 Hi friends, Sinead here would be perg with some more exciting news. Town Meanday elections will be using ranked choice voting for the first time since the 2021 charter change and all Burlington voters get to participate. Unfamiliar with ranked choice voting? Keep watching or click the link below. Ranked choice voting lets voters rank candidates in order of preference. First, second, third, and so on. If your vote can't help your first choice win, it counts to your second choice instead. Here's how it works. If one candidate gets over 50 percent of everyone's first choice votes, they win and the election is over. However, if no candidate reaches a majority, the candidate with the fewest first choice votes is eliminated and their supporter's votes will count toward their second choice. This process continues until one candidate reaches over 50 percent of the vote. Ranked choice voting gives voters more voice, more choice, and makes for a stronger democracy. Learn more about ranked choice or try it out for yourself at betterballotvermont.org slash BTV 2023. Welcome to ongoing Town Meanday election coverage by Town Meanday Television. This is one of a series of forums we are bringing you in advance of Town Meanday, which is on Tuesday, March 7th, 2023. Town Meanday TV hosts forums with all candidates and covers ballot items you will see on your ballot. Town Meanday TV election forums introduce you to community decision makers and connect you with issues that shape your local community. If you are tuning in live, we welcome your questions at 802-862-3966, watch Town Meanday TV on Comcast Channel 1087, Burlington Telecom Channel 17 and 217, as well as online at youtube.com and Town Meanday TV. Great. Thanks so much. Welcome. Thank you. Please tell us why you are running and what would be different from Burlington if you were elected. Milo. Thank you. My name is Milo Grant. I've lived in Burlington for almost 40 years, mostly in Ward 2 and 3. I currently own a home in Ward 3 where I raised my nephew. He went to Hunt Middle School and BHS. I am currently serving on the police commission and that has given me a lot of experience learning about commissions, learning about the city council, working with city council committees. So I'm also very well versed in public safety issues. So I'm deeply concerned about the drug crisis. I'm deeply concerned about the loss of vibrancy in our community and other livability issues such as affordable housing and also building connections with people, not just between residents but also between the city. And I feel what I would bring that would be different is that I'm ready to go with what I already know. I can hit the ground running and I'm not afraid to speak up about injustice and things that I feel that are not right in City Hall. Thank you. Great. Thanks. Avery. Yeah. Hi. I'm Avery Musicar. I'm running as an independent. This is my first time running for anything. I've lived in Burlington for about 10 years. I work at UVM as an assistant director in residential life and I serve as a steward on our staff union. I'm running because I've been really frustrated with my representation for the last few years and I think that in Burlington our progressive and democratic system makes us feel a lot further apart than we actually are and that many of us want the same things as far as safety and affordability and inclusion and we need people in city government who are problem solvers who aren't so wedded to their ideology that they won't compromise and actually move them all forward on all of those issues and my experience in management and leadership and working through the union to improve conditions for our staff on campus I think give me a lot of experience with actually making progress on meaningful issues. Great. Thanks so much. And we have somebody who's calling in with a question. Hi there. Please state your name and your question. Fantastic. My name is Ryan Ward. My question is exactly how much will the community control board cost and how will it be paid for along with the new high school. Great. Thank you so much. Thanks. Avery, we'll have you go first. I think cost is one of my major concerns with the control board item. I think that there's been I mean there's been no forecast on how much it's going to cost. It's an entirely new body. There's an accompanying department that would go along with it and a bureaucracy and you know there's going to be staff in that department which are stipulated at a livable wage which is important but also this is a whole new staff for the city. So I don't know. I don't think we've been given the information that we would need to make a decision on that. Great. Thanks. I would say we cannot afford not to do it. Unfortunately we've had some injustices that have in fact occurred in Burlington. Our police department has had some of the issues that we have seen nationally. When we take a look at having to pay $300,000 to get a bad officer to leave, when we take a look at the other lawsuits that have been paid out, when we take a look at a $75,000 being spent on police transformation that resulted in a plagiarized report. We're spending all this other money. In addition, the Millie Brothers case, incident that occurred in 2018 lawsuit was made public in 2019 and the city of Burlington is still spending money to fight that. So I'm interested to know all those other costs because I think they can be put to better use on the community control board. Thank you. Great. Thank you. As far as the budget, will you be supporting the Burlington School budget's 4.9% increase over last year? Are you concerned about proposed teacher cuts? Why or why not? We'll go with Milo first. We'll alternate. Thank you. I definitely support the school budget. I know it gets difficult every year, especially given the increase in property taxes, but we have to have good schools. They are crucial to the future of the city. So I do support it. The cuts seem to be appropriate in terms of the fact that there is a decrease in enrollment. I was happy to hear that they are working on saving the drama position at the Integrated Arts Academy. Considering that that was the Arts Academy, that was something I heard in the community where people were concerned about the loss of that position. So I definitely support it. Thank you. Great. I'm also in support of it, I think for a lot of the same reasons that obviously education is one of our major priorities here. I think as far as the staff cuts that have been proposed, we should trust the school board to make their decisions on that. And I think that they are taking into account making sure that the functions of those roles are still maintained with the arts position. I do think there is a concern about cost, especially with building the new school, but of all of the things that we spend money on in the city and the areas where we could find waste and make cuts, that's not the area to start with. Great. Thanks so much. So Burlington has six items before voters on the ballot. Those are Proposition Zero, instant runoff voting, all resident voting, redistricting, citizen police, oversight body, and a polling place change. Of these, how will you vote and what do you feel most strongly about and why? We'll start with Avery this time. So I'm very much in support of all resident voting. I think that's really important in opening up the process to everyone who lives in the city and has a stake in it. Very much in favor of ranked choice voting. School board, yes. One or the other. Redistricting? Yes. I don't support the new map, but I do think we need to focus on redistricting and making more substantive changes. The citizen police oversight body and a polling place change. Yes, supportive of polling place change. I think for the control board, my main concerns are that we have no idea how much it's going to cost. And while Commissioner Grant raised the cost of all of the legal deliberations, we're already underway with all of the cases that would already exist with the police commission. So I would much rather move towards a directly elected commission that's accountable to the community, which this control board would not be, which would be a very different cost model and also much more effective, I think, in its approach. Great. And Proposition Zero, did you touch on that one? No, and I'm opposed to that one. I think that there's a reason we have representatives. There's a reason we have elected officials who do the work and have the time and the resources to properly evaluate and make effective policy changes. I think this creates an opportunity for folks to, A, there's huge lobbying that goes on with models like this, like in California. And it results in people not having the information they need to make an informed choice and to have effective policies that have been really well vetted. Great. Thank you. Nilo? I'm happy to repeat the list too. It's a lot. No, no. That's okay. I actually have in front of me. I would appreciate that. So Proposition Zero, I do support. I find in the current system where we have an administration that doesn't actually have a mandate because 50% of the vote, and we've had several instances where very serious concerns of the people have not been able to be brought forth by members of the city council. So I do believe that just because something is brought forth by Proposition Zero doesn't mean it hasn't been vetted. I support ranked choice voting. I support all citizens, all legal citizens voting. I think that's really important considering they live in our community. They work in our community. They pay taxes in our community. Their children go to school in the community. So I believe they should have that right because it'll help strengthen our community and start to build some of these connections that I was talking about. The oversight body, I do support. Previously, as a police commissioner, I didn't support it, and I would go to the meetings or it was being talked about. I went to all the charter change committees. This was something that was previously voted on and approved, but vetoed by the mayor. I at one point did really believe that the police commission could do the work, but more recently the mayor and the acting chief have spoken out against the police commission. There's a lot of things that are going on that are very concerning. They don't seem to want accountability or oversight, so we have to have a different way to get it. I think that people need to watch the various programs, NPA meetings, different meetings that are being sponsored by other groups to fully explain what this is and give people information so that they understand it better. I really don't have the limited time, but I will say firmly that the attacks on the police commission show that the administration doesn't want the commission doing this work. To say that they do, when on September 19th, we were directly attacked by the mayor was very concerning. Then the police chief said that the worker commission was preventing officers from applying to Burlington. This is really astounding to me. We're private citizens, we're serving. No one has told me that they've ever seen anything like this with a commission. Did I miss any of the others? Redistricting, I supported an all-ward model. Two counselors per ward, eight wards. Running a district is very difficult because it's two wards. It costs a lot more money. That can be really prohibitive to people. I'm leaning to voting for this, but I believe we really should have an all-ward model. But as long as we're continuing to work on it, I don't believe there's anything that we would be penalized for. A polling place changed. Yes, I think it's important that if this redistricting takes, for example, Edmunds would be moved out of the ward is currently in, yet it's a convenient place that people can get in and out of quickly to go and vote. It makes sense to allow that. Great. I got everything. I think I got everything. I think so. All right, thank you. Good job. You guys have good memories. The next question, the Vermont legislative season is underway. What are some important initiatives to the community of Burlington that you'll be tracking and supporting as part of your work as a city council member? We'll go Mila first. Sure, they're doing a lot of great stuff. From a public safety standpoint, they'll be working on gun control. And something that's very specific to Burlington is we're trying to ask that guns not be allowed in bars because some of the gunfire incidents have occurred in bars. With regards to family, universal pre-K, universal free meals and schools, there is some prison reform that's being looked at that I think is very important, bringing back just cause. And there would now be a super majority between Democrats and progressives that could get that to pass the legislature, even if the governor vetoes it. The shield laws for providers and patients for reproductive care and gender affirming care, I think that is also important. And those are the main ones that I've been looking at. Thank you. Avery. Yeah, I think there are some specific Burlington policies that have been passed by the city that have stalled in the state house. So the just cause eviction measure and also the gun control restrictions that Burlington wanted to pass that have stalled at the state house level, those are really important. I think the legislative efforts on figuring out a more formal arrangement with UVM around capping enrollment and managing the housing crisis is really important. And also I know that there's work being done to make it much easier for bars and other establishments to get their licenses and insurance and all the bureaucracy that exists around that. Because that's one of our great community institutions and a lot of them provide an important social hub as well as, you know, it's a place of business and it's a place for the makers of the product to sell their product. But it's also, you know, you have places like archives which are around a really specific interest. And then you have a lot of other, you know, venues that are attached to those bars. So I think it's really important that that becomes easier for business owners. Great. Thanks so much. Regarding housing, does Burlington have a housing crisis? And what do you see as the nature of housing in Burlington and how to meet the need for safe and affordable housing for residents, students, and visitors? We'll go every first. Yeah, I think anyone who lives in the city can obviously see that there's a massive crisis. There's no getting around that and it's existed for years and it's just getting worse. I work in campus housing. I deal with the brunt of our enrollment numbers every day. And I think that in Burlington we need to have a real conversation around zoning and what responsible rezoning looks like. I think a lot of people hear zoning and development and they think gentrification. They think we're really destroying the integrity of neighborhoods. And that does happen in a lot of cities, but we have a chance to do things differently and build density without building super high vertically. If we just built everything up to the current maximum in the north end, we'd build huge amounts of capacity. If we made it easier for folks to add accessory dwelling units to their homes in ways that are in reasonable proportion to their property, that would be really helpful. And I also think we need to really seriously think about accessibility as we do this because when we develop, we usually develop outside of town, which people have to have cars or they're reliant on public transport, which has limits here. And it puts them a very long way from resources. So I think we need to look at the space that we're already using in the city core and focus on ways to have mixed use developments that don't produce gentrification. Great. Thank you, Mila. Thank you. So I agree too about zoning. So I know that there's a lot of changes being worked on with zoning and so I support continuing taking a look at that. The legislation that Avery mentioned earlier is going to be brought forth by Troy Hedricks and this is really fantastic because it's going to try to hold UVM accountable to say you have to limit your enrollment. UVM is at about 30% of triples, which is astounding. And so every time they're increasing their enrollment, it is directly affecting housing down the line. They have been out of their agreement with the city for two years now. I think that's a major issue. I think it's callous of them not to come to the table and have an honest conversation about how difficult it is for people in Burlington right now. I don't think they really understand how people are suffering in terms of being able to pay rent. And it affects our economy in other ways because every dollar that goes toward rent is not going to other places in our economy and that's affecting the vibrancy of the city. So I hope that people really support what Troy is going to be doing in the legislature and I hope that I can assist the council and the mayor with doing what's necessary to get UVM to come back to the table to talk about these issues and to get back into an agreement. And yeah, I think I'll leave it there. Some main things. Thank you. Thank you. Can you tell us a little bit about why you care about and want to work as a city councilor for the community of Burlington? What are your favorite spots and why do you live here? We'll go with me a little first. Well, one of the reasons I stayed in Burlington was because I love the music scene. I've DJed here for many years. I had a lot of friends who were in music and operated some of the local clubs. So I was able to, even as a black person, and there weren't a lot of black people in the time, there are a lot more now, but I was able to build a really great safe space for myself. I also love the natural beauty of Burlington. I live very close to the waterfront. I get a chance to take advantage of that. The reason I'm becoming a city councilor is I feel it's the next step to do more for the central district, which I feel has been neglected by the administration. There's a lot of politics that have been a play. The politics have gotten in the way of talking about solutions, and particularly the drug crisis, which hit us first and hardest and then spread every place else. So I think that that is something that's going to be very important for me advocating for people in our community, which I've done a lot of being on the police commission. Thank you. I came here versus a UVM student a little over a decade ago, and so that's what brought me here. But what I think kept me here was the art scene, the music scene. I started busking on Church Street and playing gigs downtown when I was a student. And the music scene that we have is so vastly better in proportion to the size of the city than you would expect it to be, because we have a lot of venues and community figures who have really supported that and fostered it. I think food as well, food and beer. I do some marketing for a hops farm locally. So I work with a lot of the breweries who are making incredible beer that's known internationally as well as nationally. As far as serving on city council, I think a lot of folks like me feel really left out and left behind by our representation, and that the folks we have in leadership don't reflect the views often of the people in the district and are not serving our needs, that we kick a lot of footballs down the road and we don't actually fix our problems. So I'm interested in solving problems and bringing a lot of stakeholders to the table to find solutions, and that's something I do every day at UVM. Great. Thanks so much. So your city council race is one of the first in Burlington that ranked choice voting is coming into play, and this gives voters the chance to rank candidates in order of preference. Please tell us whether and how this has affected how you're campaigning and communicating with voters. We'll go every first. Yeah, I don't think it affected, it affects the way that I'm campaigning or speaking to people. I know that there's a lot of questions about how that works, and that's conversations I've been having with folks as we're door knocking and phone calling and all of those things. I'm really supportive of ranked choice voting. I lived in Europe for a couple years and that's very common over there, and I think it really serves democracy to have a pluralist representation and to not be worried about spoilers. I think it's really unfortunate in America that an independent candidate or any sort of third party candidate is seen as a spoiler, and that we feel so trapped by, you know, you can only have two options, and that anything other than that is somehow undermining those two parties when it should really be about those two parties undermining our system. So I don't think it substantially changed the way that I've approached things, but I think it's a really important next step for a city. Thank you. Mila. I would pretty much agree with everything. It's not changing the way that I campaign. If people ask me where I stand on the ballot items, I definitely talk about supporting it. It's not something I'm hearing a lot about, though, but I do support it for all the reasons that Avery mentioned. Great. Thank you so much. As a community with a diversity of languages spoken and a language access policy adopted in 2020, what ways do you see that the city government can expand access and accessibility to more community members who want to participate in local democracy? Thank you. That's a great question because when I think about building connections in the community between residents, but also with the city and the residents, the city is inconsistent about how it chooses to communicate with residents. Well, sometimes they don't communicate at all very well about certain things, but sometimes they translate things. Sometimes they don't translate things. And I think that if we are serious about including all residents and all aspects of different things that go on in the city, that there has to be a better mindfulness at the administration level to make sure that all the departments are taking communication into account. So whatever project's being worked on, there should be someone who's clearly assigned communication with the community that a project is happening in and part of their assignment would be to make sure that things are being translated. And that also goes for parts and recreation because sometimes I see advertisements for recreation in camps and things like that, and they're not always translated in other languages. So we might not be reaching people who might be interested in taking part of these things in Burlington, so I'd like to see the consistency in it. Thank you. Yeah, I think too often we expect folks to chase after city government and city programming rather than it coming to them. And I think that one of the things that really bothers me about the city is we feel such a disconnect from us and our city government. And we always refer to it as the city and it's the city council over there. It's our city and it's our city council and it should be working for us. And so from things as simple as, you know, parking bans, there's no reason we're not automatically texting everyone in the city when their cars are going to be moved. There's no reason that folks have to tune into an NPA meeting if they can't make it or go in person or go to a city council meeting and follow every commission to know what's going on in the city. The city should be actively communicating those things to all of us in a really proactive way. And I think that when we neglect that, we create that divide. We don't feel a sense of collective ownership over the process. We don't recognize the impact that our participation can have and we don't feel like our participation is welcomed. It's something that we have to sort of force and that's not right. So I think in terms of, you know, language is a huge piece of that. But it's also about just recognizing the fundamental fact that these things work for us. They are our processes and institutions and we shouldn't have to go chasing after them. Great. Thank you. I would agree with that. If I could also add, the city's website is terrible. It's one of the main things that I have repeatedly complained about, especially as a police commissioner and especially as people talk about issues around public safety. Where's the data? What does that look like? Right? Because people are like, well, we're hearing different things and the website is just terrible. And the fact that not all departments have someone who's updating information and even DPW that posts a lot of information, the way it shows is very inconsistent. So I would really love to have a project where the city looks at updating their website because it would make a huge difference. And I know they're looking at updating or changing from board docs to something else because board docs is where you find all the agendas and documents related to the different meanings and board docs is very cumbersome for the average person. If it's cumbersome for commissioners, it's certainly cumbersome for the average person. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. The city council has just sat squarely in the middle of a conversation about crime, police accountability and racial justice. What is next in your mind for this conversation? Do you think that problems exist? And if so, how shall they be addressed? We'll go Avery first. Yeah, so I think, again, with what I was talking about with the city government, there's a really massive disconnect between the city and our police department and the way we approach public safety. And I think that to rebuild that ownership, that feeling of collective ownership with the department, we all, I think, want more transparency and more accountability. And I think that the vast majority of people in the city are really driven to make that happen. And I think that the unfortunate thing about our party system in the city is that we feel like we're at polar opposite to the spectrum if we disagree on that. And I think it's really unfortunate that in a lot of progressive spaces where we talk about inclusion and lifting up people's voices and making sure that perspectives are heard, that folks who have disagreed with the community control board proposal have really feel iced out of the conversation or afraid to speak up on that. And that's something I've heard from a lot of voters who are quietly concerned about it, but feel like they're made to feel like they're on the wrong side of history somehow if they disagree with the implementation. So I think for me, having a directly elected police commission that operates more like a school board rather than a community control board, which is made up of folks who are nominated by organizations that are completely nebulous. We don't know who they are. There's no mechanism for them to be removed. They're not accountable to voters. I mean, if people are concerned that the department isn't accountable to the community, it's accountable to the mayor and the chief, then it's even less accountable if it's this completely arbitrary board made up of folks who are just the loudest voices in the room on a lot of these things and are sort of directly opposed to a lot of law enforcement initiatives. And I think that the other issues were completely excluding in the proposal that's on the board any folks with professional experience. And that's the most important thing you have when regulating anything. So if we're going to have a body, it should be made up of folks with experience and it should be directly accountable to voters. Great. Thank you, Milo. And then we'll go to closing comments. I really again encourage people to look at the more extended conversations about the community control board. I feel that some of that information misrepresents what it is. If you look at, there are details as to who would be selecting the organizations that would then select the people who would serve on the board. I feel that part of what this board is going to do, for example, when you say there's no professional participation, that's not true because if they need to investigate something, they will have that power to do so. They will, they can have a lawyer. So there is definitely ways that point of view of law enforcement comes in. What we have right now with all this power placed to the police chief, even the mayor said that, yeah, this isn't okay. And we unfortunately have a system where residents of Burlington aren't being best served. So I just really can't sum that up in just a couple of minutes. I have been speaking extensively about it. I did an interview about it. That's also on town meeting TV and other people are talking. It requires people to really listen. But I don't think people have been afraid to ask questions. I've been asking, answering a lot of questions about it and giving people details and giving them also my perspective and my experience in terms of what's been happening on the police commission, which has been a lot. It's been a lot. And I think the people of Burlington have not been served by our current department leadership and by the administration with regards to honesty around accountability and oversight. Thank you. I clarified two quick things. I just want to say that, again, these are organizations who are choosing the people on this board. It's not the community. And secondly, having the option to consult someone with professional experience is not the same as having people at the table. That's something I deal with every day at the university where theoretically students perspectives and voices are heard. But unless they are at the table from the get-go, you are not having them have the impact that they need to have at the time when it's most impactful. So bringing people in ad hoc after the fact is not representation. I think we have to be considerate of the fact that these people from these different organizations are actually going to be representing residents that have been many times locked out of the process, locked out of being able to speak about these things. And they're more affected by policing that is a misuse of force and the lack of empathy and compassion and policing and the lack of equity and policing. So it's saying that these people need to be included because it hasn't been done in an honest way previously, quite frankly. And I think that if we're going to build back trust, when we take a look at the contract that the union has, the BPOA has, it's a very strong contract, not so strong for the community. There were many things such as how long do we keep records of disciplinary records, extremely low, way below best practice. And that got negotiated into the contract. It got raised, I think, one year. So there's a lot of things that are built in to protect law enforcement, but not to protect the public. That's what needs to be addressed. So I think as far as the, I know we're wrapping up here, but I want to say that with the current proposal, I think that the sensible approach to that would have been to limit the amount of people with a background in law enforcement rather than to ban them completely. And I think, again, an organization can say that they represent me. If I am not voting for them, I have not chosen them as my representative, and that's what concerns me. So it's the direct accountability to voters. And also a complete lack of experience is the problem. If it was a cap, like so 30 percent of the people on there could have a background in that field, I would say that was more reasonable than completely excluding them. But investigations do use documentation that comes from law enforcement. If investigations are necessary, there will be a member of the city council involved. There'll be the mayor involved in choosing the organizations that will choose people. So again, I feel people really need to be watching the meetings that talk about this in more detail. Thank you so much. Thanks, folks. And thank you for tuning into Town Meeting TV's ongoing coverage of local candidates, local budgets, and ballot items. You can find this and more forums at www.ch17.tv. And please don't forget to vote on or before March 7. Ballots are not mailed automatically. So please check with your local clerk and request a ballot if you need one to make sure to get to the polls. Thank you for watching and sharing Town Meeting TV. If you are not already, please subscribe to our Town Meeting TV YouTube channel. And thank you, Avery and Milo. Thank you.