 I want to invite our Spanish speaking community members to click the button at the bottom of your Zoom screen and choose the Spanish option to hear the forum in that language. Pause for the interpreter to join us now. Interpreter Kelly, music attending. I might be promoted to interpreter at this point. Thank you. Kelly, are you with us? I'm with you but I cannot hear you and I have not been invited to the interpretation mode, if you will. Okay. I think that's good to go. Still, no. There we go. It says language interpretation has been ended by hosts. All right. That should work for you. Is that good for you now, Kelly? Okay. All right, let's go already. Thank you for your patience. Thank you, everyone, for your patience. Sorry about the technical difficulties there. Welcome to the Longmont City Council candidate forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Boulder County and co-hosted with Longmont Public Media. My name is Martine Eleanor. I am a proud member of the League and I am pleased to serve as your moderator for tonight's forum. The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan political organization. For over 100 years, we have encouraged informed and active participation in government and influenced public policy through education and advocacy. To remain nonpartisan, the League never supports or opposes political candidates or parties. We are pleased tonight to have as our Spanish language interpreter, Kelly Music. Now to the forum. The City of Longmont is governed by a seven-member council. The mayor is elected to serve a two-year term and each council member is elected to serve a four-year term. The mayor and council members are the leaders and policymakers in the community elected to represent various segments of the community and to concentrate on policy issues that are responsive to residents' needs and wishes. Regular City elections, including candidates for City Council and any ballot issues or questions, are held in November of odd-numbered years. A special election has been called for November 8, 2002 this year, 2022 this year, to fill the vacant Longmont City Council at large seat with a term ending November 2023 and to present three ballot questions to the voters. The format for tonight's forum will be as follows. Each candidate will have one minute for an opening statement. We will then ask the candidates as many questions as time permits. Questions have been reviewed by our League of Women Voters Volunteer Screeners and will be addressed to all candidates. We will share questions not asked with the candidates. For most questions, each candidate will have up to one minute to respond. However, I may expand the time to answer depending on the question. I will announce if the time has been increased from one minute. Our timekeeper, Emma Piller, will help us stay on track. We will finish with one minute closing statements. Tonight's forum participants include, in ballot order, Sean McCoy, Gary Hodges, Mitzi Nicoletti. Now to the opening statements and questions. Please watch for the timekeeper's signal at the 15 second mark and end when your time is up. If you are mid-sentence when your time ends, please promptly finish that sentence so we can move on to the next candidate. For opening statements, we will begin with candidate McCoy for one minute. All right. Thank you, League of Women Voters of Boulder County, for hosting this forum tonight. Hi, I'm Sean McCoy. I've lived in Longmont for 57 years and I'm a native as is my wife and my two daughters, Claire and Molly. I hold a degree in political science and a master's in education. I've served on the Housing and Human Services Commission where I supported women and minority issues and distributed community block grants. I've served on the Planning and Zoning Commission to help see the growth of Longmont and how it was going to go in the future. I've been on the Police Standards Board, the Boulder County Open Space Commission, and I did all this for 18 years before I served on Longmont City Council in 2007 to 2011. I want to ask you all to support me in my candidacy and go to McCoyforLongmont.com. Thank you. Next, candidate Hodges. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity to participate. My name is Gary Hodges and I'm running for this open council, this vacant council seat. I lived in Longmont for 25 years with my wife We've raised two children in town. Our daughter teaches in public schools and our sons at CSU Study Mechanical Engineering. I have an ongoing 25-year career with the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. In my role there as a senior associate scientist, I work in the field of atmospheric science. I served seven years on Longmont's Transportation Advisory Board. That was a good time, got a lot done, and that piqued my interest in participating in the city. That just coupled with wanting to run, and that's the primary reason for me choosing to do this. Thank you. Thank you. Candidate Nicoletti. Thank you. Candidate Nicoletti. Good evening. My name is Mitzi Nicoletti, and I want to thank the League of Women Voters for hosting us this evening. I have lived in Longmont with my family now for over 20 years. My husband is actually a Colorado native, and our son, daughter-in-law live in Fort Collins. I have thoroughly loved living in Longmont, been very involved in the community, and made some long-lasting friends here. While Longmont I've served on several boards such as the Longmont Downtown Association Board, Sustainable Resilient Longmont Board, and also the Art Walk Board. Most recently, I had the opportunity to chair the Renewable Energy Board for Sustainable Resilient Longmont. I am running for city council to be involved and provide leadership in the things that I care about such as housing, the unhoused, climate sustainability, and local businesses. Thank you. Thank you. For the first question, we'll begin with candidate Hodges. This will be one minute. What lessons learned from the first two years of COVID-19 response would you want to apply for current or future COVID response and recovery? Looks like you're on mute. My apologies. Assuming what might occur in the future is the same as what just occurred. I think some of the lessons learned would be we overreacted, we locked down schools too long or too quickly and too long. That has created an education disaster for our city, state, nation, and actually the world. Is everybody suffering from that? I have my daughters in education. I have a sister in education. That was just a real problem. There's, yeah, with lots of things. We have 10th graders with eighth grade educations, et cetera. I would also say we would need to be very cautious about determining what businesses are essential. I thought government overstepped their bounds quite a bit in that and it was ultimately unnecessary. Really just to take a careful look at what we've done and not make the mistakes going forward. Thank you. Candidate Nicoletti, one minute. Thank you. If COVID was to reoccur again or flare up again, the things that I would look at and probably do differently is really provide a strong leadership, not only at the national level, the state level and the federal level that people could follow that was consistent and also have a strong supply chain of things that are needed to combat COVID, quicker response to vaccines and also working with the schools to equip the teachers and students better and as a community pulled together to deal with a situation like this so that also local businesses wouldn't be affected as severely as they were. Thank you. Thank you. Candidate McCoy, one minute. All right. Well, I would provide a good leadership. I think that the consistency of leadership at the very top of the national level was inconsistent and I would also agree that we need to have a stronger supply chain and I think that was kind of one of those things that we found ourselves with this just-in-time sort of mentality that didn't really work very well for that and as an educator, I think we needed to work on our connectivity. Our students were constantly getting dropped and I was trying to teach from this office here and it was difficult for some of them and I think more communities need to have what Longland has and that is a robust Wi-Fi and Internet system like we have with the next slide. Thank you. For the next question, we will begin with candidate Nicoletti. What would be your approach to communication and coordination with other municipal and county elected officials on regional issues and shared goals? You have one minute. That has come up in a lot of conversations lately dealing with safe safety in the communities, affordable housing. I think working with other counties, communities is critical and being open to suggestions, working as a team and forming almost like a task force with these different entities to solve problems, improve situations and also come up with other ideas because a lot of times in other communities there might be more expertise that would be available. So I would highly support cooperation with other groups and work as a team. Thank you. Thank you. Next candidate McCoy, one minute. When I served on council in 2007 to 2011, we would go every year to the National League of Cities conference in Washington DC where we would find out how other communities are doing these things and work with our local communities that also attended there and went to that conference. We also had a conference with the Colorado Municipal League and the Colorado Municipal League is a clearinghouse for exactly this sort of thing. I think we need to work very closely with other municipalities in the surrounding area, the Tri-City area and Boulder County and I think that we need to always have positive communication with them and I think one of the ways of doing that is to work through the municipal league and make those types of things happen because that's really where it comes from. So you also get good education that way on what other cities are doing. Thank you. Candidate Hodges, one minute. State of Colorado has been liberalizing drug laws. They've been decreasing penalties on crimes. They're about to get started on felony crimes. Attorney General Weisner recently said maybe if you steal a car four times you should have a bail at that point. So the cities are suffering. Crime rate in Colorado is in single digit top categories across the nation. It's a massive problem for all the cities in Colorado. I would like to see if I'm fortunate enough to be elected, I would like to see us rally around, get the mayor and city council to write letters in conjunction with all the communities to send to our state representatives, senator, governors and try to let them know what is going on. Let's do what we can as a city to try to influence the state on some of these important crime issues and safety issues. Thank you. Candidate Hodges. Oops, I think you just went. Candidate McCoy. I went on just a moment ago. Oh, I'm sorry. My mistake. Candidate Nicoletti. She went first. Oh, let me see here. What happened? I lost track. One moment. Okay. Sorry about that. But the third question for the next question will begin with candidate McCoy. If elected, how would you more meaningfully engage community members who have been historically underrepresented in government and policy dialogue? You have one minute. Well, when I was on council, we developed this coffee with council to have a more casual relationship with our community members so that people could feel more comfortable because it is a little intimidating to come up to the podium and give your address and to state your feelings in three minutes. And so we started that coffee with council, myself and Sarah Levinson and Brian Hansen, so that we would have a little bit more of a casual sort of approachable communication with others. But I also think that our newsletter going out to community members in both English and Spanish is critical. I think also our access channel is critical for keeping people in the know. And I also feel that just maybe having opportunities to meet with people in regards to at different civic events, like Cinco de Mayo having tents like we do helps stop that barrier of communication and make it grow in a positive way. Thank you. Candidate Hodges for one minute. Hi, thank you. So I'm not sure how we would go about targeting any particular community other than continuing to be open and welcoming to everybody, which I believe we are as a city. I was at an event last night and there was a Hispanic lady there and she was asking me about interpretation at the council events. And that's something that sounds like a good idea. I'd be happy to consider ideas like that. The community events that we offer, the main street parades, unity in the community, what have you, those are all good things. And just continuing what we're doing now, being opening and welcoming to anybody that wants to participate. Thank you. Candidate Nicoletti for one minute. It's a good question. Community members that have sometimes been left out are marginalized. I think ways of reaching them is definitely coffee with council. And also I've been going around and attending different events. And I think it's a good way to visit with the community and get to know them. I know when I was on the art walk, the, excuse me, Sustainable Resilient Law Mop Board, when we offered activities for Earth Day, we actually did one full day in Spanish and then had it translated into English. So, you know, making people feel comfortable and that they have a voice in the community is critical. And a lot of that is just being listened and included and also sometimes attending different members meetings and seeing what's going on. Thank you. Thank you. For the next question, there will be one minute to respond. We'll start with candidate Hodges. How might you work to help make sure the city of Longmont prioritizes human rights and civil rights for one minute? Well, do we do that now? I think we're doing that now. I'm not sure how the city is letting anybody down in this moment. If we are letting anybody down, I would like to know about it. That's something I would like to tackle right away on city council. But this is kind of a follow on from the previous question. I think it's really about being open and welcoming to anybody that wants to participate. I think we have a open and welcoming city as it exists. I see lots of people engaging in the city in a variety of ways, whether that's at parks or downtown events, etc. So, I think right now we're doing a pretty good job as it stands. Thank you. Candidate Nicoletti for one minute. I do know that the city does focus on that, and they're very conscientious about human rights and civil rights, and they focus on being welcoming and inclusive. But there are times where that doesn't always happen. The ball gets dropped and people don't feel like their rights are noticed or recognized. So, I think keeping that in the back of our mind that that is a critical piece, especially if someone is serving on city council, that we keep that as a focal point in the decisions we make. And anything that we do as far as programming services in the way we treat our community. Thank you. Thank you. Candidate McCoy for one minute. I teach a U.S. government at Monarch High School in Louisville, Colorado. And one of the assignments I assigned my students to is to do a thing called Project Citizen, where they attend a city council meeting and then report back. These communities have, was it superior in Louisville, have human rights commissions. They also have cultural commissions. And I think that's one way to make sure that we are addressing that. We have a human housing and human services commission, and maybe that actually meets that, so that we are actually addressing issues as they come up. I know that the reason why we have El Comité in our community is because we didn't always adhere to that. And we've had this strong Latino presence in Longmont through El Comité because we now understand the value of that. So, I think we continue to support that. And I think communication is the key here. Thank you. Thank you. For our next question, we'll start with candidate Nicoletti for one minute. Businesses are still suffering from the impacts of COVID, inflation, supply chain issues, etc. How might you work as a council member to help address these needs? That's an excellent question. And it's come up a lot when I've been out canvassing. I know one of the critical things to do is really to encourage our community to shop local. As she said, a lot of the businesses have been hit hard, and they still are suffering the ramifications from COVID. Supplies are more expensive. A lot of times rent now is more expensive just to run and pay employee fees. So, keeping our money local is critical. And the business community working together so that they can cross promote each other. I was in an event recently where I witnessed that, you know, an event was at one business and the business was cross promoting another business. So our local businesses are critical to the health of our community. Thank you. Candidate McCoy for one minute. So I think that, you know, shopping local is really important. And I think that our small businesses are the backbone of our community. I think they do more for our community than anything else because they bank with us, they buy some of their supplies locally. And so they're really critical to making sure that they're supported. We have city services that actually help this in our city departments. And I think that if we're looking to help make sure that they have the tools for the future, then we have to also hope that we can work with our community college to help make sure that we have the employee base that they need. And so those are the sort of things that we can do. We can have job fairs to help support the community and so that people can find that connection between employer and employee. Thank you. Thank you. Candidate Hodges for one minute. So during this campaign, I've spoken with many businesses and owners, owners and managers. And an overwhelming response I'm getting is they're feeling neglected by the city and they're feeling neglected through a number of ways. So the city is not dealing with vagrancy. They feel they're singled out for code violations. And if I'm fortunate enough to be elected, I want to be the council member that is an advocate for our businesses. They're just they're not being treated well. I heard a story two nights ago, chair being thrown through a window of our local business, and that the person that did that was never arrested. They just want a better partnership with the city. They need red tape removed so that they can expand businesses and provide jobs and stop being neglected in targets of unnecessary targets of code enforcement. Thank you. For the next question, we'll start with candidate McCoy. This is in regards to the Clover Creek neighborhood. This question was submitted by someone in the community. I'll read it in the voice of the questioner. So if I say we are our keep in mind, it's a constituent. Our Clover Creek neighborhood group is concerned about the city of Longmont cooperating with Boulder County to terminate inherently perpetual conservation easements. They are currently attempting to terminate the Canemoto Conservation easement adjacent to Clover Creek on the south side. They want to sell the property to a developer for a 358 unit housing development. We do not want this new development causing disruption to our neighborhood and surrounding area with increased traffic, utility construction and overloading the school system. We would especially like to know your position on whether local municipalities have any right to terminate conservation easements that were established as landed treasures in perpetuity. They'll start with 90 seconds for this one. Well, I wrote the Boulder County planning department and I got a response back on this issue trying to address probably maybe this particular individual's question. And they said that this was prompted by the partially by the city of Longmont. And this kind of is one of these near knee jerk responses by the current council to address this idea that if they build it, they will come and that they can build their way out of these problems like this. And they didn't just do it here, they did it also. This happened in 2018. They also changed the bond farm zoning from what was kind of medium density, mixed use density to a higher density. And they can't handle the traffic in that area on Spencer. And out there on Airport Road, we do not need to have developments that do not have any services around them. So you have 358 different units with maybe two cars leaving each one of those having to go somewhere to get any services, whether it be recreation, whether it be restaurants or bars or just to get food at the grocery store, it's not going to be a positive thing. And I think that we have to be very selective and very targeted with our development. And right now, I think if we're going to do any sort of high density, it has to be purchasable units. And I don't think that's where these developers are wanting to go. Development has to pay its way. And our main focus here is the clientele of Longmont, who is currently here. Thank you. Thank you. Candidate Hodges, 90 seconds. So there may be a legal leg for the county to stand on. I don't know, but what they certainly don't have is a moral leg to stand on this county or the city. It's really outrageous what is happening with that Kanamoto conservation easement. It was established in 1982. Everybody that bought houses in the area expected that they were told it would never be built on. And to have the county dishonestly but cleverly insert these clauses into these contracts so that they can someday weasel out of them and then do what they want with them in the cooperation with the city who can annex that property and then zone it however they wish is really is changing the rules midstream. We buy houses based on a certain set of parameters that we understand to be true. That can include all kinds of things shopping center access park access and certainly a green space conservation easements. And I would absolutely oppose this if I'm fortunate enough to be elected I would vote against the annexation of this property. And I would oppose any termination of any conservation easement on the borders of Longmont and to preserve to preserve our land as we thought they as we thought was being done when these conservation easements were being established. Thank you. Thank you. Candidate Nicoletti 90 seconds. When I'm out canvassing one of the top concerns that comes up is the amount of development that's going on traffic and resources. So this calls right in line with that. I think that the kind amount of conservative easement should stay in its original intention. I would not support letting that be dissolved. I just don't think that's right. The property is a commercial property. And as mentioned that area has so much traffic already. It's very concerning. I know our community is concerned about the traffic flow the amount of space and then of course the possibility of losing that easement. The other thing that has come up recently is the talk of you know especially in certain circles you know developing some open space. So I think we need to support open space easements that were put in place and also do smart development and consider the resources that are going to be needed such as water in these developments going forward. Thank you. Thank you. For our next question we'll start with candidate Hodges. The city of Longmont participates in many regional government collaboratives including for affordable housing planning. How would you support staff in achieving more housing options for low income community members? You have one minute. Affordable housing. I know there's different terms or different names of this. I'll just consider it all in one thing one one category. Longmont does not exist in a bubble. Anything we could do in our city to make housing affordable would immediately make it attractive to people seeking housing in surrounding areas. We're easy commuting distance to probably at least a half dozen cities probably closer to a dozen different work centers around. I don't think affordable housing is is possible in the broad-based way that it is discussed. Doesn't mean that I'm opposed trying but I'm very dubious of really being able to solve it. It's bumper stick or politics. It sounds good. Everybody loves affordable housing. The cheaper your housing is the more disposable income you have but just put to solve it in a really comprehensive way that is perpetual and long-lasting I think is not too realistic. Thank you. Candidate Nicoletti. 60 seconds or one minute. Affordable housing is is a top of my list and really doesn't exist and it's keeping people from you know entry-level housing and also it's critical to our essential workers that they can live here where they work. There is a proposition that's going to be on the ballot on November 8th. It's proposition one two three and it's adding additional funding for affordable housing from existing taxes that already are being paid to the sum of about 270 million a year but right now we really don't have any entry-level housing which is critical and as I said it's it's forcing essential workers out and it's not attractive to our community and if you're renting and you're paying $1,800 a month for one bedroom how are you going to save to transition into permanent housing? Thank you. Candidate McCoy for one minute. All right. Our current affordable housing goal is 12% by 2035. I would propose that we need to increase that to about 15%. The reason being is that there was a time there that we had an affordable housing process and then it was scrapped in around 2009 and so we need to have to build that inventory of housing back up for our critical employees and also we need to address things like proposition one two three trying to make sure that our community has ways of approaching and trying to fix this but again we're not going to be able to build our way out of this. We're going to need to work with realtors developers and community stakeholders to make sure that our community has what it needs for essential workers. Thank you. Thank you. For the next question we'll begin with candidate Nicoletti. Given the increasing dialogue about unhoused people in public spaces what solutions do you have for how the city should address the situation? We'll do 90 seconds for this one. Thank you. I think changing the narrative around our unhoused community and really focusing on housing first. You know I think we do the city does a great job providing services. We have a lot of nonprofits that work together such as HOPE and they provide a lot of great services. We do not have any overnight shelters right now so doing housing first is critical. We also have vouchers out there right now for the unhoused to transition into permanent housing but there's about 20 vouchers and that are they cannot be used because there's no inventory for those vouchers. The other thing that happens when rent goes up by $100 it increases the homeless by 9% and the main reason for homeless really is economic situations. Over the last year I've had the opportunity to work on a team and we are working on solutions for our unhoused community that do involve more permanent housing. Taking housing first is our top priority. Thank you. Thank you. Candidate McCoy for 90 seconds. All right. Well I think first we have to treat our homeless community with respect and dignity. I think that's really these are humans and we need to not refer to them in regulatory terms. I also feel that we need to address housing first. That's what has been a proven program out there. I think we need to again work with the nonprofits and we need to consider maybe implementing some sort of temporary housing or shelter service and I suggest maybe doing that down at the blighted property of Nelson and Hoover where the old Walmart was. We need to do something and work in conjunction with the city of Boulder like we did with their shelter and try to make things so that we find out who needs what. Right now they're doing day shelter services with the Boulder shelter and that's how you find out if people have mental illnesses or addiction illnesses or illnesses, some other situation or are they just unhoused? They've fallen in hard times and they need some help. We need to make sure that we consider that people are inherently trying to always better themselves and sometimes they need a little help once in a while. I think we need to be sensitive to that and I also think that we should try some jump drive sort of or drive systems where we help store people's information so that if it gets lost we can help them recover. Thank you. Candidate Hodges, 90 seconds. A complicated issue, a difficult nut to crack. The city of Longmont publishes this pamphlet right here, resources for people experiencing homelessness. Anybody can download it. It's filled with short term sheltering options for a wide variety of different categories of people, single men, youth, women and children, etc. So good people can argue we need more but equally morally and good people can say we have enough right now. There's not an objectively correct answer in that regard. Another truth is there's not a static number of people that are willing to live on the streets. There's an infinite number of people that are willing to do it given the right incentive options which could be decriminalizing drugs, not prosecuting shoplifting, etc. Housing first is mentioned. That would be a disaster. If you look at Seattle as an example you can see what's going on there. That just expands the incentive package to attract people that end up living on the street. That city and others like at Denver, San Francisco, Portland are all experiencing massive increases in their homeless and they've been throwing money at it for a long time. We're not going to do this with expanding services. Thank you. For the next question we'll start with candidate McCoy. While in office as mayor should officials come forth with endorsements of candidates for council positions while stating it is a free speech right? You have one minute. Well I know that our mayor has done that and I haven't seen that since Brian Baum was mayor and I kind of feel that that sometimes creates a problem where people are now going to have to maybe work with somebody that they didn't endorse and I think that's just kind of tacky and bad policy and I think it is a reflection on an individual who chooses to do that in the poorest of light. I think that we want to be open and transparent and you do have the right to do that but it doesn't mean that it's a very class act to do that. So that's just my opinion and I wouldn't do that while I served on council. Thank you. Candidate Hodges for one minute. I don't care if the mayor endorses a candidate or doesn't endorse a candidate. It's not clear that it's an advantage either way. So if people don't like the mayor whoever that is and they endorse a candidate is that going to help that candidate and then the opposite is true. So I don't see it as some inherent advantage or disadvantage on that regard and so yeah whatever. I wouldn't not oppose putting any kind of policy in place that prevents it. If I got on city council I don't know. I mean I might want to endorse somebody or I might not. I tend to think I wouldn't do it but I would leave that up to the individual and whatever they feel is right for them and in that moment. Thank you. Candidate Nicoletti for one minute. That's a good question. I know over many years mayors have endorsed candidates that actually could work for or against the candidate depending on how the community feels about the mayor. It's really a non-issue and it is a freedom of speech and I've seen it happen in different cities. So it's really up to the mayor if they feel like they want to support somebody and how that's interpreted is up to the person that does interpret it but it is done quite often. Thank you. Okay thank you for the next question. We'll start with candidate Hodges. Following elections should newly elected council members immediately move to change meeting times to reduce contact with the public? You have one minute. I'm sorry can you repeat that question? I'm not quite sure I understand the gist of it. Yes. Following elections should newly elected council members immediately move to change meeting times to reduce contact with the public? If the question is about the city council meetings or I'm not sure what meeting times they would be they want reduced and why to reduce it. So I'm going to answer no to that question mostly because I guess I don't quite understand it but I'll follow it up with the question that I think we can really talk about and that's the time it takes to be a council member and participate in and all the advisory boards and such and my understanding is years ago there wasn't the requirement to serve on all the boards. It's a great idea. It makes sense but it does have a perverse effect of limiting the people that are willing to run for city council because of the amount of time that is required. So I would have discussions on this in in the more broader general way as far as those that goes but I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Candidate Nicoletti. At the start of this council year I remember there was a reduction of council meetings that began I think someone brought it up so instead of the council meeting four times a month now they meet three and I do know council meetings are extremely long and that the city council itself does have other meetings they do in conjunction with the regular council meetings so it seems like it's still been pretty effective. I don't know if that's happened in other cities. Unfortunately it does seem that city council meetings in general are poorly attended and I think it would be great if they did have better attendance whether in person or virtual. So as you mentioned I do believe at the start of this year we went to three meetings a month. Thank you. Thank you. Candidate McCoy. When I first got on council in 2007 the previous mayor had decided to and council had decided to go and take away public invited to be heard at the end of the council meetings and we brought that back because it's so important to hear from the public. I did attend those boards and commission meetings I did attend my council meetings and I did go to a coffee with council it's part of the job you need to know what you're getting into. Eric Doring had to resign because he had started missing council meetings he's a previous council member years ago and we have a caveat in the charter that says you have to be present there and so he had to resign. I think this was a convenient move for people that didn't understand what the job entailed and I think that I'm seeing the result of this in issues around Clover Base, Clover Creek and other things like that because they're doing it too fast and too furious. Thank you. Thank you. This will be the last question for the evening before closing statements. We'll begin with candidate Nicoletti. Do you support reinstating grip or gang response intervention program with the rise of gang related violence? Why or why not? You have one minute. I know gang violence has been on the uptick and it's been a huge concern for the community especially as we continue to grow and anything that supports better management of gang violence is I'm in favor of I know that the police force recently hired on additional 22 officers we've been down for quite a while and so those officers will go through training and I think that will help in combating some of the situations that have been occurring but the gang violence is very disturbing and disruptive to our community. I think it's imperative that our community feels safe and children feel safe going to school and being in public places so that's a top priority. Thank you. Thank you. Candidate McCoy for one minute. I think that with the bringing on of new peace officers in our community you'll have that more that term is constable on patrol that communicating with the the public people get a better idea of that there's actually a presence there and I think that will actually help the community quite a bit and I feel that that if we go ahead and you know pay attention to things like next door and park bench we hear about all this this issues around safety we'll have to you know cross that bridge and get you know community members to work in conjunction with our police to make sure that our community is a safer place so I think that gang violence is serious but I think that we also need to make sure that we are communicating with our community about you know what is the real root and issues going on in certain areas of the community. Thank you. Candidate Hodges for one minute. I would support reinstituting that program and I would support it because of the problems that we're having. The crime is up in cross Colorado. I'm happy we've hired officers. I would like to push to make Longmont the city that police officers and other surrounding communities want to move to. They lost qualified immunity from the state. A bold idea might be for the city of Longmont to step in and provide that umbrella coverage for our peace officers so they understand that the city has their back and supports them right now. They operate in fear of being sued and they are tending to avoid some situations that might be problematic and we just really need to make sure that we support them because it's such a core function of our city we can't let it lapse. Thank you and now for closing statements we'll begin with candidate McCoy. You have one minute. Thank you again. League of Women Voters of Boulder County for hosting this forum. Experience and integrity as well as compassion matters when you're representing a fantastic community like Longmont. I've said at the beginning of this forum tonight how I serve this community on multiple boards and commissions for the course of 18 years prior to serving on Longmont City Council and how during those four years I served on Council I was liaison to eight different boards and commissions and yes I actually attended those meetings and how I worked hard to educate myself about other communities and how they solved many of the same problems we had and have here throughout the through the National League of Cities professional development courses and I've also educated myself with after council working with the working families party to learn more about how I can be more supportive of minorities and women's causes. I'm running for City Council because I believe in Longmont and I just want you to know that I'm here for you. My email is McCoyforLongmont.com. I mean my website. Thank you. Thank you. Candidate Hodges for one minute. Thanks again for this forum. Anybody who's paid any attention to the three candidates running for the seat will understand clearly that I'm bringing a different voice to the the race and generally to council as it exists. So I don't claim to be objectively correct on my positions. What I do claim is that this different voice I'm bringing will make the process work better. If everybody is on council is around the same point of discussion good solutions won't won't come about. We get good solutions when there's a wide diversity of opinions and coming at difficult problems from different angles and the process will work better if I'm elected than somebody that's going to be more in line with the current council. So I encourage people to vote for me and you can go to my website HodgesNumeralForCouncil.com that's HodgesForCouncil.com. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you. Candidate Nicoletti for one minute. I want to thank the League of Women Voters for hosting this evening. If I'm elected I'll bring a variety of skills to the current city council having worked with cities across the country as when I was managing a national event I have skill sets that can bring negotiating, compromising, working as a team to solve solutions. I feel like I'm fair, ethical and focused and I stay on course. So I would bring skills also with my background in climate resiliency and the teams I've worked on whether it's in the unhoused or obtainable housing and working with local businesses. I would appreciate your vote. You can go to my website which is mitzeforlawmont.com. Feel free to leave any comments or concerns and I look forward to the possibility of being elected to council. Thank you so much. Thank you. On behalf of the League I would like to thank our candidates not only for their participation in tonight's forum but also for their participation in the democratic process. Running for office and serving as an elected official is hard work and we really appreciate your efforts. Thank you to our League candidate forum volunteers and especially to Longmont public media for co-hosting this forum and a huge thank you goes to our 2022 election sponsors, Big Red F Restaurant Group, Christina's Luxuries, Elevation's Credit Union, High Plains Bank, Lyon Gaddis Attorneys at Law and Simmons Family Fund. To view this forum please go to the League's website at LWVBC.org for the link. And finally thank you to the Longmont voters participating tonight as viewers. It's up to all of us to make sure we respect and work to protect our democratic processes. Too many people have struggled to win these rights for us not to use them. It starts with being an informed and active voter. The League of Women Voters of Boulder County works through the year to empower voters and defend democracy. If you would like to lend your time and skills to encourage civic engagement for all people in a nonpartisan manner please join us. All of the information that you need is available at www.LWVBC.org. Thank you everyone. Have a great evening.