 Hi friends, Janae would be procure with some exciting news. Town meeting day elections for mayor, city council, and more will be using Ranked Choice Voting and all Burlington voters get to participate. Unfamiliar with Ranked Choice Voting? Keep watching or visit the link below. Ranked Choice Voting is a simple way to let 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% 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 supporters' votes will count towards their second choice. This process continues until one candidate reaches over 50% of the vote. Ranked Choice Voting is an easy way to give voters more voice, more choice, and makes for a stronger democracy. Learn more about Ranked Choice or try it out for yourself at BetterBellatVermont.org slash BTV 2024. Hello and welcome to Town Meeting Coverage of Town Meeting Day 2024. This program is part of a series of forums we are bringing you in advance of Town Meeting Day on Tuesday, March 5th. On Meeting Day, TV hosts forums with all candidates and covers questions. You will see on your ballot introducing you to community decision makers and connecting you with issues that shape your local community. You can find all these forums at cctv.org slash 2024 or on Town TV YouTube channel as well as we auto generate captions where available. On tonight's program, we will hear from Eugene Bergman, I hope I said your name right, Chancellor. Gene Bergman. Gene Bergman please. Gene Bergman, councillor for Ward 2, and you're also basically, you're the incumbent and you're running for the same position again and contested I believe. And we're glad to have you here. We've prepared a list of questions for the candidates and we'll have 90 seconds to answer these questions and if you are tuning live, we also welcome your questions at 802-862-3966. If you are calling in, we do our best to prioritize your questions, though we will screen calls to ensure that questions are not repeated. We ask you that you share your name, town you live in and that your question be directed at the candidates. So in this case we have one candidate and not just one candidate in particular, which I think that is repetitive on my part. So let's get started with one minute opening statement from our councillor for Ward 2. Councilor take it away. Thank you Romeo. Thank you for doing this. Thank you to Channel 17. I've been a supporter for a very long time. Public access television is essential to a thriving democracy. Two years ago I ran for office because I wanted to share my experience as a city attorney for 20 years in the city of Burlington, as a former city councillor under Bernie Sanders and as an active community member and I really believed that the city was off course on safety, on affordability, on climate and on democratic engagement and I'm running again because quite frankly I believe that progress that we've made is just not been enough and I still have the energy to do the work. I'm energized by working with younger climate and justice activists in particular and I think that I can continue to serve the city to share, to mentor and to learn. There's a lot that we've got to do and I'm looking forward to it so thank you. Thank you so much councillor and we're going to ask our first question. And this will be a city finances question. Do you support to propose tax increase for the city budget, yes or no, and what experience do you bring to the overall financial management of the city? So the answer is yes to the question about the public safety tax and it's important that we make it clear that this is for public safety and that it authorizes, it would authorize up to three cents and it doesn't mean that they will get charged but it means that you can raise the rate for police and fire services up to three cents. The reason is because for the last two years that I've been on the council I have supported and I continue to support rebuilding the department but I also support all of the bigger public safety, community safety initiatives related to mental health, related to drug addiction and you put all those together and it costs a lot of money. Inflation, we did a new contract for the police union and the fire union. We have hiring bonuses so there's a lot that's going to be paid for. Much of that it was paid for in the past in the last two years by federal funds. So if people want to maintain public safety then we need to have at least this part of the revenues brought into the city coffers and they're still going to be a major budget gap of about six million dollars that we need to be able to fill through other ways and I have been focused very much on alternatives to the property tax that are based on ability to pay and I'll continue to do that and what I bring just to close this because I'm sure I'm over the 90 seconds is, I mean I was a department head for two periods where I had to do budgets for the city of Burlington because I was the code enforcement director for two ten month periods and they were part of the budget process. I have been a city councilor now this will be my eighth year as a city councilor and I was a city attorney so I have a real understanding of the way that our city works in particular and I mean there's a lot. Well thank you and this also brings back to the same within realm school budget. So the Burlington school district administrators have proposed $119 million dollars, $0.6 million dollars as it were, school budget resulting in tax rate increase of about 13.97%. Do you support this budget why and why not? Again the answer is yes I'm not happy that we are raising taxes or proposing to raise taxes as significantly but the fact of the matter is that a huge percentage of this tax increase is driven by the need to pay the $170 million dollars in bonds to do the new high school. So this community and I supported that my kids went to Burlington high school both of them. This community supported rebuilding a high school that was outdated and then was poison. Well you know like you got to pay so you know now that this is the first year that the bonding is coming due to be paid so a huge section of that. Another section of the budget relates to and the tax increase for the schools relate to what's called the common level of appraisal and the fact is that house prices property values are skyrocketing and that means that even though we had a reappraisal just a few years ago they're not now at fair market value so a huge amount of this proposed tax increase is going to also go to that and the third reason is because the alternative is to slash like 70 teachers to slash all sorts of programs it's insane and the whole you can see the you can see in the in the state legislature's debate that's happening right now have today that's been happening all week and the weeks before about re-dealing with the with the education legislation because there's major dysfunction at the state level and even if we were to make cuts we would not have significant reductions in the taxes that are people are going to be asked for so it makes absolutely no sense to not support this budget in my mind thank you counselor we're gonna move on to direct democracy the city of Burlington City Council recently decided against putting two proposed questions on this town meeting day ballot one on police oversight and another calling for apartheid free community do you support the council's decision to prevent these questions from reaching this ballot for this town meeting day when is there when is direct democracy an appropriate method of decision-making based on this question sure two questions there there are actually three questions that were kept from the voters and I did not support that action at all in fact I was a sponsor of the resolutions to put them on the ballot and I think it was an insult to the voters and I think it was an insult and an attack on democracy itself and I said so in the debates so that's clear about that we've got a process of petitions that we have been that we have had and used in this town for 40 50 years I've been a participant in that and it's been very meaningful so part of direct democracy is making sure that people that voters have an opportunity to tell elected officials what's important to them and we have done that this flies right in the face of that other towns in the city in the state of Vermont actually can adopt ordinances so the laws of the city by votes of their their residents they can petition for ordinances we don't have that because it is a you know we're a big city we've got a charter and that gives the city council the the right and authority to do that I happen to have supported prop zero last year which narrowly lost which would have allowed voters to have that level of direct democracy was not a perfect proposal but I I believe that in Vermont you were talking early on about this being a relatively small city thing maybe before the cameras rolled that one of the beauties of Burlington is that we're small enough to be able to interact with each other and to build community and to figure out what needs to happen and I want to maximize that so I I'm appalled that the Democrats on the council voted you know to to stop people from being able to vote the last one was on the the carbon taxes on climate change a very important change that we needed to our ordinance and to allow voters to to authorize us to to look farther than what we did thank you councillor so we're going to move on to addiction and opiate crisis which is becoming prevalent in our city we do offer or rather we do differ from other candidates in your proposed or rather where do you differ from other candidates in your proposed approach to opiate crisis where do you differ specifically I don't know if I'm asking the right way no I got you I got you what are the most important initiative the city can undertake to address the opiate crisis I actually think that there is broad consensus and it's around dealing with this I think there is broad consensus among the candidates not unanimity I was at award at awards two and three NPA where there was not unanimity but there's broad consensus around there being harm prevention centers you know the safe injection sites is another way that people are talking about that about getting social workers out into the community and addressing things there was broad support for the fire department's rapid response team that was stood up very quickly and there has been strong support for a special unit in our public safety system right now it's supposed to be housed in the the police department called the CARES program we have we we authorized on the council and I supported having three there are three positions in the budget right now that have not been filled at all so those are all of those initiatives right are ones that I think we should be engaged in as well as mental health issues because and so other social workers because it's not just drugs that people are having those are symptoms of of disease and other other problems but I believe that there is actually really broad support for the most part for all of those things thank you counselor and this goes into the next question into public safety more than anything else policing what does effective policing look like here in our city of berlington vermont should the council have the authority to discipline police officers let's do the second one first I actually think that the city council is poorly situated to be the decider of discipline we're a political body and I have been in the council I have been the council's attorney I have also been a prosecuting attorney in front of the council and they are um it's very difficult for the council itself to act like judges what's what we call in the law the quasi-judicial function we have it we just did it last night in terms of the board of abatement but it's it's very difficult so no I don't believe that I do believe and I support community oversight with a board that would be um in in charge of at least the most serious of the offenses there was a police proposal that was defeated last year I supported that there was a proposal that has been blocked from going to the to the voters that I supported even though it didn't go nearly as far as I wanted to do so those are the ways that I would look to to deal with it in my mind community-based policing absolutely essential but it's not just sworn armed officers that we need so a police I look at it as community safety actually so police form a very critical component of that but so do the the the the community support officers that do civil enforcement so are the urban park rangers that are out there in the parks so are the mental health workers that we've got the street workers so when I look at public safety and I look at our police force I look at it comprehensively um and I actually think that we've got pretty much consensus on that as well I don't know how thick it is right well thank you um you're not yet unfortunately I know so much and I've been involved in this that getting me to do 90 seconds on this is going to be hard but I'm trying right right okay um we're going to move on to quickly racial justice um the city declared racism a public health emergency in 2020 what will you do as a city councilor and as an incumbent city councilor who's sitting in reelection to address systemic racism in our city or at city hall in this case and the city across across the city in general so um I am a supporter of the racial equity and inclusion and belonging office we need to continue that commitment I am a a supporter of diversity and equity and inclusion in the hiring for the city and in terms of you have a public health emergency which means that brown and black folk are disproportionately hurt by systemic racism so that means that access to decent affordable housing and the ability to have uh enough wealth to be able to know that you're going to feed your kids that you're going to be able to go to the doctor all that stuff so when I look at how to deal with systemic racism key is to make sure that we have programs that are going to assist brown and black folk from uh to get housing owning homes very important access to uh you know affordable housing like inclusionary zoning housing and safe housing there's work that needs to be done in the um in business development as well so I would look forward to you know we've got some business development and loan programs through that office that they need to continue to be promoted and I could go on but we're well thank you I appreciate that and um I don't know if we can make these other questions but I will go through nonetheless um connecting with constituencies which I think is incredibly important for direct democracy as a candidate and an elected official how do you gather input and balance differing perspectives from your constituency and your ward and around the sea of course and how do you ensure that you're hearing from wide range of perspectives so um I'm knocking on doors even though I'm not opposed by anybody including me you're in ward eight I believe so six actually you're in ward six so I'm not running out there you go but but if you were in ward two and you know I I'm trying to to knock on lots of doors and so that's a way and you know folks I say what is the the question I ask people what's the most important thing on your mind and I had somebody tell me an old guy old white guy uh about my age who uh said to me I don't know that you want to know and I said you know I didn't ask you to not hear what you had to say so that's one way I answer my telephone which is kind of crazy so people call me up I answer emails people let me know um and I get a lot of them I try to engage in the front porch forum um and just be around so I feel pretty good about the constituent work that I'm doing perfect I hope I can okay all right well thank you so much and hopefully we get to ask you the other questions in the near future but um thank you for tuning in uh to town meeting tv's ongoing coverage of local candidates uh budgets and valid items you can find this in many forums like it uh what is it cctv.org slash 2024 or on town tv meeting youtube channel and you can of course tune in our live election results show after the ballot has been cast on march 5th also contact your local clerk to find out how you can obtain a ballot item as well as to register to vote here in vermont and thank you for watching and again don't forget to vote to vote on march 5th on town meeting day thank you and have a wonderful evening