 Good evening and welcome to town meeting televisions continuing coverage of town meeting 2022 tonight. We're starting our city council in the city of Burlington election forums. We're in word one with Zariah high tower, who is a progressive candidate and incumbent. Welcome Zariah. Thank you. Nice to see you. I'm Bob Gutman who is a Democrat and is challenging this right in this position. So we're going to be taking your calls at 802-862-3966 we'd love to hear from you I think we already have some calls on the line, but we are going to start with opening statements, the candidates have been asked to prepare those, and they have about two minutes each to answer questions and also the opportunity to rebut. I'm going to start to run over time you'll see me you go my finger, and I'll cut you off if I have to but I know I have to so good to see you all. So why don't we start with you Zariah tell us why you're running and what will be different in Burlington. If you are successful for another term. Hi, my name is Zariah. Hey tower, I use she her pronouns. I'm running for reelection for Burlington's Ward one city council seat. I'm the executive director of the peace and justice center and I've lived in Burlington's Ward one for nearly six years. Two years ago I campaigned on the issues of housing affordability first transit and planning revitalization police oversight and equity for all. I think in many ways, Burlington is a very different place than it was two years ago and other ways are also very much dealing with the same problems and so I'm running again on those same issues. I'm excited to be running for reelection because I've done a lot of work on housing and public safety and improve governance, and I want to move that forward for another two years. And what will be different is I think that both the past two years and then if I were to get reelected the next two years. I think there are a lot of issues that come across the city council that are contentious and I think where I specifically as a fair minded compromiser type personality has been able to create the compromises to get some of these issues through things like just cause. And so I'm excited to continue to do that hopefully, and to continue to play that role of getting things through. I'm Andrea Hightower. Rob Guttman your opening statement why are you running and what will be different in Burlington if you are successful, thank you. Good evening, my name is Rob Guttman, and I'm running for Ward one city counselor. We can either let city council proceed as it has for the past two years, wasting precious time, for instance, debating global political issues that quite frankly are none of our business, a lot of raucous crowds to openly intimidate fellow citizens at public meetings, or forcing us to feel unsafe in our own city as our police department withers, or we can act now to elect a council that will focus on solving many local problems we face in our dear city. As one counselor, I pledge to work with all counselors city departments, the mayor and my constituents in a collaborative, cooperative manner, working through our differences and arriving at compromise solutions that address our day to day problems and long term issues. I'm a proud father, husband, skier, hiker, cyclist, woodworker, builder, therapy dog team partner, community volunteer neighbor and all around lover of Burlington. I'm 100% in with all my heart and commitment. I'm honored to be a candidate for city council and humbly ask for your vote. Thank you Rob, can you just go on to explain what experience you bring to your candidacy. So let me tell you a bit about how I arrived at this point in my life. I have a lot of experience as a taxpayer parent soccer coach volunteer in my kids schools. I've been a small business owner, and I understand what it takes to make investments of time and extensive efforts to build out a vision for the future. I have a finance MBA, I've been responsible for budgets, and I have proven that I can work together collaboratively and cooperatively with all colleagues, even those I might be immediately vehemently disagree with. I'm a home inspector and now actually building homes, swinging a hammer and building homes in the New North and as a construction volunteer for Habitat for Humanity provides me with the knowledge and perspective needed to really appreciate and understand the condition of Burlington's housing stock and how that relates to people's day to day lives. I have already experienced as an affordable housing committee member, treasurer of a statewide trade association, vice president of a homeowners association volunteer in an earn a bike program for underprivileged kids, served on a 20 mile long trail building steering committee and served on the board of local environmental action committee. I stand to challenges, and I stand before you tonight knowing full well that working on council for the next two years will not be easy. I will enthusiastically take on the scroll with my eyes wide open regarding the time, energy, and emotion that this job requires to do it right. Thank you so much. So right a high tower tell us what qualifies you in addition to being a counselor for this position. I think I have a great mix of experience both in terms of lift experience my educational professional experience and my experience now more recently on the council. In terms of lift experience I grew up, not just as a poor black woman in rural Oklahoma, but then also went on to be an international development consultant working across the globe. I've been houseless, and lived out of my car twice, and I have a graduate degree from Yale and environmental management. I've worked on environmental issues, literally across every part of the globe, as an international development consultant for over five years, covering from climate resilience in Kenya to sustainable and slave free fisheries in the Philippines. And I focus specifically on public private partnerships in that role so I have a lot of experience working at the US government federal level with local governments across the world and with the private sector. And my experience on the council for the past few years has given me, not just an understanding of how things work on council but also the opportunity to build really meaningful relationships, both with counselors at my own party counselors across the aisle and even beyond council that I think will make me even more effective over the next two years. Thank you so much. So we have calls on the line we're going to take them. It is our approach to have both of you have the opportunity to respond to calls. And so, hopefully the callers will make their questions in that spirit. So why don't we take the first call now. I can't hear the question, if I'm supposed to. Caller you're on the air. Okay. Hi there. Welcome. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. This is for both of the candidates. So right introduced the defunding. Pardon. Can I say my question now. Yeah, there's a lag. Okay. Can you hear me. Yes. My question is for both candidates. So I introduced the defunding the police resolution to the council in June without meeting the proper warning. Recommend requirement. Darn. And you have to turn down your. Audio. Yeah. Recommend requirement. I'll keep going. Which require. Okay. Can I go now? Can you hear me now? Yes. I will start at the beginning. Zariah introduced the defunding of police resolution to the council in June. Without meeting the proper warning requirements, which require resolutions to be submitted by Tuesday. Before a meeting. Her resolution to defund the police was submitted Friday afternoon before a Monday meeting. Can each of you speak to whether or not you think this is an acceptable process? All right, Zariah. Why don't you start. Great. So I'm going to answer just the process part because I think that was the question, which is. So one, I think, and I have to go back, but I think that it may have actually been on the city council agenda twice. I think it was on the agenda the week before. And then was postponed and then came back on the council agenda. But in terms of the process question is. Most to be on the agenda. You have to have the agenda item. By Tuesday. And so. Either the administration or a counselor can put forward a. An item to be on the agenda. And then you can have the materials to be posted later. And you can have amendments to those. So it's pretty common practice to have. Materials posted later. More so by the administration, counselors tend to not do that so much. And then most of the time. Especially on big items. There are amendments posted to resolutions as. Over the course of the week as more counselors are looking at it. That also means you might have even small changes, like having sponsors added, or it could be substantive changes in terms of process. So. Yes, I think it was a. Normal city council resolution process. Thanks, Rob. Do you have any comment or question on that? Sure. So, so my sense of the situation is, is that the council does have. Rules and procedures. So that each counselor does have an opportunity and the public has an opportunity to know what to expect on the agenda on. Monday. And it seems that the. The way this transpired was not in line with, with those requirements. And so it seems that there's some question as to how it, how it made it onto Monday's agenda that, that particular meeting. And then it was acted on so quickly. Without. The appropriate. Thought. And consideration by the council. And so I would suggest that we would. On council should follow the procedures because they're there. For a reason. For fairness and for openness. I'm going to move on to some more substantial questions. I know we have some callers on the line. I'm going to remind people, you can call us at eight, six, two, three, nine, six, six. There is a lag. And so you have to turn down your volume and then we can hear you and we don't go into an endless feedback loop. But before we take the next question, I'd like to know, Rob, how you sit on the 4% tax increase. It's on the ballot this year. So with respect to the 4% tax increase, I think that it's never easy for a council or. Any organization to ask for more money. And so when questions like this do come up. It's important that the council be sure that they have gone to every operating department. And exhausted every opportunity to squeeze every efficiency possible out of the funding that each department has. I mean, and that's, and that's the way, you know, a business would run household run, et cetera. And so then the other thing that you need to keep in mind too, this is that a tax increase might be requested to address a new program or a new piece of infrastructure and the question there. Would have to be, well, to the benefits. People are outweigh the costs to the taxpayers. I mean, affordability is one of the biggest issues that I hear when I talk to my ward one neighbors. And the taxes are a big part of it, especially this year with respect to the reassessment of properties in Burlington and homeowners. And residential properties getting hit especially hard, but with huge unexpected increases. So I would say that it's fair to ask, it's fair for the council to consider asking the voters. If a 4% tax increases is amenable. As long as we can substantiate what it's used for. And that is used wisely and will not be abused. Will you vote? Yes or no. Personally, as a homeowner in, in Burlington, I think it's a really important thing to keep in mind. Okay. Thank you. So Raya, your position on the 4% city tax rate increase on the ballot today. Yeah, I think we have similar perspectives on this. I will also be voting. Yes. I do think the timing is awful. I recently went from working for a for-profit to a nonprofit. So I definitely felt the results of the reappraisal. I know homeowners across the city feel the same and even commercial property owners, although they were less hard hit, but certainly any residential properties, especially. So that's hard, but at the same time it is long overdue. I think the mayor and his administration have done a really good job of. Expanding city services without raising taxes over the past 10 years. Which means that the city is largest revenue to the city. And I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think the mayor and his administration have done a really good job of raising taxes over the past 10 years. Which means that the city's largest revenue source or property taxes have not been increasing with inflation for a very long time. And now. With COVID, as we all know, everything costs more. So in addition to not having those increases over time and now. Facing higher costs. I think it's a reasonable asks. And I do hope that. The mayor and his administration have done a really good job of raising taxes over the past 10 years. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point for the city tax rate. Thank you. Why don't we take another call? Just a reminder, turn down your volume. And. We won't. We'll be able to hear you better. Thanks. Let's take the next call. Oh, okay. Should I shut? Turn my volume down now or. Yeah. Turn your volume down and then you were all set to go. You mean my TV volume. So I can't hear anything. You're on the air caller. Hi, this is for both candidates. Long before the CNA report came forward recommending 88 officers. Zariah was insistent that 74 police officers were not. And that we were not in crisis at 71 police officers. You get the confidence and expertise to make that determination. And do each of you accept that the CNA report supports the chief's position that we needed to start hiring officers a year ago. And that may be police chiefs or more about police staffing than city counselors. Okay. Thank you so much. I think Jordan, that was helpful to let them know when they're on the air. So why don't we start with you, Zariah. Yeah. So I think that at the time we made the decision with the best available kind of information that we had. So the 70% or sorry, the 74 officers was based both on kind of a national average just published by the CIA and then another, sorry, the FBI. And then the, it was also a smaller kind of ad hoc study that was done by Professor Stephanie Siguino of towns that were similar to us. So college towns with similar. Sizes got us to the 74. And we, yeah. And, you know, we had 3,000 folks who were working with us to, to take some of the resources from the police department and add them to other things and other services that were better trained to deal with mental health problems. Unfortunately, I think the reduction happened and the reallocation of the funds did not happen. I think that's sometimes the problem with resolutions is you can only mandate so much. And the other part of it, which was, you know, I do think that the number that we ended up with by the CNA report is closer to what we needed. It is closer to the reduction than what we had at the time. So we're still, you know, we're still, you know, we're still, you know, we're still, you know, we're still, you know, we're still, you know, we're still, you know, we're still, you know, we're still, you know, we're still, you know, we're still at, at the time. So worst. So I think it was, I mean, I don't think we would make the same decisions if we knew what we did now, but I do think that we're in a better place now in terms of potentially having money for some of the alternatives and moving us in that direction and having more unarmed police officers and having more. Community service liaisons to do some of the work that police officers are doing on those recommendations, the action taken. Right. So fundamentally, I think that I agree that we need to transform policing in Burlington, in this country. And I don't think there's a lot of argument on that. Unfortunately, I believe it was my opponent that actually started the, the dominoes falling with the zip to that lets lease the situation we're in right now. And so we're counting up or counting down. We had this many. We dropped to this many. We want to build back to that many. And it just seems like a moving target, but I think it's important to understand that there was no plan. When resources were shifted away from police. And so that's led us to where we are today, which is a pretty dire situation in Burlington. So like I said, I think fundamentally, I agree. I don't believe that we made the right choices and that that council proceeded in the right way. In defunding reducing headcount and not having a plan for building in all of the non-sworn officers, the civilian workers that we absolutely need and are required for crisis response for mental health support, social workers, the CSOs, the CSLs. And we will build them back. We will build that in. And we will grow to be the best at what we do, but it's going to take time and unfortunately it's a little painful and it didn't have to be that way. So, do you agree that we're in a dire situation right now? I think that we are, I think that our officers are working too many hours. I think that there's too few officers working too many hours. And I think that, and I don't think that that's because of the unfunding. I think it's because of the not refunding. We do have lower call volumes. Like we've got, you know, some things that are really going for us, but at the same time, I don't, we didn't, we didn't do the refunding. And I don't know if it was, we didn't have a plan when we started. And I do want to say like we did, I did start bothering the mayor every week and we used to meet every week to be, I was like, we need a plan. We don't have a plan. Like we started doing this, the chief keeps saying this is going to happen faster than we think. Like we need to make a plan. And he said, you and I don't have time for this. I'm going to hire Cal Dotson to do it. And Cal Dotson six months later, it didn't have a plan. So I, yes, I think that we're not in a place that we want to be. I think we're closer to being where we want to be, than we were when we started. And did you have a rebuttal? That I interrupted you when I asked you that question, did you have something you wanted to. I got it in, but I do wonder what the rebuttal rules are. I don't know if we went over that. Yeah, you have 30 seconds. Thank you. Yeah. Rob. Again, I don't, I don't disagree. With the intent and, and I wholeheartedly believe that change needs to occur. It's just a shame that it's kind of transpired in this way. And that I think. Many counselors got caught up in, in what seemed like the thing to do. Let's leave the charge here and make some. Changes without, without really thinking them through that, that now we're, unfortunately, we're paying the price for. Thank you. Why don't we go on to housing? We only have a few minutes left. And I know that's an issue that's a concern for both of you. So rock up and why don't you tell us what you think needs to be done to address the housing. Shortage and costs and inability of. Young families and people who want to live in Burlington to actually live here and contribute. Right. So from my extensive experience with housing inspection, I've seen firsthand how quality, affordable, fair housing intersects with economic well-being, systemic injustice, environmental action. Housing solutions require a multi-dimensional approach. There's a lot of moving parts in housing and you just touched on a couple of them. And in solving a very complicated housing situation, it's going to take time. So many of you, both renters and homeowners alike, are frustrated that the housing issues we face today have actually been the same for decades. I mean, it's not, it's nothing new. I'm sure if we had a, a channel 17 forum 20 years ago, they would have been talking about the same thing. So my sense is that we've got to prioritize things with respect to housing, for instance, creating real robust paths to home ownership and a market that leaves it out of reach for too many, especially historically disadvantaged communities. Affordable housing creation through forward-thinking policies and new housing production. I personally am out there swinging a hammer, building, hands-on building houses for, for families that need a place to live, that will set down roots, that will have an opportunity to build wealth, build personal family wealth, generational wealth in a way that they haven't had access to that previously. And I think that's real important. But ultimately I believe that, you know, we have a mismatch of our housing stock and our housing needs. And it's going to take time and creativity to, to sort that out and find an equilibrium that works for everybody. Thank you so much. Soraya Hightower, your view on the housing crisis in Burlington and how do we address it? Yeah. I think that there's both a problem with affordability and with access. I think that the way to do that is through strengthening renters rights. So speaking of path to home ownership, I've been working with a couple of folks in the city, including Shampoo and Housing Trust on how do we create, write a first refusal, which first, when you just cause eviction to pass, because you kind of needed as a foundational renters right to add some of the other ones, but so that if a property sells, that the renter has the first right potentially to buy that house at market rate. So a real pathway to, you know, getting past the cash only offers and the really, really high offers that we've been seeing where cash percentage just seems to matter so much. I think the other thing that's talking about strengthening renters rights, I think making sure that folks have the ability to complain. We have such a tight housing market that, you know, with one, between one and 2%, less than 1% in County for apartment buildings. That you can't say anything about your housing without, you know, potentially depending on the like landlord or property manager being afraid of being labeled a difficult tenant and potentially being evicted or having your rent raised as a de facto eviction, because we don't have, you can be evicted for no cause in Vermont. And so making sure that we get that through, which I worked on really hard with Sarah Carpenter and Brian Pine. Yeah. And then I think the last thing is infill. I think changing or planning our zoning practices, working on, you know, changing our parking requirements, not encouraging so many single family homes, which don't pay for themselves in terms of city infrastructure and the taxes that they provide to the city, but also are, you know, like environmentally. Creating the Chittin County that we have where so many people are living 45 minutes outside of Burlington and commuting in. So I think making multi. Multi unit dwellings more, more feasible in Burlington. Thanks so much. We have time for one question. We're going to go to closing comments because I think you addressed them in the beginning. Let's take one more short question. Please know we have a lag and meet your phone. How are we doing there? With our person on the phone. All right. My question. Oh, sorry. Can you hear me? Yes. Go ahead. Caller you're on air. Great. Thank you. Has has the council created an environment in the police department where we can expect a multitude of progressive police officers to want to work here in the city. And please provide any evidence to back up your claims or any suggestions as to how we can make the environment better for progressive officers or potential progressive officers to work. Thank you. Okay. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry. There was an assumption in that question. Just making sure I'm not missing. Progressive is defined. Okay. So, you know, yeah. Yeah. So I don't know as much about the. General officers. I do say about the police chief, which we know that we've been talking about. And so. I think it's a hard place to potentially be either an officer or police chief. And I think we've. You know, seeing the reasons that that is true. And I think we're. The only. Yeah. I think that is a hard place. And I think it's recognizably a hard place because it's in the media so often. I know that at least for the police. For the police chief search, because we had talked to a search firm who. You know, Mayor Weinberger had recommended to the city council in terms of moving forward. And they definitely seemed. Confident that we could get a. Progressive by however they define that you define that. Slate of candidates and a deep pool of candidates to work. And I think that that's probably true despite. How we're facing a lot of challenges. The recent one is hard because. Burlington is still as seen as. A community that folks want to move to. And also. To some of the, you know, folks who are interested in retiring sooner rather than later, it's an interesting challenge. We are. We are doing and hoping to do things in Burlington that are not not being done across the country, but that other municipalities are still. Figuring out. that challenge. Progressive candidates at least are interested in taking on that challenge. Thank you, Zariah Hightower. Rob Gutman, your response to that question, then we'll wrap. So I certainly hope that's true, because I'm as anxious to see progressive police officers on our streets as anybody. I suspect though that we've got to, like in any department or employment situation, we've got to stabilize what we've got before anybody will commit to a career change and to make a move to Burlington and the first way, the first act we need to do to accomplish stability of the police department is to hire a police chief. And so I think that that's job one. Once we have a police chief, a permanent police chief, then it's going to be hard work to recruit and bring in progressive officers. But I think it's hard work that's going to be worthwhile and in the long term pay off. And like I said earlier, I really believe and I'm looking forward to the day when we really have a preeminent, progressive 21st century public safety departments, if you will, caring for all Burlingtonians in the way that we expect and deserve. Well, I'd like to thank you both for joining us for 10 meeting televisions for one election forum for the city of Burlington. It's been a pleasure to have you, Zariah Hightower is the incumbent. She's running for a second term. Rob Gutman is the Democratic challenger. Thank you so much for joining us tonight and stay tuned for more coverage here and don't forget the ballots are coming in the mail Burlington onions and election day is March 1. Thank you both. Thanks for watching.