scott If elected how do you plan on dealing with the current pollution issues in Lake Champlain and we would expand that to say the water quality throughout the state Well we're actually doing it over the last we have fiscal year 18 and 19 we're spending 70% more than we have in previous years right now we have about $56 million that we have implemented for water quality I'm committed to this to seeing this through it's a long term plan it didn't happen overnight it's something that's not going to be fixed overnight either so we're in it for the long haul we also introduce some unique interesting ideas thinking outside the box we have what's called the phosphorus challenge it's almost like a reverse pitch it's a shark tank where we ask companies and entities and entrepreneurs to come up with solutions for phosphorus how can we control it before it hits the ground before it hits our waterways we were pleasantly surprised we had 27 people that came forward entities with solutions we've narrowed that down to about 8 or 10 and they're viable we also we've implemented how we're going to pay for it we've put forward the property tax transfer tax a portion of that is going towards water quality I'm not giving up on the TDI line going through Lake Champlain the conduit there that will give us a substantial amount of money every year for water quality to bring hydropower renewable power to Boston and the metropolitan areas to the south of us and we're going to continue the municipal water wastewater, storm water infrastructure, the ANR grants that we're doing the infrastructure is well throughout the state storm water infrastructure throughout we're committed to do this I'm committed to doing this and we'll see it through if we all pull in the same direction we'll have positive results can I just ask you a question without advocating for it what's the TDI line? TDI line is a conduit that's been all approved it's fully permitted and it's a company that's going to bring power from Canada Energy, Rich, Quebec through Lake Champlain come through Ludlow to a switching station going to Massachusetts now they turned us down to begin with but TDI is the name of a company that has already put this into place it's all ready to go we just need somebody to hook up with that all right thank you very much Christine Hellquist I'm sure you know what the TDI line is yes I do and I will tell you that that was the third option the first option was Northern Pass the second option was opening the path to the northeast kingdom so I wouldn't put in a real stake in the fact that that TDI line was being constructed but to the question of water quality yes to the question of water quality I use that because it really gets to what's the funding mechanism you know I you know Beth Pierce our state treasurer has done a great job in terms of writing of putting a plan together of what it's needed to fund that plan it requires $25 million a year so we really need to come up I'm committed to come up with sustainable funding for that plan strategic investment every dollar we invest saves three over the long term 94% of our waterways are impacted in Vermont this plan deals with the farm runoff it deals with the impervious surface issues and importantly if we look at sewer systems throughout our state we have this combined sewer overflow that happens during storms we have aging sewage system all throughout our state I would and the funding mechanisms are addressed in that plan as well so we do need to absolutely need to fund that plan because I will tell you I'm also you know I think rural economic development is one of the most important things we can do and our water resources are precious resources that help attract people to this state so and I'm also committed to you know help dairy farmers be able to have other other funding sources and be able to help people move away from dairy because that is an energy intensive crop so you know I'm committed to solve the water quality problems I'm committed to make the investments it's a strategic investment we have to make for our future and we need to find the resources to do that and those resources are addressed in the plan thank you very much Charles Laramie your view on water quality and what we can do to improve quality well I think what Governor Scott and Miss Holocaust both stated is that we need to continue to fix our infrastructure and our sewer systems and things like that and generally speaking like in the town I live in we have a budget every year and you know so much is budgeted for you know they're going to need a new fire truck down the road a new budget for that and the same can be done for for town sewer systems things for overflow and water and then on the other hand you know I decided I was going to run based on what's best for the Vermont people in common sense those are the things I have to answer to and before anybody gets really frightened what I want you to understand when I was growing up we didn't have water treatment plants we didn't have sewer systems and everything just went into the river right and that was human waste garbage we had open dumps everything was just thrown over the side it was covered over with dirt these are the things that we grew up with and we don't have those anymore the water quality is better when you scuba dive in the lake you still see the pipes that come out from the cottages because that's all they did they just flushed the toilet went in the lake and so these are the things we had and those things have all been stopped so a lot of times we hear about you know what can we do what can we do more money we've already done a lot of those things the water quality today is a lot better than it was when I was growing up we had open burn pits all the time in my town anybody could burn their garbage tires there was no laws against that and people did it all the time couldn't even stand the air and today that's not the way it is so a lot has changed already and so just don't be thinking we gotta constantly spend money to fix things it's not always necessary alright thank you Chris Erickson your view on maintaining quality of our lakes and rivers alright first of all if I'm elected governor of Vermont we got 1200 prisoners I'm not going to have them twiddling their thumbs in prisons in Vermont I'm going to have every single one of them who is intellectually capable learn how to build row boats and build oars we got plenty of trees my father used to build his own row boats when I was a kid no problem and then we put them out in the summer that's what they're going to do they're going to build their own row boats and oars out of Vermont trees in the summer they're going to go out on every lake, Lake Champlain and every pond and every lake in Vermont and they're going to pull the mill foil by hand and then they're going to put out their fishing lines and they're going to reel in those invasive eels those ugly eels that bite fish and latch onto them they're going to reel those suckers in and they're going to spend all summer long cleaning up the lakes and ponds by hand no chemicals when my mother was alive, God bless her soul she used to preach, she did a lot of research on the invasive chemicals that are dumped in Lake Champlain to treat the invasive species the invasive chemicals are causing health problems we got dozens of sewage treatment plants all around Lake Champlain in Vermont, New York and Canada they're dumping treated sewage in the lake we got to put a U-turn on those pipes put a U-turn on those pipes and pump the treated sewage to either industrial use or find a use for it thank you Steve Marks, Earth First well you're not Earth First remind us of your party name Earth Rights so that's different but obviously this is a subject close to your heart one of the things that I would do is I would make companies pay for the poisons that they put on the earth it's very easy to think about it we sell herbicides and pesticides and even plastic bags what happens is that we sell them so that companies can make money so they figure out how much they can charge for that bag but they don't figure out what that bag or what that pesticide is going to do to the earth so my plan is let's charge them let's say we charge ten cents of plastic bag then all of a sudden paper bags are profitable so then we have things that can be composted that's just one little example there's so many ways but the key is that we the taxpayers pay for all this poison that the companies that make it don't pay and we need to switch that and then if we do that we will have enough money to clean up the earth thank you very much Trevor Barlow your approach to cleaning our lakes and streams of pollution and toxins thank you I would say along my general beliefs in leveraging innovation and technology one with regards to doing a better job of tracking sources because that always becomes one of the most difficult issues you have an end result of pollution but you don't always know what the source is and we know we've had a variety of issues over the past couple of years that have come to light with PFOA with regards to Lake Champlain and algae and various other issues so I think in general there are technologies out there that we can invest in and I would also like to say I agree with Steven's point of view with regards to getting into how do we manage our economy with regards to our natural resources and how do we do a better job of accounting for the actual impact so we make sure we have more visibility on what the costs are in order to provide for that so in a nutshell we know that water is the most important resource we have on this earth just because of who we are as humans and what we're made up of chemically any issues with water need to be addressed immediately we don't want to find ourselves in a situation like unfortunately happened up in Flint, Michigan where you have people after 10 or 15 years of neglect finding out that they have terrible illnesses or impacts on their bodies because of a lack of action and so ultimately water as far as natural resources should have our highest priority on water distribution. Thank you very much and Payton your approach to water quality and funding. Yes, so of course water is the most important resource we have and I hope I get a chance to talk about the role of hemp in protecting and making buffers but I also want to talk about the cost of fracking and I believe we are importing fracked gas across the border we have such a profound change to make in our behaviors because we have 12 years to make them and we maybe have to figure out since money is first amendment right according to the Supreme Court maybe we need to step outside the US dollar to make them happen some of the things I'm concerned about is the chemtrails the amount of poison that we're putting on you go in you can actually buy a can of Roundup and Roundup uses the same chemicals that they use in Agent Orange so we need to incentivize educate and change our behaviors it's absolutely absurd that we're going to bathroom in our clean water we need to be moving to composting systems across the board these are the kinds of profound societal behavioral changes that we need to be prepared to make in order to meet climate change and you can we can make fun of it but we need to do it we need to go to a zero waste system down in Bratteboro they've mandatorily banned all plastic bags we need to do that statewide they're charging for every paper bag that needs to happen there's so much work that we need to do in order to meet the challenge that we have ahead of us and we just must have the money to do it we have the will and we will do it thank you very much alright so here's the lightning round if you have a question for one of your candidate for one of fellow candidates now is a great time to ask that and I'm going to start with Christine Hellquist if you have a question for any of the fellow candidates feel free to pass if you don't have a question but now's a good time to ask Bill you've actually you've talked about the water plan and you said you have a plan for how to pay for it and you've kept that plan secret would you be willing to tell us what your water funding plan is it's an existing source I've said all along that we don't need another knee jerk reaction every problem that needs to be solved seems to have been just let's raise another tax and that's what we've been doing over the last 10 15 20 years and it's led us to the position we're in today so I've found a couple of existing tax sources that I think could be leveraged and used for this purpose over the long term as we know during a campaign season like this if you put anything out it's like a team sport and at that point it will be discounted and rejected out of hand I've been through it, I've seen it and this is too important and I believe that what we need to do is have a good discussion about it a good open discussion in the legislative process and so from that standpoint I'm committed to water quality committed to cleaning it up this funding source is something that I think can work for the legislature in the next session if I'm elected to do that thank you very much Charles do you have a question for a candidate here at the table yeah my question is actually for two candidates Mr. Scott and Ms. Holocaust may not know I was escorted out of the last debate in Rutland and because I stood up and asked to be included in the debate because I'm on the ballot and the only ones that are allowing in the debate are the Republican and the Democrat the independents are not being allowed in the debates there's one more debate coming up at VPR we've been told we're not welcome James Mr. Jeffords would never take part in a debate unless everybody else was included I've asked both Mr. Scott and Ms. Holocaust to stand down from debates until we're all included they've refused to do that this disenfranchises hundreds of thousands of Vermont voters what's your question so my question is for the last debate will you guys please stand down unless we're all included and if not could you explain why you won't do that Christine I deferred a comment on that you know I'm the underdog here so it's I certainly the answer is no I won't step down so you disenfranchised Vermont Phil Scott well we went through this in the last election cycle as some of you might remember I said the same thing I thought that all candidates should be included in all the debates and when I was invited to Tumbridge and it was the WDV debate and Mike Smith was the one that was moderating that and I said that I wouldn't go unless all the candidates were invited Bill Lee was not invited and so I said I wasn't growing so they had an empty chair there in Tumbridge there was only one candidate that showed up and they had the debate without me unfortunately it didn't have much effect on anyone and no one seemed to notice or care or whatever so this time around I said look I think everyone should be included we put it on every single response that we encourage other candidates we encourage whoever is putting it on to invite everyone I think it's important for democracy I think it's important for everyone to have their voices heard and then we hear it the different perspectives so I'm in favor of it but as far as I understood down last time I didn't seem to have much effect and I encourage anyone else to include everyone in the debates because I think it's important so that's a no you won't stand down I'm not going to stand down in this time around because as I said it didn't seem to have any effect on anyone at that point but I encourage them I stand here publicly asking anyone in the future that when we have these debates they should include everyone Do you have a question for candidates? Yes I do for Christine Halquist and Phil Scott this is the first time in my life I have ever seen you or met you absentee voting started almost a month ago people have been voting for a month I have been excluded from every single debate the two of you have been in are you my question is are you seriously willfully and intentionally committing fraud in a fiduciary capacity in conspiracy with Vermont Public Radio and Vermont PBS to commit fraud in the use of taxpayer dollars our federal taxes get paid to the government the United States Congress I'm not finished the United States Congress votes to give our tax dollars public broadcasting public broadcasting gives our federal tax dollars to VPR and Vermont PBS they have no legal right to act as a political action committee to promote two candidates while excluding five candidates therefore are you seriously willfully and intentionally in conspiracy to commit fraud in a fiduciary capacity with the illegal use of federal tax dollars to promote your campaigns we're done thank you sorry we're not done we're not done I'm not willfully doing anything to prevent anyone from coming to any debates by your presence by you showing up you are taking the advantage of the federal tax dollars that everyone has paid federal tax dollars just let's leave it with the question and then let's get an answer so we have an answer from the governor Christine Halquist well I take that under advisement certainly we can the two of us can talk offline about this but at this point this is really these others set up the rules so I'm new to this this sets up the rule to commit a crime then you just go and partake of it and that's okay no it's not okay you have used federal tax dollars to promote your campaigns at the exclusion of ours thank you thank you you are co-conspirators to a criminal activity Steven do you have a question for the candidates? I believe that we need a constitutional amendment in Vermont to give the earth rights and the rights of nature I'd like to ask every candidate a yes or no question whether they support a constitutional amendment that would give the earth rights if corporations are considered people why shouldn't the earth be considered person the earth gives us everything that we have including our bodies so you have a minute Trevor personally I would answer that with a different logic and that I would say that I wholeheartedly disagree with citizens united I think when we're dealing with the democratic process and dealing with politics politics in its essence is about people the proverbial zoon politicon so we as people need to say that only people as individuals can participate in this process and be recognized and corporate donations cannot be qualified as an individual or human entity it's just it's not logical in response to Steve Mark's question could you just restate the question should there be a constitutional amendment in Vermont to give the earth rights of course we should revisit the constitution it's a living document and women have not been participating in that and I want to add that one of the things we can do and that I have done is to pledge my allegiance not to a corporate empire but rather to go like this I pledge allegiance to the earth upon whom all life depends and to the beings with whom we share her our earth of the universe beauty is beyond comprehension that is where I pledge my heart my will and my life thank you very much Governor Scott well again it would really depend on what it says but I can tell you it's very difficult to change the constitution in Vermont as it should be it's a document that should be preserved we I know a number of times throughout the last 20 years they've tried to turn the governor's term into a four year term instead of a two year term or one of only two states that have two year terms that's been passed out of the senate at least once never in the house of representatives that I know but it has to go through two bienniums then a referendum to the people so I would say I would advocate if you want to do that work with the legislature see if you can get it through but it's very very difficult to get any type of would you support that well I mean it would depend on what it says to blank just to say you would support if it's a simple type of a piece of legislation a constitutional change I'd have to read it to see if I'd support it or not but in concept of course the earth is important to us of course it is passing a law doesn't make it so either it takes all of us in order to make sure that happens and that's what we have governments for that's what we have a legislative process for is to make sure that we protect what we have Christine, quickly your response I would have to take a look at what it looked like and what impact it might possibly have I've actually never been asked this question before so I certainly have not done any research on it but you know if it makes sense and it's going to solve problems sure I'd support it but again it is as the governor said the process is complex you know I I just don't even know how to answer that question right now thank you Charles I'm not going to do the I'll answer it this way no I wouldn't given that Stephen you know I'm an Adirondack 46er I like in the Adirondacks all the time I've hiked all the high peaks I love nature and I'm out in it all the time and I think Governor Scott said I mean we all need to protect it and that's a given I don't think a constitutional amendment is going to change that at all I stay out and enjoy the nature as much as I can thank you Chris Erickson Mother Earth should be made a citizen of Vermont thank you Trevor do you have a question for the candidates I do and I'd ask maybe for just a brief response from all candidates with regards to broadband connectivity in the state and whether fiber is the best solution is fiber the best solution for broadband connectivity in the state and Peyton and let's try and keep it to 30 seconds time for closing statements I do believe it is and I believe that we have another bit of brilliance from Christine about how we can bring that fiber to every mile so yes I think it is thank you Governor Scott certainly fiber is the backbone of what we need in Vermont right now in terms of broadband capacity but is it going to be in the future technology is changing every single day I mean we're seeing more and more in terms of satellites and so forth and we'll see where this goes but we still need fiber and we still need to make sure that we have a system that is backed up with fiber in order to connect it to everything else thank you Christine I've been studying this for about 18 years and I will tell you I've looked at every technology and fiber is the best answer it really gets down to basic physics there's nothing faster than the speed of light you know radio frequency doesn't have the same capacity and actually with every cell tower you need a fiber backhaul so ubiquitous fiber actually helps you with additional cell towers so it's absolutely the answer for the long term thank you Charles when I said on our library or board we were bringing it in there it was a big thing we could get so much for free for a period of time and it's probably a great idea also like Governor Scott says things are changing fast and like with our solar panels we'll dot them up all over the place but you know in five years technology may come along and all of a sudden we have all these things out there and now we're going to wonder what to do with them because we have this much better technology so I'm not sure okay thank you Chris Erickson number one fiber cable strung all over the neighborhood are ugly as hell I've been in Chester Vermont 15 years and then they started putting in these ugly fiber cables they're ugly they're just so offensive to look at number two low income people in Vermont cannot afford wifi and broadband what is the point of talking about something people can't afford thank you I don't own a computer but I think that we should definitely have fiber optics come up in fact I live on the end of a dirt road and EC fiber which I think we should be supporting organizations like that just brought wifi up my road whether I'll have it or not it's another road another thing but yes I do support it thank you and Peyton do you have a question for the candidates I do have a question I have so many questions well just if we could keep it to a question not a statement that would be great I'd like to ask each one of the candidates if you are aware and how would you implement a system of processing hemp to the purpose of building homes that sequester carbon and use a quarter of the energy to do so and are you aware that hemp buildings can serve the same kind of strength for our climate change initiatives as solar could each answer very quickly Governor Scott Emily and I have actually talked about this on a couple of different occasions so I'm a little more aware of some of the building capabilities hemp is something that we're doing a lot more of in Vermont in fact you may have read some of that in the paper there's been some vandalism damage and theft in the hemp industry but it's catching on something that really does have whether it's in building or whether in clothing or within other some of the oils and so forth it's something that I think that Vermont can capitalize on so we're moving forward our agency of agriculture is working with those farmers and trying to make it go here in Vermont I'm a big supporter of hemp in my energy research in terms of growing crops for energy which by the way I don't think is necessarily a good idea but hemp was the most productive carbohydrate per acre of anything as far as growing things for clothing and building and construction hemp is a very productive product crop in terms of output per acre thank you Charles yeah I'm a big supporter of that too and I've been talking to Emma about it and she's been discussing it I've heard her talk about it at her forum and I think those are good ideas I mean they're going to bring jobs in and help the economy and this is you know this is what we need good paying jobs and people who can take these jobs thank you Chris Erickson your view of the use of hemp as a building my grandfather George Robert Erickson was born on the hemp lawn farm on the Benson Pike and Shelbyville Kentucky in 1898 and then the federal government of the United States made it illegal so I started campaigning for hemp in marijuana in 2002 and I'm still in favor of it thank you very much Steve I'm definitely in favor of anything that will help farmers and growing hemp is definitely good for farmers and it's good for the environment thank you Trevor I grow hemp so I'm in full support of it as well as actually looking at the plant itself as cannabis not only for construction but for healthcare and just in general for innovation within our economy thank you did you ask a question? I have not please do well I'm a big supporter of our dairy industry it's part of our tradition and culture it's a two billion dollar industry for us here in Vermont and we've been talking about diversity and so forth but my question is Christine has talked about on a couple of different occasions about replacing dairy with blueberries and I'm just curious whether we think you think we should have a dairy industry in Vermont is that for each of us? first of all that was definitely not about blueberry it was way over simplification about creating alternative revenue streams for dairy farmers to supplement their income but the point being absolutely dairy is important and the idea behind connecting every home and business of fibers creating a distribution network to create additional value-added products off of their farm to create additional revenue streams I agree we need to keep our agricultural farms dairy in particular? I know it's difficult for a lot of I mean when I grew up a lot of my friends of course they were dairy farms I've watched it go away for them a lot of them grew up expecting they were going to be able to do this and then they ended up having to sell the farms and subdivide the land and sell it because they just couldn't keep up with the profits but yeah we need to or with bills that didn't mean profits thank you in the 1960s and 1970s instead of putting people in prison and sending them to out of state prisons a lot of Vermont prisoners were sent to farms I don't know if I'm the oldest candidate here but when I was a teenager Vermont prisoners were sent to farms all the farmers had to do was give them food give them a roof over their head there were 25,000 farms in Vermont now and now there's only a couple thousand farms let's send the prisoners back to work on farms as an economic development strategy? yes yes because you don't pay anything for their labor for free and the constitution of the state of Vermont states that prisoners shall work for the public and view of the public so we're wasting prison labor Steve Marks well I definitely support farms but I would really like to see all the dairy farms become organic dairy farms it bothers me that we have farmers that are putting poisons on the earth and are spraying chemicals on the fields that are bad for our children and I'll do everything I can because I think that the way to keep Vermont beautiful is to have farms and dairy farms are key I get my meat and my chickens all from a dairy farm a local dairy farm that's organic that sells strafford organic creamery ice cream best ice cream around thank you Trevor Barlow yes definitely in fact I bought a dairy farm and so I'm I guess very respectful of our culture of dairy as an industry I know when I've been able to go around the state and visit with farmers there are two things that have come up one is assistance with marketing and funding to help them to expand and specialize their products so they can get a higher premium out of their actual milk production and so I think along with that we should also work towards encouraging our farmers not only to be organic but to be carbon negative which I think is possible because farms are a wonderful ecosystem unto themselves for innovation and for ways that we can lead the nation in agricultural production thank you very much and Peyton yes one of the wonderful friends I've made on the trail is Roger Albee who is working on a plan for all of our farms to become organic as a matter of viability so if it were to have and we would when I'm governor to have a Vermont credit card we can use the profits for that I would oppose any ideas that have gone in history that prisoners are slaves I don't believe that anybody should be slaves not in prison or not anywhere else but I do think that we can find the savings if we're not sending them out we are now spending 14 million dollars to send them out of state to prison so there's some savings that you can apply to the organic and free range is very important because of the methane costs to climate change when you have standing pools of manure and waste so free range is also important with going all organic thank you very much alright so the last question with ten minutes we've got a minute and the last question is if elected what will be your first legislative action and we start with Charles my first legislative action is going to be to remove all cell phones and iPads from schools now a lot of people France just did that and the reason behind that is they've done a lot of studies this summer about the United States saying that the effect of cell phones on students cognitive learning is bad but of course you didn't even need to do that study all you had to do was ask teachers and teachers would have told you this is a huge problem I left teaching in June and I left teaching because I've been clean and sober for 27 years and during the time during all that 20 some odd years where I was addict alcoholic you know I wouldn't be disrespected and well I was always disrespected I mean so I could no longer allow that and so I just walked away teachers retirement everything gone I wouldn't put up with it and to change what's going on in our schools today this is the first step but that's the biggest problems with our schools not act 46 any of that other stuff thank you Charles Laramie Chris Erickson what would be your first legislative action well a governor doesn't do legislative action a governor passes law after the legislature's had their hands on what would you propose well what I my first proposal is governor would be to have a Saturday night governor's pardon TV show where I would invite a hundred audience or 200 audience people how many ever can fit in that building in Montpelier that the governor's office is in for an audience and I would invite maybe 6 or 12 prisoners to come give their sorry stories about why should they should get a pardon I'd have their family and their friends come and try to speak up for them or not or the opposite and then I'd have the audience take a vote and then I would sell this TV program nationwide and worldwide on cable TV and put the revenue from the sales of the program into the general fund. Thank you very much Chris Erickson. Steve Marks what would be your first legislative initiative action first thing you do right out of the box. I would go to the legislature and I would tell all the lawyers to sit down and figure out a constitutional amendment because that's people have asked me why I don't have one and I've talked to a number of lawyers and every one of them has a different one so I would get them all together and I would say you sit there and you come up with something and then I would start the three year process of getting a constitutional amendment in Vermont. To protect the earth. Thank you very much Trevor Barlow your first initiative as governor. My first initiative as governor would be to create the innovation fund that would be administered through the regional development corporations and as part of that set out the criteria for what we consider to be the new Vermont and moving us forward with revitalizing our rural areas through innovation and technology. Thank you very much and Peyton your first legislative initiative. Well upon getting elected and if I can't get elected this time because people don't know that I'm a choice I will continue but the very first thing I will do in November is to go about and begin the history of the women who are behind the men all the men that are up there in the house and photos and everything there are women beside them that belong to be up there so that young women understand that we are equal participants we require equal pay and we also need to step forward to help men and everybody understand how we can prepare a world of nurturing and a nurturing economy. Thank you very much. Phil Scott what will your first action be? Well again to continue the good work that we've been doing over the last two years and Chris landed on it that we actually can't produce a legislation sometimes you have to react to it but we do have to supply a budget so we're working on the budget lives within its means and works on three different fundamentals grow the economy make Vermont more affordable protect the most vulnerable and with those three very simple guiding principles that's we will build a budget that Vermonters can afford and that will invest in areas to bring more people into the state and grow the workforce that's what we need the workforce needs to be addressed first and foremost. Thank you very much. Christine Hellquist Well I would ask the legislature to bring back the bills that the governor has vetoed increasing the minimum wage family leave toxic and toys as well as making polluters pay and the first new legislation would be related to climate change you know I spent many years working on this when I left Vermont Electric Co-op we were 96% carbon free and we did that without a rate increase for five years. The state actually exports $2 billion a year for the fossil fuel industry that will help grow our economy I spent two years working with the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation on a grant from the Department of Energy to write a plan called the Solar Pathways Plan that defines how we get to 90% by 2050. I would ask the legislature to codify the goal of getting to 90% to 2050 in law because that is actually something we will spur job spur innovation and it does not cost us more money. Christine Hellquist Thank you very much. I'd like to thank all of the candidates here today on the panel for the race for governor in the state of Vermont for joining us here apparently this has been the only debate where all of the candidates have been invited and that is a hallmark of Channel 17 Town Meeting television's approach to local government because we think the more ideas and the better, more diverse ideas that are on the table, the better policy that we have and people can make up their own minds so I want to thank you all for being here thank the audience and please stay tuned to continuing coverage of Town Meeting television here especially on November 6 when we bring you live election results thanks for watching. Thank you so before you get up pick up