 Good evening. Welcome to the Candidate Forum. This program is part of a series presented by the Bridge and Orca Media to help voters get to know the candidates better. Before going on, I want to note that because of redistricting, these are the towns that are represented by tonight's round table. Waterbury, Bolton, Huntington, and Buells Gore. Glad you're here tonight. And forums are unique in that we have invited all the candidates who are on the November 8th ballot here, not even if they're not a major party. So first we're going to start off with introductory statements, which you have two minutes, and introduce yourself, talk a little bit about your affiliation, and just talk about yourself. We're going to start with Thomas Stevens. Thank you, Linda, and thanks to the Bridge and to Orca Media for having the forums. It's been really nice to see how total you've been covering these races. I'm a Democrat and I'm running for a reelection to my eighth term to the House of Representatives, and I live in downtown Waterbury and have since 1996. Since my first election, I have served on the General Housing and Military Affairs Committee and have been chair of that committee for the last two biennium. The portfolio in my committee is broad, going backwards in the name of the committee. Military Affairs means mostly veterans work and working with the National Guard, which is our primary military organization in Vermont. Our work is recently focused on providing the Guard with more tools to recruit members through enhanced tuition programs to local colleges and improving our licensing programs through the Department of Fire Safety and the Secretary of State's office, so that veterans who have been certificated in particular trades can transfer that certificate more easily when they come back to Vermont, as well as making it easier for spouses of families who serve in the Guard to transfer any licenses they have, be it in a trade or as a teacher, for instance. In housing, we've worked to provide more affordable housing for Vermonters in need of it, and we've worked to mitigate the effects of homelessness or impending homelessness with the help of federal dollars throughout the pandemic. We've worked with the executive branch to distribute tens of millions of dollars to tenants and landlords for rental assistance, and we've allocated tens of millions of dollars more to property owners to rehabilitate or build new units. Under general, under the general category, we deal with the myriad issues ranging from oversight of the Department of Liquor and Lottery to labor issues like minimum wage and paid family leave from abinac-y recognition to a formal apology from the General Assembly for the wrongs that we did during the eugenics survey in the early 20th century. We've also worked on discrimination cases and things like equal pay, so it's a pretty broad committee for us to work on. This is the work we do, and the work outside includes constituent work throughout the year. While I'm proud of the work I've been able to accomplish, it's a real privilege to have served this long. Thank you. Next we'll hear from Teresa Wood. Thank you, Linda, and thank you to Orca and the Bridge for sponsoring this. Really appreciate it. As I said, my name is Teresa Wood. I'm from Waterbury. I've lived my whole life in Vermont. I've just finished my seventh year in the legislature. I was appointed by then-Governor Shumlin to fill an unexpired term of then-sitting representative Rebecca Ellis. I'm a Democrat running for re-election, and I currently sit on the House Human Services Committee where I am vice chair. As a member of that committee, we work diligently to help Vermonters in need. We look at issues from housing to poverty to assisting individuals with disabilities to have safe services provided by our designated and other designated agencies and other private organizations, such as home health agencies. We work on oversight issues for three major departments, the health department, the Department for Children and Families, and the Department of Disabilities, Aging, and Independent Living all fall under our committee's jurisdiction. In the last few years, we have made major steps forward in providing assistance to working families for child care support and to expand the availability of child care. We still have a long ways to go on that, but we've made substantial investments in that. We've also worked to expand the opportunities for Vermonters with developmental disabilities to have safe, appropriate housing and the ability for them to receive supportive services in the communities where they would like to. And likewise, older Vermonters. We've expanded the supports and services for older Vermonters and are working now on the first ever broad state plan to help Vermont age well. And I look forward to being able to continue to represent the people in our communities. Thank you. Thank you. Next in our candidate forum, we have William McGory from Bolton Valley. Yes. Thank you again, Orca. My name is William McGory and I'm a 20 year resident of Bolton Valley. And I probably two years before that, I was running, I was not a property owner there. But during that time, my experience of 20 years, I worked in the hospitality industry in both Washington, the Waterbury area and also Chittenden in Burlington. And presently, I'm a 10 year old of a small business. I own a building which has a laundromat in it. And I run out to a dance studio and also a hairdresser who was left because of COVID. And that's one of the things I want to focus on as a business environment that we're having right now. My experience legislative, this is the first run for me for a state representative, but I was a four year member of the town council in Westport, Connecticut, which is a legislative body. It's a local body, but it's doing the same duties as a state. But you're dealing with matters locally, not state. It was also two years as a clerk of the Insurance and Real Estate Committee in Connecticut State General Assembly. So I know the process and it's the same process up in Montpelier rather. My goals, I see so much infighting between Republicans and Democrats. I'm an independent. Each one of them steadfastly not wanting to compromise so that they won't give a victory to either side. And it's us, the people. There's a disconnect between what they're doing and the people's agenda. That's one of the main reasons I'm wanting. Other reasons are state agencies. I believe the state agencies, they're not entities in themselves. We the people give them power and I'd like to see all those agencies be educated in our system of government. That's my goal. I'd like to get more community involvement with all the agencies and with all the police department and all the other agencies. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Macquarie. Ms. Tenet. I moved to Vermont about 30 years ago. Thank you for having me, by the way. And as a world-class musician, since COVID, a lot of other families, a sense of community and to be able to raise a family and relative safety and comfort is really important. And they should be able to maintain their sense of values. I think that's been disrupted with everything that's been happening in recent years. Many community members have expressed disappointment, whether it be a lack of affordable childcare, housing taxes, mandates, pushing someone else's ideology or political agenda onto them. I know this because I listen while canvassing out there. It's become apparent we need better representation and that inspired me to run as a mom, a single mom, to boot. And I want to imagine a better future for our kids so that they can grow and wisdom and knowledge as to what constitutes we the people. You're welcome. The candidates forum will begin now with one and a half minutes to answer a question. I'll pose to all of you. I'll do a different order every time. And you'll have one and a half minutes. And then at the end of the forum, you'll have one minute to sort of close it and give a final statement. I guess I'll start with the way your names are on the ballot. And we'll begin with Tom Stevens. Here we go, question. When you are in the state house, how are you going to use this role to improve your district? And what is the one important issue in your district? Our district is pretty broad. Waterbury is quite different from Bolton, which is quite different from Huntington. So one thing or another is harder to pin down. But again, I work on the housing committee. And we've been very clear since I've been in office about the dire need for housing that's affordable and which is slightly different than affordable housing in my mind. And what we're seeing across the state, across the country, but in our district, especially because it's in right in our faces, is the lack of vacancies for rental units. It's the lack of accessibility to affordable housing for families who don't make that much money in Vermont. We tend to pay people less than in other places. And we have 144,000 income tax payers who make less than $27,000 a year. And so having housing available for that demographic of people is really important, as it is for a middle class person who's now trying to move into the area. We've had a big business leave in Waterbury because for a stated reason of there's not enough housing nearby. And that's really important to get straight. And we're going to focus on that as much as we possibly can. Thank you. We'll move to Mr. McGory with the same question. What is important in your district? And how will you work in the state house to achieve that? What's important in our district, like Thomas said, certainly I've heard all about the lack of affordability of housing. That is, I've never seen, I've never seen this environment where it used to be one week's pay would pay your rent. Now it could be, most of your income was going through your rent. How can we address that? I'm looking at some type of rebate program, I guess it is, that will give more affordability to people searching for housing. That seems to be probably one of the most important things happening in this district. I said before I do own a building, but up in the St. Albanser area, there's certainly different problems there. There's an opioid problem, which I don't see terribly much in the Waterbury district, but we do have to be vigilant in the way our drugs, the way the drug problem is especially here. Thank you. And the same question for Teresa Wood. Thank you. I think that the first thing that we learn as legislators is that you're there for the needs of your constituents. And your constituents are both individuals and organizations in your communities, as well as the municipal government in your communities. And so we respond on a frequent basis to outreach from whether it's an individual constituent, or it could be a town clerk asking for clarification of a bill that's come up, or we in turn also seek their input on things that we see coming up on the calendar and asking, you know, what's your thoughts about how this might impact business, the business that you do every day? So constituent services is a big deal, and it's something that means a lot to me as a legislator, because it helps me to connect with the real issues that people have in our communities. One of the big things that municipalities are interested in is bridges and roads, and the state assistance for that in the transportation bill, and so making sure that we can link our communities to the appropriate resources is important. And I do want to mention the child care services and the ability for people to return to the workforce who aren't currently now in the workforce because having left due to COVID, we need to have people return to the workforce if they want to, and child care is one of the keys for that. So I'll continue to work on appropriate low-cost, high-quality child care for Vermonters. Thank you. Kathy Tenet, same question. I'm sorry, the question again, specifically. Sure. When you're in the state house, how are you going to use your role to improve things in your district, and what's the most important issue in your district? I will continue to speak to people. I'm a working person. I'm still working, and I talk to community members, and I'm a part of groups within the community. So the communication is definitely on that level of the working for monitor. I think the carbon tax is highly unnecessary. We're already dealing with quite an increase in gas and heating fuel. I was shocked to get my heating bill this fall, early this fall. There's people that are very comfortable, and they can afford to pay that sort of thing. There's a lot of people in our community that cannot. So to put a tax on top of that, to me, that's some kind of ideology that's going on that's interfering with our government process. I think the importance of law enforcement and properly funding them. I have a friend that lives in the Wasefield area. I know that's outside of our district, but that's an example. There is not one police officer in that whole area, Wasefield Warren, that's been assigned to that area. That's problematic, and I'm hearing about more police that are dropping out of the profession, and more people are not going to be interested in joining the profession if the pay is not comparable to the job description and responsibilities, expectations. Our property taxes, when I owned a home in Fiston, the property taxes tripled within a 12-year period. We need to honor the school board and the superintendent's request to not place more expensive mandates via new programs onto our school systems. Thank you. Thank you. Now here's the candidate forum here is our second question. Do you believe the Vermont legislature needs to focus more attention on election security? And if so, what actions do you propose? And we'll start with Ms. Wood. Thank you. The legislature is continually interested in election security, and Vermont has been cited, in fact, on a national level for its very high level of election security. And so I believe, yeah, we're going to have a new Secretary of State. That person will certainly focus on election security. The legislature will continue to do that. We've made voting more accessible to more Vermonters than ever. We've continued that, and we will also continue to look at election security. However, like I said, I want to repeat that Vermont has been cited as being one of the most effective states in running its voting process. Thank you. Next, I'd like to hear from Ms. Tennant. My estimation is that voting by mail is very susceptible to fraud. I have two friends that moved from the residences, one actually out of state, received a ballot in the mail. She reported it, and it was kind of a fuzzy answer that she got. If she were to vote in her state of residence now in Ohio and didn't know about what was going on with the mail-in ballots, I mean, that would fall back on her, and she would be held libel. It's the whole thing with cleaning up the voter rolls. So she's going to be mailing that back. So who's to say where that ballot is going to get mailed back to? Is that secure enough to get that mailed back? And what person is receiving it on that end? Who's to say that that person on the other end is not going to use that ballot? Harvest it, I guess that's the term. Another friend around the corner from me left her job and her residence, and she received a ballot at her new address, or at her old address, I'm sorry, at her old address. And the person that she was taken care of received a ballot who has since passed. So there you're talking about two ballots in mailboxes right around the corner from where I live. What's going to happen to these ballots? Who's to say that somebody's not going to come along and grab them and mail them? That's a deep concern. Thank you. Just mailing ballots and in the way that it was done, that it automatically went out without us requesting a mail-in ballot, I think that's a little erroneous. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. McGory. I'm not sure. I know I vote at the Smiley School and they use paper ballots there. I don't know what they do in Burlington. They probably do have machines. It's certainly a bigger area. I know and for example, my brother just came back from Brazil to see his wife. They vote with paper ballots, all right? They can wait a couple more hours. I don't have to have my instantaneous result. I want the result to be the right result, not one that can be fudged with. And actually, she says, he told me that night, they do get all the ballots counted and there's no centralized position where any type of fraud can take place. This is one of the most important things in our government. Our vote is one of the most important things in our government. If you go into a liquor store, you've got a show ID. You get on welfare, you have to show ID. Everywhere you have to show ID except at the ballot box. I think it's certainly warrants matching a person to a ballot. Thank you. Mr. Stevens. I've been very comfortable with the way that the Secretary of State's office has been handling vote by mail both through the pandemic and this year. If you remember during the pandemic, even the primaries, which are party related elections, they're not state elections, they're held by the parties at hand. They both went off fairly smoothly. They reacted to the pandemic in a way that was incredibly thoughtful and they focused on making sure that the roles were clean. They made sure that the town clerks were up to date on what the processes were and any hiccups that came up were straightened out either through legislative action if needed or through the work of the town clerks. The town clerks did a phenomenal job across the state in making the system work. I'm totally happy with the way that they've done it. The Secretary of State's office has been very forceful in protecting any kind of attacks online from overseas sources. They have been, as Representative Wood said, they have been recognized as one of the most secure voting systems in the country. As we heard, yes, the vote is the most important at a time when there are states across the country that are trying to deny people the right to vote. I'm really proud that Vermont is getting out there and is getting away for us to vote at a higher level than we ever have in the past and to do it securely. Thank you. This is a candidate forum for Washington and Chittenden. We have four candidates here and I'm Linda Radke. We're going in different order every time. We have some questions and then also the people from home can make sure you put your questions in as well. We'll have those as well. This is a question that has already been mentioned is housing. Do you think the Vermont legislature should do more to support affordable housing as well as housing from the missing middle, the moderate income for monitors? And if so, what should they do? Let's start with Ms. Tern. I used to own a home and I'm a renter now and my rent has gone up two years in a row pretty exorbitantly. I'm not sure if that's, well, of course it's probably somewhat related to inflation, but I believe there are some new regs or something that's going on for landlords. I don't know the specifics right now. I'd be willing to research that some more. I feel the pressure that she, this is my land lady, that she is experiencing. She won't share them, like I said, the specifics, but there's definitely some things that are going on. It's just a lot of inspectors coming in and out. It just seems like a whirlwind. She's trying to make a living too. Between the increase in rent two years in a row and a doubling of the oil bill, heating plus gas for the car, you add this stuff up after a while and it's concerning. I'm a working person and there's a lot of other people out there that are working and they're experiencing this. What can we do about it? Like I said, I will do whatever research is needed and required and necessary to get to the bottom of why this is such a problem in Vermont. It's very expensive to live here. I moved here 30 years ago. To think that what was going on with the administration around that time, that the tax, the property tax tripled and it was less than 12 years. Thank you. I'm going to have to cut you off now over time, but we'll return to those later. Same question for Mr. Stevens. What specific actions should the Vermont legislature take to support affordable housing as well as housing for moderate income for Monters? This past session we passed a bill that allowed for private developers to have access to some of the federal money that we received through the ARPA funding, through the emergency funding, which is the first time we've really tried to allow private developers that opportunity with some restrictions on it. What we've seen since the pandemic started was at first we saw that everybody was holed up in their homes and then we saw this incredible increase in the price of homes and in the price of rents going up. And our statutes do not have any protections for tenants when it comes to no cause evictions, which means that a landlord can evict someone for no reason whatsoever. We do have just causes if it's non-payment of rent, of destruction of property, and so on, and there are legal processes that go along with that. But during the pandemic we also through federal funding instituted a rental assistance program where close to 160 million dollars has been distributed through tenants to landlords to make sure that people are making ends meet both as tenants and landlords. But it's a real it's a really sticky wicked. It's been very difficult in all the time that I've been here to try to figure out that way to get more affordable housing. We need more investment. We have a mechanism to do that with called the property transfer tax and some of that money is supposed to go to help with affordable housing. But matching that up with available funds for the so-called missing middle has been a struggle because most private developers don't want to have any strings attached to money that they're that they're receiving in order to build housing and if the state or the feds are going to give money then there are going to be some strings attached. But this past session we passed we passed legislation that starts that process and we'll see how it goes in the near future. Okay, question about affordable housing for Mr. McGory. Yes, I certainly see have seen the rents go up in my time or Vermont. I own a house. I own a house actually in Canada also and what they're doing I'm not a big this Reggie DeLongement allows I'm not 100% for rent control but if the problem gets that far out of hand the Reggie DeLongement up there they say you can increase your rent by 2% maybe 3%. Whatever it is they decided that at that point. That to me would be a last ditch solution. In our economy our supply and demand if you're experiencing super profits in one area that's going to attract more business to that area and it's going to take away your profits just like if your rent is getting so high and you're making so much money people are going to build new houses and all of a sudden there's a glut of houses so it's somewhat self-regulating but I say everyone's experience is problems with gas problems with electricity and so they're having to have to charge those rents so it's not an easy solution but like I said there could be rent control that would be a last ditch effort that I think you could explore. Thank you Ms. Wood the question on housing and specific things that the legislature can do. Great thank you. I think it's important to understand the depth and breadth of the housing issue. In Vermont most likely we would need an additional 10,000 units of housing to meet what is the current demand for housing. We've made big steps big strides as Representative Stevens said in the last three years we've appropriated more than $375 million towards housing and that's housing for middle income Vermonters it's housing for low income Vermonters it's housing support to rehabilitate current units that are offline in order to bring them up to code those are forgivable loans to landlords to be able to bring those housing units back up to code and to get them back in the housing market. We have been able to provide assistance as Representative Stevens said on rental. We have also looked at increasing the availability of what are called accessory dwelling units which are essentially trying to increase the density of housing in our downtowns and so I have to say I think the legislature is on the right track and but we will continue to need to focus on this area. Another question coming up but everybody take a little bit of water. We're going to start with Mr. McGory next for this question about climate change. The effects of climate change are already being felt across the world. Do you believe Vermont should take additional steps to limit carbon emissions in the state? My personal feeling is I'm green I think I'm looking to move towards electric cars etc but there's people get carried up in a green wave that's what's happened in Germany for example they cut their nuclear which I'm I don't want nuclear at all they cut their coal now since there's a natural gas crisis over in Germany they've been advised to take one shower a week and they've been advised how to use a washcloth that that's not a responsible pursuit not a responsible pursuit at all there's no plan B I don't want to get carried off in a green wave also I want to do things responsibly slowly check their effects and there was a nice age 10 000 years ago and there was I don't know how that was certainly a climate change there was a in 1816 there was a Mount Tambora went off there was no summer that that year that was certainly climate change I don't under I don't think climate change is as I think I do believe in it but I don't believe in it at the extreme that I see other people believe it thank you Mr. Aaron yeah I think there's a lot of scare tactics when it comes to the green issue and I think there's a lot of people trying to make money from it quite honestly and the way that they're setting it up here in Vermont with credits with a you know it's it's really going to hurt the businesses that are supplying us with energy as well um boy there's so many things about this issue it's just I think it needs to be reframed actually the information that we're being given by major media outlets is I I don't want to go so far as to say it's incorrect but from a personal standpoint I would say that it needs to be reframed what causes climate change has to do with the moon and the sun and the interaction there's something that happened 135 years ago I believe that was quite dramatic something that you had mentioned as well I'm similar to that and it had to do it's something with the waning of the moon and the the sun and the interaction and uh this is not being discussed things like this are not being discussed and I think we need to open up this it's a very big issue that we need to open it up and discuss more fully than it has been thank you very much thank you let's go to miss wood well I guess the first thing that I want to say that climate change is real if you lived anywhere in Vermont in 2011 and experienced tropical storm Irene or like in Huntington in a couple of years ago with the Huntington with the halloween flooding that happened there we are seeing more and more severe weather circumstances and the legislature has a role in helping our communities to be more resilient and we've provided significant funding to support towns and their infrastructure to respond to those crises we've also passed legislation that deals with the fragmentation of our forest to our forest or one of our largest responses in Vermont to the climate issue in terms of carbon and I want to say unequivocally that the legislature has not passed a carbon tax uh the clean heat standard which uh is maybe being referred to did not have a carbon tax in it and required uh it required the legislature to take further action on any recommendations that were made and I think that it's important to understand that it's going to be a multifaceted approach over many years this is there is no quick solution to this and we have to be open to multiple input on those solutions thank you mr Stevens um thank you also unequivocally climate change is real it's been affecting in Vermont for a very long time many years ago I picked up a national geographic from 1975 and there is an advertisement from an oil company that said that we're running out of oil we're at peak oil and that oil has contributed to the warming of the planet so this is something that's been known for a very long time we've actually been very slow in addressing this and what the legislature has been able to do some of the work has been vetoed by the administration by the governor is to look at this very clearly and relying on the existing science as much as possible we don't need to look too far to look at pakistan recently and to look at what just happened in florida the the storms that are happening are happening in a way that hasn't really happened on a regular basis prior to this period of time and every month we see that this was the warmest month ever it's been going on for years in vermont we have the biggest energy carbon creation right now is transportation we don't have great public transportation it's very difficult to build a rail system in in the way that our state is built and so until we can figure make these investments and first of all accept the fact that these changes are happening and and get a little bit more nervous about them then we'll find the answers to them we we know where the answers lie they but they're all out there we just need to have the will to pass that bill and and to start working on this thank you going from sort of a global thing to something very specific to vermont i'm going to ask for your your stance on article 22 and just to uh review it finalizes a four-year process of amending the state constitution to reflect um guarantee actually a reproductive autonomy for pregnant people so where do you stand an act of 22 and we'll start with miss terrant 90 of vermonters do not agree and these are pro-choice people by the way they do not think that article 22 is a good idea they don't believe in an abortion at nine months you're talking about a fully formed viable baby and this would be entered into the constitution in vermont so 90 um it's it's a lot more extreme than road versus weight i think that you know the supreme court ruling in the way that they did it again it's scare tactics you know uh i hope you know it's going to happen here in vermont and we need to do whatever we possibly can to make sure that it doesn't um road versus weight was i think the first trimester you're talking nine months and again it's it's 90 percent of vermonters do not agree with this article 22 um and why should the taxpayers have to pay for somebody's abortion i i just have a problem with that i don't want to pay for somebody's abortion i work hard i pay taxes that's that's a personal choice and that's something that should be between the woman and her doctor and article 22 means it's going to be in public it's it's it's written it's not good legislation the way that it's written it's it's uh it's lawyer talk it's not very clear it's vague a woman is not even mentioned the the word woman it's something a person individual thank you very much you're welcome tom stevens i totally support proposition 22 or article 22 um i have to push back against some of the numbers that were just mentioned um recent poll just show that 70 of vermonters support article 22 um that's been the case since this was started over four years ago uh it is not about nine month abortion of vermont does not there are no abortion clinics in the state of vermont that do abortions at that time um so this miss it's misinformation essentially um it is putting into the constitution the right of this choice to be between an individual and their doctor and that the that the legislature which changes every two years it will prevent the legislature from easily passing anything that denies that right of those individuals that's all article 22 does and this idea that um 70 percent of vermonters support it has been has been pretty regular throughout this period of time of contemplating this changing the constitution is not a simple fact it's not a simple thing to do it takes two bienniums plus a public vote to get this across it's been studied it's been there's been plenty of testimony taken and the support remains and so i'm looking forward to seeing it pass in november thank you miss wood thank you uh i voted in favor of sending article 22 or proposition five however you want to refer to it to the voters um and the voters have a right in this state to um and an obligation to to vote on a constitutional amendment as representative steven says this has been a long process i want to keep this very simple what what proposition five or um article 22 does is to indicate to all individuals not just pregnant women to all individuals that um government should not have the right to interfere in your personal health care decisions period mr mcgory uh i'm not a hundred percent sure on article 22 uh as far as uh abortions are concerned i'm a male i'm not a female i don't have sensibilities of what that would do to a female for example uh how would we change their life etc i would i'm against personally against abortion but i don't think i have the right to tell anyone what to do with their body and i probably would abstain from any type of uh any type of telling people that they can't do this or that with their body but i i certainly don't like the idea of a third trimester abortion or whatever but like i said i probably would abstain from that or at least not uh i think an individual has a right to their own body and their own decision just as i think people have the right to choose a vaccine or not be vaccinated the government should not tell you that that that is their duty that's my that's my feeling we're going to move on to the cannabis question what should we do with the unallocated revenue collected from the 14 percent excise tax tax on retail cannabis sales mr wood thank you um um well whether we in fact earn that through sales is yet to be seen um uh legal sales just recently started um serving on the house human services committee we spend a great deal of time on prevention and education around substance use and we have a priority for investing a significant amount of resources that come from that in substance education and treatment was mentioned earlier about the opioid crisis that we have in vermont last year a record number of 210 people died from overdoses in our state and we uh while we have a hub and spoke system that provides treatment to people with substance use disorder it is not sufficient we need to do we need to do more and we need to explore other alternatives so investing any resources that we might get from that into related substance use issues i think would be would be what i would look to do thank you this is the candidates forum here on orca media also sponsored by the bridge and linda radkey this is not a debate it's a sort of a round table so we're giving each of the four candidates a minute and a half to answer some questions that are pertinent we also may have some questions from our audience who will call in the questions let's turn to schools do we need to change the way we fund education less property tax more income tax vermont is consistently ranked among states with the highest per pupil spending more than 20 000 per student the question is how are we getting a good a good return on our investment so talking about school funding let's begin with teresa wood well thank you i didn't know if the other candidates were going to get to answer the question i just answered thank you i just thought i might i mean i'm happy to answer two questions in a row but there you are there you are yes sorry i'm going to keep myself straight on that so we'll just go down to mr mr maguri so the question we're going to back what was the question yeah we're going to back up the question the effects of climate change no no cannabis cannabis how would you use the she i forgot um yeah what should we do with the unallocated funds collected from a possible 14 percent excise tax on retail cannabis sales uh i i do i i i agree there's an opiate problem and i think some some of that uh money should be spent uh directly towards the the opiate crisis you were talking about school funding that's going to be an opportunity to fund schools uh i know you said the the pupil cost is per pupil cost is very high but you know cannabis uh revenue might come in handy with that so it's it's either school funding or attacking the opiate crisis that's kathy tenet turret thank you um a representative from colorado came to speak i think it was around a couple of years ago and i decided to attend and he mentioned that it's not a good idea to legalize marijuana to the point that it's commercialized um and and he said the tax that you get back does not offset the cost basically because it there's a lot of social cost involved in in the increased use of cannabis um i think it's fine if you want to grow your own and if you want to share it with your friends and that sort of thing but this whole idea of mass producing and then you're attracting nefarious elements because then it's a big money making thing um i'm concerned about that uh based on my own experience as a mother and also from one of my children living in colorado and what i've heard that is happening out there thank you tom stevens what to do with uh the 14 sales tax is still i think a question that hasn't been answered because we don't know how much it's going to be from the lottery we we net probably close to 30 million dollars for education um through spirits the sale of spirits we probably around 28 to 30 million dollars um both of those are considered controlled substances as as marijuana is and so when we have another year of seeing or a year of seeing what kind of income we're going to make we'll have a better idea of where that money can be invested and it should be invested in in something that's going to help mitigate any social problems that come up from it um marijuana is generally speaking um safer than alcohol it is generally speaking much safer than fentanyl or any opioids the problems that come from it will come from um from a personal use issue i'm of the school that it's already illegal it's already illicit except for homegrown now and well now it's now it's not for recreational but the idea that it has been a public safety thing for all these years has really the prohibition against marijuana has created more problems than um than legalizing it will and as long as we can invest in the social the social programs that will help mitigate the problems with any person who has a problem with it then i think that that would be sufficient thank you so with act 22 with cannabis uh now we're going to schools we'll go to the the one i was going to ask anybody else um this is about funding education so should we change the way we fund education in the state as you mentioned 20 000 per pupil cost are we getting a good return on that and do we need to change the funding for education start miss deterrent i uh i moved to vermont in the fall of 92 and had my son uh shortly thereafter i was at home with my children i had a daughter a year and a half after that and they entered the local community school uh just as act 60 came in my my son i think he made it through kindergarten and then my daughter was right behind him they're just really close in age and how it impacted our community and and our family um two-thirds of the staff quit they were it was just an uproar and that that you know it was a wonderfully rated school up until that point actually you know people raved about the kindergarten teacher won awards um and what ended up happening yeah this just imagine two-thirds of the staff quit the money a third of the funding was taken out of that school and sent who knows where and that that whole thing with act 60 was just like i i checked it out a little bit more recently because i felt like i needed to for this time that we're in now um yeah it was like rushed through this is what happens with these these bills sometimes you know so people get together in in legislature and they they had these agendas and they're going to do this and and there was really little input discussion from the community that was allowed thank you very much you're welcome we're hitting all the topics today from cannabis to schools and now guns what are your thoughts on an assault weapons ban do you believe it should have people should have ar-15s without regulation and what about a ban on non-standard devices such as bump stocks that increase the capacity or firing speed of non-automatic weapons it's a complicated question several parts to it but assault weapons ban and regulation of ar-15s and also modification we'd like to start with mr. mcgory i i'm not a big hunter but i i'm an advocate of a second amendment i don't see any real reason to have a magazine of 50 rounds to go out and hunt deer so i in some respects the size of the magazine would uh i think could be limited as far as rifles etc i think it's our second amendment right it's written in the constitution and it wasn't written because uh they wanted to make sure people could hunt it was written as as a prohibition against uh a tyrannical government uh so i i do understand a ar-15 is a 22 it's not a huge round uh my my like i said my feeling is i i would compromise on some uh the size of the magazine and some assault weapons but as far as guns go i certainly want uh people to enjoy their second amendment right thank you mr. stevens i think we did some legislation on bump stocks i'm not sure whether it passed or whether it was or whether it was vetoed in the end but um bump stocks are unnecessary for hunting um ar-15s are unnecessary for hunting and so whether they get banned or not i think as a federal is primarily a federal issue but i do think that we should be licensing gun owners um we license for automobiles we license for um cosmeticians um there should be some responsibility uh when you are exercising your second amendment right to um to the rest of society to say to say that you know how to use this tool um this weapon and that people should be able to be responsible for that and i think that we ignore that responsibility um i was brought up at a house with with guns and that was the first thing i was taught they're very powerful weapons they're very powerful tools and that you should have you should have a responsibility for how that tool is used and i think we ignore that when we get into this um simple simplistic conversation of what the constitution may say about ownership i don't have a problem with people owning guns on a whole but i would like to see it so that it's safer uh and that it's done in a way that is respectful to those of us who don't own guns thank you next to Teresa Wood thank you um i'm going to skip back just for a moment to the school question um having served 12 years on a school board uh and uh most of them as chairs our schools have become social institutions that deal with the whole myriad of issues of children and families and um yes $20,000 per student is a high amount and um vermont relies on a diversity of different funding sources even though people just highlight the property taxes not the only source of funding for schools and we uh in the last couple of years have diversified that even further so i just wanted to point that out and that we pay for property taxes based upon our income in vermont so they are income sensitive when it comes to um weapons i wholeheartedly support the second amendment and i wholeheartedly support commonsense gun legislation um and i don't think that um i think that those two things can live together um in vermont laws and we have passed commonsense gun legislation and we need to be aware of the fact of how guns are used in our society today and the impact on domestic violence and the victims of of domestic violence and uh guns are used in that way a lot the impact on people um who die by suicide uh and the use of guns during that so um i support the second amendment and i also support commonsense gun legislation thank you now kathy tarant i support the second amendment wholeheartedly um as a woman i should be able to protect myself and for somebody to tell me that i can't or how i can or cannot do that i don't think that's really their place um that that's uh i think i think there's a lot again i keep saying fear tactics there's all these fear tactics out there um what constitutes an assault weapon it could be a knife there's more knife deaths per year than than guns you know so uh it's it's there it's there's more to the story here um again as a woman i should be able to protect myself in whatever ways that i deem necessary thank you thank you now we've come to our sort of lightning round thank you so much for respecting the time and now take a minute take a trip of water but this is um one minute and we'll go in the original order that you chose when you sat there one minute to sort of give us closing statement and do try to keep it to one minute mr stevens thank you and thank you again for hosting us tonight um i would just ask our our constituents our our voters for their vote coming up starting last week fill out you can fill out your ballot now um what i think i bring to this position is experience it's leadership it's um commitment to doing the work that's in front of us um in the best way i know how the stuff the material that comes through our committee is diverse it does deal with everyday vermont issues it does deal with the important parts that we've talked about tonight including housing including affordability wages and the ability to make it here in vermont and i would just ask people for their support thank you um for hosting and for moderating this evening i appreciate it i think that um the one of the things that i want to say is that on behalf of vermonters working in the legislature is an honor um it's a responsibility i take very seriously but it's also an honor to be able to represent your constituents and your communities and to do that in a way that's respectful of the diversity of opinions that there are we represent everyone in our communities not just the people who agree with us and on a particular issue and so we try to the best of our abilities to listen to our constituents about the myriad of issues that come our way and i do want to say that we work across the aisle you know uh republicans independence progressives democrats we are all working there for the same thing and that's to improve the lives of vermonters and to make vermont a continue to be and improve uh it as a state that we all want to live in thank you william migori yes uh i i do think the environment is a problem but i like i said i don't want to get caught up on a green wave i want to do things responsibly i want to have a plan b uh like i said the uh the germans they cut down everything the coal now they're now they can't even take a shower of electricity costs are now in uh uh england are way way up because they they stop their co-production let's do things responsibly and have a plan b and all these things as far as uh i'm running as an independent and it is because democrats and republicans are at each other's throats uh i've seen it especially in federal but it in vermont it also is there uh like i said let's be responsible have uh an alternative plan and uh you know that that's that's pretty much what i'd like to say thank you kathy tyrant one minute one minute thank you um as a 30-year vermont resident single mom and musician working musician i have seen our state become a harder place for vermonters to live to support themselves and their families this has largely been the result of the politicians we've been sending to mom peolier making our lives more complicated and more expensive through increased regs higher taxes and mandates based on ideological agendas they're disconnected from the day-to-day needs of their constituents vermonters deserve better representation at the state house that is more reflective of their wants and needs and not based on the parlance of special interest groups or lobbyists i'm kathy tyrant and i'm asking for your vote thank you and thanks to our candidates today for this forum on orca media also co-sponsored by the bridge the mont pilier bridge and uh also telling telling everyone to remember to vote i'm linda radkey thanks so much for listening thank you