 Thank you very much for coming. We're going to start with a quick opening statement about what we have going tonight, and then we'll get right into it. We want to respect our candidates' time, the media, and everybody that's kind of helped us with this and the school. Thank you. Good evening. Welcome to the Unified Parent Teacher Organization, PTO, Mayoral Forum. Thank you all for joining us here at Hunt Middle School and online with a live stream from CCTV. My name is Erin Malone, and I'm the parent of a first grader at the Sustainability Academy. And I'm joined by Buddy Singh, a parent of a third grader at Champlain Elementary. This fall, PTO leaders from all six elementary schools convened for the first time in many years, spurred by the outsized impact of the drug crisis and the housing crisis on our school communities. By coming together, we learned that on our walks to schools, children, caregivers, children and caregivers are seeing needles, open drug use, open drug deals, and community members suffering from addiction and homelessness. We also discovered that school communities are being asked to support children and families with needs ranging from access to food, shelter, and clothing, as well as new mental health challenges and dysregulated behavior in the classroom. We shared stories of how our teachers, staff, and school leaders are working tirelessly to lessen the impacts of the pandemic amidst shrinking budgets. Schools are more than just buildings and curriculums, they're vibrant communities, and every day, there's moments of joy, connection, and learning. Tonight, we'll hear from our two mayoral candidates, Representative Emma Mulvaney-Stanik, who is running as a Progressive Party nominee and city counselor Joan Shannon, who is running as a Democratic Party nominee. Thanks, everyone, to ensure that tonight's discussion included as many voices as possible. We asked families, caregivers, staff, teachers, students, administrators, from our schools, to sending questions. We received over 70 responses. While we don't have time for each and every question, we hope to share the complete list with our school communities, school board, and both the candidates so they can all, everyone can understand what is on the minds of Burlington residents. Overwhelmingly, your questions were organized around the themes of behavioral issues in schools, housing affordability, and public safety. So for the next 60 minutes or so, we're gonna delve into these topics. Here's how tonight's gonna work. Emma and Joan will take turns answering each question. By coin toss, Joan will start with the opening statement, and they'll have two minutes to answer each question with a one-minute follow-up. I'd like to welcome Joan Shannon to open our discussion. Thank you, with an opening statement. Well, thank you, and thank you to the PTO for organizing this great event and organizing with each other. Thanks to everybody who's come out tonight. This is big crowd. Congratulations to all of you. My name is Joan Shannon, and I am running for mayor. I've been a city counselor for 20 years, and I know how to navigate city government, and I am in an excellent position to understand how to address our problems that we face now, or at least how to navigate and create the processes that we need to find solutions. I came here in 1985, I was a college student, and really was just spending the summer here. My sister set me up with a summer sublet, and I was supposed to go back to Pennsylvania and get my degree, but I fell in love with Burlington, I fell in love with the lake, and I fell in love with Burlingtonians, and I was a government major, and while I was in Burlington, that early time I was in Burlington, Bernie Sanders came and knocked on my door. This was entirely new to me. I had never been in a place where politicians knock on your door, and Bernie says, oh, I just wanna know how I was going, and I was dumbfounded. I didn't know what to say. That was the last time a politician knocked on my door, and I didn't know what to say, but I really appreciated that level of engagement that we are well known for and expect in Burlington. In 1995, I had just gotten married, moved to the Lakeside neighborhood with my husband Ken, who's an electrical engineer, former IBM employee, and in 2002, we welcomed our daughter Julia, and with Julia in my arms in 2002, I was trying to recruit people to run for city council, and in the process, somebody recruited me, and they succeeded, and I failed. I didn't think that was possible because I had the baby in my arms when they were asking me, and I said, I cannot serve, and they said, we'll babysit, and I had already run out of excuses, so I guess it was meant to be. My approach to governance is really one of pragmatism. I'm not an ideologue, I really want government to function for people, and I have been tested over the course of time. I faced many issues back when representative Mulvaney Stanek and I were on the city council together. We faced Burlington Telecom. More recently, we have faced some difficult issues, and I have stood the test of time, and I've stood against strong political wins, and I have always had the best interest of Burlington in mind, and I think those of us who serve do, but sometimes it's hard to navigate what's right, so that's why I'm running, and I would like, I think Burlington can do better, and I'd like to be part of that solution, thank you. Thanks Joan, great Bernie imitation. Emma, be great to hear your opening statement. Okay, thank you, and thank you to the organizers of this forum. As a parent, I know how hard it has come out, and so I really appreciate all the parents and caregivers here tonight, and all it took to get here with your kids this evening and dinner and bedtime. My name is state representative Emma Mulvaney Stanek. I'm a mom of an eight-year-old who attends Sustainability Academy in the Old North End and a four-year-old who attends preschool in the same area in the Old North End. I'm a longtime Old North End resident. I'm a state legislator and a small business owner. I love Burlington. I love it because it's vibrant and strong. It's beautiful. People lean in here and engage in this beautiful city, and that's what attracted to me while growing up in Berry City to locate here after college. I'm running for mayor because I have a growing concern about the health in our city in the recent years. There's been this unraveling of our sense of community right when we need strong community at the most to face the challenges in our city. I'm running because we need better collaborative leadership in the city that values working together, values compromise, and taking action. Many people are fearful right now, and many people are unsafe and suffering in our streets, and people are anxious for the city to take action. I feel those same feelings when raising young kids and trying to explain to them why there are people living in tents in Battery Park near where we live. In this election, we need to ask what skills we need from our next mayor, what experience and what perspective is needed to meet the state-level challenges that are showing up in our streets. We need someone who understands how to build successful local and state-level policy. We need someone with experience of developing long-term solutions that get to the root causes, not just easy short-term fixes that won't work in the long run. We need someone with the skill of organizing people to come together and work. We need someone who leads with honesty and humility about not having all of the answers as just one person but knows how to lead people together. I am a former labor and community organizer skilled in building relationships and taking action. I listen. I have owned my policy work as an elected leader first on the Burlington City Council and now as a state legislator. I use collaboration. I compromise and I problem solve. I want a healthy, vibrant and safe Burlington for my kids, for your kids and everyone in this city. I want a city my kids can be proud of because our community takes care of people and we work consciously to create a city that is an inclusive place where people feel safe regardless of their identity or economic status. I also want a city where my kids see their neighbors and community leaders encouraging each other to lean in to solve the tough challenges together because this is ultimately what builds a safe community. Thank you. Thanks, Emma. I appreciate it. The first topic that we're going to discuss is the behavior issues in the schools. I'm going to start with just a small paragraph that was submitted with the question from my parent from our community and then I'll ask the question to Emma and then Joan. Our family includes two elementary school learners. We have noticed a big change over the past couple of years and the type of stories our kids come home from school with. Most of these have to do with worrisome behaviors and situation for kids. Examples include angry, sometimes violent upbursts from kids, major struggles to stay regulated, repeated vandalism and attempts at elopements when kids try to leave school. Our kids are experiencing clear the halls disruptions while these situations are occurring. It's becoming clear to us the kids are suffering and that schools are scrambling to stay responsive, restorative and safe. To you, Emma, we would ask, how do you plan to support teachers, administrators and families who are dealing with increased burdens of student trauma related to racism, poverty and homelessness in particular addiction? Thank you. Well, I'm right side by side with you right now. As I mentioned, I have a third grader at Sustainability Academy and a four-year-old who will head into the public schools really soon. And I've spent most of my career supporting public education and the people who make schools work. As I mentioned, I was a labor organizer for over a decade supporting support staff and public teachers all up and down the state. I have a deep respect for public education and the role that the public schools and the staff and the families and the caregivers and the leaders do in our every day in our schools. Because how we handle schools and how we handle education and their learning environment is fundamental for how our communities will be in the future. My oldest child started kindergarten in the darkest time of 2020. I was her first day kindergarten teacher. We have not known a normalcy of schools until literally this year. This is the first time we've been able to be in the school and know what regular programs are. And we are a pretty economically privileged family compared to a lot of my eight-year-old classmates. That's four years of families and students and staff in the trenches of struggling with coming out of this pandemic. That's almost like a new normal of how to navigate the trauma of a pandemic, the behavioral issues, the loss of learning, the challenges frankly of just even knowing what is the right approach. And I will say as a parent of an essay kid who's destined to come here to Hunt Middle School, I've heard the stories and I'm deeply, I send a lot of solidarity and love to those of you who have students here at Hunt Middle School. It has sounded really rough. And our schools are a microcosm of the realities in our community where racism exists. I receive the same superintendent updates that probably many of you do, where Islamophobia and anti-semitism is showing up in our halls. And we have to understand that divisiveness on a city level, it permeates out throughout the entire community. So we need leadership that sets a different tone that partners actively with the schools and really partners in ways that provide resources and support for these families and staff who've been really in it for the last several years. Thank you. Joan, same question. Thank you. First I just want to say I have such gratitude for the teachers that my daughter has had. I am a parent of a single child and when I brought her to school and saw teachers that are managing entire classrooms when it was all I could do to manage the one, really I am impressed with what you do all day long. And the other thing that happened when we first went to school is I found out that there was finally accessible mental health care through our guidance program in the Burlington schools. And it made such a difference. And I know my sister had a child of similar age in New York City and she was being bullied. And in Burlington, the guidance program really taught the kids how to deal with bullying before they were being bullied, how to recognize it, what to do. And my daughter and her classmates had tools that my sister's daughter unfortunately didn't have when she was really being victimized. So I'm very grateful for all that the Burlington schools do for our kids. And I think I have also heard about the behavior issues in schools that have been continually escalating and particularly post pandemic. It is evidence as to what the ills are in our community, mental health care, substance use disorder, homelessness. And we need state systems to address these problems. My own experience with our mental health care system is that we call it a system, but in fact it's a patchwork of services. I know how difficult it is to access the mental health care that we need. And I've had the experience of trying to get somebody into the lockdown facility at UVMMC and being rejected time after time for various reasons. And when my loved one was finally able to get there during the pandemic and spent two weeks there, I was their only visitor for two weeks. They were able to get the help that they needed and they've been fine since, but accessing that is so profoundly difficult. I think we have to partner. We need to partner with other cities throughout Vermont to get the changes that we need statewide. The social safety net is provided by the state. And I am happy to be a partner to the schools, to advocate in any way that I can in terms of getting resources into the schools. The city used to actually provide more resources in the schools and the state education department told us we were not allowed to. One more second, just if you could. Thank you, I gotta look at that. But they weren't allowed to and we had to pull back. So to the extent that we, I will do whatever we can. Thank you so much, you wanna follow up? Yeah, first to follow up, Emma, I appreciate you sharing a bit about your professional background and absolutely your intimate knowledge as the parent of a young child. But can you talk more specifically about how in the mayor's office, you'll set the tone in the city that will trickle out into the schools? So when I started on city council and now serving in the state house, I've experienced a collaborative approach to solving big challenges. And counselor Shannon mentioned Burlington Telecom. She spent many, many hours way until 2 a.m. trying to solve that big challenge. And every day in the state house when I go and represent Burlington, I really appreciate that I can collaborate with folks from all different political backgrounds without finger pointing or name calling or allowing the kind of the tone and tenure to tenor of the conversation to go to a negative space because we collectively are really truly in this all together. And back here in Burlington, we need this most right now. We truly do in terms of tackling the challenges because if the city can't lead on city level challenges, we can't be an adequate partner to schools. And there's a lot to be done around intervention and prevention work with families and young people related to gun violence, for example, prevention and support work around mental health care. And then thinking even proactively around the programming or lack thereof of adolescents in our community. We no longer have 242, for example, places for kids to meaningfully engage with their community, hopefully find careers and pathways and explorations into what they want to do with their lives and know that connecting to community is a valuable thing to do. And the city needs to be well positioned to be that active and creative and innovative partner with our schools. Thank you. I'll follow up with you, Joan. We're facing a almost 14% increase in the school budget and much of what Tom planned again, our superintendent had to cut, was more social service, social workers, special educators, those type of supports. So what resources can the city at this moment give the schools today immediately to kind of address these problems? This has been a real problem, just as I was getting cut off, this has been a real problem for us because, well, first of all, it all comes out of the same pot. Well, not completely true because the education fund is separate and there's a firewall between the education fund and the municipal fund. 70% of the property taxes we pay go to the education fund. And when we have tried to give more direct support because of Act 60, we haven't been allowed to give that direct support. So I think that the way the city can help is probably more outside the school than inside the school. It's also the area where inside the schools, to be honest, we have an elected school board and we have professionals inside the school that are probably better able to speak to what is needed inside the schools. But I think it's really important that we do what we can to make sure that everybody is safe and getting what they need outside the schools because I think that what's really happening is they're bringing what's happening outside the schools into the schools. Those are the behavior problems that you're seeing in the schools. And so families need a safe place to live. Kids can't come to school and feel safe and supported. Oh, there it is again. You're not in my old line of sight. Thank you. This question will go to Joan first. Our entire city is experiencing pain. We see it manifest in the district through behaviors of children. What are you going to do to make Burlington a less violent community? I think that there's a few things. One is we have advocated for gun control in Burlington. We sent three charter changes to the legislature that we haven't been able to get to pass. There have been some other gun control measures that have passed. There is a lot of violence that is related to the mental health substance use that we have in our community, particularly gun violence and drug dealing often go hand in hand. I think that we do have to send a message that this is not a community where we are so permissive and we're going to look the other way when these things happen. We have, you know, we had an incident with a house that was well known to everybody that they were dealing drugs there on a regular basis and the approach was to address that through code violations. But in my opinion, the issue isn't so much code violations in a house that is dealing drugs and there have been repeat problems with this property owner. I don't think people should be allowed to continue to own a property where you continue to have this kind of behavior and you have drug dealers in the property. We saw in Rutland three properties were taken, you know, reclaimed and turned into supportive housing. So I think that we need to address people's needs in the community. We need more housing in total. We need more supportive housing. We need more affordable housing and there's a lot of things that the city is doing to address those needs. We need a mental health care system. We need to work with partners in the state. And yeah, I think it's really the controls outside. I think that our community spaces need to be safe. We need to address all of the things that our kids are experiencing in the community. Thank you, June. Emma, the same question to you. Thank you. Well, it's starting first with long-term solutions. I have been an advocate for gun reform on the state level. I introduced H98 this earlier last year, which included the old charter change that's been sitting in the legislature for the last eight years that Burlington passed. I think that's an example of getting it to the root causes of what causes violence in our communities. We have, those laws are too loose and they've been too loose for a long time. We also have to think about violence prevention and intervention I mentioned briefly before, because we have to be thinking upstream and not just in a reactionary mode to what's showing up on our streets today. And that goes again back to families and youth and thinking about where are we failing young people, where that seems like the only option or there's curiosity because there is no other option for what those young folks are doing. We also have to address the failing systems that my colleague mentioned because we have missed so many unhoused people on the streets who are struggling to survive and to meet their basic needs. And when that happens, people become desperate and desperate people will do behaviors they wouldn't normally do if they actually had their basic needs met. So those are big, again, state-level challenges that are showing up in our streets. It's not fair for Burlington to be the only ones trying to solve those really complex issues and we need to partner with the legislature and the governor to really solve those core fundamental root causes of violence and suffering in our communities. Just briefly in terms of short-term solutions, we do need a community safety response system that responds, period, and full stop. We need everyone in the city to feel safe and be safe and that requires police as part of that response but we need to use them strategically and especially when there's issues of violence or threat of violence. And I hope we get into this further, I'm sure we will. We need a much more diverse response in community safety because it's much larger than one entity and we need to have a response that doesn't create more harm in our communities and understands the history of harm that members of our community, some members, have experienced at the hands of police. We can do all of this. We can think innovatively and center people, especially those suffering most in our streets with a smart community safety response. Sure. Joan, can you talk, please be more specific about how if elected mayor, you'll send the message that violence is not acceptable in this community? I think that what we see there's, the violence is connected to other things so it isn't really just violence is not acceptable. It's really that open drug use, open drug dealing, these kind of behaviors are not acceptable in our community. And I do think that when we are now seeing these things and in the name of kindness, we're being permissive about things that I don't think we should be. I think that people should be held accountable. I think that people should be arrested for openly using and openly dealing in our community. This is our community living room and we need to have boundaries. We have those boundaries in our homes and we have those boundaries in our public spaces, on our streets, in our parks. And I am not saying that people need to be incarcerated for long periods of time. By no stretch is that what I believe. I believe that this can, that kind of intervention can be the pathway to getting help, but it can't continue to be tolerated. And I, actually my office right now is just down the block from Burlington High School and I see the same things that our high school students see and I think we need intervention and appropriate responses to help, to get people help. And I'll follow up with you Emma. You know, in my research for this, you know, I did speak to people in law enforcement. The response time, you know, I've heard a dispatcher say, you know, it's not that I don't want to send somebody. I don't have someone to send. So I understand, I would love to hear what your solution is to kind of get the response time to where people would feel that it's appropriate and you know, safer in the community. So police departments across Vermont and across the country are really struggling with hiring enough staff. And I'll tell you as a former labor organizer, the reasons why people do not want to work somewhere or stay somewhere often has to do with culture. It also has to do with working conditions as well as just the conditions of perhaps even the larger community. So we have to reestablish trust so that we have a police department that works for this community that's right-sized and where we are strategically using the police where their expertise and professional know-how are best utilized and needed. And so that comes from leadership but it also comes from making sure we're understanding the trends in the workforce in general because it's not Burlington alone that's experiencing this. In terms of response times, I think we need a more transparent process. I don't know about all of you but I'm confused about who I call when there's a quality of life check for someone who might be suffering on the street. And I know that an armed police officer is the wrong response. Or as a member of the queer community, I don't feel safe calling the police because my family might have experienced a negative experience with police before. And so I wanna make sure that's more transparent for folks in our community to know who to call. And if that's through dispatch, okay. But we need to make sure that we're resourcing the different parts of community safety so that we're sending enough social workers or enough mental health crisis professionals and getting programs like the Burlington CARES project up and started and functioning so that we have a comprehensive support system that is able to respond timely and to every call when someone calls for help. Thank you so much Emma. Just a reminder, this is the Unified PTO Progressive Party candidate Emma Melfini-Sanek and Democratic candidate Jones-Hannon at Hunt Middle School for the mayoral forum. I'm gonna hand it over to Erin. Awesome. Okay, so next we're gonna talk about housing affordability. I'm just gonna give a little background and then I'll ask a question. Emma, you'll answer first and then Joan. We often talk about, or we talk about affordable housing all the time, but housing affordability has specific implications for our schools. Housing issues disrupt families, classrooms, schools and neighborhoods. So my question is, what is your housing plan and how will it bring stability to Burlington families and children? Thank you, such a critical question for the entire state for that matter. Residents of every income level should be able to live and thrive here in Burlington. Economic diversity is an incredibly important part of a healthy city and we must maintain and protect that. And housing is a critical component of that. My wife and I would struggle to buy our house right now on the old North End on a very small postage stamp piece a lot. If we were buying it right now at it's currently appraised level and that's with two decent incomes on Vermont standards. Plus the crushing cost of childcare. I don't know how we frankly would make it. And I take a deep breath every time I open the property tax bill and it's not because I don't wanna support local government in my schools, I deeply want to, but I'm worried about getting priced out of Burlington, even personally. And my kids have classmates who struggle much more their households being able to open those property tax bills or those rent bills on a monthly basis. So those, when people cannot meet their basic needs and that stress of the household meeting those basic needs in the household show up, that shows up directly in the classrooms as we were talking about before and impacts students' ability to learn and engage with their peers and behave in a way that actually builds the school community. So a couple of quick examples of actions I would take as the next mayor would be first using our ordinances and improving upon them to address the housing emergency. This ranges from creating new and perpetually affordable housing throughout the city, protecting renters and requiring large landlords to do the right thing, which includes having livable apartments and housing for folks because it is very difficult for folks with the power imbalance between landlord and tenant to be able to self-advocate for better housing when there is literally nowhere else to move. Second quick thing is building more housing that is affordable throughout the city for all income levels. I think we have to overlap our climate goals and our workforce needs when we think about that. And that is a critical part for attracting folks to be able to take jobs here in Burlington, but also to stay here. And that's a range from looking at how we build our residential tax system versus commercial tax system and thinking really, again, innovatively around the structures of our budget and how we raise money. I think it's long overdue for us to do that analysis in the city to truly make it affordable. Thanks. John. Thank you. As I've said before, we need more supervised housing. We need more supportive housing. We need more affordable housing. We need more market rate housing. My housing policy is what I have called a hybrid housing first treatment first model. And that, some people have questioned me. It's like, well, is it housing first or is it treatment first? That really came out of talking to low income housing providers. And what I have been told by these folks is that housing first is really what works for most people. How do you solve your mental health problems, your substance use problems without having housing? A lot of people now, they're seeking treatment, they're getting treatment, but then they don't get the support after treatment that they need. So we need that supportive housing. But we need housing. You can't put somebody who has a substance use disorder back out on the street after treatment that's not going to be successful. And why I say it's a combined housing first treatment first model is because we do have, we've had examples of housing in Burlington where people are coming in, they are dealing drugs and using drugs and inviting other people in who are using drugs in the stairwells, in the common areas. And some people do need to get treatment in order to be successful in housing and not victimize the other people in that housing. So that's really what I mean by that program. And did I get a stop or did that? Oh, okay, because I saw this line, sorry. We have a lot of good projects coming online very soon, the South End Innovation District, which is going to bring 800 to 1,000 units online, Neighborhood Code, which will allow more housing all throughout the city. And also a condo conversion and home ownership, which I don't have time to talk about, thank you. Thank you, Joan. Okay, so I'm gonna follow up. I appreciate those specific actions you brought up about. The ordinance is protecting renters, managing big time landlords more efficiently. But do you have any solutions for the next three, six or 12 months specifically to help support schools in making them more stable for families and kids? Specifically to housing or to the schools themselves? I guess we're talking about how housing affordability creates instability within the school community and for kids. So is there anything in there? Sure, yeah, okay. Well, a couple of just quick examples. So as folks know, when we pass a charter change here in Burlington, it has to go to the Vermont Legislature for approval. And we've been having a charter change up on the wall. We literally have walls where we put index cards at its old school in the state legislature that's been about just cause eviction. You might have recalled voting on that over two years ago. That has been sitting in the legislature. I think it's a long time that we get that past the finish line because what that will provide is a transparent process and protection for renters, which are many of our students and their families. 60% of folks in Burlington are renters. And to have a fair process where you're not forced out when your lease ends or when through no fall of your own, you're getting evicted from an apartment that creates deep instability for families. It will cause people to go into homelessness. And that is completely disruptive and traumatizing for families. So I think if you need a three to six month exact example, that one we could take across the finish line, pass and send to the governor and be done within the legislative session. I guess Jill, my follow up with you and this supervised housing, the funds, the resources that we would use as a city to kind of tackle that sort of problem and provide that sort of housing. I don't think that this is a problem that Burlington can solve. When I'm talking about supervised housing, I'm talking about facilities like the Locked Mental Health Care Facility up at UVM or Substance Use Treatment Facilities. And even in some cases in incarceration, that is all levels of housing. And I don't think that it is provided by the city. But the city needs to partner with communities all around the state. One of the things we're regularly told is that, well, the legislature doesn't care what Burlington wants or Montpelier doesn't care what Burlington wants. But the truth is what Burlington wants, what Burlington needs is what cities all over this state need. And I think it's in partnering with them to bring changes to the legislature and also working with the governor so that we can get things passed where there's often an impasse between the two. So that's, I think it's dangerous to think that Burlington can solve these problems from inside the walls of Burlington. Thank you. Thank you. For our next question, Joan, you're gonna answer it first. How will you ensure the safety and inclusion of BIPOC, LGBTQ+, trans, and non-binary children and families in Burlington, and prevent the kind of anti-Chairans legislation and advocacy that's been sweeping the country from taking root here? I think that we have to have a basic goal and value for kindness in Burlington. And that extends to everyone. I think that representative Mulvaney Stanek had referenced the divisiveness in our community. And we don't need to exacerbate that. I don't think that there's any appetite in Burlington for legislation that is discriminatory to anyone, but at the same time, there are actions in our community that are hurtful to one another. And we need to take action where we can. There's been stickers that were put up all over the city. And our approach has been to make them disappear as quickly as we possibly can because they're hurtful to people. There've been other issues that have been brought forward that have exacerbated anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim feelings. And I know that that has been felt in our schools. But I think that we need to hold one another accountable when we see that we need to have those private conversations. I don't think that necessarily calling somebody out publicly is very effective in getting them to change their thinking. But I recall taking a city trip actually with a colleague sitting behind me and hearing this horrible conversation, a man sitting next to him talking about lesbian people in just a terrible way and listening to my colleague talk to him, connect with him, tell a positive experience that he has had with a lesbian worker, how wonderful this person was, make that connection and actually you could hear the change in the thinking. But I think it's about talking to each other to raise our awareness because there's a lot of changes in our culture now and we need to have those conversations. Emma? Well, I just will say queer folks, trans folks, non-binary folks have existed forever, forever more. And as a queer and lesbian woman who would be the first elected in the history of the city, I think representation incredibly matters. It matters to elect folks who have this lived experience because we know urgency is needed. We know that people cannot be just bystanders. You have to lean in and actively create safe communities. They need to be public conversations. I'm sorry, Counselor Shannon, but as someone who has had their child bullied for having queer parents in the Burlington school system, I need people leaning in. I need people to take action. I need people to rip those stickers down. They've been up way too long for over two years. It is, I'm emotional because it's not a state representative's job to be taking these stickers down, but I leaned in hard to make sure those came down and tried to engage the city and the city dropped the ball time and time again. There was a resolution and no action from city council. And that is not acceptable. That is the stuff I was talking about before that sets the wrong leadership tone for what our children and our students need in our schools. We need the opposite. We need leaders standing up and saying not today and not again. And that creates the environment where acts of hate can happen in our community, which happened just a few weeks ago with the three Palestinian students. So there's a role for all of us to play here. And when I talk about people leaning in to help rebuild our community, this is a very easy and obvious one to do. And we should all find ways. And if you don't know how, talk to a friend about a publicly lean in and say, hate has no place here. And this is what it looks like so that when someone says something in the public meeting, you know what to say and to engage in a de-escalation kind of way, but one that really builds a community that's much safer for everyone. And that is also part of building a community safety, a city that values community safety. So it doesn't matter your identity. It's a safe place for all. Thank you, Emma. I don't have a phone. Yeah, either. Can I have a... Yeah, you can have the phone. Because I wanted to share a story of what happened. Our experience in the schools when my daughter was at BHS and they were reading to kill a mockingbird and they got an assignment to make posters as they would in that community, which was a very racist community. And so the assignment was basically to make racist posters. And I overheard this conversation in the backseat of my car. And when the kids got out of the car, I immediately called the schools, the school. I just had a number of somebody in leadership. I'm like, you're probably not the right person, but this is what I just heard in the backseat of my car. And I was really surprised that there wasn't immediate action taken there. They did go into the classroom. This is a classroom used by a whole variety of people, not just the class that had the assignment. And these posters are around the classroom. And I took immediate action. And when I didn't see the school taking action, I persisted. I got a letter signed by every parent, except for one in that classroom, to say equity is supposed to be our highest priority in these schools. And this is not acceptable behavior. Emma, do you have anything to add on the subject before we move on? If I could just save a minute for later, because I think I said what I needed to say the first time. Okay, thank you. We'll make a note. Thank you. We'll move on to public safety. I'm gonna read just a short, another parent comment that came in with one of the questions. Our Burlington High School is located downtown. Crime and substance abuse is occurring all around our school at the bus terminal in the parking garage. Needles are found in the school alleyway and being reported by staff who say it takes days before they're cleaned up. This question was submitted by a BHS student. I'm a BHS student. I want to ask how you plan to make our downtown safer. And we would like to add, how do you plan on making our current high school and all of our school campuses safer? I'd blip Joe in your first. Sure. Well, as I said, this is where I am located all day and half the night these days. And I will say one thing on that street is kind of dark. I don't know how much the students are experiencing that, but I know that the downtown workers are experiencing that as they go to the high school. Again, I think that we have to send a message that we're not going to tolerate open drug dealing and open drug use and the bus station is kind of a hub of bad behavior, drug use, drug dealing. I have certainly experienced it, pressed up right up to the door as my daughter was trying to walk out of our building and I had to open the door and say, no, you cannot smoke here. But there isn't anybody around. I should not have to do that. No high school students should have to do that. And one of the biggest deterrents is the fear of being caught. You don't need long incarceration periods and a felony record and harsh punishment, but you do need some intervention. You do need the fear of getting caught and it doesn't seem that at this point in time, people are behaving in a way that they have a fear of getting caught. Also, this can lead to getting the help that people need. That is the hope is that out of this, people will get the help that they need. But also with regards to the needles, I support they're doing a reclamation project right now to reclaim needles and it's had some success, but I do think that there is a better model that's right now in the city attorney's office, which is severely understaffed, which is a better proposal to reclaim the needles and offers better rewards and it's been done in other places and it's been very successful. Thank you, Emma. Thank you. So I really truly want Burlington to be a place where everyone is safe and feels safe. And as Councillor Shannon mentioned, there are many people suffering on our streets from substance use disorder and I proudly supported H72, which will start pilot overdose prevention centers in the state of Vermont. We're long past this point of needing to make sure that tool is part of the diversity of tools we have for folks. Folks need a door open to them, no matter what door it is to find recovery, but they need to be alive in order to seek that recovery and to create that long-term healing and safety for those folks primarily. That's how I look at that piece of suffering on our streets. And I will say again, as a parent of an eight-year and a four-year-old, it is strange and unusual, and that's not the third word, it is unfamiliar because I was not living in a town growing up where people were openly using drugs, but I want them to be safe and to model a city that helps people find safety and health and a healthier outcome by finding a path to recovery. That's different than behavior where folks who are doing either violence or threats of violent behavior, and that's where we need to strategically use our community safety response, which sometimes will be involving police and sometimes needs to involve social workers or community safety liaisons or community safety officers, CSOs, CSLs, in some sort of comprehensive response. So again, strategic partnering with our schools to know when do we need CSOs or CSLs involved? How do we deescalate what's happening on our streets? How do we show that compassion and care? Because that's community showing up in a way that we can do accountability and engage folks to help them meet their basic needs. And again, long-term, create communities that are safer and not simply removing people. And when people have their basic needs met, that again, that truly will get us to a safer Burlington. And I truly wanna encourage people to think about long-term solutions here because short-term solutions can sometimes lead to further harm. And we have to be honest about how we wanna, again, wanna model care for everyone in our community. I'll go. Joan, would you, and this comes out of, somebody had asked me whether you support, and not necessarily the SROs, the school resource officers, but maybe civilian BPD, maybe sweeping the campuses in the morning to make sure they're safe and at the end of dismissal time? Is that an appropriate way to deploy to make the school grounds and campuses safer, do you believe? I think that's really a question for the school board and the school administration. If you think that that would be helpful, I certainly wouldn't be opposed to it. I don't know what you're expecting to find necessarily in that sweep in the mornings, like before the kids come. So, you know, the idea that there could be a use for some police personnel in our schools, I'm certainly open to. But again, I think that that's the choice of our schools. And I'd just like to say, in terms of long-term and short-term solutions, I agree, ultimately, a lot of what we're seeing is a lack of long-term solutions. But we also, as a city, we have more control over some of the short-term responses than we have at the long-term solutions. So, I am a strong advocate. As I know, Councilor Mulvaney-Stanek is as well. For getting at those root causes, you have to also deal with the immediate behaviors to keep people safe. Okay, Emma, my follow-up is, you know, to talk more specifically how to hold the system accountable, because I think, as a person with a young child, there's like an urgency for our experience walking the streets of Wellington. And so, I find it very confusing who to call, when to call. I see the charts, people don't answer the phone. So, maybe you could talk a little bit about your vision for super near-term, how to hold the system accountable so that we know we can call the right person at the right time and get the help we need. Well, Solidarity is a parent of small children because you do need to set a tone as a leader around what do you expect of all the leaders that the mayor in this city gets to a point. And that's not just the police department, it's all leaders within the city. So, commitment to community, commitment to building trust, commitment to acting and fulfilling the mission of the various departments that includes police. But again, I envision a Burlington where we can actually really get to the heart of what makes our community safe. And it's not just police, so that we would have a system of response that really gets to what the needs are in our city today and 10 years from now. But in terms of accountability, we need to make sure we have a leadership team in this city and it's not just the mayor, it's the partners on city council, it's the department heads that will take action, think in innovative ways and creative ways, be willing to take feedback and change course when necessary. And do so with the humility. Again, I mentioned before, we need honesty and humility within the leaders and that tone gets sent from the mayor's office, but it's also that expectation of the folks that would lead the departments. And so, when I want there to be a transparent process or transparent system, so I know where to call, you know where to call for support and that person has someone engaged with them. And again, it needs to be the appropriate professional because I do not want a community creating more harm because we are sending the wrong person the wrong professional. And I want someone to receive the care they need if they're having mental health care crisis. I want the kid when I stopped by spectrum the other day who was sleeping in the door frame on that really cold morning two or three days ago on cover by a blanket, which other people walking by that door might have perceived danger. I want folks to be able to call the right person to make sure that kid finds housing and isn't sleeping in the door frame freezing in 20 degree weather. Thank you. We have about five more minutes you guys, so we have two more questions. Are we all, we're good to keep going? Okay, I'm getting out of bed time tonight, so I might keep going. I think everyone is, except for those who brought their kids. Okay. Emma, this next question you're gonna start off with. So, this was direct from a parent in our solicitation. Top of mind for many families, especially given the many incidents of gun violence in our community in the past year's school shootings. How concerned are you about a school shooting and what specific actions are you planning to take as mayor to reduce the risk of school shootings? I know. It terrifies me. I mean, Burlington, Vermont is not immune. I have been watching this closely. I actually put a bill in that got picked up into a larger bill around when, even just on the preparation side, the fact that our kids go through drills and go through active shooter drills, it also terrifies me that we're traumatizing several generations now at this point because we live in such a violent culture. And in that bill, I called for the city, sorry, the state at this point, to make standards that were age-appropriate because the fact that we're putting our elementary kids through any sort of practice when all they need to know is to follow the adult is a really critical part of this whole system so that while, yes, we need to be prepared, the adults need to be prepared and then an age-appropriate response from there because I do not wanna create more trauma in our already traumatized kids, frankly. But this is a perfect example and I've been very underwhelmed as a state legislator representing a portion of the city of how little coordination we have with our state delegation in Montpelier. We have 17 of us down there. We have 11 state reps and six senators and we are not all pushing in the same direction. We're given a piece of paper that's an agenda set by the mayor currently and that's the process. We don't come together in a collaborative way with city counselors and the mayor to set the priorities so something so big as this as school of violence is a Vermont-level issue that we should all be pushing in the same direction. Amongst anything else we talked about tonight is substance use disorder, mental health, the housing emergency. And the fact that we don't collaborate as equally elected colleagues to push in the same direction to tell an accurate story of what's happening in Burlington and how it is Vermont's challenge and then we have an opportunity and an obligation to do this collectively is a real disservice to all of you and I apologize actually on behalf of our state delegation because we're not doing enough. And so again, with something so critical as school shootings and violence and easy access to guns, we could be pushing so much harder on that and requiring the governor to come here to the city to really again be a partner, be the governor that includes Burlington is something that the mayor can really do and convene with our 17 colleagues and then the 12 city counselors as well. Thank you. Yeah, I have, it's really sad. This is something that I think a lot of our students and I know my own daughter carries with her and as parents we all carry it with us and often don't want to speak about it. At the same time, I think that we need more education as a community because when these gun violence acts happen in the schools, we know that there are often early signs that people identify in hindsight and could identify in foresight, but they need to, we all need more training and awareness as to what those signs are, how to communicate about them and how to intervene when we see them. I also, I was council president when those three charter changes came through, I think, and have strongly supported gun control. I support the efforts of GunSense and they have made some progress in the legislature. I don't come at it with the approach that we can demand that the governor come here. I think that that is kind of what leads to some of the divisiveness. I think that we need to invite one another and come to an understanding and I have had a conversation with the governor that went quite well and I think that we can find common ground. But again, I'd like to also be talking with the mayors of other cities because I know a lot of Vermont maybe doesn't agree with what we have in Burlington but maybe there is more agreement in those cities and maybe that creates the pressure within the legislature to act and I'll throw one new idea out there which is actually not very controversial and has worked in other places is to provide free gun lock boxes where it is not, you can require them but we may or may not get that through the legislature but if you offer them for free, people who have guns need more education about their guns and how to keep their own. Should I follow up? Okay. Emma, I appreciate your like the clarity and simplicity about the like having the city counselors and our state representatives, the senators and representatives. So how would you make that happen? Like in the short term, like if it's not. Well, I've been doing that already as someone who's organized for a living for over a decade and I was with that kid in high school was the chemistry partner. You wanted to be partner with me because I got the job done. I mean, I'm not even joking. Ask my spaulding high school chemistry, would you believe it, right? Because I don't know if you noticed we've passed eight charter changes. Thanks so much city council which is a lot of work because it goes down to the legislature and that requires eight separate bills, eight separate systems to go through the two chambers and then to the governor and I led the delegation through the vacuum of leadership, frankly to get seven out of the eight across the line and just cause it's the last one and that range from all resident voting which we get to finally use this election cycle to rank choice voting for all levels of the ballot to really wonky, boring, dry changing the ward lines in the city. I mean, I steward that through and it's something that I would continue to do as mayor however on the front end I would make it a collaborative process. So when you, I think everyone knows when you're on a team you get involved from day one it's become, it's a stronger outgrowth of that product because it's built through collaboration and new ideas and collaboration. No one person has all the answers and that's how we model it not only for Burlington but for our regional partners we have and really start to leverage the fact that 17 people cover a lot of committees in that building which touch basically every single topic that Burlington needs right now. Thanks Emma. And Joan, this is specific. How by the free gun lockbox is great. How would we pay for that? I think we, I don't know. I have to look a little deeper into that but it is being done in other communities. I think it was done in Atlanta. There may be funding available. Maybe we can get grant funding but I just think it's, I don't propose it as the ultimate solution but I think it's worth looking at. Thank you. And then our final question, question number seven and who's going first? Joan I believe goes first. Joan you're first, okay. Joan and Emma, do you think Burlington is a healthy and safe place to raise children? Why? I guess the answer is yes and no. There is a lot of things that are wonderful and healthy about Burlington and I think the great strength of Burlington is our sense of community and I know that we have our challenges now and one of the things that inspired me to run for mayor was how many people were willing to step up and help to solve our problems and I do think that we're of a size and scale where we can address our problems. We have the lake, we have the mountains, we have the neighborhoods. One of the things that's really remarkable about Burlington is our neighborhoods and that's part of what builds our community. It's our community values. As a realtor, I will tell you I have sold quite a few houses to climate refugees and social refugees. People who are feeling persecuted in their home states are coming here to Burlington and Vermont to feel safe and we should feel very proud of that. But we also have our challenges. I don't think our kids are safe when they're finding needles in the dugout. I don't think that our kids are safe when we have unpredictable behavior erupting right outside of their schools and in our downtown and things happening in our parks and those things need to be addressed. But not far beneath this surface of the things that we're all very concerned about in terms of safety. There's a lot of elements where I know that we need more work on it but we're a walkable, bikeable community. At one point we were gotten an award for the healthiest community in the country and they gave a lot of examples as to why we value a healthy lifestyle and I think that we are a healthy community and we need to work on our safety. Thank you. Oh, Emma. Could you repeat the questions just so I get the question? Yes, definitely. This is the best question of the night. Oh, is that a question? No, I just get to say it. Okay, come on, put it in. Do you think Burlington is a healthy and safe place to raise children? Yes. Yes. I, again, I'm an eight or four year old and it is an active choice to be here and we have no plans to go anywhere. We've put our roots down. I'm proud to call Burlington my home for the last almost 20 years and I've picked it because having grown up in central Vermont, again, there's a vibrancy here. There's an energy here. There's a leaning in of community. I've not experienced in central Vermont of those years growing up there and yet building community is an act of love and it is a verb. We need people, all of you, to be leaning in to make sure that this isn't just left to 13 people, 12 city counselors and one mayor, to come up with changing and addressing the challenges that are facing us in Burlington. But I also think that a big part of it, and we've touched a little bit on it tonight, is around truly valuing economic diversity because that is another huge part of a healthy community and one for which I wanna raise my kids in and that means being committed to affordable policies and affordability. It means recognizing the dignity in every single person here regardless of whether they are in an apartment, a home or unhoused in our parks right now. But we also need a community that everyone is and feels safe in and we are not meeting that standard right now. And again, I wanna model that for my kids so that they feel just as proud about Burlington as I do. And just finally, I want, again, this community to be one that's livable for everyone, both people and that includes being a safe and inclusive community where it doesn't matter about your identity or your economic status, that this feels like your home and that you are not treated differently because again, if your identity or economic status and our climate, we are in a climate emergency and I hope that free reforms get into climate policy more deeply because if there's one thing that we need for our kids is a healthy planet and doing our part and helping all of you do your part to make sure that we can minimize our impact on the climate and understand the role Burlington can play in this much larger crisis than all of us. But we desperately have to also address that. Thank you. Great, thank you very much. We're gonna do closing statements now at the coin flip, Joan chose to speak first so Emma will take the close of the closing statement. So Joan will go first with closing statements. Thank you. Well, thank you to the PTO again. I'm so grateful for this opportunity. It's actually our first debate and I'll admit that after 20 years, I still get nervous. I want you all to know most of all that I'm listening and I'm available, you can reach out to me. Our all hands on deck theme is about bringing people together to solve our problems. I have said repeatedly nobody has the monopoly on good ideas and we need to be open to all idea, to face the challenges we have now, we don't have a really clear path and we need to be open to a range of ideas from the left, from the middle and more conservative. I've been endorsed by a two-time former progressive party chair, as well, Atiki Yashinbo, as well as a 20-year progressive city counselor, Jane Nodell, and I also have support from the right because I am open to all the ideas that is going to help move our community forward. We're in a changing environment now. I have the endorsement of the police and the fire union and one of the reasons that the fire union gave for endorsing me was because I engaged them, because I asked them their opinions. When we were making very important decisions about public safety, I'm not a top-down kind of leader. I think it's really important to engage with the people who are on the front lines of doing the work and that includes our teachers. Currently, all of our city workers have become on the front lines of public safety. Our library workers are on the front lines of public safety, public works, parks, and certainly the teachers and the schools. I think it's good to remember that we are the home of John Dewey, who was a very famous educator, and he was famous for valuing and promoting joy in education, and I think Burlington, we need to find our joy again. We need to find our joy in working together, come together to clean up the city, come together to solve the problems. There's a lot of people in our community with a lot of specific expertise that we can use. I think the path to solving our problems is about convening experts from different areas. I did this with, oh, I've done already. I did this with Burlington Telecom. I think it's important to bring people from different perspectives into the room to solve our problems, so thank you all for your time tonight. Thank you so much, Emma. Thank you. I am running because I think we need, we're at a real turning point here in the city of Burlington. We have some choices ahead of us about the short-term needs and the long-term needs of building, again, a healthy and vibrant and safe community for everyone, and I do mean everyone. We have a choice at this point for who our next mayor will be, and I encourage you all to think about the skills we need today from that person, the experience that person brings, that perspective that person brings. We truly have challenges in our streets that are state-level challenges. I bring that experience as a state legislator for the last two years. I bring that experience as someone who on a daily basis at the state house works across party lines in my committee and on the floor of the house with 150 members from all over Vermont, and there are lots of kinds of Democrats and lots of kinds of Republicans and lots of kinds of progressives in that building, and I find way to collaborate with all of them. It's about building respect. It's knowing how to collaborate, and as an organizer, I bring that skill of knowing how to convene people and really collaborating together for those solutions because that is where the best ideas come is when we really all have a seat at the table, especially those most impacted by the issues, those who've been marginalized because they've not even had a seat at the table, and I make room for those folks to engage. So again, please vote on March 5th. Make sure that you're thinking about skills. We deserve more than party labels for this particularly critical race, and I hope to be your next mayor come March 5th. Thank you. Thank you both so much. Just a tiny little close for everyone. We want to thank our greater community of families, school administrators for supporting us in putting this together. Thank you CTC TV for making this available to the entire Burlington community. A special thanks to Hunt Middle School and Principal Alexander for letting us to use the space. Our planning team for this event was struck by the intensity and concern from all of the school community. We see this event as a part of a new collaboration and continued conversation with the mayor's office. The housing crisis and the drug crisis have had an incredible impact on our city. Unfortunately, many of these effects are now being borne by the children of this community. Our hope is that our new mayor will consider these experiences of the children and families when they create policy and make change. Thank you, Joan and Emma. Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you.