 If you're not a registered voter in Burlington, you can't vote tonight. If you're not registered, however, and you do live in Burlington, you can register at the table and get a ballot. The other thing is that people need to know, according to our Progressive Party bylaws, you also need to consider yourself a member of the Vermont Progressive Party and to be a member of the Vermont Progressive Party, that is anyone who supports our Progressive Party principles, they are on the reverse side of your agenda. You need to subscribe to those if you want to be a member of the Progressive Party. And if you want to participate in your caucus, in this caucus, I should say, you cannot participate in another party's caucus, so you can't participate in the Democratic Party Caucus to be clear, or the Republican Caucus. No double dipping. Lastly, if you have not yet signed in, you need to sign in and make sure that you're on the voter checklist to get a ballot for the ward endorsement, as well as for the mayoral endorsement. And again, if you're not currently registered in Burlington, but live here, you can register tonight in order to vote tonight. Okay, lastly, for folks who are gathering in the ward caucuses, candidates should each get three minutes to make their case, answer questions, leave time for answering questions, and you should have, if you signed in, received your ward ballot. You're only allowed to vote in your ward where you're registered, not in some other ward. Is there anything, Josh? And then obviously, if it's a contested endorsement in an individual ward, you need to get two folks to count the ballots and then report back to the plenary when we all get back together again as a whole. Probably not, given the amount of denouncing, which is awesome. Thank you. Alright, Josh says we have 20 minutes to complete this. Whoever the captain is for each ward, if you have voted on your candidates, please, or captain come forward and let me know the results of your votes. So if you're going to register, who are you? Anybody? Anybody? Anybody? Oh, yeah. Ward one. Has ward one finished voting? We have a meeting. Ward one, Professor Caucus, cast one unanimous ballot for our current city council, Sharon Bushard. And ward two also unanimously endorse Max Tracy Berealette. The captain voted for no one, because we have no candidates. However, if you are in ward four or you know somebody in ward four and you decide that you would like to run for city council, please do let us know. We would be happy to assist you with that. Ward five. Ward captain five. Sorry. Ward six. Ward six unanimously voted for Charles Simpson. Ward seven. Ward seven unanimously voted for our current councilor, Ali Ding. Professor Caucus endorse candidate for ward five is Jesse Warren. An endorse by their wards come up and wave. Say hello. Thank you all so much for running, either for reelection or for the first time. We really appreciate it. Would you all while we're waiting for the ward three caucus, would you all like to say any words? So this turnout is incredible. So for those of you who don't know me, I'm Max Tracy. I'm the current ward two city councilor and I just got the nomination to run again in ward two. I'm incredibly excited about that. This is, I think the first time I've ever seen this in a progressive caucus and I think that this speaks to the fact that we're really looking for a different direction in city hall and I think that that really starts in March. And so, and it really starts here, honestly. And so it's not just about showing up for a caucus, but it's really about continuing that political involvement in whatever way you're able to. I know a lot of folks are incredibly busy and are leaders in the community in this room and have a lot of different responsibilities. But if this meeting feels exciting to you and you're excited about the people that come out of this meeting, I would encourage you to continue to stay involved in these march races because we need a lot of support. We need people going out and doing doorknock, people doing leafletting, people contributing money to these candidates because progressive candidates don't take corporate money. We don't do that. And so we need grass roots, small donations from people, from individual contributors. We need that support to really make the change that we want to see a reality in March. So please continue to stay involved coming out of this caucus because that alone is what we need to really make sure that we really see the change come on March 6. Thanks. Any other candidates who are going to be running like to address the crowd? Hi, how's everybody doing? My name's J.F. Carter. I just wanted to give a quick shout out to the UBM Prox who have been organizing UBM Campus all year. And we've got a huge, huge team coming out. So I'm really thankful for that. And yeah, let's get ready to work. Thank you. One of my campus vloggers is going to be that there is, and all of you here tonight, shows that there's a growing indifference on the status quo. And the next time you see me, I will be carrying a big broom because I think we need to... My name's Jesse Warren, the candidate from Ward 5. So I'm just here to... I'm very proud to live in this city which I know has such a long tradition of fighting for people. And so I'm proud to be a part of this city and continue that tradition. And I just want to say thank you to the Ward 5 residents who nominated me for this. And I'm very humbled. And I'll be working really hard alongside all these other great candidates and everyone who cares so much about this city to make sure we take back the mayor's office for what we nominate tonight, as well as control of the city council. So thanks, guys. This is a quote that says, leadership is about showing up. You're all leaders. And you all have my vote. It was established in 1773. And for a new American who came here 10 years ago. And for a new American who become city council three months ago. The same new American is here. Representing Bernie Sanders at the Burlington City Council. The same new American is also seeking your engagement. Voting for a candidate to go to the city council or to go to the state is not enough. What we need is people to keep on showing up, to keep on becoming leaders, to keep on making sure that every single resident in our city can strive. It's not about donation. It's not about voting, but it is about engaging, which means sending email. Call your constituents. That's what matters. Please keep on doing just that for the future, for our future, the future of our children and for the next generation. Together we win. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for running all of you. I will stop holding you hostage now. You guys can go back to your seats. And we do have results for Ward. Oh, okay. Sorry. I jumped the gun a little bit. Ward three. We had 62 people voting in the Ward three caucus. James Lockridge received 20 votes and Brian Pine received 42 votes. Very humbling one. I did this many years ago. I was much younger. I knew a lot less. It didn't scare me very much at the time, but this process has really been a remarkable process reconnecting with many people that I see around town. And I look forward to the process of bringing more voices to the table, bringing more people into the process, really looking at city council as a way to ensure that the people's wishes are heard and delivered at the council level. And I really hope folks will stay engaged. I'll turn out really inspiring to have folks here. And I hope people will stay engaged in this process. Thank you very much. So I think they're going to get a picture over there. And someone actually brought it to my attention that I never introduced myself and said who the heck I am. So hi. My name is Kelly Mangan. I'm the chair of the Burlington Progressive Party. Thank you all once again for being here. Martha Abbott, who is the the treasurer of the state Progressive Party, I'd like to just say really quickly a little bit about the organization. Yes. Sure. Counselors, please line up for a photo op. How about we have Martha talk while the photo op is going on. Hi everybody. This is so exciting. And I believe how many people are here. A lot of us have been working on this political alternative for some time and it is just really wonderful to see so many people here and excited about the process. Now that you are members in good standing of the Vermont Progressive Party it is one of the responsibilities of party membership that you help keep our organization afloat. I'm the treasurer of the organization. We have one fabulous staff person and that is Josh Ronsky. We run this organization very fiscally conservatively and but we do need to pay our wonderful staff person and our office rent and keep the rights on. So just as we believe as taxpayers that it is our responsibility to fund the commons and the services that we all need as a group, it is also our responsibility to keep the party afloat financially. We hope you'll contribute to all these wonderful candidates. We hope you'll remember that the entire effort and ongoing over 17 years now comes from the less exciting prospect of donating actually to the party itself. There are two ways you can do this. We're going to pass around these cans tonight through the crowd and in these cans there are two things. There is an ACH form which if you are willing to become a monthly donor you can give us your bank account number and tell us how much per month you're willing to donate and get that back to us. There are envelopes if you just want to put cash or a check in them we must have your name and address by state law for our campaign finance reporting so don't just put $20 in an envelope without putting your name on it please. You can also use a credit card to be a monthly donor for your preference and you can use these envelopes to do that as well. So please join us we'd love to have you fill these out tonight but you can of course take them home and mail them in. So we're going to pass these around and thank you very much for being here and thank you for your support. I'm now going to open up the floor to nominations for endorsement for mayor. Do I have any nominations? So my name is infinite co-pleasure I live right down the street I've been living in this neighborhood for a couple of decades now the NPA member was recruited by Charlie Giannoni and just got involved that way and also worked for the progressive party as a staff assistant Jane Vince and Rachel this finally feels like home to me so I haven't had a lot of time to prepare what I do and I have a few words about what I've been doing for the past four and a half years as a community organizer in Burlington so as a community organizer I encourage, inspire and coach people, especially people who've been ignored to play their rightful roles and claim their rightful places in the public arena in our community so it's an arena that sends a lot of mixed messages a lot of contradictory messages to people even though it promises to be open and inclusive it is packed with this white innovative behaviors based on staff's quote there's a powerful tension between our political rhetoric and rituals and actions and practices and I live an attitude I challenge people to confront it and I scheme with them to honor the best about political traditions about pushing the political world the political world in the direction as the world should be not just as it is as your mayor I will endeavor to shift the groups of people folks who've been ignored and how I'll do that I'll resource more resources for the NPAs we already had that infrastructure I think we deserve a better name for planning assemblies I also think we deserve community benefit agreements that will hold developers accountable to fund some of our social programs for young people for seniors programs for those folks who are struggling and I hope you're at prices we have a lot to go around and I think there's a lot of work to do in elections some of that work has to do with our budget our general budget which has really decided by the mayor and the city council and I think more folks should be involved in that process and really humbled by the team that we have behind us on this campaign I'm really grateful to my partner for agreeing to do this with me I'm grateful for my neighbors who will put up with my bad my attitude and I'm really grateful that people are out and I just hope that this is I hope that we can find things to do if not every day at least once a month every year so that we're all included in our democratic process on a regular basis thank you so much any other nominations Kelly just said say who you are so I'm Selena Colbert state legislator and I'm here to nominate Karina Driscoll for the rest of the curses I think of being affiliated with progressive politics and the progressive party is that you are often get to choose between two really great people with rich experience in awesome vision and meaningful engagement with their community and that's very clearly the choice that we have tonight but I'm nominating Karina after encouraging her for many months to jump into the mayor's race in this election cycle and being inspired by provision for a more inclusive participatory approach to leading our city I've known Karina for over 30 years I met her through something called the mayor's youth office that then mayor Sanders established back in the day that was a really innovative, incredible program for kids to experience civic engagement whether it was running a newspaper to comment on city issues or building a teen center from the ground up basically with our bare hands and really understanding how we could change our city as young people I've watched over the past several years with some sadness as Burlington has drifted away from commitments to public assets like that very teen center we built together 242 Maine Memorial Auditorium which was recently Burlington telecom and I've been disappointed both as a city counselor and as a resident with leadership that too often puts prepackaged solutions and foregone conclusions in front of us and calls a choice Karina brings really deep experience in local government and in our community she's served on the school board she's served on the city council she's served in the state house and she's worked in the mayor's office before resigning over philosophical differences she's worked with our local nonprofits run a small business and supported our schools as a parent volunteer she's more qualified with more public sector experience than our incumbent mayor was when he ran the first time and she's been actively involved in the progressive party as a co-chair with David Duckerman back when Peter Clavelle was mayor and serving as an elected progressive official but she's also shown a willingness to work with Democrats to work with independence and an ability to bring people together and if we're going to set this city on a new path in March it's going to take a coalition that works across party lines and I believe that Karina is capable of that and I think it's critically important as we look at the federal landscape we have a chance for cities to lead the nation on issues like racial justice like climate change like affordable housing and income inequality so I'm getting the zero minutes here so I'm going to turn it over I hope to Karina but I am so excited by all of the turnout tonight and by the message that I've been hearing from Karina over the last several months and I hope we can work together to get this done in a grassroots way this March your endorsement of my candidacy thank you for welcoming me into the caucus tonight and considering standing with me as I move forward on this journey but first let's go back a bit this is not my first time standing up at a progressive caucus asking for a vote I have been here before I began my public service as a school board member back in the late 90s while on the school board we were fighting over the school budget and I fought for a position that then served H. O. Wheeler school called the behavioral specialist I worked hard to bring out working and low income families to advocate for the need for additional support services in the schools so essential to ensuring their children's success in school we saved the position it was a stressful budget session and we did end up calling in the mediator Ira Lobel when budget negotiations got tough I worked hard to make sure teachers were respected and heard through the process when talks were hard while on the school board I actively engaged the conversation when the superintendent brought the board to the concept of charter schools I with other school board members including Kathy Connolly fought for magnet schools to ensure that the socioeconomic status of our kids was more even throughout the district and that conversation carried over to my next position and now we have two magnet schools in the old north that were standing in one here and the other one is IAA just around the corner I decided to run for state legislator when progressive state legislator Terry Berisha approached me Terry is here in the house I know I've seen him he shared that he had been watching but I prioritized and how I worked on the school board and was impressed he said he held Burlington's sole lone seat between the two two seat districts and he was sure it would be eliminated by redistricting I might like to have a shot so I went for it and while in the legislature I fought against the attacks on financial privacy I worked hard to advocate for fair education funding I fought hard to protect homeless and runaway youth we fought criminalization we fought the criminalization of the act of harboring a runaway because I advocated for kids who had to leave home because their parents might have been the greatest threat to their well-being I worked hard to pass an accessory unit legislation making it unlawful for cities and towns to forbid homeowners from creating accessory units up to 30% of their houses because it created more housing and it helped people afford to stay in theirs I fought against criminal notification legislation which aimed to interfere with a young woman's right to determine when she was ready to become a parent I need some water after redistricting we did in fact lose that single seat district and I made the choice not to run against the progressives on either side of me the districts on either side and that's when I chose to run for Burlington City Council as a progressive and while on the council I learned that we tackle issues that impact the day to day of our city and this is where I found my true passion I advocated for issues that impacted the city that we all love I fought for livable wage in our front to include a skate park and to allow for affordable housing to be built there I advocated for landlord licensing which would mean you would be required to be licensed to rent property in the city this way if you were not a great landlord your license could be taken away I will say I got creamed but I advocated for it anyway I have always had a strong commitment to the values fought for by the members of the progressive caucus by the people in this room values have not changed what has changed is that I am more experienced I have a broader understanding of the issues, the organizations and the people that I believe and I believe that will serve me well in this race for the state legislature and the city council race I came to the progressive board caucus and asked the progressive endorsement and I proudly served I campaigned hard knocking on every door dropping campaign literature two or three times a campaign session knocked on doors and truly met all the people in my wealth, everyone who was home in my district I met mothers who had no access to childcare, college students who couldn't afford their rent I met individuals who thought their felony convention meant they couldn't vote until I explained to them that there was no law preventing them from registering I met seniors who wanted their homes to stay affordable so they could stay in them I talked to working families struggling to make ends meet I offered rides to the polls I applied all day and watched the people I asked to come be part of this process and support me turn out and elect me to office and I owed them I entered the campaign with words and important issues but then I entered the service with their stories and my deep resolve to solve on their behalf I left the city council at that time 13 years ago to start my family with my husband Blake who was here and we now have a 13 year old son Cole and a 9 year old daughter Tess and he and I have built our business the Vermont Woodworking School it's 10 years old it occupies a 15,000 square foot 3 story barn with 40 full time students and about 12 employees we teach young people furniture design and fine woodworking in the apprenticeship tradition I left down from the position of director and hired an administrative director to manage the day to day operations to make room for my run for mayor so that's where I've been but where are we going today I stand before you and I'm proud to launch my campaign for mayor of Burlington because this election is about bringing people together through this campaign and then as mayor elected I will work to bring Burlington to again be that forward thinking city where we are all so proud to live it's time to bring our actions in Burlington back into line with our community values Burlingtonians of all walks of life political parties and throughout the city yearn for the opportunity to engage the issues that impact their lives in our communities it's time to bring people back to the table in this period of rapid development in our city many community assets community assets hang in the balance whether we're talking about memorial auditorium the Moran plant our public waterfront or other city owned property throughout the city the people of Burlington have a right to determine what to do with them the message of this campaign is clear Burlington is not for sale community assets should be leveraged to achieve a vision outlined by the people in a transparent community process process not dispensed with and passed along to the highest bidder we have a long tradition of community development that puts community at the center of all our decisions and that leverages our shared public assets to benefit all not just a few for decades other communities have looked at Burlington as the model for how to better serve its people while meeting economic and social challenges we no longer can lay claim to such praise and we have too much at stake right now given the political climate in our country not to have a shared stake in our future as people while the city's focus has been on development and the fate of our community assets we are neglecting to successfully steward many other issues our schools need our attention we must break down the silos separating the school district from city hall we must foster the best schools we can because the overall success of our community depends on it whether our goal is to meet the needs of seniors I swear so they can stay in their homes and access transportation or ensure our working families have access to affordable quality child care and take pride in making ends meet whether we are working to ensure that our new American families are given every opportunity in our education system and that out of school enrichment is available to all kids whether we are working to ensure that we bring services into our neighborhoods to improve people's quality of life whether we are working to foster a vibrant community based arts and music scene we can work together to create innovative solutions ourselves all parts of our city the new north end, the south end the old north end center city, the hill section downtown and our institutions on the hill each of our neighborhoods have unique needs we need to empower our neighborhood planning assemblies again so that they may actively be involved with public engagement, city planning and prioritizing city resources more and do it better when people throughout the city are empowered and much of the council are repeatedly finding themselves in a position of responding to a predetermined agenda offered by the mayor and a few members of the council this is not how we do it in Burlington Burlington has a long tradition that started in the 80s and 90s of putting power in the hands of people and prioritizing robust public engagement if elected mayor I attend, no when I am elected mayor I intend to provide the leadership to bring us back together and to a place of respectful dialogue to address our city's challenges and to chart our own future I am running for mayor but I cannot do it without all of your support we will not get there we will not get there unless we bring people together throughout the city who share a common interest in changing the trajectory we are on together we will all need to knock doors encourage people to enter the political process advocate for their interests and engage thank you for your support together we can win so before we do a brief Q&A I wanted to invite up the free of inertia to speak on behalf of Infinite my name is Farid I am a 20 year plus resident of ward 5 I am also a lifelong anarchist I don't vote usually for politicians I support ballot items and this is the first time for a campaign that has inspired me to actually work really hard for a candidate because Infinite is just an awesome guy he is my brother, I consider him my brother my family but also because the team that has come together is really inspiring to me people are getting really passionate and we are also committed to run this campaign and modeling for what Burlington should look like like literally is what I look like but Burlington has been looking like with the changing demographics but also our principles are first or foremost a participatory government where everybody has a say in this issue that impact their life and I have been active politically even though I don't vote in labor organizing and social justice organizing I do believe that we need to be able to build a movement that's strong enough to achieve change regardless of who is in power and I love Burlington it is a city that shows up we show up for livable wage for our immigrant communities for our refugees we show up to challenge corporate development we show up throughout the picket lines when our union sisters and brothers are striking so much passion to defend our public utility against privatization so we are at city where people mobilize for justice and for equity we deserve public servants who show up with the same tenacity and conviction for justice and equity as we do our government is not working for the people and it definitely is not working for working people and the justice for all are greater than ever before even in progressive Burlington the current state of democracy this is what happens what you say is what happens when bigotry and racism go unchecked and unchallenged when politics and politicians work for their own interests and the interest of corporations and when progressives speak is not meant with progressive actions to organize for justice to center those communities who are most impacted and to protect the most vulnerable we must develop a participatory government structure where the people not corporations, politicians or developers determine what growth and innovation looks like for our city we need public servants who are led by and accountable to the grassroots who are responsive and humble who are not unafraid to listen on act and unapologetically take on historical injustices and present-day injustices and we need people in government who will embrace requests, critiques and criticisms from all communities as an opportunity to do better now Burlington's working family has a historic opportunity to elect a leader of working class background one of her own with a genuine understanding of how important to be for this every day and one who actively shares our struggle for collective liberation now involved in movement to make the world a better place movement of resistance and movement that challenges injustices one word that is really important to me and I believe is shared by everyone is solidarity and we need to show what solidarity looks like and infinite has been giving me a very inspirational example of what solidarity looks like from walking the picket lines with striking bus drivers when it was minus 20 degrees in the morning to sitting in during UVM trustees meeting organizing to meet the VNH Children's Room every May day he came to Juan Belier and helped me feed people who went to the rally there and most recently he walked 14 miles with migrant justice that's visible but what he really shines on is the behind the scene the tireless effort and the effort of organizing in his MBAs he worked really hard to even move the mayor when the ballot question for non-citizens voting was voting on and that's thankless and tireless work that the event has done my point is infinite is a leader that show up and he backs us to mix it with actions and his campaign is back the growing group of people passionate community organizers and we are all committed to restore public trust in the process we want to encourage individual and community self-determination and transform government into an accountable, transparent, equitable and accessible process it is our belief that the whole society will be healthier when we effectively listen to the grassroots go from the margins and lift from the bottom as you have the table we want to flip the table we want to drive the seat people city hall is necessary and our new movement to make that happen need to thank you with all I really want to say is thank you to the progressive party organizers for going out of your way to be fair in this process and I just I think you want to spend the best of this time you know taking questions from the folks so as many questions as possible if you can be brief and succinct we can get through more than more than I thought right here gentlemen in the hat please stand up say your name and briefly your question my name is Albert Tcharka and I am from award three here and Ms. Driscoll you said that Burlington was not for sale when in fact it is for sale Don Cindyx has bought the Burlington town center Palmerloo is buying city hall park Eric Farrell was buying Camry and Rise and there's been an anti gentrification movement fighting this for the past three years and we don't remember seeing you there now at the 11th hour you're coming out and saying you want to be opposed to these things that the mayor has been pushing and didn't ten months ago you supported Jane Nogel who was the mayor's shepherd in getting all of these gentrification projects through so in the past ten months are you saying that you've had an epiphany now about your previous support and your silence on this and if so you've had an epiphany can you tell us where you now different with the mayor and will you please apologize to the city for having supported the mayor up until now can I just ask a clarifying question about what we're doing now can you explain so we're taking questions for six more minutes and that was a long question but so I'll make my answer brief I'm running a campaign about unity and I'm going to stay away from topics that divide us through the election and people who have this so I don't think we have about five minutes left and I would like to yield to the next question and I actually think it would be best if we won't answer your question I think it was Ali and then this gentleman right here and then this fellow right here for speech sake why don't we start lining up I would like both of you to please come forward and this is a very simple direct question so the first one is do you know the population of Burlington the exact number and also what are your plans for the new event if you get elected yeah that's what I wasn't studying but I know our school budget is approximately 60 million and I was 28 million before and I'm not going to go out on a land and try to give the number of our city budget and the second question do you know that oh yes so first I want to go back to the coalition with liberal city and you know I've given an opportunity to talk about something and I yielded it and I think that was a mistake but I also don't want to take out a whole bunch of time so maybe extend beyond our six minutes we have about a third of the city's population in the new earthen portion of the city and there's a lot of reasons for us to be paying more close attention to what's going on we have a rising senior population, we have young families looking to have their starter homes there we have transportation issues where you might have to walk a mile and a half to the bus line we have a Letty center that could be so much more than it is right now it's wonderful that we have the Millage Center but it's not enough we have new American families in large numbers in the new earthen and we have a largely ignored end of town where we can be doing a lot more I've been very inspired by Ali's campaign to get out into the new earthen and bring people into the process and begin to talk about what's possible and I look forward to working with you on that whether I'm the mayor or not when it comes to the process of the coalition for the liberal city I find the question a little discouraging because of a lot of reasons one, as I watched from the sidelines while we began to hear about this mall project we began to hear about it several years after it had been in its process and that I found to be very discouraging and disheartening and I saw a group of people in the coalition come together and speak out against the mall and that brought me great hope to see people organize and come together and really challenge that process I stayed back and wasn't sure if I was able to engage the coalition because there's a group of people involved and I wasn't sure I'd be welcome to the table I thought it was a very good process and I withheld commenting on it towards the end right before the ballot what we ended up voting on when it came time to vote for the mall something much different than what was presented and I give my congratulations and actually did so publicly the coalition for significantly moving the project to something that I can support we gained affordable housing we had the mall turned inside out we got the community with a $500,000 settlement there were a lot of good things that happened and in the end I congratulated the coalition for contributing to democracy forward I thought it was a very good thing I think now we have a 67% we had what the mayor is referring to as overwhelming support for the project I think he's mistaken that there's overwhelming support for the project I think there are people like me and throughout the city who voted with a lot of reluctance we voted because you don't turn away $200 million of investment in your community we voted yes and we voted yes because the project had improved and it looked better because it was going to offer housing and as we look forward with the project for the mall I think we ask ourselves we have an opportunity and whoever whoever is in the position of carrying this forward whoever is the next mayor which I hope is me I'm ready for the job which is to make sure that this creates jobs in our community when we build it and that we stick to the plan for having affordable housing and that what is built is good for Burlington so and then I've only did that because I've taken a lot of time there's way too many zeros in that budget for me to wrap my head around but the support actually I think it's a little higher than 60 I think it's in the 80s somewhere yes I can thank you to your question about the new north end what I intend to do is to defer to the people in the new north end their neighborhood and their community I think they've just been ignored so one thing I'll say about the mall project was that my biggest disappointment was that I did question one of our city council leaders about community development community benefits agreement for that project yes that there was one it's not true that was really my biggest disappointment because I know we need to have well thrown out need to benefit before anyone else comes in to the community I think we'll have time for two more questions and then we're going to need to cut it off so that people can vote if you already know who you're going to vote for if you need to leave early any of that stuff you can turn your ballot in of the room and hand bar your ballot did everybody hear that do I need to repeat it if you need to leave you can do so through that rear door and hand your ballot in before you go otherwise hang on to it two more questions brief if you can thanks my name is Eric Meyer I live in lakeside in ward 5 it's a working class league front neighborhood that we're very proud of and I'm a democratic socialist so I'm the first person to talk about the working class and share shared class issues at the same time I think that we haven't talked enough about social issues and that often it's lumped in so I have a specific question about that trans women of color are one of the most endangered groups in America in terms of this not a abstract issue in terms of leaving their homes and I'm passionate about ending white supremacy as well as working on queer and trans justice and those are all intersecting but I just wonder for that particular group as an example what each of you would do to protect them it needs to be done about the trans community it's something that I'm still really worried about and I think that one of my ideas not just for the trans community but for domestic violence generally speaking another that I'm really trying to learn more about is to develop girls that are still small enough that we can hold each other accountable neighbor to neighbor and so I think we have an opportunity to develop peace teams put resources into teams of folks that can respond to situations that you're talking about where people are feeling unsafe feeling unwelcome and feeling harassed so there's work at the ground level in cities around the world there are development ways of addressing public safety issues non-violent and so that would be really like to invest public dollars into it our youth are really leading the way I think generationally children my children's age understand that there is not a gender binary in a way that my generation grew up understanding it to be and I think the best thing that we can do is follow the lead of our young people and ask the question how do we do better thank you for stating your question to my question it's about affordable housing for both of you Karina you mentioned that the mall project gave us affordable housing my understanding is that affordable housing is really a one bedroom apartment for $1,100 my question for both of you is what are you going to do about creating real affordable housing and not giving away important pieces of land for lip service affordable housing that is actually raising the rent for most people and it has to be important in this community and it troubles me that we continue to talk about it as if we're solving it we continue to speak as if look at how these innovations are solving the housing crisis we have affordable housing for x% of the people in this community but what I will say is that when I was growing up I never once heard someone say well the shelters are full and now we live in a community where the shelters are full and that's unacceptable it's not a compassionate society here in Burlington and we need to be leading the way for the rest of the nation we continue to provide innovative solutions for homelessness but we're not getting there and then on the other end because there is a big middle and that's what Janice is talking about on the other end of the spectrum well the far end of the spectrum but the people who are falling into the category of being able to be provided affordable housing opportunities we have lots of apartments that serve that middle and upper working class families but we've got a huge section of people in Burlington that are falling between they are fighting every day they're choosing between rent food on the table and they don't afford to make ends meet and they're invisible to much of the establishment in this community and that's very troubling to me and it will absolutely be a number one priority if I'm elected, when I'm elected mayor and I would just let's see what else you know I think we talked about the donut that's not really a donut it's just the people in the middle that aren't able to did you get your question into it the question was more about development and there seems to be the tendency to continue to allow development that's bad for the environment bad for the quality of life and does not actually make life better for the people right and so we look through the community and we see ribbon cutting after ribbon cutting we see buildings going up and yet we still are wondering there are a whole lot of families who are saying what good does this do for me we can celebrate the bond rating going down but if you're you know if you're led or it's going to charge you the rent anyway it's not really doing you any good that he is saving on property taxes it's time that we stop pretending like everything is free and you know and it's very clear to me that this campaign is going to be about raising the curtain on this issue so thank you for asking how's the issue so I'm actually think we should call out some of the other really big institutions that take up a lot of space in our community because they don't pay taxes right and so you know we have like this really small party money that we call highly funds is paid and low taxes is sort of a goodwill on a part of people like UVM the city attend to some of our needs I think that we can get a little bit more for most of the city I think it's about time that some of these institutions can pay a little bit more of their fair share of the many new taxes there's a lot of money out there and you know the other side of affordable housing is how much money we make you know in terms of our minimum wage right the city has done like a really good look at our jobs and people report right you know we used to do that here we used to take a really hard look at you know how we can put money in people's pockets how we can support small businesses to grow you know in the community and I think that is one another indirect way of you know helping people to be able to afford where we live which is constantly increasing constantly going up and not our wages I think I'll be about that thank you thank you both so much so now it is time to vote everybody who is voting should have a white ballot for the mayoral race so in case you didn't hear what Barb said you need to turn in your own ballot you cannot turn in other people's ballots this is just for keeping everything on the up and up Barb is going around with a giant bin so because there were some questions what you're voting for is whether or not the progressive party is a candidate both candidates are running as independents in case that wasn't clear or anybody didn't know that this is a vote for a progressive endorsement we're going to give the result we had a fair process where we had three people from Korea's campaign three people from infinite ballots with multiple impartial people watching us and the results are 84 votes for infinite and 116 for Korea 244 people when I counted for a minute before people were moving around but this is very exciting thank you to get into Tuesday March 6 but I want to start by thanking infinite he ran an amazing campaign of course you're still in the race and you never said you'd be out of it so I look for it and so this is going to be how it is we've re-energized a movement that needs to happen in Burlington together one way or the other and I look forward to working with you as we campaign towards March 6 thanks a lot echo some of what people have already said my most sincere thanks to infinite and Karina for being here for seeking the progressive endorsement it's not hard to be like discontent with something but it's another thing entirely to step up and say I undertake to do something about that I undertake the burden of running for office the commitment and the courage that goes with that so I just want to thank both Karina, Infinite and all of our candidates that are running for office for your courage, for your commitment and your willingness to fight to make this a better community all of us may have different ideas in this room about how to get there but what we have in common is that we want to make Burlington a better community so thank you all so much together to make it happen though thank you