 I can't sit on a fence with a tail in the air I'm straight to my dinner from a garbage can Looking for a fight, I went to the moon on a hotseat I was singing the booze, well the thing is the cats cry Why I strike at you real dark eye I wish that I could be as carefree and wild But I got a cat class if I got cat style Music Everyone can hear that okay? Yeah. Alright great. Can I have time for one more? Yes, one more would be great. Okay, awesome. This one will be B-Jazz. That was fabulous, fabulous. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me and if I do it again I'll definitely be on time. Okay, you'll definitely get to do it again we hope. And I just want to, I'm Barbara McGrew and I want to welcome everybody to the war two and three neighborhood planning assembly for January. It's going to be an exciting night. We have the first candidates form we think for this election season and we will proceed to that a little later. Again, thanks to Sam Attila for the lovely music and we hope to hear more at another meeting maybe. So, I'm going to be on my agenda is to introduce the steering other steering committee members and Kevin. Doodaman is here and Patrick Johnson. I don't do anybody see Charlie is Charlie here tonight. Charlie's you know me. Anyway, Jessica Hyman is here. Molly Clay Park. Flanagan is here. And Tony Reddington. So, I only said he'd be on the list listening in but would not be. Okay. So he's here. Kind of. That's good. The notification of our next meeting, it will be February 11, the second Thursday in February. Recordings of this meeting can be found on YouTube and CCTVs website. We have an item about the 2021 funding request process and application deadline. I'm not sure if that's going to be Molly is going to talk about that. Yeah, I was going to just give everyone a notification of the process. Yeah, so the city has awarded every word. $2,500 like they did last year and increased level of funding so in total this joint or two or three NPA has $5,000 to support the operation of the NPA and community projects that support the NPA and the community. So that's fantastic. It's a little different this year with given the pandemic but we hope that we can come up with exciting projects to allocate these funds for. So the process will be that we're asking for applications to be submitted by February 15, and that we will have the projects presented at the March NPA meeting which will be March, March 11. And directly after the presentation of applications we will democratically vote on which projects and how much to award funding for. So these projects are should be community oriented, they should support the operation and or purpose of the NPA and benefit the words that we live in. So we're going to have to be creative this year you know we typically spend money on supporting the community dinner and the space that we hold these meetings in. We're so we're going to have to be creative and how to support our community but we're open to a lot of different ideas, organizing some sort of way of community celebrating our community initiatives to improve engagement or accessibility of these NPA public art. Please keep in mind that all all applications for projects must be in line with state and local public health health measures but we welcome your ideas and we're welcome. We're open to discussing ideas with folks before they go through the process of submitting an application but we have a web form that's the most streamlined way to to submit an application we also can do it through a word document or through paper. We don't want it to be a barrier for tech in technology so if anyone needs paper please be in touch with any one of our steering committee members. Otherwise, the web form and documents will be posted on the page for the NPA, as well as our website. So those will get uploaded in the next week so they'll be will start being available. Next week I would say so again those the timeline is applications are due February 15 and they'll be discussed at the March 11. Thank you Molly. Yes. Yes, Tony. Tony Reddington Ward three steering committee member Molly I think we ought to also thank those who made applications last year. Our ward two and Ward three were the only two wards in the city. Thanks to the efforts we made in June and particularly to those who received funds that spent almost all but about $50 of the $2,500 each ward received. There are a lot of folks and it's not being critical but I think that we we hustle at the end and we in spite of the in spite of the pandemic, we spent almost all the funds at the city council, a lot of to us. I think we should pat ourselves on the back and say, we want we want to do that again. A lot of words didn't even spend $500 or $600. So, thank you for those who who made the effort and to, and we want to make sure our counselors are aware that wards two and three did their job. Thank you Tony. Now I can, I believe Kevin is going to talk about community development block grant advisory committee open seats. Yes. So, there is an available seats for the CDBG, which is a community development block grant advisory committee. And if anyone's unaware. It's a really neat opportunity to get involved in, you know, kind of local decision making so we get a big block of money from the federal government from HUD that comes in into Burlington specifically. There's one, there's a grant for the state of Vermont but there's just one for Burlington specifically. We review these grant applications and evaluate their, you know, we call it how closely they follow to the rubric, and you discuss like the value of the of each request and the group and it's all democratic and you come out of it at the end, having agreed upon a proposed way to spend all that money. And that gets passed on to the mayor and traditionally, whoever is in that seat has approved it. Based on based on the committee's outcome. It's really really neat. Yeah, so there's an available seats. I'm pulling a blank. Anybody on the steering committee is it word to word three that's still looking for one is it word to I think. I want to say. I'm I'm I'll put money on the fact that it's word to so if you're in word to when you're listening to this. I've done it twice and I really enjoyed it. I'd highly recommend it. It's a fairly limited time commitment. Yeah, that's all I have to say about that reach out to any of us on the steering committee if you're interested, we'll hook you up. Thank you Kevin. Okay, we have a few minutes for public forum. If anybody in the audience wants to announce something or raise a community issue. This is a time you can do it. Andrea has her hand up Barbara. Okay, thank you, Andrea. This is my first zoom NPA. I'm really excited. I am on the parks commission and I wanted to let people know a couple things one is that the sea caves and Arthur park is having a, they're doing a pilot project and you may have seen something in the front porch forum yesterday but what was sort of missing in the porch forum post is that they're also soliciting information from people who use the park and so they'd like to know kind of how you use it what you like about it so I'm going to put a link into the chat so people can make that survey and give feedback to parks department about how you use it what you like about it what you may want to see in the future, and I'm also going to just put this really awesome. Arthur park homepage has just so many great information about the cultural and environmental history of that area even with a little. Charlie our audio clip from Charlie's Boat House talking about the history of that area so it's just really worth it and a look and a listen and just wanted to make sure people know that that's happening and just give their feedback. If anyone wants to share them with me I'm happy to take information about what you love about sea caves and Arthur park. I'm a fan. I'd love to geek out about how you're a fan too. Okay, thank you Andrea. Anybody else. Nobody. Jessica, did you see anybody. No, I don't see I don't see any other hands up. Okay, if anyone does have something they want to announce feel free to put put it in the chat at any time. Okay. Okay, at this time we are going to move on to the candidate forums. And at this time I am going to reintroduce Patrick Johnson and Kevin Duterman, who are on the steering committee, and they are going to talk to you about the format where we're going to start off with with Max Tracy and is Ali present tonight for the first candidate forum. Patrick, I think we're starting with the city council. Oh, I'm sorry. I was reading me. I'm sorry. We're going to start off with with Max Tracy and is Ali present tonight for the first candidate forum. Patrick, I think we're starting with the city council. Oh, I'm sorry. I was reading the wrong section. Right. You want to go over the community guidelines. Yep. Yep. I'll just read right from it if nobody has read it already. Community guidelines are goal today is to gain a deeper understanding of the candidates priorities policies and positions. Be respectful. Please be respectful to the candidates and your fellow community members. Refame from personal attacks and blame and inflammatory language. Also listen actively and don't interrupt, which is hard to do on zoom. Fortunately, participate to the fullest of your ability. Use a text box. If you really want to say something. And how to ask questions. Email in advance, which might be able to do at this point. I don't know where how we're going to facilitate. We'll be reviewing questions. I guess I'll be helping because we might get a lot more than we expect. There'll be some in the chat box that we might be able to get to. We already have submitted questions that we will probably get to first. If we can do it seamlessly will try to do a mix of the two. Don't think we have. Include your name, please. And the ward you're from, whether your question is for a specific candidate or a general overall question. I don't know if we have the ability to allow people to video. A question and through zoom or not know if that isn't part of our format. We're going to type it in the chat and we will do our best. So, I was going to facilitate. For the candidate forums. Molly is going to provide us with a timekeeping scenario. Each candidate will get. One minute opening statement. We decided that because we know the candidates pretty well. We've seen each other plenty of times, but so we didn't feel like you needed too much of a long-winded platform to get going. We figured this would be a good point for community engagement with you since we don't have a lot of that face. Face interaction at this time. Hope you don't mind. We've curtailed that. I will start off with with Tiki and. Perry. Who would like to offer. We haven't have, we don't have a coin or anything like that to flip for who goes first. If I may suggest the incumbent probably deserves the right to go first. So I'll make that suggestion if you're. You can choose. Yeah. All right. Perry would like to go first or last. Sure. I can go first. Okay. Okay. So then we'll do one minute opening statements each. We'll do questions. We'll do a little bit of follow-up. And then we'll do a two minute closing for each. Thank you. Thank you so much everyone for being here. My name is Perry Freeman. I'm the essential district city councilor. So words two and three. I. I know probably a lot of you know me, but I do for anyone who's new. I work in long-term care at an assisted living facility. So I'm really excited to represent the district for the past two years. And I'm really excited to be able to continue that work. I have some of the things that I've been really passionate about when I first joined council. I led a resolution to declare a climate emergency in Burlington and to look at a green new deal. Framework. I've also worked really hard on issues like the fair and impartial policing policy. And I'm really excited to be here tonight. I'm excited to hear your questions and excited to earn your support. So thank you everyone. And. Time. Time. Made it. Time. Yeah. Kiki. Thank you. A minute goes by quickly. Thank you for having me here. NPA. It's pretty awesome that you organized this. So, you know, I got to do the, this is pretty cool. It's really hard to do this real quick about me. I moved into town 20 years ago. I had left a city was just kind of bombing and really wanted to find the best place to live. So my now wife and I traveled the country in search of that place. But that a whole bunch of places and found their Burlington was the only place that I was. So by the way, this is the best place to live, at least according to us. We settled here 20 years ago and have never looked back. Not once had a single regret of a living here. Until now. In my time, I've been very active in the community. I twice chaired the Burlington progressive party. I've, I'm still on it, but I'm on the public works commission chaired it for three years. I'm a permanent reform committee. It's the newest department. And I'm really psyched to be here as part of this community. And I am concerned. Good job. All right. That is, that is your idea. It is too short. Barbara had made that note earlier. But hopefully we will cover all the bases with questions. Kevin. I'm going to turn it over to you. Do we have a first question? We do indeed. None have come through the chat that I've seen so far. But there is one that came through on email. And it appears that this is for, for both of you. Will you plan to work with all the citizens of Burlington as early as this month? And then continuing after our town meeting day elections. To reach consensus on a workable and effective method. To fairly increase accountability and democratic citizen participation. And Sydney policing. With a comprehensive charter change resolution in 2021. That can go before Burlington voters and then the state legislature in 2022 with our community support. That's from Bob Kiernan in Ward three. Would you like to take the first. Sure, sure. Just remind me. We had a minute. Is that what we're looking at? A minute. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. So yeah. Policing in one minute. I think we can do a lot of change. I do have a goal of achieving police reform, right? I think this community is united in its wants for police reform and accountability and change the status quo. Effectively. So I think there's no disagreement here about that. What matters is the path to get there. We've seen the frame and proposal just last week was vetoed by the mayor. And this is a veto sustained. It was, it was a radical path to achieve that objective. My objective would be we have. A wealth of resources here to achieve that same objective, especially with our existing police commission. Who represents our, our community quite well. They're very intelligent people. So. We might be able to make it easier. By using that commission and advocate for accountability on the police force. I think we can get there with what we have. Stop there. You can, you can also come back to it later. If we, we don't get a lot of questions. It is a big topic. Really. A minute fails. Perry. Would you like to. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, this is a big question right now. I worked really hard on the. Initial proposal that went through the charter change committee. But that process is that had actually started earlier. I served in 2019 on the special committee to improve. Or on policing practices. That oversight came up during that committee. You know, there were multiple stakeholders involved, you know, represented from the union, the police union, represents from BPD. I believe chief Murad served on that committee. The administration was involved. Representatives from the police commission. So these are issues that we've been debating for a long time. And oversight has been debated for a long time. I have already reached out to the. Administration on taking next steps around that. You know, we're sort of in this delicate moment where we're trying to figure out. How to kind of get everyone on the same page. And some of that is going to be over. Whether we do have some differences that are not reconcilable and what things we can actually compromise on. I have continued to reach out to all stakeholders. To hear their input. And I think we're just going to have to work through this. It's a really complicated topic. And I appreciate how much engagement there's been on it. I know. I know people are really passionate about it. It's not that. Yeah. Sorry. I'll try to be generous. In your sentences. And that holds you. That's okay. I'm the, the lightning round is a. Debate style is a, it's a good challenge. This is not the lightning round. My gosh. Kevin, do you see the one from jewels, fish and wind in word three? Would you like to comment on the mayor's recent veto? Perry, would you like to take this one first? Sure. You know, it was unfortunate. I. I. You know, it is what it is. You know, I reached out to the mayor pretty quickly after that to talk about next steps. I think. It was, we were in such a short timeframe. And I wanted. I wanted everyone to get on the same page. I tried to do outreach. It can be really hard in that short period of time. To. To kind of get all kind of go around and cover all your bases. You know, I, I do wish that that hadn't happened. But you know, I do think it would have been good to put it up for a vote. And I think we could have gone back to the drawing table again and looked at it, especially if it wasn't the model that was approved by voters, but it is what it is. And, you know, I'm ready to just keep working on it. We have to keep sort of. Chipping away at it. It's a, like I said, it's a complicated topic. And I'm, you know, I'm ready to just keep working on it. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, briefly. That, that. The agreement proposal failed for a reason because it was not rooted in good governance. It took a path towards a charter change that may or may not have been necessary. Now, there's accountability at hand here. I know there's an disagreement. Councilor Freeman about whether the chief should even be involved with overseeing his own team. I would argue that good governance and teamwork. And I think that's the reason that this council is going in a direction that is effectively. Disintegrating this police department. And it's frightening. So it needs to be acknowledgement. There also needs to be ownership. I think by councilor Freeman to this failure. And I think that's the reason that this council is going to fail. And I think what frustrates me and a lot of people I speak to in the community as it makes phone calls is number one, there's a fear that this council is going in a direction that is going to be a big issue. And I think that's the reason why councilor Freeman, to this failure. We just lost seven months. Of progress of potentially. Working towards a proposal. And now we have to start again. I don't. Certainly we will begin that discussion, but I needed to highlight that. That's actually a big first person. Why am I running. Thank you. Are we allowed. Yeah. Am I, am I able to do a response? No, no, I think that's legitimate. We'll do a 30 second. If you don't mind. Is it allowed? I mean, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. No, no, no, that's part of the dialogue here. Okay. Okay. I'm 30 seconds. So yeah, 30 seconds. So extra quick. So yeah, in terms of accountability. So that's the, that's the aspect. If you look into the research, there isn't an abundance of research that. I think that's what we need to focus on. And I think that. That indicates that having the chief involved or police. Departments involved in oversight creates accountability. If the end goal is accountability. Then that's what we need to focus on. And I think that there's. Yeah. Essentially that is the focus and not so. I think we should work from that value and that goal as opposed to. That. Oh, sorry. I have to keep it moving. I'm trying. Thank you for letting me respond. Another quick question. Do you believe that being held. In sort of a blackmailed state by the police department will allow us to come up with an appropriate reform. If we're being threatened by the police station. To reduce our police force. Effectively allowing crime to run rampant. Are we going to objectively be able to. Come up with a solid proposal or is everything going to be done out of. White fragility and fear. Tiki, would you like to go first? I think if I heard you right, you framed that question as the police department threatening the community. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just correct me if I'm wrong. Is that right? I believe that was the question. Reduction of force. I'm going to clarify that. Which is sort of a threat. All right. So these are not yours. These are questions. So real quick on police, right? This council that exists today. I dominated by the progressives cut the police force by 30%. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just the other week. It was, it was saying, we're trying to do this. We're trying to get there. Guess what? In the interim. We have. We have to live here. Right. People who have invested. I've invested 20 years here with energy into efforts. I got a mold that I bought that I thought I could raise a kid in. That's kind of why I'm here that. This department was caught without a plan. We need a plan. So in terms of reduction of force, I'm completely sympathetic to. The fact that we're not having community resource officers, for example, to handle mental health issues. My gosh, the Murad proposal right now is. Addresses exactly that, which is why, partly why he's asking for more funding to increase staff, which would fund a good dozen community resource officers. So that's brilliant. We got to go there. It's one step. It's not everything. We could correct use of force as well. In 10 seconds. It's hard to get to it, but. We need to continue this. There's a better way to do this. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Very. Yeah. So I'm not sure if I would frame it in those words in terms of blackmail or a threat. I do think that there are stakeholders at the department who are at odds with stakeholders in the community who are. Kind of at opposite ends of the spectrum right now. And that is a hard place for us to work through. I think, you know, and this, I know this person has a question mentioned white fragility. There are so many sort of tensions. And complicated conversations that need to happen in our community about white supremacy. And that involves, of course, this is just question was talking about the police department that doesn't involve conversations about the police department. I think that's really hard work. It's something that I've been thinking a lot about. This past year and how I partake in systems of white supremacy. And what we need to do is a city to. To change that. And I'm at time. So I'll stop. Okay, Kevin, I'm losing track of all of the questions I'm getting in. I'm sorry. I tried to read that other one in a little tiny text box. Didn't really work out. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. That's, that's why I'm a, I'm on it. Yeah. Focus on. And crown the troops and stuff. So the next one on the, in the order is from Andrea Todd. And it's what are the candidates visions for complete streets and improved transportation infrastructure in our neighborhood and city. Okay. Perry. Would you like that one first? Yes. Thank you so much for asking this question. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. So much of the work that I've been doing. Has. Not has been sort of not as much around. Transportation issues, although it's still something that I feel so passionately about. And I'm really excited. And this. And another term to look at really increasing. Access to pedestrianization. I have some sort of ideas rolling around in the back of my head. But I think it's something that we can really focus on. I think it's something that we can really focus on. I think it's something that we can really focus on. Master plan. I think it's something that we can really work to expand. It hasn't been as much of a focus over this last year. But I think it's certainly something that I want to focus on more going forward. It remains something that's just essential. And not just in like our climate goals, but also just quality of life. And to make the city like a livable city. I think it's something that we can really focus on. I think it's something that we can really focus on more. And the next. Next bit. Thank you. What a great question right up my alley here, you know, having spent on the public works commission for nine years. Doing exactly this. I mean, you view the city differently in terms of complete streets where the streets are city assets. And they could either have cars on them or not, but they could have cars on them. Right. And that's how complete streets tries to view it. It's getting people from point A to B. For myself, I've enabled that effort in many ways. So for example, just recently, making it official to plow the bike lanes, for example, where we had an informal policy, but it's not as important as a formal policy to be able to do that. There's still a long way to go, right? We have a patchwork. We have a much better bike infrastructure. We have to be sensitive to residents needs, you know, transportation wise, our streets are just so unique because they're so old. And in 10 seconds, I think we, we need complete streets for many modes of transportation and I'm actively already working on that. Okay. Thank you. No, any follow up. I'm going to offer, Tiki, if you require any follow up, something Perry says you are afforded the same accommodation, please just chime in. Okay. Thank you. All right. So next question, right? So there was one, there's, there were actually two that came in near each other that are just for one of you. So we'll start with the one from Matt Kelly. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. And it started a Perry and it says, as an elected city counselor that you accept money for this summer, you, this summer, you opted not to join a city council meeting and install it instead, join a protest against a public servant that terrorized the people of color inside, including minors. Do you regret that decision? Not entirely. Yeah. Yeah. What? I'm not entirely sure. Yeah. Sure. Yeah, I've had this conversation with folks. You know, I, and I'll, I'll say what I've said to everyone, which is basically, you know, it's a fine line between being an organizer and being an elected official. My actions to sort of partake in that. Or my decision to partake in that action was around wanting to have solidarity. I feel pretty strongly that. You know, I think it was, I think it was, you know, you know, you know, as an elected official granted this power. I also am not above sort of anyone who's the most vulnerable in our community. But I also got a lot of responsible people and people that I'm very close with and that I respect. Who said that they really strongly disagreed with it. And I took that to heart. And that's what I. Said to anyone who asked me, I think that. It was, I think it was not the right decision because. I think it was the right decision. I. I know. I think it was not the right decision. I, it, it had negative consequences that I didn't, I didn't anticipate. And I am, not above apologizing and saying that it was an error. That I didn't anticipate that. And. Yeah. So. Time's up. Patrick. My view. Feel free. Feel free. We'll give you 30 seconds. Yeah. I genuinely think that Councillor Freeman is a good person and did not mean for evil. And I think it's great just for her to apologize for that. My reason for wanting to say something here is that is a big part of my motivation for running. That decision, it was a bad decision in my opinion. It scared a family and two young daughters away from their home. And I think that populism is what resonates in DC today where we just saw the capital taken over. So it's just you can't equate them. Of course, they're different, but I see a similarity there that is frightening to me and so many in this community right now. Thank you. Good point. We do have the next question. Kevin, are you looking at the same one for Tiki? I'm not. There was one that came over email that I forgot to post into the chat, but I didn't want to confuse the order. Sorry, what? Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I was trying to be fair with the back and forth. Kerry had a question. I think she wanted to maybe add to something Tiki just said. I can either respond or if we want to move to that next question. What do you think, Patrick? If it adds to the conversation, yes. Please respond. I just wanted to say that I understand that there's this concern around populism, but I do, I don't think it's to me. And I didn't hear you say that right wing populism and nothing populism or left wing movements and right wing movements are the same, but fighting against white supremacy and fighting for white supremacy are not the same thing. And people's lives are online due to historic oppressions. And those things are contextual. And people have been harmed and their bodies have been damaged due to systems of white supremacy. So yes, sometimes people act out strongly and march on someone's street. But I think those folks are historically fighting for their lives. So I just want to be careful not to equate right wing movements with people who are fighting against historical oppression. The important difference noted. Thank you. Kevin, do you want to move to that Tiki question? Yes. Sir, I'm just trying to help. A question came through asking Tiki, if you have a history of chairing the progressive caucus, is there a reason that you're not seeking the progressive nomination for this race? Such a good question. Yes. The short answer. The longer answer is I've found that the progressive party has drifted in a direction that is not really been what I've been all about, which is good governance. So there's a significant faction of the progressive party, which contributed to the high numbers in the caucus recently, who care about good governance, more so than the idealism or the utopianism of the pursuit. And so good governance matters before everything. What I found then as an independent, I feel there's such a liberation to this, is that I don't have to look at the world through a partisan lens. I can let it go. So the vitriol, the demonization that I used to have as part of the progressives is gone. I actually see people in a new light now, that I don't think there are people on the commission who are demons or out to try to squash whatever causes that is on the table, but I think people are good people and they mean well and we need to open our minds to that rather than view everything through a partisan lens. So that's really why I'm running as an independent despite my background. Would you consider yourself a progressive anymore, Tiki? Absolutely. I guess I have to use small p to be honest because I don't have the banner of the big P, but yeah, absolutely. All right. So next question is for for both candidates. Are you in favor of rent control? This is a question from Roger Leibovitz of Word 3, rent control. Perry, would you like to start that one off? Sure. Yes. One of the most polarizing issues. Sure. You know, it hasn't come through the council yet, but I would like us to, I am interested in having the city look at this as a study and look at this as an option for Burlington. I know that CEDO and the administration put together a sort of compiled series of recommendations to improve and protect renters. This was not sort of advanced as part of that sort of initial research as a possibility, but I think that we should be considering it as a possibility. I, you know, there are so many ways that this policy could sort of, in terms of the actual nuts and bolts of it, but I think rent caps overall are part of a, they decommodify housing, which is a human right. And I do think that is important, and that's something that we should look at and take seriously as a community. Okay. Thank you, Tiki. Thank you. What I think is important here is what is the problem we're trying to solve. Rent control is a solution for something, presumably high rents, of course, and we've seen it applied in other cities around the nation. So here in Burlington, I would ask, is that what we're trying to solve? Is it high rents? Is it the condition of apartments? Is it gentrification? You know, these are issues to me, what I do in my work all the time is to break down a problem and let's try to advance that and try to figure out what the best solution is. So is rent control the best solution? I'm skeptical, and by nature I'm skeptical of the idea out of the gate. So I'd like to explore what are the options on the table right now. You know, what can we do to address high rents and low income housing? For example, there's just cause on the ballot right now, which is effectively a spinoff of rent control. I oppose that because I don't think it'll achieve those objectives of addressing high rent, the condition of apartments, and gentrification. I'll come in on time. Perfect. Barry, would you like a follow-up there? Yeah, I just want to just cause eviction and rent control. I just want to be, because I feel very strongly about the just cause eviction policy that's made it onto the ballot as a charter change, and there was a lot of confusion around whether it was rent control or not, and they're just not the same policy. They have their own merits, they have their own, you know, they have people have their own issues with them, and then they have their own support for them, but they're just two very separate things. So I just wanted to make sure that people know that, because that was very confusing when that charter change came up, and I just want to make sure people know that. Patrick, this is an important one. Do you mind if I take 30 seconds or so? Yeah, yeah, I think that is fair. I leave it to you in your best decision. It's productive discussion. Thanks. Okay, I'll take 30 seconds, but you know, I'll give you that just cause is not rent control. It's an evolution of it, so you know, constant agreement is correct in that sense. However, just cause will be damaged. It takes away an important tool, the small-time landlords who've been in this community for ages to try to remove bad tenants, great little space. They're bad landlords and they're bad tenants, and the best way to remove bad tenants is no cause, which is what we have today. We have a neighborhood of Ward 3 that was extremely impacted for two years because it was so hard to get rid of these folks. It drags down the energy of a neighborhood. Kids are nervous, parents are nervous. We need no cause. Thank you. Okay, okay, that's great. Harry, you all sit there. Kevin? Yeah, next question. I'm going to be trying to read everything. Next question is from Janet Karsgaden from Ward 2. Our city council is moving towards increased diversity, but it is not fully representative of our community. All folks bring their, all folks bring their own implicit bias to their work. What have you done to check your biases to make sure that you are not developing policy just based on your perspective, but represents the diverse views of our community? Well, Perry, would you like that one first? Yes, but I think, I think Tiki maybe is up. I just don't want to, but I can go first. Do you, I'll go, is it awkward? Should I just go? Oh, okay. Okay. I just, in terms of the question I didn't, sorry. Yeah, this is a great question. I, sorry. So I've been thinking about this because people, I was getting questions about my process and we've been talking a lot about process lately. And I think one of the things that feels really important to me in the work that I'm doing, especially when I don't, as someone who's represented a diverse array of backgrounds and folks from all sorts of walks of life and identities, that when I'm dealing and looking at an issue that's impacting vulnerable communities that I don't have the experience of living that first hand, that it's very important to me that those folks be front and center in that policy making and that decision making. And that's just something that I feel is just part of my values. And I think the way that I think of problem solving and community building is allowing people to be in a position of agency over their own life and the experiences that they have. And so that's one of the ways that I've addressed that in my work. Okay. Thank you. And Tiki. Such a good question. Oh gosh, I hate you. A minute is hardly justice to it. So I'm going to tell you a story. I will never forget going to the Museum of Tolerance and the guy who's bringing us through and say, okay, on this side, we have a door that says if you are biased, go through that door. If you're not biased, go through this door. And then the crowd just burst in with their respected doors. But the doors led to the same exact place, right? So it was an admission that we are all biased. Let's admit it. I admit as a white male, I have the white privilege that has carried me to where I am today. And it's extremely uncomfortable to run against a female because I'm completely supportive of having as many females in power as possible, just given history. As part of the progressive movement, I have often put my own opinions aside and deferred to the underrepresented voices and said, you know, it's for the better good, right? We need to raise those voices up. So there's so much more to say, but I do completely respect the voices of others, whether they be black, white, Hispanic, or business owners, or residents, low-income people, or people at the food shelter, we all deserve that voice. Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna, there's a ton of questions. And then, fortunately, we have to move along to the mayor forum. Do you guys want to provide a closing statement in two minutes? One real quick, one real quick, I'm sorry to interrupt. I did accidentally skip someone who was up higher in the order, and I missed her question. Lila, Lila, fortune off. It's just, it's a, it sounds like it's a quick follow-up to Tiki. And then can we move on to the closing statement, so it would be a quick one. It's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. So Tiki, I'm not quite sure from your answer about police accountability. This is going back a little ways. Would you or would you not support a charter change to achieve police accountability, or do you think it should be done through ordinance? Okay, yeah, going back to that one. I'm open-minded to whatever solution will get us there. You've got to recognize that in terms of a governance pattern that a charter change look at the path that's ahead of us. Number one, it has to be approved by the ballot, on the ballot. Number two, it has to go to the legislature. Number three, it's got to be signed off on. Number four, that we got to implement it. So you have a number of barriers to a charter change that I think, again, it's not off the table, but we got to explore. Is there an easier path to get there? I think there is. And my fear with this charter change that Councillor Freeman had proposed was that it risk costing us years without any sort of discussion and real effective reform at the police. Imagine this thing getting held up in the courts because it violated the union contract, for example, which it most certainly would have done. We would be here five years from now on this NPA saying, boy, too bad we don't have police reform. I fear for it that the proposal had gone through. It was not a good path to take. So am I open-minded to a charter change? Yeah, sure. If that's what's going to work best for me, there is a whole lot of other options we didn't even consider. Okay, Perry, would you like to respond, since you probably were part of the conversation to consider, if there was? Sure. Yeah, I don't believe that other measures and the charter change were mutually exclusive. I agree that there were still legal questions outstanding, but I think that could have been addressed during the public hearing process, which I think was something that was discussed. It was vetted by the city attorney's office, but there, of course, things continue to come up. So I thought that that would have been helpful to have it go through that. There are a lot of other reform measures. This community has also tried a lot of reform measures. It's also clear that we are not taking considerable enough steps in terms of addressing police violence and police brutality. So I really think that with this issue and the administration agrees, it requires a charter change. And again, it's just not mutually exclusive with other things that we can be doing to like looking at the police union contract, which the administration has also agreed needs to be reviewed. These are things that have bipartisan support and they're not mutually exclusive. We can do multiple things to address this issue. Thanks. And Perry, since you went first last time, Tiki, would you like to go first this time for your closing statement? Oh, sure. Why not? That sounds great. Tom, just remind me again how long of a time do we have here? Two minutes. Oh my gosh, this is luxury. I don't know that I'll use it all. Thank you again. It's sort of the standard, but I really mean it that I think I'm a big believer in teamwork in terms of my work, what I do every day. Teamwork is so important and that's why I'm thanking this NPA for pulling this through. It is not easy to do remotely. It's difficult in person. So when I had that advantage going for me, but to do this, my thumbs up to you all. On that theme of teamwork, I see Burlington as a team that we must act like a team and as if we all care about the same things. Now again, I share a lot of the objectives as Councillor Freeman here. I just have a different path to get there. And a part of that is respecting the teamwork that's here. So for example, if we take police, they are a team. Even the proposal had police carrying out public safety in it thereafter. And so we have to include them in the conversation. They have to be a part of that. We have teamwork in, while I cited the NPAs, the public works, for example, right? They're trying their best to work so hard amid a pandemic. You can imagine what it's like to try a snow plow and share a truck with somebody during COVID. You know, you're going to go home sick. Teamwork is everything. Whether you're at the council, you're on the police, say a controversial issue, whatever it is. And I think that is my vision as we do this. And with that brings pragmatism. It brings collaboration. It brings compromise. It also brings civility. And these are values that I think are so important in especially today's world, where there's such isolation, right? We see the news on the national level when we think this world has gone mad. I don't want to ski to my home yard. I think we can do better. So to me, I think it's important that every voice be represented, whether you're a student at UVM, a low income renter, a neighbor up the road, a small business owner, whoever you are, you're a visitor. I truly believe that if you interface with Burlington, you are Burlington, and your voice is important. So I kindly ask for your vote in this next election for city council. Okay. Thanks, Tiki. Perry. Wonderful. Thank you so much for putting this together for everyone being here. I just looked, checked the participants were up to over a hundred people. That's just so amazing. I love the NPA. I got really involved in local, you know, Burlington politics through the NPA. It's sad to not be able to meet in person. I'm really excited to be able to do that again. You know, this, for me, this has been an incredibly hard year. I think for all of us, this has been an incredibly hard year with COVID. This pandemic has, I think, in a lot of ways, just been so emotionally devastating. It has been economically incredibly tough. And it's been just a really hard year. And as much as it's been a hard year, I think crises like this provide an opportunity for us to come together. And also, it shows when sort of the areas that aren't working, we've seen ways in which our housing system is falling short, food systems, healthcare. I think this is an opportunity for us to evaluate, to come together again as a community to really center what is meaningful to us, that essential goods are something that are right for everyone. And that, yeah, that we have a lot of healing to do and a lot of progress that we can make coming out of this. So I'm really focused on, sorry, the chat is distracting me, I'm focused on sort of how we're going to come out of this pandemic, how we're going to come together, how we're going to sort of deal with the fallout. And I really, yeah, I'm excited to continue to work with you and connect with all of you. And, yeah, look forward to, yeah, connecting with you over the next couple of months of the campaign. And, yeah, thank you for being here tonight. And, yeah, thank you for your support. Thanks. Very good. I think we've accomplished what we've set out to do via Zoom. And we are going to, hopefully you all will stay around for the mayor forum. Thank you. And hopefully we will perhaps have an opportunity to do this in February again. Okay, thanks. And Barbara, I'll turn it back over to you. And then we'll go, we're just going to go right to the mayor. Oh, sorry, Barbara. I can't hear you. Okay, I'm sorry. And you're doing the mayoral forum as well. Yeah, all right. I don't see. I guess we're going to move into it. Let's keep it rolling. Keep it rolling. Okay. We will move right back in. Max and Ollie, I can't see who's present. So you're, please chime in and we will facilitate as best we can. See Max, I see. Hello. And Ollie. I'm sorry, I had to clear the screen there. The format will be pretty much the same way. The rules are pretty much the same. I think we all understand them and most people have been very polite about it. Patrick, I think it would be because it would be them again, because I don't think they were that clear actually. The community guidelines, the goal today is to gain a deeper understanding of the candidate's priorities, policies, positions and actions. I'm sorry, I mean the format. That's the part I think that was. The format. Here we go. Each candidate has a one minute opening. Questions will be emailed in advance. Or in the text box, the chat box, he, Kevin will review them the best he can as they're coming in and synthesize. The questions may not actually come out exactly as you worded them, but he will try to do his best to respect the nature of it. And please include your name and your word when asking the questions. Each candidate has a minute to answer the questions with a little attitude given if you're really, really not enough sometimes. We'll try to be equal to everybody. And then maybe a 30 second response, as everyone would like. And I'll try to be as fair as possible with keeping track of little family feud squares here who gets what. And then at the end of it, two minutes for a closing statement. Does that seem fair to everybody? Okay, I'm just going to start. Ali, would you like to go first with an opening statement? Absolutely. Yes, can you hear me all? Yes, okay. Thank you so much for having me here in front of you, all of you, the NPAs of World Two and Three. As you know, my name is Ali Jiang, and I am proud to be running as an independent for mayor of the city of Burlington. Because I believe that our city needs a trustworthy leader with an inclusive vision that can bring people together and transforming this small city as the best small city in America. And my campaign and the campaign of my team, it is all about implementing that vision that is a fair and equitable for the city that works for every single person that live here. And also a city that seeks to eradicate all systems of operations, discrimination against people of color, minority groups, a city that strives for sustainable economy, development, smart growth, and respect our lake and the environment, as well as the safety of the, and well-being of the people that live here. And most importantly, fiscal responsibility. We need to reassess and see where we're going, because I think COVID has taught us one thing, we were not ready. And but the community members here are just incredible and each one of them showed up. Okay, thanks. Sorry to interrupt you, Ali. We're going to try to keep it as brief as possible. So I guess, Ken, do you give warnings, warnings? Oh, I'm sorry. Do you have Molly in your screen? She is our time keeper. Okay, Molly. Thank you. Max, since you're at the top, and I'll go in reverse order at the closing to make it as fair as possible, if you don't mind. Sure. That sounds great. Well, thanks so much, Patrick. And the MPA Steering Committee really appreciate you bringing us together. This MPA has been an important part of my life for the last 10 years. As an active participant, it's been such a joy to be eating dinner with you month in and month out and getting a chance to really get to know you. I can't wait till we get back to that point. I think that this pandemic has really shown us the value of community and the need for us to emphasize how much strength comes from community. And that's really what drives me to run for mayor. I want to be a mayor that brings our community together around these shared values of equity and justice and making sure that we are not only addressing the basic needs of our neighbors in the context of this pandemic, but also making real progress on the pressing issues of our time, like the climate crisis that we face, the housing challenges and the unaffordable prices that so many face in our city with housing costs, as well as systemic racism that continues to cause harm to our neighbors of color across our city. And so these are the issues. This will be the focus of my administration and something that I'm really excited to share my vision with you about tonight. Perfect. Thanks. Anne Moreau, would you like to take your one minute? Unmute, Mr. Mayor. I apologize, my gosh. Thank you for all these months. Thank you to the Ward 2-3 MPA for bringing us together tonight. I look forward to a day when we can gather again at your amazing community dinners. But while better times are coming, for now we continue to grapple with multiple simultaneous crises, a pandemic, a historic recession, a long overdue reckoning on racial justice and an accelerating climate emergency. Moments like this demand proven leadership. Since last February, I've been driven by the belief that in a global pandemic, local actions matter. Every day since we have fought the virus as our top priority in the city by, for example, creating a city analytics team to scour the globe for the best science on the virus. Deploying millions of local and federal dollars with a focus on protecting the most vulnerable through strategies like creating a new year-round low barrier shelter. And coordinating with, and when necessary, pushing hard our partners at the hospital, the state, and the colleges. This effort combined with the incredible sacrifice and vigilance that you all have made is the reason this community has weathered this crisis as well as any other in the country. If you give me the opportunity to continue to lead this great city, this is the kind of relentless commitment I'll bring to our other major crises. I look forward to discussing our plans over the course of tonight. Okay, thank you. We will move on to the first question from Kevin, and Kevin may be rhetorical, but if we have questions directed to individual candidates, let's try to be fair and direct if we get three questions each individual candidate. So it's a little bit more deliberative. Totally. Absolutely. We had a couple email ones. I don't see any. There was one so far in the chat, but there are a few that were emailed. So we'll start with the top. So this is from Andrew Champagne of Ward 2. As a 25 and a half year resident of the Old North End, safety is my paramount concern. All are concerned with safety in our neighborhood and the downtown. It would be appreciated if the candidates could address the question of safety and present any proposals in this area that they might have. Alrighty. We'll start off with Max, if you don't mind. Thanks for the question. I really appreciate it from my neighbor across the street, Andrew. I know that this is important just in talking with Andrew pretty regularly, and this is something that is certainly a concern. I'm fully in favor of transforming our police force to better meet the needs of our neighbors. And so I think what we need to do is continue to lean into efforts to transform policing in our city by transitioning armed officer roles to more direct social supports aimed at dire community needs, like trauma-informed mental health responses, like substance use disorder treatment services, like better street outreach for individuals experiencing houselessness. These are unmet community needs and needs for which officers are not the answer. And I think we need to continue to build out those positions and make sure that we're doing everything we possibly can to better meet those needs, because when we do that, we'll create a public safety system that is truly safe for all. Thank you very much. If anybody's reading the chat box that you've been invaded by Piranhas, unfortunately, hopefully that won't affect the rest of the meeting, which to anybody else, yeah, that's a technical jargon for somebody Zoom bombing us. And I'm going to go clockwise with the answers. If you don't mind, for me, Miro, you would be next. Sorry, Mr. Mayor. Great. Thank you, Patrick. And thank you, Andrew, for the question. I think you're totally right. Public safety needs to be one of the very top priorities and concerns of any mayor or really any elected official serving the city. And I am concerned that decisions made by the city council over my objections last summer have put that in jeopardy. I think there were changes made to the police department without a plan. And as a result, we're heading into a period here of real uncertainty about whether we're going to continue to be able to answer all the calls that the people in Burlington make to the police department, the 30,000 calls a year consistently and in the way that people in Burlington expect. I have a proposal to address that. It's going to be for the city council in the next couple of weeks here. And I hope this time the council will listen to the concerns being raised by me and the chief and the director of police transformation and be collaborative in finding a way through. I do believe we need significant reform in American law enforcement and in law enforcement here in Burlington. And I've stood for that and worked hard for that for years. And over the course of the night, perhaps all more opportunities to talk about that, what the transformation that is needed. Thank you, Miro. Ali, would you like to follow up? Do you need a refresher of that? Of course, yeah. Thank you. I think, you know, the question is specific about police transformation. And I think we have wrongly framed the question. It should not be about the police itself. We have to talk about what we call public safety. We are a college town, two universities. We have children, a lot of schools over here. We should not talk about police transformation. And we cannot transform the police by reducing it through attrition. This need a process that is inclusive to the community members that live here and all stakeholders, such as the businesses. To get there, we have to be sure that we have a police chief. And the police chief would be the one who would have, because he has the knowledge and expertise about what policing in the 21st century is, how it should look like. And then, based on the values of the community members, he can drive that work in collaboration with the community. And I will always try for inclusion. I brought so many amendments about the racial justice resolution. So let's talk about this more over the course of this race. Excellent. Does anyone require any follow-up? Seems like you are all pretty succinct in answering that question. It does not look like we're going to be able to have any people type in questions into the chat box anymore. Looks like it's been pretty much saturated. If this hasn't happened to anybody on a blue meeting before, it's usually just a lot of hot air coming from somebody. And please don't take it too serious, as you probably could do more damage by following their instructions than not. Kevin, do you have another question we can facilitate? Can't hear you, Kevin. There we go. Yes. Next question is from Megan Humphrey. Very specifically, what would each of you do to provide better oversight for the city's police department in order to eliminate racism? And Mr. Mayer, would you like to first answer on that one? Yeah, I'd be happy to. You know, we've had several efforts in the time that I've been mayor that I think are great examples of how you do this work right. First of all, I noticed that the candidates of color who applied to be police officers were made it through the police recruitment and appointment process at a much lower rate than white candidates. And we unpacked every step of the process and made significant changes the way we recruit and prepare people for the police academy in response to that and have had some successes in recruiting more diverse officers since. Another great example is we had an issue several years ago with a real racial bias being shown in traffic stops. And we took an analytical attack to that to try to really understand what was going on, broke down the performance of each officer and then showed each officer what their performance was. And we saw some really dramatic changes and movement in the right direction in the wake of that and by some measures have made real progress on the bias in those stops. Those are great ways that you actually get into the details and make change. Thank you, Mr. Mayer. Ali, would you like to go next? Do you need to reflect on the question at all? Yes, I think the question was about policing of a side, what we would do as mayor and that doesn't need into your time but I want to make sure. Okay, go ahead. Please stop. Thank you. So I mean I think when we talk about every police should have what we call an oversight body and currently the question is is a police commission playing that role and from my perspective I don't think they are doing it. We need to rethink policing in the 21st century and do that we have to include the community members that are being policed through an extensive and lengthy process. We will find the right program, the right oversight for the community of Burlington. I am just against rushing things. I was completely in favor of what Perry Freeman brought forward. It was vetted, it went to a lengthy process but unfortunately it was vetoed. So as a mayor I will start the process again including the police commission, the community member and like I said before making sure that it is the police chief who will drive that work and will respond to my administration. Thank you Ali and Max. Yeah, thank you so much for the question. Megan really appreciated it. It's a really important question because we know we have lots of work to do to address and uproot systemic racism in our city. We have real problems when we have force being used at record levels as it was in the last year against black people in our city when we have disproportionate traffic stops remaining a persistent for people of color remaining persistent in our city. We know that we need real independent oversight and that as a part of that we also need independent investigative authority with subpoena power and then as a result of those investigations we need to vest that independent oversight body with real authority to make disciplinary decisions. We've seen the real drawbacks in the last several years of the of vesting that authority exclusively in the chief. Two weeks of unpaid leave or unpaid punishment for the incidents that took place did not by any means meet the severity of what was done to those individuals and so we need looking at these broader trends and these specific incidents we need real independent oversight with disciplinary authority. Okay, any follow-ups required? Mr. Mayor and I'll follow up your welcome to one as well. Great, thank you Patrick. You know I was hearing Megan's question is about you know what is the kind of police work you need to do to bring to address racial bias and policing certainly oversight is part of it and you know I believe I was the first elected official to say a year ago that we had a problem in our charter that our current system vests near absolute authority in the police chief and that's something we need to change in the charter. I do support reform of the charter. We've got to get it right though. It's got to be a system that we all can be sure and the people are going to need to serve on it can be sure it will be fair and impartial. That was why I vetoed the charter change a couple weeks ago. I didn't think we could ensure that and I thought it would make the problems that I talked about before of not being able to respond to bro and tonians calls worse. We're going to keep working on this as soon as the next couple weeks and we're going to get it right. All right thank you. Holly would you like to add any additional comments? Yeah other than let's all think about how do we get here. I think it is just because some actions that we were supposed to take as elected officials we did not and that ended up having young children during a state of the health emergency camping in our parks. Definitely police oversight is needed but we should not rush them and we have to just make sure that those with expertise and knowledge can drive the work including the community to get it done. Okay thank you and Kevin do we have another question pulling from the troves we have? Yes we do. Next one is from Jessica House from Ward 3. This is for everybody. Incendiary antagonistic and polarizing rhetoric and behaviors seem rampant in politics today at all levels including within our city. Genuine curiosity, empathy and thoughtful discourse seem to be lacking. How do you plan to foster spaces within the city's governance for thoughtful discourse and collaboration among those with differing thoughts and perspectives and to that end what is something you admire about the perspectives of each of your opponents as you have collaborated with them in our city's governance as councilor or mayor? Oh that sounds like two questions. Yeah it kind of is yeah. Well if you take on both of them we can allow for a little bit longer period of time and bonus points. Yeah they're both pretty worthy questions. Ali would you like to go first? Yes I would be half if you cackle both of those questions. Okay so you may I will need your help and I think all about my administration would be this. I am not an expert but I would rely on those who know and have the knowledge expertise in subject models to help and to drive the work that we need. The most important thing that we need to strive for is to be civil. Currently we develop a vaccine for coronavirus and I think the next step is for the hospital to look into a vaccine to help people be civil. In Burlington we should not be fighting each other. 42,000 people live here have children here. You go online use it's unbelievable. We need to come together this is a community first and we are known with a community mindset to get things done. How do we get here? It is partisan, politic most of the time. Local organization, political organization are now driving the agenda. It's no longer the council nor the mayor. It's just people who have voice can speak up. The other aspect of the question maybe I'll take it as a second. Well go ahead start just yeah I believe Kevin you want to refer to that second part of the question just to make sure that it's clear. It seems it is like how do I the the question was specific around what do I like about my opponents right? Someone okay. One thing that I learned about Miro Weinberger and he helped me understand this is things take time we should not rush things and process matter and I think this really pitted it out with the Miro on downtown right? I think just yeah bringing people together getting things done we're not going anywhere and no one is coming it's us and we have to solve our problems. What I like really about Max is definitely he can speak up and I speak up so hard but sometimes speaking up is not solving the problem. It's all about making sure that what you do not know or understand all the people who do know it and understand let's collaborate. Collaboration is what I will bring as the next mayor of the city. Thank you very much Ali. Max I'm gonna uh do you need a refresher of both those or those fresh in your mind those two questions? Yeah no I think I got the the general just a bit and really appreciate the question. I think that how we involve people is central to our our democracy and we're in a moment where we need to do much more to strengthen our democracy in in order to resist the the troubling trends that we're seeing on a national level and so to me that means really making creating more opportunities for direct democracy to take place whether it's in planning processes or ultimate decision-making authority around budgeting. I think that we really need to do more to empower our citizens around these decision-making processes whether that and that can take the form of expanding our MPAs and the the authority that those MPAs have making sure that we're giving them real decision-making power at the neighborhood level as well as thinking about as well as exploring a participatory budgeting system where people have real say over how their money is spent. I think there are significant opportunities to expand that more direct democratic participation. I want people to be able to show up as their authentic selves. I think there's a real challenge and balance to that as I found out on the last year as council president hosting some of the longest forums in city history. It's been really difficult and I've wanted to try and strike that very challenging balance between giving people the opportunity to to speak their truth while also keeping things respectful in the context of in the context of those. Would you like to share something positive about your two fellow? Absolutely so you know I really you know I really appreciate Councillor Jang's work and an emphasis around these themes of unity. I think that that's something that I really respect a lot about Councillor Jang that he continues to come back to those themes and then one thing that I've really enjoyed working with the mayor on and have really valued collaboration on has been the opiate crisis. We've as well as our as well as our shared goals around walking and biking in the city. We've forged some significant partnership around those issues so really appreciate both of both of them on those fronts. Thank you Max excellent and Mr. Weinberger would you care to follow and answer that do you need a refresher on any of those? I don't know I think I've I think I've got it Patrick you know one of the things that I have always loved about Burlington and and trying to work in public service in Burlington is that I think we always have had a strong ethic of civility and of working across partisan. You know we like our politics we definitely have parties but we have always been able to work across those boundaries and we have long had real practices around making sure that new initiatives coming forward are carefully vetted are are are opened up broadly to the community and that all voices are that we work to get as many voices as possible. We don't only succeed at getting them all in but we work to get many voices included in the decision-making. I think those have been good ethics and I do think it I think maybe the question is motivated by a sense that that there has been some loss of that over recent years and that there has been greater acrimony and division and polarization and and what some call you know lack of civility and I am troubled by those trends. I think some of it is driven just by the the pandemic that we are we are in. I think we're a lot of things are going to get a lot better when we can get back in the same room and talk to each other directly. Second part of that question. Yeah just thanks Patrick. We just we should be careful to hold on to those Burlington traditions. Look I like like the others have said I'm some of the accomplishments I'm I'm I'm proudest of came because of the collaboration with the two other people on the screen. So Councillor Jang we worked on creating the racial equity inclusion and belonging department and I thought his his wisdom and patience in that was was was was outstanding and and you know Max and I were elected on the same day almost nine years ago and I feel like we've kind of aged together in this in these positions and I like Max and respect him. We often disagree but I the areas we've been able to come together on I think we've made substantial progress in particular around walk walking and biking. It's a different city now that it was nine years ago in parks of that collaboration. Thank you thank you very much and Kevin do we have any other questions. Yes so the first one I'm going to switch back to the questions that came through the chat. This is one is from Jacob word three. Give one concrete step that you want to take in the next six months to tackle the climate crisis that's to everyone. Alrighty Max I would put you first on this question. Yeah so we know that we need to make much greater progress to address carbon emissions related to heating as well as transportation. On the heating side we also know that we have an incredibly old housing stock that is in many ways not well cared for and specifically that that has a direct impact on people across our city who are paying rent as well as heating bills in a lot of those units and who are responsible for those costs but who do not have the ability to weatherize so I am in favor of mandating weatherization of rental units across our city in order to realize greater efficiency benefits and make our units and our housing more livable at the same time. Alrighty and Mr. Weinberger would you like to follow that one up? Yeah no I would I mean I think this is an area of huge accomplishment for the city over decades and over the last nine years in an area where there is so much more to do and we have a lot of exciting things teed up. We do need that weatherization proposal that Max just mentioned was an idea that came out of the two housing summits that we held in 2019. We presented that idea to the council over a year ago and I am eager to see the council finish that and get that done and get that implemented that is an urgent high priority item. Here's another one that we all can do together right on town meeting day and that is to pass what I think is really a pioneering decarbonization charter change that would put us on the path to dramatically reducing the amount of fossil fuel infrastructure that is built in new buildings going forward and eventually give us the tools to convert existing buildings away from fossil fuels. There are very few cities in the country that have done anything like this you all get a chance to vote on it I hope you'll support it on town meeting day. Thank you Mr. Mayor and Ali. Yes I think the most important thing that I feel like the city is not doing very well is to educate, sensibilize the community members here about the importance of this issue that's very concrete and also to strengthen the intensives that the Burlington Electric Department are already developing in terms of transportation you can switch to a new car or heat pump in your home but I think it would be concerning for so many people in this city if we pass that ballot item around thermal energy because so many people have been hit so hard by this virus and it would be imperative to just strengthen the services and program we have in place and also to look into the future of the plants that is currently being run by wood which is also not 100% clean energy. Yes. All right thanks Ali. Oh follow up Mr. Mayor. Yeah I just I want to be clear there I think Ali was opposing the charter change that I just supported because he's concerned about the impact on people's pocket books I want to really clear like that is not what a yes vote will do there the a yes vote will give the city the authority to regulate thermal energy which is something we need to do if we're going to get serious about addressing the climate crisis here in this in this city that before any new tax or any new fee could be passed on to Burlingtonians there would be another vote you would get a chance to weigh in again and a lot of the early actions to be focused on developers and new construction. Thanks and and by to be clear by thermal energy we're talking about the McNeil plant waste energy or actually this this is exciting but this would this would give the city the ability to regulate all thermal systems in in buildings so it would give us the ability to really nudge buildings away from fossil fuels towards alternative energy. I didn't want to give you yeah any extra platform just to be clear okay sorry because those are those are two issues that perpetually come up. So I just I do want to say that I that I do also support this charter change I think that it's important that we continue to incentivize and create ways for us to to not have additional fossil fuel infrastructure built related to heating and so I do fully support the charter change I think it will move us forward in important ways and I encourage all of you to vote for it on Town Meeting Day. The other piece that I just wanted to address is that I think that we need to build a district energy system so we we know we have lost heat coming out of the McNeil plant. One of the biggest things we can do to address our our carbon emissions from heating is to create a district energy system capturing that heat and using it to to heat and heat our homes throughout the homes and businesses throughout the city. Thank you thank you and that district heat is what I was referring to. All right may may I have a rebuttal? Sure. Thank you yes um I think the mayor is correct like the yes vote for the um thermal energy ballot item will not increase your taxes but ultimately that's what it will do over time. The city will come back again requesting for people to switch or be taxed have a levy tax applied to them. I know the element um that I have been talking to about the director of the airport. In terms of transportation any taxi that is at the airport they should all be taxed that are run by electric cars no more fossil fuel parking at our airport. All right thank you. Kevin do we have any other wonderful questions from all over the city probably not just ward two and three? Most likely but I think this one is actually from the hood so here's one from another one from Andrea Todd for everybody. We all have areas of weakness as humans what are your leadership weaknesses and how do you envision compensating for those areas? Okay um and I believe I've lost Ali right? Yeah you're first. Thank you Ali. Yes um that's a great question. I think that's an amazing question and I think having the ability to recognize where you're not well I think it's an act of leadership and I talked about here earlier how I'm not an expert in anything but what I can do is to build a team and I recognize also I am very pragmatic forward thinking and I think one thing that that that's very concrete is my concern about responding to people. I'm very responsive but sometimes I should not respond to anything that comes in front of me. I think that's a something that I need to work on in terms of my leadership skills. All right thank you. And Max? Well I think that that people know that that I'm an incredibly passionate person and that that's how how I show up in in spaces and I know that you know that that is not the way that everybody communicates and so I certainly recognize that and you know I know that I want to you know I I know that I that I need to to continue to work on you know how you know communicating to people in ways that meet them where they are as well and so I want to I want to say that I think that that's something that you know is I'm a very values driven person and so I think that you know I really want to make sure that I do everything that I can to maintain my values but also at the same time to to do everything I can to to meet people where they are. The question is you know what are your sort of faults as a did you sort of get that? I'll pass it over to the mayor. I didn't quite hear that Max sorry. Hi thanks Patrick. I um I think I'm this part of I have a tendency to get too deep sometimes into the details of issues and and not delegate sufficiently to others which is something you need to do as a mayor. You can't you can't hope to take on every every every detail of every issue. I've tried to compensate that over time by surrounding myself with an outstanding team of department heads a group of individuals that will tell me when I'm wrong and tell me when I need to let others take the lead and and do their jobs and I I hope I've gotten better at over over nine years but I can still get a little victim to that at times. Alrighty okay Kevin. Hey next up we have a question from Roxanne Muse. There's a lot to this question but to summarize it this is a question for for Miro regarding the charter change addressing police reform. So what would you have done differently if you could do it all over and what is the first thing you'll do as mayor to start making the bold changes I believe you all want and you all meaning the Progressive Caucus and the Council. Okay Max I believe you're first. Well I think that with the charter change it was unfortunate to see that not get onto the ballot this year. I've fully supported that charter change and I think we're it's incumbent upon us given the trends that we've seen more generally but also specifically with regards to how people of color are treated with respect or with with disrespect within our system within our policing system right now and so we need to create a public safety system that works for all and I think that oversight is crucial for that and so I want to continue that work on trying to find a proposal that can move forward that has real independent authority over discipline because I think that that will be crucial in order to in order to truly bringing real accountability and transparency and solving the problems that we have seen persist over the last several years but go unaddressed and it's really unfortunate that we that this charter change is not on because it just pushes us back further in terms of being able to really put a solution before the voters and so I hope that we're able to continue to work on that and get a solution even if it requires you know a special election or additional action. Thank you and sorry to interrupt but we do have the chat room right now is back open for any additional questions for Kevin to facilitate. Thank you Max and Maro would you like to follow up? Yeah so the question was what would I have done differently you know I laid out the three major concerns I had about the charter change. One was I thought that it was written in a way that it did not ensure that the justice the discipline being administered by this new system would be fair and impartial and I thought that would have a devastating impact on our department and really accelerate these troubling trends we've seen where we will soon really have trouble answering all the calls that Burlingtonians make and sufficient and providing the public safety services that people of Burlington expect. That needs to change I think there needs to be a clearer role the chief was cut entirely out of the discipline process or nearly entirely I thought that was a problem I also thought there should be a role for the mayor in the discipline process certainly we've seen that the public holds the mayor accountable for these issues the mayor should have a formal role. I in terms of what I would do I've already laid out there in my it was very hard to veto that it was not something I wanted to do so I laid out in my veto letter the steps that we would take to keep making immediate progress on this issue some things don't need to wait for a charter change perhaps have a chance to speak more about it with the thank you man and Ali would you like to go how would you do things differently? Yes I think it the most fundamental aspect that about the issue of the police here is just a lack of transparency and also a lack of action we have been just reacting which is not what leaders should do leaders should act and act on the right at the right time if we took really good care of black children being victimized in the city street then we would not have been here today to talk about the police I think action matters and they speak more than words vision it's what it is about what would I do differently is basically just to make sure that the police culture has changed and as a leader I understand also what they go through every single day we do not know what police officers go through and I want to learn that and yeah okay thank you Max did you go sorry trying to read all set all righty Kevin yep so next up is one from the chat feed from Isaac Bissell do you see a conflict between the city's climate goals and the planned expansions to the airport? I believe there you are next yeah thank you listen I support our airport I think our airport is a tremendous resource for this community if we didn't have this airport we would we would we would not be nearly as prosperous a community as we are and I fully support the planned investments to continue our decades of modest growth and expansion there I understand certainly the emissions from jets is something to be concerned about but I also think we got to put it in perspective and the the votes that have been made by this council and including you know some of my colleagues here tonight or you know this is definitely an area that Max and I have differed in have I think would really badly hurt the airport for very minimal climate benefits airport emissions make up a tiny percentage of Vermont's climate emissions and to to basically want to abolish the airport over those emissions I think is completely wrong approach and is not one I would I would take okay thank you and Ali would you like to respond to the question yep thank you I think it's another great question by people of the old north and smart people I think what what I want to see in terms of our airport is what is currently what currently exists there currently the airport has a hub in building airplanes or helicopters that are powered by clean energy I want to make sure that the city of Burlington will strengthen what currently happened and also we will lead the rest of the nation and make a Burlington a hub in terms of how do we fight climate change it's not only about the airport but it's also the surrounding communities and I think it would be important to have the real conversation do we need the F-35 here I want to keep them in Vermont but is the airport the right place to keep them there I think those are two concrete stuff that I want to do in terms of climate change about the airport thank you very much Ali and Max thanks thanks so much for the question I think it's crucial that we examine and reduce all all emissions related to to transportation we know that this continues to be an area where we're just not making enough progress and so I think it's a real flaw within our net zero planning that we did not do more to include strategic planning around how to reduce emissions at the airport I think that some of the moves towards expansion of the airport do contradict or go against those goals and that we need to be thinking of ways that we can strategically get those emissions under control so continue and bring them down over the over the next several years in a big way because absent that we're facing climate catastrophe and we need to be doing we need to be having all these different types of emissions addressed and that also applies to the F-35 which is one of the the most one of the one of the bigger sources of emissions and fossil fuel usage you know on a pretty regular basis and so we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can to resist the F-35s as well because they're a climate disaster okay thank you Max and I would like to add noise more than anything for those F-35s mayor you would like a follow-up response I would Patrick I do want to talk a little bit about the issue Ali just raised about beta which is this pretty remarkable company that is at the airport that does hold great promise for transforming the airline industry flight over time towards electrification we have taken very strong and aggressive steps to support that startup company and help it grow and get established here and I'm very hopeful that you're going to see that that flourish further this that could become part of this larger strategy of strategic electrification that Burlington really is a pioneer of which from my perspective hasn't gotten enough focus and attention as a comprehensive solution to climate change strategic electrification which Burlington is leading the way on is the way to address a great percentage of our overall climate emissions. Thank you Miro just to chime in quickly sorry Ali I'll give you a second to respond again we have been trolled again a zoom troll has attacked us so please be mindful if you're scrolling through that these are not reflective comments of our community. So what's the username? Max Tracy we're we're we're deleting them as they come up it's the same person coming in so people understand who are necessarily familiar with troll. There's a lot from yeah yeah so sorry Ali to interrupt the flow the conversation would you like your response? Yeah it will be and it will be very quick and I think the Miro is right that Beta is doing an amazing job and it's just a start right now but strengthening it strengthening it will be will go a long way and earlier I talked about in terms of making sure that all the taxes that are currently at the airport need to be given amended basically but in five years they all have to switch to electric cars right otherwise they won't be able to park there and how do we also have that conversation with the rental companies that are there as well. Okay thank you Kevin sorry to interrupt you all good so there's um so there's one question that I think will bring us to the end of the spot that I think is a good one to end on this one came over email and it's to everybody please talk about your management or leadership experience and how you plan to use that experience to leave Vermont's their largest city. Okay I'm sorry who is next? I cannot multitask to save my life. I think it would be me. Oh Ali would you like to go first? Yeah okay my leadership I mean maybe I'm the only one of these candidates who has an accent that is very strong which means that I came here only 13 years ago and today I'm in front of all of you seeking for your vote to be the next mayor of the great city of Burlington. I think that only speaks to my leadership and to also my Ashibna. No English 13 years ago I created programs and projects that just helped people to get better. Without a political party or backbone organization I accomplished so much that I don't think my opponent if I were in Africa they would be able to accomplish and I have done it all through collaboration bringing people together and being civil and that's what I would want to continue as the next mayor of the city. Thank you. Alrighty and Max. Yeah so I've been as I've been on the council for the last almost nine years at this point and during that time I've been just taken a deep dive into all the different aspects of the of city government participating in nine different budget cycles and involving myself in a wide range of different committees that have lots to do with that have that have familiarized me with the inner workings of all the different departments of city government and just the crucial work that they do and how that is directly linked to the delivery of city services that people depend on and so that's going to be a crucial thing coming out of this pandemic is making sure that we are really prioritizing and those those direct basic city services and making sure that they continue and that we're also working closely with our with our our employees many of whom are bargaining unit employees and as someone who has significant union and labor experience I know how to work directly with with folks in the labor movement in order to make sure that we're meeting mutually beneficial goals. Excellent thank you and uh Maro. Management is a huge part of the job of being Mayor Burlington. It's in our city it isn't like this in every city in our city the the mayor is the chief executive officer and that means at the end of the day the mayor needs to manage more than 600 full-time employees it's swells to almost a thousand employees with seasonal workers and a budget if you collect put assemble all our budgets it's it's 200 million dollars on an annual basis for nine years those have been my responsibilities it is it is it is a hard management job the mayor has more than 20 directs reports that's the structure that I inherited and that's very challenging and I've worked very hard to it and built a really good management team and I do think this is one of the questions in this race that voters need to ask themselves is right now in the middle of a pandemic in the middle of a deep recession is this the time to move away from tested proven leadership it's because of that management experience that Peter Clavel former mayor endorsed me earlier today and I hope all voters will consider that is there weighing their choices this election all righty oh that's those all sounded like closing statements uh but if you got if you all would like a closing statement on top of that then uh feel free um unless there is another question Kevin I think that was pretty much it right yeah there's a lot more but I thought that would be a good transition into the closing statements yeah those were sort of closing statements but yeah would you any of the candidates like to add a official closing statement well I think was I supposed to go first on the closing Patrick I do believe yes so uh you you're right there will be some similarities but um I would like to just say a few more words first I want to I want to thank Ali and Max for this discussion tonight I'm looking forward to spending a lot more time on zoom screens together over the next seven weeks as a community uh over the last nine years we have been through so much together and together we've we've met every test when I first came into office the city was in trouble at the edge of junk bond status and over the years through a series of valid items and important initiatives we rebuilt our double A credit rating and locked in more than 17 million dollars in rising of taxpayer and rate payer savings with that financial foundation secure we've been able to make massive infrastructure investments into our sidewalks our streets our parks and our water resource systems that protect the lake and we've launched groundbreaking new initiatives that the city never never did anything like them before to ensure equity and protect the most vulnerable including new housing options for people experiencing homelessness high quality child care scholarships for low-income children and new new resources for combating the opioid crisis as aggressively as any community in the country all of this while keeping municipal tax rates increases lower than the rate of inflation and in 2020 the the most challenging year in local government in generations we fought and contained the virus as well as any community in america while also forging meaningful progress on racial justice and addressing the climate emergency not everything's gone smoothly or has happened as quickly as we hoped however my administration has the persistence and the commitment to keep working at problems until they are fixed after long years or in some cases decades of trying today we have a beautiful new bus station city hall park has been revitalized and the moran frame is now at long last in construction in this election amidst multiple simultaneous crises the city faces a clear choice to continue forward with a proven experience team that has in partnership with you the people of the city completed all this and much more or returned to the type of leadership that created such trouble a decade ago with your renewed support on town meeting day i will apply this experience and commitment to the challenges ahead together we will fight racism as a public health emergency finish the job of restoring a vibrant neighborhood on our a long troubled side of the former mall and continue on our path towards becoming america's first net zero energy city thank you very much mayor you're going to get um and ali would you like to i think it's uh uh uh max because i started early thank you thank you what so i appreciate that and i just want to thank the the awards two three mpa for all your work in hosting this it's it's great to be here tonight and to have a chance to discuss these issues it's been a great discussion and i'm certainly excited to continue that conversation over the next several weeks i think that what this pandemic has has shown us is that we have a need to not only address the the basic needs of of our neighbors to to make sure that we're providing for for everyone and not leaving anyone behind in this because this is only exacerbated the challenges that we face as a community that we that during this time where we where we have this this need to provide immediate and direct relief to so many you know i was absolutely heartbroken a couple weeks ago to go to a food distribution event where we had to turn away dozens of cars because there was just simply not enough and that's that's the reality of this moment where we need to really ground city government in addressing the basic needs of folks not only during this pandemic but coming out of this pandemic because that is going to be part of the bold transformative change that we need as a city we need a different direction to address the housing crisis that we face as a city one that does not rely on the market to solve our problems but one that sees city government as being directly able to to rein in the high cost of housing in our city we need to also take bold decisive action to confront the climate crisis that is directly impacting our community in in in really horrendous ways making sure that we're doing everything we possibly can to to address carbon emissions related to heating and transfer and transportation and then also we have to to redouble our efforts to uproot systemic racism creating a public safety system for all that that is truly safe by leaning into efforts to transform public safety but not taking our eye off the ball of economic and cultural empowerment for BIPOC individuals in our community because that also has to be a that also has to be a crucial focus bringing these efforts together will require a different approach and i'm prepared to bring it thank you thank you max and ali for the last statement of the mayor forum thank you one one one request please make sure that you tell me that my time is otherwise i will keep on well i'm trying to give be fair to everybody so even after wonderful can't see you can't see molly so i i think thank you i think the the mayor's closing statement was very clear and transparent and i think a tested leadership to me it's nothing other than being transparent being able to listen and also to be in touch with the people i think burlingtonians are tired and people are ready for change i believe that burlington deserves a leader who is not entrenched in partisan politics or who is not in touch with the people of this great city a leader who is willing to do the hard and necessary work to move our city forward burlingtonians they want a government that can be trusted to do the right things when no one is looking a government that is transparent and clear a government that cares enough and the government that can even stop the hill community members are tired they want to build unity around our community and reason why i'm running for mayor i also believe that burlington is ready for change and the change should be a transparent change a unified change and a change geared around action on things that mark the change that will also create our dream the change that will leave a legacy to our kids and also vulnerability people are protected i invite you all to please visit my website early jeng.com get involved and let's have the hard and necessary conversation until march 2nd and i'm asking for your work thank you for having us again okay thank you ali and i'm sorry i'm not gonna allow any follow-ups to those closing statements and thank you again and good luck to all and we're going to move on with our meeting thanks patrick thanks ken and barbra i'm gonna hand it back over to you you have one more to facilitate patrick the school oh that's right i'm sorry i i yep i don't have the agenda brought up in front of me i'm trying to read too many things at once and our it's my turn it's your turn and you can't be the only one running and you're not running against yourself are you i i i have an internal struggle so kind of but no i'm not i'm running unopposed um do you mind if i segue in patrick on on the interest of time all yours thank you i just want to appreciate whoever asked the question about faults at the leader i think it is incredibly important that whoever becomes our mayor in the future feels comfortable with being vulnerable realizes what a strength it is um in knowing um when you're wrong and apologizing uh because you can't make something better if you don't know that you made a mistake right so that's the first step and with that said um as somebody who is serving on the school board i i am signing up again because mainly um even though i've gone this will be my third time on the ballot um it's only about two and a half years and it is just the beginning of even understanding what entails this role so i feel like i just got my feet wet and i'm i'm invested um but with that said my fault is that i'm not psyched about doing all this stuff on zoom i would much rather be i mean i pretty much ended up here because i really like having the conversations about how people are sincerely impacted and i organized ways that people could interface and you know problem solve um connecting folks that had issues with people in the district that could address them and it's not the same right now but i do feel like uh i can i can move forward with whatever platform we have to do it on but just a little bit about me my name is jeannie waltz also jean i have lived in ulna then for over 30 years i've been an art teacher at um uh rockpoint school which is a private non-profit alternative high school um boarding right here in brillington and i owned a house in uh the old night then well first i helped form a small co-op on uh decatur street for nine years and now i've been in my house for oh my god since like 2002 cht house so um one of the perspectives i've been bringing to the board is um you know not making a lot of money and uh living in a titanic community that um does not speak english as a first language and uh you know endearing things like being called hun every day at the corner store which i adore and uh thanks i don't mean to drop you but in case i want to make sure in case we have any questions oh okay where are you because uh since you're running unopposed um and there's a lot of interesting stuff going on i know this we could allow for a question hey you know and patrick if we want to invite the other commissioners holly and steven are on the line and the next thing um question just for me that's fine but if it's a larger yep my mistake we do a lot we're allowing uh i can i can tell by the look in barbers face that i'm jumping ahead to the next portion of our right once since you're running unopposed you can take questions as part of the school board report the school commissioners who've asked for 15 minutes and unless there are um questions in the chat for for genie um i think the chat was turned off oh i i don't know i put something in there but anyway um i have a question how many hours would you say you spend in a month to be on it does any one counselor uh put in to their volunteer position i would say it's more like a weekly thing it's probably about 10 to 15 hours a week and how hard is it to if you were going to uh start this job from scratch you won the election and start from the ground up how much time do you have to start in your first couple it's it's more intense there's a lot of trainings a lot of reading to do a lot of things to get up to speed um it was more like it was more like a part-time job for the first i would say like eight months and then it was more about uh understanding so there's like this framework that you work off of and then there are all the nuances that are attached like these different things like everything from even knowing stuff about roberts rules to how legislation works i mean i'm still grappling with how the tax system works oh yep the city provides you a lot of training or do you have to figure it out as you go along sorry barba's giving that face i was trying to be a little bit more interactive you're the facilitator you don't need to be interactive because i was going to pose and i wanted to provide at least i just want to say patrick there's no city there's no list of like trainings that we go to or stuff that we have to do but as the board and as one of the reps on the board i did set up a training for the board to learn to do something with um outright vermont and i also coordinated with max for the board to join the city council's meeting on open meeting laws and i'm hoping to actually have more conversations with the with the city council so that the board and the city council can combine trainings so that we don't we pool resources like one way to spend taxpayer dollars we all have to go to the same trainings and we can all do it from zoom we figured that out so why are we paying more why are two separate entities doing similar trainings for something so that's one resourceful thing that i brought to thank you very much and the whole point of that was to alert anybody who is participating via zoom that these positions are unpaid and they're not easy positions and yeah it's a i'm glad people do it but i have to say it's incredibly rewarding patrick i'm not here as some sort of a nope nope yep it was more to encourage other people in the future so they yes when they ran the school board what they were looking forward to and then the inequities that maybe you will fix so it'll be easier for the next person okay okay i spoke way too much um okay i um we ready to win the candidates for them okay okay thank you very much patrick and thank you molly for timekeeping and kevin for feeding questions well done um since we since we have genie waltz up are the other school two school commissioners here i can't i can't tell because they asked the three of them together asked for 15 minutes on the agenda they they told me they're attending they need to be made panelists yep what are the names that there's there's poly waving her hand poly van der pooten and steven carry and carry up i just move them both to panelists sweat okay so um you have 15 minutes if you still need it starting now do we want to start with questions or we're all reporting let me let me begin may i begin can you hear me please well i don't want to say genie is fantastic okay so whether she's anyone's running against her or not she's a winner and we're so happy to have her on board her voice and her perspective is really really valuable we love her and uh in terms of that other question it's a huge job it's a full-time job i'm a retired teacher and i asked myself you know why am i still working as basically a teacher but it's it is very rewarding and it's it's enormously time consuming it's extremely confusing and i will admit i i am learning i've been on for a year longer than genie has i've learned something every single day i asked myself why i'm doing this and i said well you know i am charged too by the work that we're asked to do and i'm dedicated to improving education in burlington and it's fascinating but it's also very difficult so i could give you some information and i'll i'll just kind of outline and then genie and poli can chime in too but i could talk about a bunch of different things principle there's a lot going on as usual principal greens resignation the covid crisis the downtown bhs update what we're doing with the budget right now this is budget season it's very complicated i just have some information i can give you about that and then we have uh i would like to remind people of what the superintendent's goals are and then talk a little bit about committee work that's been happening this week can't cover it all not sure where you want to begin or poli or genie where do you think we should begin what would you like to hear let me comment it's hard to um because we have a big audience just to let them know what you want to hear but i certainly would like to hear about the high school renovation and um and the macy's thing and the covid and all that let me just give you an update on the covid and then i'll let my other two commissioners talk to okay so you know that um you know at first we had no covid cases in burlington burlington we were so proud of that and then things started to fall apart a little bit after halloween i think it was um you know that what happened what right now there have been 28 covid cases associated with the schools but in each case there's a very rigorous protocol that the superintendent follows and the schools follow number one it's announced to the community immediately and then with guidance and recommendations from the vermont department of health the uh procedure that the school needs to go through is followed um superintendent flanigan puts out information some of you may have seen this to all everyone concerned about the impact and the adjustments that are recommended by the department of health he reminds everyone of the policies and procedures that are recommended and i guess the point i want to make is that the public associated with the outbreaks are very well informed about exactly what's happening what the danger is if any and what the school what's going to happen in the school some of the in some cases the schools have shut down a day or two in some cases one or two classes have been quarantined um but again right now we just got another update yesterday that we had our 28th case yesterday the issue in the schools is very you can imagine what it's like because if a teacher has symptoms and can't be there the the situation is that teachers are scrambling to cover what needs to be done on a daily basis in the school and this is true all around the state but it's of course true in in burlington as well so it's it's a very on it's a very much an ongoing serious issue that is being dealt with in in very precise and logical and scientific ways of which i am very proud and i don't think that anything that the district has done is expanding the contagion of the the COVID-19 at this point well that's all i wanted to say about COVID-19 so i don't know what else there's a question in the chat from kevin which i will try to bring up he asks um the fiscal needs for bell tightening has been an annual point of every year without COVID what are your thoughts on years prior compared to now i guess we could talk about budget development well we we just all three of us are at a budget a finance committee meeting someone asked the questions about you know the commitments per the week this week has been incredibly busy multiple board meetings and committee meetings and we just finished at seven at i think it was six o'clock a um finance committee meeting i have a few things i could say genie and polish shall i that meeting ended at seven by the way it ended at seven okay i lost track okay i will say that yes we're in a we're in a a serious issue with with the budget this year because of many factors but we learned on tuesday night that superintendent flanigan and the his cabinet which are his leaders he meets and discusses all the issues with have really worked hard to find incredible reductions to the expenditures um and i'll tell you quite frankly i don't understand the complexity of all the uh the numbers and i had i if anyone really wants to know how to look at the presentations that we get we have a we have a um a director of finance named nathan livery who is incredibly articulate and incredibly uh knowledgeable of everything regarding the budget it's it's incredible what he knows and how he tries to explain it to us and some we understand it to varying degrees of complexity but you know the information is available to anyone who is a numbers person who wants to look um you can email me and i'll tell you how to get to that because the information is presented at the board meeting with all the terminology all the numbers all the percentages everything which really a lot of it goes over my head but but the bottom line is um we were originally looking at what was the percentage increase genie or poly you remember 13 well the the proposed potential before anybody actually started crunching the numbers was as high as 13 percent and and that came from the state yeah right we're only this is basically the state advising us on what numbers we're going to have to work with yes so we were up to a possible 13 percent ask and through the work of the superintendent and his cabinet it has the percentage increase the last number that we saw is 7.15 percent and of that only one percent represents the increases that we're asking in burlington to support the needs in the district so it's a it's really an unfair it's unfair to think of it as 7.15 percent when it's really only one percent that we're proposing to increase for burlington we heard today go ahead and i can talk about what that increase was yes please um you know at our last the board accepted a recommendation for the multilingual liaisons to be in a 12-year contract and and by the way this is something that's actually overdue they have been working 12 months around the year with a contract that was nine so this is this is the district actually uh acknowledging stepping up compensating them and and i mean i don't even know how to say this but we cannot do the work that we need to do legally morally um neighborly period without them being in contract for 12 months out of the year so that that was accepted by the board emphatically and the superintendent has all along said that this is this will be a new addition to our budget and i really hope that everybody who's hearing about this understands how much it has been vetted thought out and is more than more than worthy more than overdue more than necessary so yes we are going to ask for a little bit more money and steven didn't you just say it's like one percent of the budget yeah and for us to have multilingual liaisons for 12 months out of the year i mean or i should just say all year for one percent of the budget i really hope everybody is like that's awesome and i'll say that you know i'll say that that's a result of genie's work on the de and i committee and well it is genie you and monica and monica and um i yes i didn't i didn't introduce this of course we completely supported him but this is mostly commissioner haji's um uh he was the one that spearheaded this entire effort yes okay thank you fun there's there's one more question in the chat and we'll probably end with that and that it's a question about half students or how have students been involved in giving their um feedback on the transition to the the macy's building um are they involved in the design or any of that yes well yes they are because superintendent flanagan makes certain that he involves everyone in our community including the students in terms of decisions that he makes so i know he has a student panel that he's met with several times i know he's that's just with the students i know he's met with other people involved the students were involved and i think claire will is in on this too chair claire you know of the school board she um i know that they've met with the with the students and the seahorse pride group i think to determine what they wanted to call high school the planning for the interior was pretty much designed by architects but i know that students and community members have been involved in every phase of just about everything that's happened since uh we've hired the new superintendent july is that right poly i think so right yeah and and i i would also say that um there are so many things going on at the same time this is meant to be a temporary kind of place right like this is a place that students are moving into so it's like how to make it the best temporary place while we figure out a more permanent location so there's input on that but then there's also this idea in mind that we still need input too on on the renovations that are happening at bhs and what that is going to look like and if that's still going to happen that's still being determined because it takes a really long time to test properly for the pcb levels and the toxins that are at the high school so there are multiple levels to this but i would agree that there has been a lot of community involvement and um if nobody knows about this yet there's something now called lunch with tom that's happening on wednesdays at noon i think the next one is january 20th and it's a zoom meeting there were links that were sent out if anybody needs us to post it again to front porch forum we can i went to the one last week and that was an opportunity for a lot of community input directly to superintendent flanagan and to the communications director and there were a lot of great questions asked and it seemed to me like teachers community members um administrators board members there were all kinds of people at that meeting it's very much open to the public so thank you very much thanks poly we're we're kind of out of time i just need to compliment you in all the years i've been involved with the mpa which is well over 15 years you are the most involved informative attending school board members we've ever had and i for one really appreciate it um i also hope that you come back next month and request more time there's so much going on within schools i think you need more time than 15 minutes so maybe request a half hour next time if if there's still all this stuff because it's really important so thank you barba i need to let you know this is a very welcome user friendly npa format everybody's so thorough and so inviting it's a pleasure to be a part of it well thank you thank all three of you for your participation and for all your work um i'm gonna ask barba you're very um the state legislatures always go last and i'm gonna put them first this time so um and ryan you always go last so i'm gonna ask you to go first if you have a presentation to make ryan sheena hello yeah even when i was a school board member i always had to go last too and we and have to like rush through like when like our super intent we went through three superintendents in one year and had the school budget fail repeatedly and i would have five minutes to try to explain that to you by myself so um i'm glad that the npa learned that the school board deserves equal time to other elected representatives um so i don't know i'm only gonna take a minute because this really isn't an adequate time some of us are planning to have a longer state rep meeting it's going to be um this is being worked out just now as we were sitting here waiting but it looks like it's going to be sunday january 24th four to five p.m so we'll set we'll post some more info about that where we can get into more information yes thank you thank you representative movindy stanek um so i guess what i'll just say is it's it's a it's been an exciting start to the session already um jr the joint resolution we passed last week was condemning the violent attacks on on the capitol building and calling for the resignation or removal of president trump for inciting those attacks um and then we've all been assigned to our committees i'm on the health care committee again and right now our committees are in learning mode sort of acquainting new members and um hearing reports on on the impact of covid so that's sort of what's going on we've just started a week ago um i'd like to talk more about some of the things i'm working on but there's not a lot of time so i might just hand it over to other people and i invite others to join us um for a prolonged um discussion on sunday january 24th from four to five p.m thank you thank you brian kasha you i i heard that you were going to be here but i don't see you on the screen are you here kasha ram she was unable to make it she had a conflict she will be here in february okay then emma you're next great thank you and i'll just build off where brian um we didn't script this but i'll try to build off of that um so it's been a wild start as a new state legislature a slight state legislator it's a very long days um and it's all by zoom which is sort of like wandering through a cave with no headlamp it's really kind of wild and i appreciate the speaker of the house is on here tonight she's from the old north end jill kowinsky of course and she'll speak but i just want to publicly acknowledge the mammoth task of leading 150 people virtually through a sort of unprecedented time so thank you jill for that leadership um so just very briefly i so just a reminder i represent chitin in six two which is uh half of ward three and then it goes all the way up to ethan alan park and leddie park in the new north end so it's a hybrid district of the old north end and new north end and it's a one seat district i was assigned to the commerce and economic development committee and that's a committee um that sounds a little dry but actually i'm learning quickly it's quite important because coven relief funds go through there or have been going through there there's a third round underway unemployment insurance gets reviewed by that committee workers comp gets reviewed by that committee um so a worker's lens which i'm truly committed to um i think it's going to be really important to those committee discussions to make sure there's a worker relief uh perspective added into conversations and it isn't just around business relief and industry relief um so far we've been meeting lots of i've been meeting lots of new people learning lots of new acronyms which i will not bore you with uh but i would just entice you all to join us on uh january 24th i'm happy to talk about four bills i have in the works um i'll just leave that as a teaser so that you have reason to to tune in um as well as some collaborations with other both capital p and small p progressives in the house i'm really excited to be there i really welcome folks to reach out it's been great engaging constituents so do not be shy my email is in the chat thank you thank you amma um i'm unless there are any questions um can you see any no i don't see anything for them no okay thank you um then i'm going to move on to the city council brian pine we have sorry there's salina salina and jill are on i'm sorry other state reps thank you sorry i was just told you weren't going to be on so um representative kowinsky congratulations and what do you have for us hi barbara thank you it's great to see all of you i um okay it's been an incredible roller coaster ride this uh last week for sure i'm so proud to have been elected speaker of the house and i'm really excited to be serving with such a great delegation from burlington uh you know as i was sworn in i was talking about the incredible work we have to do to create a coveted recovery plan that leaves no one behind and that a lot of that work focuses on problems that we already were working on before we're only made worse because of the pandemic like access to broadband childcare and affordable housing and we need to continue our work around climate change and social equity and justice um you know i would be remiss if i just didn't bring up the horrible events that have happened in washington and the threats on our democracy and i was proud that within 24 hours of learning that the house joined in the call um to impasse a resolution calling on the president to either be removed from office or to resign uh there are threats on our capital uh given the pushback and retaliation and we're doing everything we can to make sure that we're putting public health and safety first and that um everyone is safe uh in these incredibly trying times um so yeah it's been hard but we are here for you uh Representative McCormick wishes he could be here tonight he's recovering from surgery and he is doing well i'm happy to report and for our uh school uh commissioner school board members i want you to know that we're working really hard on getting that money for the high school and the budget adjustment so we are we're we're looking we're working on it and i'm thinking of you and thankful for your service i know it's been really hard so i'm looking forward um to to being with you on this journey and i'm always available by email or by phone thanks everyone thank thank you very much to uh saline thanks uh it's really really nice to be here and i'll try to be quick because i know it's late i think we're well over our time here on the sygen that at this point um but so i think others have covered uh a lot of things including the legislators response to the attack on the capital um but i'm salina colburn i'm uh with brian chena represent the chitin six four district um i actually live in ward one but i'm always really thrilled and happy to be at this npa and i think the thing that i just want to say rather than try to get into detail on any one issue is that um in my work as an individual and in um the work in the house progressive caucus that some of us are members of i think we're really focused on trying to think about what a covid response that is equitable looks like that um you know doesn't sort of just take us back to status quo and and call that victory but that really looks at what are the systems um of oppression of economic injustice and inequity that that got us to this place where the pandemic has laid so much inequality there um so i think you know there's a tension right now i think in the legislature between wanting to um um be cautious and and um you know recognize that these are hard times to govern in and that it's hard times for everyone around um but i think we do need to commit to some really big changes in the legislature whether that's you know continuing to push for a robust paid family program or for livable wages or for reparative work that will really address some of the racial inequities um and deep harms that have been caused in our state so i could go on and on but i think my um my message about the lens that i want to bring to um the work of the legislative session is to not shy away from big shifts and big change and to to really roll up our sleeves and um and try to change the world we live in because i think we're seeing that for a lot of folks it's just not working thank you very much um thanks for being here and i'm going to shift to the city council now um brian pine it is really late and i just want to say um i'm brian pine ward three um my focus tonight was really going to be on the um fact that our um the whole community is is facing a uh you know some tough decisions around uh how we're going to handle public safety going forward as a community and um i want to just highlight that the um city council and um the police commission and the administration uh together are moving forward to look at the issues of public safety through a process that has a joint committee looking at these issues but i have to just say that we all received a mailing this week uh regarding the situation and i think it was extremely misleading and it was a case of of people trying to be advocates for their position but while using um misleading data and uh just want to call out real quickly that um a commission member dr stefanie seguino has presented uh data that's actually based on the facts that were presented by the chief of police regarding uh calls for service regarding crime rates all the different types and classifications of crime and in fact um the data shows that there's been a pretty steady decline in calls for service without even counting 2020 as an anomaly the data shows that if we compare the past past years to 2019 that calls for service overall have declined by 23 percent from 2016 to 2019 and and while that flyer that reached everybody by mail leaves the impression that somehow lots of violent crime is is increasing i think it's really important to just highlight these facts from 2012 to 2019 there's been no increase in homicides no increase at all a 37 percent decrease in robberies and a 43 percent decline from 2012 to 2020 a 73 percent decline in burglaries a 34 percent decline in sexual assaults a 55 percent decline in larceny from buildings and a 23 percent decline in domestic disturbances and the reason why i bring this up is because we are as a community trying to have a really focused debate a debate based on hard data not just on what we think is best in terms of preserving our own interests and preserving the status quo and i ask everybody to stay informed stay open minded i'll be sharing this data uh because dr seguino sent me a message she was going to post on her own front porch forum and hope that people spread this information throughout the city because it's really important that we have the facts when we're making these decisions and as your counselor in ward three i will not i will not sit by while people misrepresent the facts in order to advocate for their position in fact i think we need to have debate about what's the right way forward but we need it to be grounded in actually being honest and being candid and being upfront with each other about what is happening and the one area that has seen a steady significant increase in calls is mental health crises the one thing that police admit they're not well trained and well equipped to deal with and the one area where if we reinvest our resources in handling mental health crises we can have a real meaningful positive impact for the people most impacted so i would just ask folks to uh to not be fooled by this information that's out there and to uh to stay informed and thank you very much thank thank you brian and perry do you have anything you want to add um uh thank you brian for um looking into that um the data that's super helpful um i really appreciate you um bringing um uh speaking on that can everyone hear me by the way i took my headphones off but yes okay um i wanted to someone asked a question um about the status of the assessment of bpd and some of the rfps and i am serving on the drawing committee so i just wanted to update that um the we are looking to finalize the contract on the community engagement um portion shortly but we are and we selected um on the other contract for the audit of the department but we that contract is still um sort of in flux so um the council and by way of the joint committee is um we are working through that issue it's just kind of going through the eurocratic hoops um so to speak um right now um oh there was one other thing i wanted to speak to which was um i think this keeps coming up a lot so um also i'm just only speaking about policing and public safety issues it's what's the majority of the questions tonight i know there are a lot of other issues to talk about but um i i feel like it's an important one to to keep talking about um so the other thing that came up with someone was asking about why the proposal on the charter change um had a new body instead of the police commission and i just wanted to explain the rationale for why i had written it that way and then um also just i think and i can chat with them the steering committee for the npa but i think maybe we should just i know we're at the next meeting probably talking about charter changes and this isn't going forward but i do hope that we get time as an npa to talk about it because i know folks have a lot of questions and want to be able to get feedback but the reason why i created a new body i'm okay with it just being one body um was because i feel like adding there were a few reasons mainly i felt like i was most concerned that adding additional tasks the police commission which is already has a ton of work to do um would just simply make it not it would be overwhelming it's an overwhelming amount of work um and so i think having a body that's only dedicated to oversight would just allow us to um make sure that they had the capacity to do that work period i'm not opposed to there just being one body but i think that if we have one oversight body i don't think we should give them um much more beyond um disciplinary powers um because i just think um these are largely volunteer boards um and i i don't want to i don't want it to fail simply because there's just too much work um so that was one of the main reasons and then the other main reason was around the selection process i think we can get into the details on that at some point but um you know if the selection process changed then essentially there would be a change over time if it was to the police commission that's sort of a more complicated aspect of it and we can get into the details but um there wasn't like an for me there wasn't any like reason why i was like the police commission could never do this and it shouldn't it's more just it was around um the need to create a body that could um just sort of be able to effectively complete the um the task that it and the duties and that it had been assigned to and so that was more around it was it was a technical um decision mostly um so i just wanted to explain that i feel like it's come up a bunch of times um there's a lot of different ideas about why that decision was made but i just wanted to clarify that um and it's late so i'll just end there okay thank you thank you peri and um last but not least max well thank you and i'll just continue on that theme because i think that we're all trying to work collaboratively both as a caucus but then also um you know with others you know in the city to try and address um some of the concerns that have been raised and to do so in a collaborative way and i just think about a couple of different um meetings and just experiences that i've had this week that are shaping how i'm thinking about some of these issues you know we met um the three of us were met with the three uh old north end counselors met with neighbors who were dealing with an incredibly complex situation um in their part of the old north end i'm having to do with disturbances and all kinds of different issues that that they're facing and um what what's clear to us is that an enforcement based strategy um around issues like substance use disorders is not not the way forward and that we don't have enough support systems outside of outside of what currently exists and outside of the policing as it currently exists in order to meet the need we um were able to speak with lacy uh with lacy smith who fulfills that role um within the department but there's only one person really in the department now who works directly with with people um in that capacity and so there's just a lot of unmet need that was one of my real reflections coming out of that conversation with folks as we listened to them was that there's just so much unmet need and that we need to do much more to build out those positions in addition to that i also spoke with a cso um is which is a community support officer um and that's part of the the proposal at least the beginnings of a proposal because we have not seen a a fully throated or i mean not a fully throated but a fully developed proposal um from the mayor's office around this i think um we'll likely see something um it's not coming at this council meeting maybe at one of the the the the upcoming council meetings i think we'll be addressing this issue and i think um there are very real questions about the balance between the these different roles and how we engage so um there was an element focused on community support officers these are unarmed um members of the department who fulfill roles like the person that i spoke to um focuses on bin numbers and animal cruelty and animal control issues um and so what i think is is crucial is that we continue to to build out unarmed officer roles and that are not not officer roles but unarmed roles within um and without um the department in order to be able to to more directly address some of these needs that we see um in our community and that and i say without the department because or outside of the department is probably the better way to put it because i think that there is just real stigma around for for many people um around interacting with anybody who has anything to do with the police and that there's not that level of trust and so we're going to need to to to be creative about how we resource these these positions and where we place them because that will influence just how effective they are um i think about this one you know in the context of some of the conversations we have around addressing substance use disorders and how stigma and how um stigma is a real barrier um to accessing treatment resources and how in some cases that stigma can can be attached to police and policing and so to put someone in the department and then expect that to be the right fit um for addressing everybody who who um might need their services i think is is is really incorrect and so i i'm in favor of also um looking outside the department what i don't think that we need to do based on what councillor pine was saying was to to to go back on on the commitment that was already made i think we have a real need to lean in here um to creating these positions and in fact i think we could see some real benefits one thing that um that i found out from the the the cso was that it took um a month to bring them on from the time that they applied until the time that they started their job it's they said that it took a month so um they're whereas an officer the the chief is saying in order to bring a sworn officer on it takes 14 months um at minimum and so i think there are ways that we can address these dire community needs in in shorter order um by again leaning into the creation of unarmed roles um in our city that address those basic needs okay thank you max one one other thing that i just wanted to mention really quickly is that there are public hearings at the city council meeting on monday um regarding the charter changes um and based on those public hearings you can make further changes to the charter changes having to do with a rank choice voting um with just cause eviction as well as um the thermal energy charter change so just wanted to tip folks off to that and let them know that there is another opportunity to weigh in on those should they so wish can i just short period all right go ahead were you done max yeah i'm good thank you sorry about that i just forgot to mention that i'd mentioned this a little bit during the debates um and it's i'm i'm feeling like getting tired from the the hour but um i just wanted to mention that uh i had as i said i i did reach out to the administration about next steps on um the oversight issue um i know from i believe councilor paul is interested in working on this um i you know it's a lot of moving parts but i just wanted to express to everyone that i am doing my best to continue to work on this issue um to reach out to everyone who's sort of been key stakeholders along the way and just i know i said this during the former forum but i just wanted to make it clear that you know i'm i'm working through it and i that the city that city leadership is essentially working on next steps on on what to do since um the charter change will not be on the ballot um this march so i just wanted to okay thank you um it's late but if there are any pressing questions i will entertain them from the audience are there jessica can you see anybody with his or her hand up going no going gone okay then um i think that the meeting can be adjourned right yes thank you all for hanging in about 40 almost 40 of you are here now at one point in the evening we had almost 140 so it was uh quite an evening thank you thank you especially to our legislators and counselors and candidates thanks for your public service it's um it keeps the city going thanks Barbara thank you thank you Barbara for moderating and patrick and and Kevin for keeping those questions going and molly for for the timekeeping um this was quite quite a night i it's fantastic thank you thank you all and and Liam thank you for getting rid of the zoom bombers as they came in right i think that we are going to have to consider adding a password to our to our zoom meeting so we'll see we'll discuss that um with Liam and and the um whatever we are stirrers so good night everybody thanks i'll end the meeting