 Hey, good evening and welcome to the pandemic version of Montpelier Civic Forum. And that of course is the version where you get to vote absentee. Most of you will vote absentee for town meeting. A town meeting that this year is going to happen on March 2nd, Tuesday, March 2nd. And we've got a series of excellent shows in preparation for that so that when you vote, you can vote intelligently. We have our traditional budget shows, Jim Murphy doing school budget, Bill Fraser and Ann doing city budget. We've also got Ann again doing her annual look at city from the mayor's perspective. We look at projects that are ongoing. We look at projects that might never happen. We look at projects that are being pushed off. And we look at what's going on in different parts of the city. And Ann will tell us what that building is at the corner of 302 and River Street, the one that just went up. We have city council candidates. We have school board candidates. We even have someone running for a five-year term on the park commission. Tonight, I have a sitting city council person from district one. I have Lauren Hurl. Did I pronounce the name correctly? You did. Now, this is not the first time we've met. No, we met two years ago when I was running for the first time for city council for district one. Now, put yourself back two years ago. You're going to run for city council in district one. And it's not for the money. Are you getting rich doing city council? No, it's definitely not for the money. It's for the love of community. Now, it wasn't that you and two years ago thought, geez, I would love to be on zoom. No, no, yeah. So I got about a year in of doing in-person city council and, you know, got all the thrown in steep part of the learning curve of the city issues. And then, yeah, it was basically exactly a year in that we started then on zoom. So the past year it's been all zoom all the time. Are you zoomed out? I imagine that your work is in zoom as well. Yes, I have zoomed from morning till night. So I can't wait till we can all be back in person again. What is council like in terms of relating to people who are speaking to council? What's it like for you when you're zooming with someone who's zooming instead of someone standing in front of that microphone? What's it like in the interchange? Yeah, I think there's pros and cons. You know, I think an in-person conversation is always, you know, you're able to get more of a back and forth, which is nice. That's harder to do in zoom because there's the delays and it's just it's harder to have a real interaction. You know, I think there's also just a general, the things you might say to someone's face versus what you might say over a computer screen, you know, it can be a little edgier on zoom I think than it was in person, you know, for better and worse probably. Maybe they'll say say the hard things that need to be said sometimes. But, you know, I think the benefits have been really being able to get people who can be in the comfort of their home and if they've got kids or they've got, you know, something else they need to also be doing, they can just pop in and participate. So I think, you know, in some ways it's made it more accessible to more people to participate, which I think is a great thing. So I'll be really curious if we, you know, try to do some kind of hybrid once we can go back to in person to keep that accessibility piece, but get back to the in-person benefits. Now, of course, I have to sit and put the plug in that every one of these meetings has also shown an orca. Absolutely. So there is the chance for people to watch this and then interact, even when console is before. Yeah. Yeah. So you can always call in. So you just don't have the video ability to, you know, say your piece, but people could always watch it and could call and participate. And there's different ways to weigh in for sure. Now, I want to walk you back two years. Was console not putting aside that the zoom, you know, it's like that old corny joke. And besides that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln, you know, putting aside the pandemic, how was console different than you thought it would be? Yeah, that's a great question. I guess one area. So, you know, I worked on public policy for years and years. So I worked in Washington DC doing federal policy and then federal policy in one area. I've done all environmental policy. So I was running the campaign to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Were you successful? Well, I was there. Yes. It's been a tough couple of years recently. Yeah. We had the President Obama who was good on it. So we were fine when I was there. But yeah, it's been interesting. Like I moved to Vermont and then have been working on pretty much all state policy and then got really interested in what you can do locally and the ability to, you know, do projects and see change on the ground versus what feels very kind of hypothetical and academic almost at federal policy. Like it's important. It impacts people's lives. But, you know, being able to really think about, you know, what can we do for our own community? And one of the things I learned was just a lot about, you know, what a city government can do versus a state government versus the federal government and, you know, what you can do and what you can't really pull off. Is there an intermediary level between what the city government can do and what the state government can do and what the federal government can do? Is there a regional level that you've discovered cities where that we really aren't isolated in Montpelier? Is there any movement towards cities clustering together for a regional approach? Yeah, I mean, there's, I see it issue by issue. You know, for example, when the pandemic struck, there was a move to make a regional effort of how do we kind of coordinate that we're getting information about cases that were, you know, doing the mutual aid groups that sprung up. So there was, they, you know, pulled together a regional group for how are we kind of doing the emergency response efforts and being prepared. And, you know, I'm hoping that that's a model that we can build on for other efforts. You know, we have it in some of our dispatch and other particular areas. We've been with Barry forever trying to figure out the dispatch. I think now we have a study, you know, when all else fails, let's have a study. Yes. Yeah, so I think there's a lot more opportunity to do more of that. I mean, it's hard not having a county government, I guess, like some places have that in place. So you've got to kind of create structures that are going to have the buy-in of all the communities and that get people on board that you can do more together and do do better that way. And that includes Berlin. Yeah, absolutely. When Berlin decides that it includes Berlin. You came in, were you here for the tail end of Berlin Pond? That has not really come up since I've been on council. That was pretty much, I think we've gotten an update or two, but it's there were no decisions that were made while I've been on council. So you were after district heat. Yep. You were here for the plant, the sewage plant and the methane plan and all that? Yep. Yeah. So we've, I mean, some of that had certainly predated, but we've had a lot of work going on there. And you know, it's a place a lot of people don't spend time thinking about. Well, can you explain what that project is about? Yeah. So, you know, we, it's been really impressive that I think creativity and forward-looking approach to our water resource recovery facility. So, you know, over by the Dog River rec fields. And there has been this whole upgrade project that's been going on that is going to be able to capture methane from what we bring in and create clean local energy from it. We've put in solar panels. We have a lot of the upgrades also are much more energy efficient. So it turns out like this facility is one of our biggest town energy users. And by making these upgrades, there's the projections that we, you know, will save taxpayers money over the long term, will cut our climate pollution, and be able to, you know, treat, treat the waste better, you know, because we can, it'll be modern equipment. So it's, it's this great project. Boy, I'm going to speak out of school and correct me if I do. You know, this is way outside my room. But I think that we're taking sludge and we're burning the methane and being able to take the electricity generated and sell it back into the grid. Yes, exactly. Yep. And we're taking on, ultimately we'll take on sludge partners who will sell our, who will take us sludge so that we can build our capacity to ultimately generate more electricity. And this thing should, this treatment plant should be net zero, I believe. Yes. That's, that's the goal, which is, which is amazing. Like when you look at how much energy it was using historically and to be able to get there, it's, you know, it's been a lot of people thinking really creatively and innovatively about how to, how to get it to that state. Including our man. Absolutely. Yeah. Mayor Anne Watson has been a huge champion and innovator in that. So lots of props to her. Is there anything else, an environmental policy in this, in the city that you're looking at? Yeah. I mean, we have authorized at city council. There's a study that's going on now that's going to be looking at, you know, the city as a community set a net zero target for climate pollution. So for city operations by 2030, and, and as a city really driven by a group of medical middle school students, which was great, they came, they came and asked us to declare a climate emergency. And in that, we also pledged to do a net zero climate pollution by 2050 for the entire community. So not just looking at city operations, which is that 2030 target. And so that they, you know, brought that, that idea to us, which was great. And so we passed, we adopted that ordinance this past year. And now what we're doing is actually doing an analysis that's looking at, okay, what are the actual steps that get us there? So we have this really great Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee that works incredibly hard, has tons of projects going all the time, you know, including consulting on the water resource recovery facility and how to get that to net zero. And so building on a lot of great work that they've been doing, this is going to help us map out, okay, you know, what's what are the next steps that we take that we can get to this, you know, zero climate pollution goal? If we're talking about 2050 and being completely net zero, including my, at that point, I suppose, will be 180 year old house that's drafty, what will this mean to the homeowner, assuming that we don't have solar panels and huge and very efficient batteries to take us through to that net zero as a homeowner? What does that mean to the homeowner? Yeah, I mean, I think we are going to really, as a state, as a nation, I mean, we have to put in place policies that support people buttoning up your homes, doing the weatherization so that we're not heating the outdoors and sending out heat and wasting our money and energy. And so, you know, right now, I know that the state, for example, has, the governor's put forward a $25 million weatherization proposal and the state itself last year passed pretty aggressive climate pollution reduction targets that are now mandatory. And so, you know, I think there's going to be just a sea change in the kinds of support incentive programs. And like, even some of the stumbling blocks have been things like training, like having the workforce to do these kinds of projects. And so a lot of that work is going on. So I think people are going to be really supported in a variety of ways. And, you know, you know, that if you weatherize your home, you save money over the long term, but how do we capture that? So upfront, you right because nobody lives in the long term, right? So how do you, you know, pay that over time on your bill and other creative ways to, to make it feasible for people to do this at all income levels? Do you see that is in a town that isn't that affordable? Yeah, we're really buying into this town is a heady proposition. Do you see that affecting affordability? I mean, the great thing about those projects is it actually makes it more affordable to live your life. When your energy bills, I was on a program recently with someone from Efficiency Vermont who was talking about the average homeowner saves $1,000 each and every year once they weatherize their home. So doing projects like that, it actually is an affordability measure as well. If you can figure out how to either incentivize and there's great regional programs to help low income folks weatherize their homes, but we have a backlog and too many, too many people want it and there's not enough work to go around. So I think that's, that's where we need to, you know, I think the state needs to step up and fund more and then figure out how we can access that as much as possible as a community, you know, and I think the city should be thinking creatively of, you know, are there, could we incentivize that? Are there ways to, you know, we have a revolving loan fund, for example, and, you know, can we be getting that kind of money out to people to help with upfront costs when we know we can capture those savings down the road? So do you have an app on your phone for calling the bus? I do. Could you explain that program to people? Yes, this is also really exciting. So My Ride by Green Mountain Transit, that's what the app is called. Look it up, find it, you download it on your phone if you have a smartphone. You can also call into it, there's phone numbers, there's information at some of the points around town, like the transit center and where the bus stop in front of the Shahs and so on. So if you don't have a smartphone, there are still ways to access this, but it basically works like a public transit Uber or Lyft if people are familiar with that, where you, you know, put in where you're starting and where you want to go around town. And this includes up to the hospital and the Shahs up the hill and so on. So you can get, you know, within a certain radius of town and right now it's free, but you order your ride and it will show up and can pick you up in town at your house and deliver you where you need to go or if you're at work or your apartment or wherever. So it has the potential to, I think, be an amazing asset and we're kind of in the trial run as a community. We're the first one in Vermont trying this out. And so there's also, I'm sure going to be lessons learned and how do we keep making it better. Now this is the replacement for the circulator. Exactly. Yep. So this is, this is instead of the circulator. So you still got the buses on the schedule, you know, going to Burlington and St. Jay and so on. But this is, yeah, the circulator around the community. And so, you know, encourage people to try it out. If you have a great experience, great. If there's hiccups, you know, the Sustainable Montpelier Coalition has been really trying to gather and get the input from folks so they can continuously improve this. So encourage people to also share if they had some snafu with it and there's some, some bumps to work out. But it's really exciting. I think, you know, if you could get to the point where people don't need to own a second car anymore, don't, you know, don't need a car at all if, depending on their lifestyle, you know, this could really change some of, you know, people's, people's economics again to the affordability you raised a few minutes ago and parking issues and other things that have been perennial issues around town. How do you see the transition to more electric cars on the road? Is that would we have, would the electric things be at our existing gas stations? Would the chargers be? I think that's, that should be part of it. So I bought an electric car a year and a half ago. So I've been experimenting with it and, you know, I work for a non-profit environmental group and my husband's a teacher. And, you know, with all of the incentives and everything, you know, I think we ended up paying about $20,000 for it. So the prices come down a lot from what they used to be. And so, you know, we've got the charger right in our garage. And so, you know, for, for my husband commutes to Essex every day, so he's able to go there and back, plug it in at night, it's ready to go in the morning. So we've been able to use it for a year and a half without even needing to find a lot of other chargers, depending on, you know, what you're using it for. But yeah, I think building out the infrastructure at the gas stations and they've been making a lot of progress, getting the state has a goal of chargers within 30 miles of every point in the state. And I think they said they're almost there, but still, still work to do. Boy, imagine that puts a lot of chargers with very few people in the Northeast Kingdom. So far, but you know, I think this is the direction that we're all going to be going soon enough. So now that Mount Pilier being Mount Pilier, I don't imagine that I don't remember our son and his friends trick-or-treating in Saban's pasture. I don't think your children are trick-or-treating in Saban's pasture. Do you see a train going from Burlington through Mount Pilier to Barrie? Do you think that that has any sort of realistic legs to it? I mean, I love trains. I'm hopeful. Like, I want to be optimistic about that. I mean, I think it's interesting. And I don't know, you know, what your son thinks about this, but a lot of conversations I have with younger people, you know, I'm in my 40s, people younger than me, they don't want to own- Compared to me, you are a younger person. I'm a younger person. People younger than me. There's a lot of interest in not having to own a car and deal with it. And, you know, what are alternatives that can be better for the planet and, you know, less hassle and, you know, more interesting. And so, you know, I think that there's going to be opportunities that might seem, you know, not totally feasible to us right now, but as people with a different vision of what kind of community they want, I think that there could be opportunity. And I would love to see more rail coming through the community. Do you see anything happening to the Manuski? I mean, I'm very hopeful for a lot of the progress that's happening with Confluence Park. Where is Confluence Park? So, that would be, you know, where the farmer's market used to be down behind the garage, you know, where we've got the two rivers meeting up. The garage? The proposed garage. Where's that old garage building? But, you know, that's right now a cool little art center. I thought it was called like the garage or something. So, you know, where the rivers meet right in the middle of town, you know, kind of behind the Shahs and all of that. So, there's a bunch of community members and the Vermont River Conservancy and others have been working on this plan for how do we get our community to turn this into the asset that it really should be, where we have access to it, where people could, you know, go sit, maybe swim, maybe be able to use it, paddle on it, use it in ways that right now is really not accessible. And so, there's, they just got this big grant to move forward with the design and engineering and, you know, starting into implementing this, you know, it'll be a many-year project, but I think it could really just change, you know, turn this, turn our river into the amazing asset that it is for our community and make it accessible and, you know, some, some places that we want to spend time and I'm really excited by that. I think there's also, I know there's some folks looking at, are any of the old dams that aren't being used anymore? Could those be taken out, which would help water quality and, you know, helps with fish passage and other things? So I know there's some interest there and people are looking at, you know, with federal funding opportunities. Are there going to be chances to take advantage of funding streams that are coming right now that might be kind of once in a generation opportunities to look at, you know, what kind of projects could we do? Let's stay with big projects and the drawing board. Next to, next to Shaw's, where the old beverage store was, do you envision a park or building? That, that's a good question. I mean the state owns the land and the city is talking, is proposing to purchase land. Yeah, yeah, it's an interesting one. I mean we have such a need for more housing and so that's, that's one pull. You know, I, to me, I think, you know, I've seen various iterations of ideas and designs and, you know, I think there could be where you could have a mix of, you know, some, some open space on that property and some building. You know, I, I, we absolutely need to be making more affordable housing for our community and so that would be a priority for me as, you know, if a project was moving in that direction, I would look hard at supporting something like that. If it was meeting that, I mean I think it depends too on what other projects are in the works and what's the mix of opportunities for more housing for the community as well. Now we'll go directly east down Berry Street and stop across from the senior center at the recreation center, which has been closed for COVID reasons. Given the post COVID realities, I think we had a price tag of five, six million dollars, but that was before we talked about extensive ventilation in that building. Do you realistically see with social distancing for at least a while, do you see that being a recreation center again? It's, it's a challenge. I mean, yeah, we had gotten really close to moving forward with, you know, renovation and, and really making that a much more usable space for the community. I mean, to me, I think that could be the kind of project that we could look at. Are there, you know, again, are there funding streams from the federal government that are like those kinds of projects, municipal building projects? I know that, you know, the state just started a new stream of funding for municipal energy efficiency projects. You know, so I think if there was some opportunity to, to take advantage of funding that's available right now that might not be available again to the community, that that we should, you know, look hard at that. I mean, otherwise, I think it's going to be really hard with so many competing priorities in the, in the very short term to, to, to overhaul the building in the way that, you know, I think we need to, and we need to for accessibility reasons as well. Well, let's keep walking east along on Berry Street and we go by, by the bridge and we walk, we hit the walking path. Yeah. What are your thoughts on the, and the distillery? What are your thoughts on the walking path and the distillery? Hi, I'm so excited that that path is in there. I use it regularly for, for, I mostly run on it, but I always see people out. I love just how well used it seems to be. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from community members. You know, I think the more we're connecting long, long tracks where people can, can recreate in a variety of ways or use it to, you know, for their commute or whatever they're using it for. I think it's great. I'm really excited and, you know, a lot of people worked really hard on that long before I started on council to, to make that a reality, but it was really exciting to have the, the completion. Well, Montpelier being Montpelier, they worked a long time because projects take a long time if Montpelier to gather consensus, to gather funding, to actually gather approval of neighbors and actually get built. Yeah. You mentioned the garage. Yeah. Do you think that they'll ever be a parking garage or let me, let me presuppose in a post pandemic world, do you believe that there'll be a new hotel and can a parking garage exist without a new hotel? What's your thought on that? Yeah. I mean, the way I've always understood it is the garage only will happen if the hotel is happening. They were, they were tied together. That's how the economics and everything worked with it. So I think it's, you know, seeing if, if the hotel is going to happen and that will be, you know, what's the economy like? What is our people traveling again, even if the economy is starting to open up and we're getting to, to some new version of post COVID, you know, is the, is the demand going to be there? And, and so, you know, it feels a little like we're, we're in a holding pattern, seeing how, how that shakes out. You know, I've heard various, various folks put it like how many years out until we're back to some kind of new normal. So, you know, I haven't heard any, any updates or things that kind of jog it out of that holding pattern, you know, until we know more about what, I guess, the predictions for the economy and the hotel industry, I guess, might be. While we're on Berry Street heading downtown, we had that walkway. And then there's a section where the bike path was going to join the path that goes by the river and behind what would be the hotel and the like and the parking garage. What about main street improvements? We had talked about an entire plan and we had, again, the civic meetings that Montpelier is famous for hashing out a consensus on a downtown plan. And it was a elaborate downtown plan. Given the fiscal realities, will that ever see the light of day? I think we'll continue to, to make progress. So there, there's a ton of work. I mean, to some extent, you know, upgrades or improvements that are going to have to be made anyway. And so I think we'll face choices of, do we, you know, would we just make an upgrade to a facility, how it is or, you know, whatever infrastructure, you know, or do we actually move towards the master plan that we've adopted as a community? And, you know, so I think, I think we'll keep moving towards it. And it just will probably be slowed down from what we had, you know, everyone had originally thought not, of course, knowing what we were in for with the pandemic and all of the economic hits that that's done for the city budget and the community in general and downtown business. Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, supporting, supporting our local businesses and our community, you know, what we choose to prioritize over the next few years is, you know, we're going to want to help our residents who are struggling to put food on the table. We want to help our businesses that, you know, are struggling to keep their doors open. So that's going to be obviously top of mind for decisions and priorities. Dan Groberg and Montpelier live remained in the budget. The Economic Development Corporation didn't. And they were the ones who brokered the deal for the distillery, which was a major piece of economic development for our town. Do you see with them gone getting new development and particularly in terms of things like the Necky property that's sitting empty? Yeah. So Montpelier Development Corporation, they were zeroed out in this budget, but they're they actually still have money in the bank. And so they they're continuing operations and they were able to, you know, there were a whole series of staffing changes and other things. So they actually still had enough budget. So they told us they could make it through a year without a city allocation, which of course, you know, given all the challenges we had was music to our ears for tax for our taxpayers. But so they're going to keep keep keep on. And they've really asked us to, you know, think long and hard. And, you know, if we're going to fund them again, that it would be, you know, another five year or so commitment, you know, if we're going to keep that going, that they worked with Montpelier alive and lots of props to Dan and and his crew, they one of their big areas of focus has been trying to help the local businesses navigate the federal these like grant applications to access the PPP loans and all of the federal money that was available. I mean, you can imagine the paperwork and bureaucracy and the state funds absolutely. And so, you know, being having expertise available to help, you know, a lot of these really small businesses that if they're trying to, you know, actually serve customers, how are they doing that? And so I think that's been a real service and and so, you know, hoping that that that kind of action can continue. So it's been a lot of what Montpelier alive has been doing. So not not what they thought they spent the year doing, but really valuable. When we talk about City Council and people appearing before City Council, sometimes as you said in the environmental, we're pulled into national issues. Defunding the police. A national issue. And there are people who feel passionately about that. How do you feel about, you were under Tony, you were a City Council person under Police Chief Fakos, your City Council person under Police Chief Pete. What's your feeling on defunding the Montpelier police? Yeah, I mean, I had presented to Council a resolution which we adopted condemning police brutality. Do we have police brutality here? It was something that actually this was when Chief Fakos was still on and he supported the resolution as well. But I think it was a statement of community values. But part of that conversation, you know, we have been hearing from a good number of community members who've been showing up consistently to Council, which is which is great. I always am so appreciative of people coming to a City Council meeting, sitting through a lot usually. But, you know, what we've done is we formed, you know, we like to study things. But I do think in this case, a task force, we set up, we set up a police review committee, which I'm serving on, you know, really wanting to. A police review committee differs from a civilian review committee, how? So so this is not so a civilian review committee would would potentially be a committee that would be either, you know, overseeing if citizens have complaints about the police or things like that and are making some kind of decisions and recommendations or in some cases might have, you know, the ability to for some kind of accountability for the police department. What what we're doing as a kind of step one is this police review committee is really looking at, you know, what is our vision and what are our community values for our police department? You know, what are current practices? What are our police spending their time on? And are there differences between what our vision for policing and what is happening right now? And that group, you know, and that could be budget implications over the defund the police, you know, are we do we have the right number of police officers for the needs for our community? And if not, you know, what would what should we be targeting? And if if if we were going to, you know, a lot of the defund movement has been we should put more resources to social services and things that, you know, might prevent someone from ever needing to interact with the police. Don't we already have a social worker that we're picking up part of the salary and Barry is picking up part of the salary. So we've moved in that direction. Yep, we have. So yeah, yeah, so we've got on staff now a social worker with the police department. Another thing that we've worked on a lot is homelessness, which, you know, is a population that people experiencing homelessness end up interacting with the police. And there's lots of questions about, you know, what's what's the right way to connect people to services? And one thing that the city also did in the past year was we hired a peer outreach worker. So this is a woman who has herself experienced homelessness in her life and is not part of the police department. And that was the recommendation and the homeless task force of the homelessness task force, another task force created, you know, but a successful one, I think that's been, you know, making real, real meaningful recommendations to us on, you know, how we can focus community resources in a way that really get at the crux of issues. Does homelessness, homelessness, what meaning does this have when the state is housing the homeless because of COVID? Yeah, I mean, it changed some of the dynamics. But the state won't do that forever. That state won't do that forever. So I think there's both, you know, part of it gets back to, you know, what are we doing for our housing affordability problem? You know, if people can't afford to be housed to them, that's just creating and exacerbating our homelessness issue. So. Bill is want to say that statistics show that we do not stop minority drivers more than we stop other people. Your committee studies that sort of thing as well? Yes. Yep. Yeah. So we're looking at traffic stop data, arrest data, whatever data we can get on interactions with community members in the police. What are you seeing? We've just been digging into that so we don't yet have an analysis that's ready to to to share. I mean, I think the traffic stop data at, you know, the most recent report one just came out just a few weeks ago. And, you know, it was not showing a big discrepancy in Montpelier. I think some of it comes down to, you know, what are our there's there's cultural issues within police departments and there's policies. And, you know, even I think that data was encouraging. And let's also make sure that our policies and the practices and how people are being trained in the department are, you know, continuing that if it's good. And maybe there's some red flags there that we haven't that we still are going to unearth. But. Bill did note that men are pulled over more than women. That that is well. And I can accept why that's the case. I think all of us watching this can accept that it's the case. The school resource officer, the school board said no. That is a position of a police person who the city has picked up half the schools who picked up half. And the schools don't want to do that. From what I understand, and I don't think I'm speaking out of turn, that person will be returned back and she'll be doing full time police work. Yep. Yep. That's what is included in the the city budget that will go in front of voters. I mean, again, I think the the issue of the size of our staff and what our police department is spending their time doing is what what exactly this committee is looking at. And so, you know, it'll be a part of the analysis and that group's making recommendations. There's a report due in June that I think will look at both, you know, what's what's what's budget, size of our police force and what kind of policies do we have in place that, you know, are making sure that we're as best as possible living up to, you know, the values of our community. Coming back to affordability again, I suppose that drives budget to some degree. You know, we don't live in an ideal world where you can say we need 40 place people instead of 18. Yep. And be able to afford that. Is that the case? That ultimately it will be bottom line driven? Yeah. I mean, you know, some people have come to council and already think, you know, depending on how you slice and dice the budget, like the percent that we spend on our police seems, you know, seems large to to some people, you know, other people provided both that they think it's about the right size. And I don't hear a lot that we should really be expanding it. So that the conversation seems to be somewhere somewhere in there that I've heard from community members. But yeah, I mean, it's all this is all taxpayer dollars. So wanting to be really prudent and thoughtful about, you know, what are we, what are we spending our hard earned community money on? And, you know, how and so our police department is supposed to be getting a safety and security. And so, you know, are we paying the right amount for that? Now, when I first started these shows, I had John Holler running for mayor who said our streets are in horrible shape. People are losing hubcaps. We have to increase the amount of money that we're putting into the streets to get to level funding the streets so that we can address that reasonably. This year's budget doesn't level fund the streets as it has in the past. Do you see our streets regressing due to that? And can we without chopping away at the affordability, can we bring that back that again? Yeah. I mean, so, you know, what my understanding is we had short funded that for years and years and years. And so there was a backlog and dead and and that we've in recent years really worked hard to put money in exactly as you said and get it back to a more sustainable path of funding so that we have good quality rows and hubcaps. Exactly. So this year, just because of, I mean, we had just a huge hit to our budget from from COVID, you know, a lot of the revenue that would normally come in just hasn't because it's tied to- Oh, you're talking about the local options tax that's tied to restaurants and bars? It turns out. It turns out, yeah. Yeah. So some communities, some communities haven't been hit that hard if it's property taxes is, you know, the bulk of their, you know, but for us, it's been a big impact. And, you know, the calculus that we made, we wanted to prioritize keeping our staff on and not laying people off into this economy. And, you know, we already know that our, our departments are stretched pretty thin and working really hard. And so putting even more work on fewer people. We didn't want to do that. We also were making the calculus and, you know, we'll see if we're right, but that, you know, if, if federal and state dollars come in that having infrastructure projects ready to go would be a lot easier to fund. And so, you know, we've asked city staff to be, you know, being ready, you know, we always are the shovel ready projects from the last time stimulus that there was a big infrastructure stimulus and we're anticipating another one. And so, you know, how can we take advantage of that and be ready to go? And so that's, that's the hope and that's the priority. Otherwise, I think we're going to have to, you know, the goal for, I think all of us is to get back as quickly as possible to, you know, really prioritizing investments in that because it's such just a core part of having a safe and, you know, hubcap, hubcapped community. Geez. I've never ended the show talking about hubcaps before, but I'm going to end this one and I'm going to say get out and vote on Town Meeting Day. This is the most important Town Meeting Day because it's one where we can show that we care civically, that it's, you don't have to see people walking into City Hall to care enough to vote and it isn't a presidential or senatorial year. We have excellent candidates up this time and we have a city budget that's been extremely well thought through, a school budget that was long thought through and I feel like the choice is yours. The choice should be to get out there and vote, but before you do that, watch these shows and that's a choice too. Thank you very much for watching this one.