 Hello everybody and welcome to rights and democracy television another episode live at 525 on the 4th Friday of every month We're happy to bring it to you again in cooperation with Channel 17 local Channel 17 in Chittenden County CCTV Center for Media Democracy in Town Meeting television Rights and democracy is a by-state grassroots people-powered organization committed to bringing independent political change We're here this month with Rad members Dustin Tanner down on the far end of the table and Adrienne Pasquale Yep. All right. Well, it's good to see you guys. Welcome. Thanks for joining me. Happy to be here. Yeah, very cool. Very cool So just to bring everybody up to speed what we'll be talking about this month is we're going to respond to recent hate crimes in Claremont, New Hampshire and the Northeast Kingdom West Glover to be specific Then we're going to I talk about teachers unions and their right to strike in relation to recent events in in Burlington and about a year ago in South Burlington and How that relates to worker protections and our raised up Vermont campaign Then we'll talk about some development projects in Burlington and their Their ability to change the face of Burlington and really change how people view the city and when they show up and and how we live here Rights and democracy has been working to design a fair development assessment tool For a more democratic communal decision-making process around development projects And then finally we're going to review a bit about rad's overall modus operandi movement politics Which is really how we're gonna focus on bringing change to communities So let's just take a quick start by talking about Claremont, New Hampshire a couple weeks ago an eight-year-old by racial boy and Claremont, New Hampshire Was harassed by a group of white teenagers and then actually hung from a tree An eight-year-old boy Thankfully little boys survived, but the response from the Claremont police department has been not very satisfactory focusing on Protecting the the teenage perpetrators and not really standing up for the victim So something helpful that you can do is call the police department in Claremont and let them know what you feel about that type of way of handling this Juvenile issue, which is not really juvenile at all. It's an enormous issue spreads across all ages And we really need to you know, obviously talk about this stuff a lot a lot harsher when we're gonna get this into kids heads That this it really isn't okay So you can talk to them you can also public publicize everything you can about this event on your social media account and National news sources if you can get it up there all the better the more news we can get spread around this the better And then just recently even more recently than that In West Glover, Vermont at the Andersonville farm Employees found a swastika and some other racist graffiti spray painted on the barn The Jasper Hill officials posted a message on their Facebook page Announcing a $1,000 reward leading to the arrest of the person responsible So personally I just I think that this is More divisive kind of behavior that I I think is creating issues with our political movements and I just I think it's Probably something that we can use as a learnable moment for both of our small states and So I'd like to just ask the guests that you guys Anybody like to say anything about this stuff? I wouldn't I'd love to talk about it. You know, there is a line of Kids being stupid when you're young and I think we can all say that we've done our fair share of dumb things as a young Teenager or a young kid even mean like even mean I had to go to tolerance camp when I was in seventh grade because of things that I said because I saw them set on a TV show And I said them to a student and that was not correct to say but there is a line that no matter what age you are you shouldn't cross and You know, I was thinking about the Claremont, New Hampshire incident and I was looking into it and the more I looked into it the more I got disgusted because There's no response. There's not been a satisfactory response, you know It's different if you know a kid threw a rock at a truck or something or if a kid, you know said something Stupid or I went to school and said something dumb in front of a teacher like that because you give them the education You give them the training on why these things are bad, but the fact that they actually put a rope around the kids neck is just It's sickening. It's sickening that These kids thought I I'm more I am more sick over where did they get the idea that this was a good idea from Because what does that say about the influences in the house and the influences that they've been seeing in the media and in school? Because nobody just gets this idea to do something like that out of the blue nobody just like hey Guess what we're gonna do today There are obviously, you know racial sources feeding into this to give those kids the idea of thinking, you know That's okay, or that's a good idea, and it's not and even if you learn about lynchings from our past as a country to get the idea to go do this And actually carry it out. Yeah, it's mind-blowing. You know, that's where I go from like, okay it's kids being stupid to like these are kids who did something wrong and You know if this young man who got lynched would have died I think we're talking a totally different story right now, too I think we're talking kids who are facing charges as adults and And I think if it's in a different community, you know Claremont, New Hampshire is not You know New England New Hampshire and Vermont are very not, you know I'm not the nicest place to live if you're a minority because you're outnumbered and There's a lot of ignorance in our communities up here There's a lot of people there are a lot of white people who are very ignorant on the racial issues and It just makes me sick to think about and I really wish Claremont would have handled it better And I really wish us as a society can teach these things better and Educate on why racism is wrong and I could go into that a little more But I want to let Adrian have the floor for a little bit here to give his thoughts as well Oh, yeah, totally. Um, so I think particularly when you look at the case in West Glover I know that I've read a lot of news stories about Jewish shemeteries being desecrated and tombstones being broken and things like that especially in the Philadelphia region and I think that seeing this instance of swastikas and anti-semitic graffiti being drawn in Somewhere that's so close to Burlington and and somewhere that you know where we probably have friends Or have been to that neighborhood. I think is is kind of scary and intimidating And the question really becomes is this part of a larger trend that we see that is correlated with the current administration and the tensions that people are Are feeling now after the events that happened in Virginia and things like that so I'm just really hoping that this is an indicative of a greater trend and that We as a community stay as vigilant as we can be when it comes to incidences of hate and discrimination and Intolerance so I think it's I think it's you know You're seeing this in other places in the country But the hope is is that as long as we're we're aware of these things and that we report on them And that we draw attention to these issues and condemn them in every way that we can That it's something that we can help mitigate in the future Let's keep talking about them when we see them say say something Yeah, that's sense like you know that was a very ill-evised campaign in the early 2000s is corrupt You know the fight against terrorism and say something see something like I think when it comes to things like you know racism and Antisemitism I think you should if you see something you say something We actually had another example that came out today in Georgia. I Substitute teacher led kids in the Nazi salute and this is in the seven days off message as of today and The district had a great response. They fired her immediately They immediately fired the teacher that led this and had brought in counselors to educate the children on this and um You know it's It's more widespread than you think and I think a lot of people because of the current administration Are willing to come out and have these terrible thoughts and say well I can have these terrible thoughts now because why not who's gonna punish me and it's it's bad. It's bad Okay So just let's see the end of last week in the beginning of this week Burlington city teachers went on a city-wide strike the students were still able to participate in extracurricular activities such as the varsity sports and even some of the recreation programs But this brought up a lot of issues around The workers rights the rights is the community who hires the teachers expects them to be teaching the kids Whether or not it should be legal for teachers to strike Who it's hurting what's a message getting crossed and I just wanted to take a second and really talk about that Dustin you work in a school system. Yes, I work at a school system. That doesn't have a contract. I Work at Milton elementary school. I'm in the I'm a district employee of Milton town school district Which have also been in the news for quite a few things ourselves But you know striking is the teacher's really only option when the negotiations break down And there are a lot of teachers that are not being compensated well And this burrowing through strike wasn't even really about the compensation It was about the work environment and I think that's something that is not really being discussed Amongst our school boards in our schools right now or school work environments have taken a trend down hill statewide I would say for the last several years now and You know, I saw a article by a local newspaper or local news station talking about how the teachers You know it painted the teachers as greedy as greedy greedy greedy and that's not the case like First off there is not a teacher who's like I'm gonna go get a college degree because I want to make six figures There is not a single teacher who is in it for the money Because if you know anything about teaching in the state of Vermont and teaching in general it is not a cash cow These teachers are not driving around Lamborghinis Some of the administrators might be and that's a problem we should talk about towards the future But you know these teachers are coming and they're educating kids every day classes of 30 to 40 And they're teaching these young adults these students how to be Members of society and the thing that they are not worth the ability to have good working conditions is it's you know It's insane. It's sickening. It's something that I look at You know, I obviously supported the Burlington teachers because you know, how are you gonna get good working conditions? Well, you know like what are you gonna do? Just keep working under bad working conditions and hoping the hand that is feeding you these bad working conditions will say Well, I guess we'll make it better. That's not how change happens You know, you don't get changed by going along with it And I think the strike is going to be one of the big events that helps turns Burlington schools around I have a lot of friends down here who have sent kids to Burlington schools who have worked at the Burlington schools And they have talked about how it's just gotten worse. It's just gotten worse and teachers aren't getting enough prep time teachers Aren't getting a lot of teachers leaving the it's a turnstable like at this point You know, you go I read one article It was like the only people teaching at Burlington high school are lifers and new teachers because new teachers need jobs And they come in get a couple good years on their resume leave for the better job leave for the better working conditions and you know Pretty much a farm team in Chittenden County for teachers and that takes away especially when Your biggest your biggest school in the state of Vermont, you know, I know South Burlington CVU Essex They might have more numbers Like the numbers between the four of them I don't know what they are off the top of my head But you would think you would want the best teachers in the state at a school like Burlington you'd think you'd want to keep them there because You are the biggest city in the state with the biggest budget in the state as far as the most diverse Population you would think it'd be important to listen to your teachers and say well Actually, we do need to give them these abilities to work better on curriculums and give them more prep time because they have to prepare for More because you know a teacher a Burlington teacher could walk into a classroom and have ten different kids speak ten different languages And that's not something you will get in other parts of this state And it takes a very special teacher to a have the patience and be have the know You know have the knowledge to be able to teach such a diverse classroom, you know being an educator is Five days a week rolling with whatever punches are thrown your way and saying well I'm gonna make the best of today, and I'm really glad they were able to strike a deal and It's it's one of those things where it's about messaging too So we didn't want to paint the teachers as as wrong or greedy or evil. No, what about the school board? They they greedy and evil. I mean they were trying to impose the contract Yeah, which everybody thinks is kind of a terrible thing, but they kind of had a What do you think yeah, yeah, definitely so I actually serve on the steering committee for words two and three neighborhood planning assembly and at our most recent event we had Representative from the school board list curry come and discuss this very issue of what the school board is going through during some of these negotiations obviously there were things that couldn't be discussed but I Think the fact that It's I think it's very important for everyone to remember that people who work for the school board or who are on the school board are Working in a volunteer capacity thankless position. Yeah, it's a very thankless position and On top of the fact that their budgets have been cut tremendously in the past five or six years And I remember miss curry mentioned something like over five million dollars have been cut from the school budget Which makes it really hard to guarantee teachers three four or five percent Increases in their salaries raises And I know that a big concern of theirs is also property taxes, and we really don't want To raise property taxes substantially in Burlington because then it inhibits new people from coming into town and deciding that they want to live Here or investing in real estate in Burlington And it I think that raising property taxes to fund our school board Which is something that we've been doing recently Burlington now has the highest property taxes in the state Around the near the surrounding school districts I mean I think we're pushing people out of our district in that way if we say Well only people who can afford to live here can live here And that's the only way that we can fund our school system And I'm glad you mentioned this because what we saw at Burlington is not going to be special to Burlington It's going to happen statewide The mechanism we use to fund our schools is woefully outdated and it targets the middle class Using property taxes to fund our schools is the biggest slap in the face of middle-class people who want to educate their kids Because the fact of the matter is that you know you have we need a little bit of school consolidation Which we're seeing but we need to change the way we fund our school system because it's not fair that you know None of us at this table Paying for our schools. We are all three working people who have jobs and have incomes that you know we can Expend and you know the you know your grandmother you know your 70-year-old grandmother on social security is paying for our schools and It's because she bought a house and that is not fair to anybody in Vermont because one a lot of us can just turn a blind eye To what we're seeing in our schools and two It really creates this perception that every time a school needs more funding Well, that's greedy and they're going on the backs of taxpayers But you know only one-third of a mod is really paying for our schools and the fact the matter is is that our schools really Affect our whole community and going on something Adrian said Being in the school board There is no such thing as a bad or a good side because the school boards have one of the roughest jobs in the state of Vermont especially because Governor Phil Scott governor for the working people Scott Decided to go at after a lot of school budgets and contracts have been negotiated say you need to find $30 million to cut which is if I'm on a school board. What am I supposed to do? I've tried to negotiate in good faith with my school, you know with my teachers teaching union and You know, I've already had to make some concessions because property tax revenue is down And it's not the best way to fund things, but you have to deal with the hands And now you're saying I have to find 30 million more it backs a school board in a corner where no matter What the school board does they are the bad guy And it backs teachers in the corner because teachers are not gonna. I'm not gonna Willingly take with millions off my health. This this this big charge was due to health care funding, right? And Which is another rights and democracy campaign that we're working on save health care create health care for all That would be a big deal. But So if we're working on that front then we're facing less of an issue when we looking at our school boards and then our strikes and our and our need for our Workers at the school level the teacher level to strike on their own behalf to get the health care, you know or something like that Eliviate one more of those stressors So we probably got about 15 minutes left about halfway through maybe 10 So I wanted to get into talking about fair development the fair development assessment tool is something that writes in democracy Let's say we modeled it off of a tool that I think we found used in Baltimore and We introduced it about a year ago And we had a good panel discuss some of the issues around Burlington Town Center the redevelopment of our largest kind of property in Burlington Which is going to become the tallest Building in the state of Vermont with the new zoning changes that they allowed to go through for that project There's another development project called Cambrian rise And that's taking up some very valuable open space in Burlington, and it's going to Build on it some condos and some pretty exclusive properties that Only a few people will be able to spend a bunch of money on and see the see the sunset at night see the lake views and That didn't seem right to a large part a large portion of the populace of Burlington, so we're trying to Bring these issues to light a lot sooner so that maybe people can get a little more involved in the planning process In Burlington, we do have neighborhood planning associations as Adrian just mentioned And this is where people are supposed to get out and voice their concerns for development projects But still even at those meetings, and if you can't get to them for whatever reason We're still working to create a way that People can be a little bit more connected Democratically to the decision-making that goes on in their towns specifically right now What we're looking at is Memorial auditorium, which is kind of a gateway open to the city opening to the city welcome to the city and City Hall Park, which is just like a treasure to everybody in Burlington and people who are not even from Burlington And and and yeah, it's exactly you come visit the town. It's it's nice to have that there, so Adrian did you want to talk about what you've been seeing at the neighborhood planning Association around this? Yeah? Definitely, so I'm I'm just gonna talk quickly about City Hall Park because I think it's a it's a very important issue in our community It's one of the few green spaces that Burlington has and It's a place where people can sit down and relax and eat lunch and hang out outside and not Feel the pressure of the rest of the city even though Burlington isn't huge, but So I have been attending a lot of meetings on regarding City Hall Park and I think that The city of Burlington has done a lot to invite public inquiry and comment on on this issue as I Remember back in November in my neighborhood planning assembly for words two and three. We had someone come and present Megan total specifically from the Department of Planning and Zoning on Working on City Hall Park inviting public comment for the month of for a couple weeks in December and taking those comments and running with Them and then incorporating the comments that she heard at that meeting into a new plan that was revealed on August 14th That was also an open public forum where people could come and discuss these new changes So at the last city council meeting that we had on this past Monday The city councilors voted to continue with the development of the park in the design phase so they Decided that they were going to allocate about half a million dollars towards the contractor So they could continue work on design But nothing is set in stone yet for the final plan of the park although we do have a blueprint Regarding the blueprint a couple of issues that I've noticed that are really contentious in the community are things such as Let's see the kiosk is a really big issue You also have the water feature that a lot of people are up in arms about Which is something that I think People are used to having the fountain as the central Component of City Hall Park a lot of people concerned about well if that fountain goes What's what's going to bring that centrality to to the park? And are we going to have any other water sort of attraction to invite people into the park? Can I ask a question? Yeah, sure This kiosk What is this key explain to me the kiosk? What's the yeah? Controversy around the key just a little background last night Adrian offhand and mentioned this in a rad meeting and I was like what? Are you in about a kiosk? I want you to explain to me this kiosk and why people are arguing about it sure sure so Yeah, the issue is is that a lot of community members feel like they don't want to Have a commercial entity in the park to sell them goods and That the park should be sort of a haven from the rest of the Commercial aspect of Main Street and Church Street and things like that The idea would be that it'd be some sort of like coffee kiosk that would be open all year round and go get a $5 coffee Yeah, I get a $5 coffee people can afford that The the concern so there are a couple of concerns that the big one is is that you know people don't want to feel Invaded when they're in a park by someone asking them for for money to buy something or whatever and Another big concern that people have is the trash You know if there's a kiosk that's in the middle of the park people are going to have food and drink some things and those might get put Around in certain places and it might require more maintenance On the positive side, there's this idea that it would be good to have a private entity in the park in case There's any I don't know misconduct taking place in the park or people are Acting inappropriately so that someone could call the cops if there was a concern because there's a concern now that people Congregate in the park for the wrong reasons Which is true across every part which is true. I mean, yeah, this isn't yeah So those are just some of the concerns that people have regarding The kiosk and it's still being debated and discussed for the final the final plan Anything else that people are really wound up about the park Yeah, I think bathrooms are a really big issue in Burlington, especially public Available restroom facilities Right now. I think the plan does include a public restroom the concern that the mayor's office a lot of other Advocates have is well, who's going to staff these bathrooms in case they get out of hand or they need a lot of attention and work right now there's no access to public access to bathrooms on the weekends in Burlington because City Hall is closed which invites a lot of public urination And I know that that's something that we don't want in our city Bathrooms and what are people gonna? Yeah, what are people gonna do? So the the hope is is that with this new City Hall park design will have a bathroom That's available to people on the weekends that will be kept clean and orderly and it'll be a way for you know At least tourists will have someplace to go if they need to go to the bathroom I mean Burlington gets about three million tourists a year Which has also led to the degradation of City Hall Park in itself So that's a concern that we have to and I think that's why the park definitely needs an update Anything anything about Memorial Auditorium Memorial Auditorium, so September 26th the neighborhood planning assemblies are having a forum on Memorial Auditorium The organization save Memorial is is taking part as well And it'll be an opportunity for different members of the community to come in and talk about their opinions on Memorial Auditorium And what they hope to see in the future How they envision the space being used Memorial Auditorium has gone through a bunch of different phases But it's essentially been cut out of a lot of the funding that the city has which is which is a shame the Memorial Auditorium I Am in the favor of Building an exact same Memorial Auditorium just with 2017 commodities right where it is because it is just It's something as a statewide thing that people have been attracted to and I Burlington needs a civic center Burlington needs some type of civic center Which the Memorial Auditorium played a great role to Remember back when I was a little kid I'd go watch a WWE Smackdown at the Memorial Auditorium And they just had a bunch of shows and it was a great place and they have a Champlain College used to play basketball there like it they just need the rebuild it and I'm really gonna if If I've you know a lot of patterns in Burlington have gone towards private development and a certain person in power strong-arming the city into private development And touted as the the way forward touted as the way forward in the way to be better and in a really sleazy non-Burlington like way and It's gonna be a shame if a place like Memorial Auditorium gets thrown down that same line And we lose a thing like that in our community Which is you know a statewide thing that people from all across the state would come and enjoy so Public and accessible and they were burning the telecom keep it. Keep it public You know two minutes left Burlington telecom you said magic words. Oh boy So Burlington has we got one minute left everybody. So we've got a Basically a public utility in Burlington telecom It kind of got mismanaged and so people lost a little bit of trust in it and when that happens What is the what is the private industry do they say oh well can't do that can't manage it was as a public option You better let us handle it. We're the pros right so We've got three people bidding to purchase Burlington telecom right now I am in the camp of Keeping it as a co-op Where are the people that pay for the service own the service? I think it's a great thing that we should protect There is a city council meeting this Monday, and we invite everybody to come and speak in support of Whatever type of city health park you want to have or Please come and speak in support of a co-op to keep managing Burlington telecom it's on our time and Everybody thank you so much for joining us this month for rights and democracy television. We hope you enjoyed it