 and especially their mission to protect the citizens of Vermont, advise the city council to, one, request the cancellation of the planned basing of the F-35 at Burlington International Airport, and two, request instead low noise level equipment with a proven high safety record appropriate for a densely populated area. Question. Any questions from members of the public? Yes, please come forward. Thank you. My name is Ben Mitchell, and I'm actually entering the Democratic Primary for the United States House of Representatives. And I drove all the way up here from Westminster to applaud the town of Burlington in this moment where they have a chance to vote on this issue. I do not think that the F-35 is appropriate for Vermont. The scale of this machine is totally out of scale with the Burlington Airport. It's already closed down over 200 units of affordable housing. Vermont needs a lot more affordable housing, as you can see from the ballot question preceding this one. And it is housed in South Burlington, so it's not even, it's being imposed upon another town by the town of Burlington, so it's a little bit like municipal imperialism. But more importantly, that I think it represents the F-35 is, in some ways, the most glaring example of the corruption of the military industrial complex on Washington, D.C. We've already spent $400 billion on this machine, and it doesn't even operate yet. Not only that, we've seen the National Guard, which I've had many friends in the Air National Guard over the years. I know they're all good people doing their jobs, following the orders to the best of their ability, but the level of corruption of the military industrial complex has gotten to the point where now the military itself is coming and bullying the vote within a town meeting in Vermont, which is kind of a sacred space. And so I encourage the people of Vermont, the people of Burlington specifically, to take this opportunity to stand up to the war machine of the military industrial complex. We have real priorities in Vermont. We need people... It's very difficult to get through the winter, you know, down south as well as up here. Just making a living. There are so many programs that are needed. $400 billion just to give you a sense of the scale of what we're talking about. And they're projected to spend another $600 billion. That's just a projection in the life of this machine to give you a perspective. $400 billion, you know, we currently as a federal government only spend a billion dollars a year on opiate crisis or the opiate epidemic. LIHEAP, which we argue about every year, is only $4 billion. This is $400 billion and it doesn't even work yet. And so I encourage the people of Burlington to take this opportunity in your sacred moment where you get to vote in town meeting issue and to stand up to the military industrial complex, even though I'm not from this area, I really applaud you guys for having it on the ballot and I hope that you'll take this action. Okay, thank you. Any other members of the public on question 6, the F-35 question? Okay, we'll move on to the final question on the ballot. This is an advisory question regarding raising the age of sale for tobacco products. And the question is this. Shall the voters of Burlington advise the governor and members of Vermont National, Vermont General Assembly to support raising the age of sale for tobacco products in Vermont from 18 to 21 years of age? Any member of the public have a question or a comment on that one? Okay, very good. Thanks all. Thank you all for coming. I believe that brings us to adjournment. Councillor Paul moves it. Seconds. Councillor Mason seconds it. All in favor of adjourning, please say aye. Aye. We stand adjourned at 5.20 p.m. Thanks, everybody.