 I'm Selena Colburn and I'm a former city councilor here in Burlington and now with my district mate Brian Cina, a representative for Burlington's Chittenden 6-4 in the Vermont State House. And this is a record-setting caucus. It was incredible to just scroll through and see old and new faces, pages after page. I didn't even get through all of you before it was time to start speaking. I get the sense, Burlington, that you might be ready for a change and that's really exciting. I'm really thrilled to be here with you all tonight. I wish we could be in person, but I'm really grateful to everyone who continues to focus on our collective health and safety right now. And I'm just incredibly inspired by the resiliency of both our democratic process and grassroots movements who are finding ways to come together to organize in truly record numbers. Tonight we're going to hear keynote speakers. We'll hear nominations, speeches, and some discussion with our mayoral candidates. We'll hear from candidates at the district level and about upcoming ballot initiatives. We have two just truly incredible, hard-working, highly qualified candidates for the Progressive Party Mayoral nominations tonight. And you'll hear from them briefly, but you can also access three really robust mayoral forums that the party sponsored either through the Vermont Progressive Party's website or Facebook page if you want to hear more about the candidate's positions on a number of issues. Some quick housekeeping, most of us are going to be muted since there are just so, so many of us tonight, but you can use the chat as many of you are to communicate, to pose questions. For those of you who are watching on Facebook where we're streaming live, you can also use the comment feature there. And then you can email us if you have questions and neither of those things are working. And Josh Ronsky is going to pop an email address into the chat right now for anyone who has questions. One other request is that if there's, and I see many of you are doing this, but if you have multiple participants in your household, if you could share devices, that would be wonderful. We do have a number that we'll cap out at for who can participate via Zoom. It's a little lower than the number of people who have actually registered for the caucus. And with that, I know, well, also quickly, I want to thank the many, many people who worked so hard to pull this together, including Josh and Lisa, our staff people, our steering committee, especially the Burlington steering committee, chairs, Gil and Annie, and just many, many hands went into making this event work. And of course, all the campaigns and all the effort that they've put into getting us here tonight. So no time to thank everyone, but just huge, huge thanks for the labor of so many folks who made this happen. I know we're here to nominate city candidates tonight, but I want to take just a really quick moment to tell you how excited I am about the new wave of leaders that are coming into the House Progressive Caucus in the Vermont State House. We are going to be fierce and organized and fighting for the people of this state. And so I'm thrilled to turn things over to our keynote speakers, two of these fierce women and representative elect Taylor Small and Emma Mulvaney-Stanek. Thank you so much for that warm introduction, Selena. And hi, everyone. I'm Taylor Small, and I am representative elect for Chittenden 6-7, and my co-keynote speaker today is Emma Mulvaney-Stanek. Hi, all. I am representative elect Emma Mulvaney-Stanek. And I will represent Chittenden 6-2, which is half of the Old North End and half of the North End here in Burlington. And when I reflect on what has called me into this work, it was literally a call from representative Deanna Gonzalez saying, hey, I see the work that you're doing in the community. I see the work that you're doing to push forward health equity. And I think your voice is ever needed in the State House. And I think what is most important about that statement is thinking about what my political path was before that. Beforehand, in being part of a marginalized community, I thought the only way that I could act up, and the only way that I could participate was through grassroots organizing, boots on the ground, in community. And though that is a very viable way to still participate, it was amazing to have an out queer role model tell me that you can also have a seat at the table and have your voice heard. And so with that, I moved forward into this campaign and unapologetically ran an issues-based campaign because at the end of the day that is the focus is what are the issues of our constituents. And the reason that I say unapologetic is because my time here in Vermont has been fraught. It has not always been this magical place, especially in thinking about owning and understanding and accepting my identity and knowing that I have faced the harassment and assaults in downtown Burlington from fellow residents and that I have faced not being able to access equitable health care or finding ways to be able to pay for health care, which should not be an issue in the first place, or thinking about how I had to juggle my identity when it comes to the various positions that I hold and knowing that there was a time in my life where I faced unemployment purely because of my identity and the barriers that existed. And yet again, I knew that community was there to have my back and is the reason why I continue in doing this work today. And so when I reflect on community and I reflect on being unapologetic, nobody apologized for what had happened to me or what has happened to our communities. But I'm ready to continue to fight and push for what we all need, which is health care reform and thinking about how we can move towards a single payer system on a national level and making sure that health care is a human right and not a privilege that is afforded to some. It means being unapologetic and opposing the F-35s and knowing the health and environmental impacts that we see, yes, here in Winooski, but across the state of Vermont. And that means being unapologetic and pushing for all resident voting here in the city of Winooski and holding that my mother, who emigrated to Vermont at the age of four and still holds a green card to this day, would be able to vote in my city if she were to move here. That means I have to convert her to come back from New Hampshire to Vermont. But all of this to say and being unapologetically progressive is showing that the issues are at the forefront and that we can be this change. And so often we feel like we have to go to the moderate or the centrist view. But I would challenge and say that we can continue in pushing for the progressive values that we need and knowing that our future is going to be better and brighter. And so, Emma, I want to know what called you into this work. Thanks, Taylor. And before I answer that, I have to say how incredibly proud I am of you, of your leadership, of your bravery to step into the political scene in Vermont and how proud I am of Winooski and the river sliver of Burlington that you also represent to elect you because I'm going to be, I'm just so proud to be able to serve next to you and come January. So for me, my path, I'm not, I'm not a stranger to elected office. I was a former Burlington City Councilor about 10 years ago. And I always wanted to run for office again. It was, it was really, I spent several years digging deeper into my professional career as a labor organizer after stepping off of council, starting a family, which is no small undertaking and served as the progressive party state chair and spent a lot of my political work literally recruiting other women, other under resourced people to run for office and trying my hardest to remove barriers and to talk people through the process about why their voice matter, why representation matters, why even in Vermont, we needed to do better to have faces of BIPOC folks, of LGBTQ folks, of women, of young people, of low income people, elective office. And I literally became the queen of challenging the notion that now is just not the right time to to run, not now it's not the right time to run for office. And so when I had my son, my second and final child, I would emphasize, last August in 2019, I, I, I was self employed. I am still self employed. And like so many people who start families, I face a very challenging time figuring out how to take any time off after birthing a child to be able to be with that kid and not stress out about economic well-being of my family. There was no system, there was no way to support or figure it out. And so I worked right up to his birth and then started part-time back to work three weeks later, which is incredibly difficult. And I'm in a much better and more privileged place than many Vermonters. And yet when I looked around and thought, well, this is Vermont, we should be doing better than this. And looked forward to in January, when the issue came up in January 2020 about paid family leave, I thought, oh, this is the moment where Vermont will lead, will lead this country around having universal paid family leave. And what came out was mediocre. It was weak. And it would have arguably been one of the weakest paid family programs in the country. And I sat there with my six-month-old on the verge of a pandemic and thought, this cannot be it. And so struggling with the lack of paid family leave and then the other side, trying to figure out how to pay for two kids in child care under five, which is $2,400 a month for folks who don't have small children. There was yet another gap in policymaking around where is the urgency among state legislators around dealing with child care access, having high-quality child care access for families, and paying livable wages, professional wages, and benefits for child care workers. There was a major gap. So when the filing deadline came up, I looked at my own state representative and she supported the weak paid family leave. And I thought it was time to challenge. I think democracy thrives on having primaries that they're there for a reason to at least start the conversation and ask why not a more universal and effective paid family leave program and child care access? And so I was told to wait my turn. I was told to wait for an open seat. And I thought, well, I'm going to dive in and see if my issues and the issues I'm living through and experiencing are shared by anyone else. And lo and behold, they were. I unseeded an eight-year incumbent. I really found along the campaign trail as much as it was virtual that the issues resonate with other Vermonters. And what matters at the end of the day is that the people living through these portions of life for experiencing needs for paid family leave, for child care, for decent professional wages, whatever it might be, those voices are woefully underrepresented in the state house. And so the time is now. The time is now to run to get other folks just like Taylor and myself in the building so that the urgency is felt when people have to vote on these issues. And there's a recent experience in mind when you were informing your votes when you're asked to vote on the House floor. So that's what brought me to running again. And Taylor, I'm wondering if you can now tell the funny little, it's not that funny, but the powerful story of actually how did we politically meet? We've met before, obviously, because it's Burlington, but how do we politically meet? Well, we politically met because of this formation of the Vermont Squad. And for folks who don't know, Emma did an amazing job in connecting progressive women candidates from across Vermont and coming together to have a space during both the primaries and general election where we recognize that we are asking our citizens to run in the legislature. And that is a big ask. So five of us coming together, it was myself. It was Emma. We had a queer farmer out in Barnard, Vermont. We had Heather Serprenant, along with Tanya Bihowski and Essex, who is a social worker in the schools, as well as Emily Hecker, who is working in the Winooski schools but was running for Milton. And four out of the five of us made it into the State House and are looking to make this amazing change and breaking barriers while we're at it. So thinking about how with my run, I became the first in Vermont to be an out transgender legislator and the fifth in the nation to do so. And Emma unseating in a year incumbent is just phenomenal and not something that we hear of every day, but it shows the power of progressive values. And that makes me wonder, what did you gain from that space as well, Emma? Because as you said, you've been in this before, but you knew that there was a power in bringing this community together. Right. After doing a lot of political work for 10, 15 years in Vermont, I was always hungry for a space where it was women and folks who were under resourced in the political space. And I can't emphasize enough that representation matters and be able to link arms with other candidates who are going through the same experience in this election cycle, in this insanity of a Trump overlay on the federal level. There was a lot of insecurity around safety issues and thinking through strategy and figuring out how to be in a space and be queer, even in Vermont, and feel like what we were feeling and experiencing was shared by anybody else. And so I was really excited that we were all women in the squad, that most of us, majority of us, LRLGBTQ identified. And again, because that really matters. And even in the conversations we had, it allowed us to follow the needs of the moment. We queered up that space. It allowed us to respond to what was needed to actually have meaningful human conversations about the grind of campaigns. And instead of talking about transactional natures of metrics of voter counts and supporter leaners, all that kind of data, we were able to check in about how does it feel? How did that form feel when you were attacked and targeted for how you looked and questioned about your intelligence, which happened to one of the squad members in 2020 in an election forum. So this stuff really matters. And that space allowed an alternative space to really think about transforming politics. And I want to bring that forward. And we will bring that forward into the legislature. Taylor, what do you hope to see in progressive politics as a new leader? What I want to see is more questions. I think curiosity is where we can make this change. And one of the main questions that comes to mind is, who has a seat at the table? Whose voices are we hearing, and who are we not hearing? And I want to just take this moment and recognizing that in this run, I may hold marginalized identities, but my whiteness protected me along the way. And knowing that this is not the same story that we see of progressive women and BIPOC women running here in the state of Vermont. And so I think there is Governor Madeline Cunin who I have in my head saying, if you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu. And on the other hand, I'm seeing this continued theme or this talk about how the hate cannot grow in the rocky soil of Vermont. And I would say that it is flourishing and is not allowing a representative democracy in our state. So what do I want to see? As our progressive class is opening this door and leading the way for a future generation of leaders, I want us to hold that door open and make sure that we can continue to see diversity flourish and see that our legislature is actually representative of the people that we are serving across this great state. And so holding that, we are also here nominating folks to be endorsed by the Progressive Party for both Mayoral and City Council candidates. And I'm asking, what do you think they should keep in mind as they receive this endorsement and move forward with their campaigns, Emma? Well, I hope it extends beyond the progressive conversation with who the progressives nominate today for, or in the next 48 hours, for Mayor and City Council to the full city government. But I think one of the most important things we can do and to model is listening to the less resourced people in our community, which includes BIPOC folks, which includes low-income folks, which includes folks where English is not their first language. And to understand why people don't engage. I know on my campaign, I made a point of investing money in translating what we were handing out. And that can't be a second thought. It's an immediate and necessary service to the folks who live in this community so they can understand city government services and getting their needs met and engaging in their community. I also think representation matters, but it's also about adequately resourcing people and making room at that table you talked about to give people meaningful leadership roles and not just figurehead roles or tokenizing people for their identities that they bring. And finally, I wanna be done with the days where someone has named us the first whatever, the first woman to hold this position, the first out trans person to hold this position, the first BIPOC person to hold this position. And in Firlington, if we can't do that in the very, very short-term future, then we have a lot of self-reflection to do. So I hope we break those barriers down and that the Progressive Party and Progressive Endorse Candidate lead the way on that. So Taylor, final question for back to you. What should the Progressive Party at all? Because in terms of the state conversation, keep in mind going forward in terms of engaging more folks in progressive politics. I mean, I think you touched on a major issue which are the significant barriers when it comes to running and being able to see this pathway. I think again, I had a privilege in having this call but I want you to know that if you are progressive and thinking about running, this is your call right now and saying that you can run on varying levels whether it is in your city council, select for it in the state house or for statewide office, lean on these resources here today and know that you have a community that is here to support you and that there is more that we can do as a community to reduce those barriers. And of course I need to highlight ranked choice voting and making sure that we can have a strong third party here in the state of Vermont and making sure that folks don't get caught up in the toxicity that we see within binaries and not allowing folks to actually choose candidates that they agree with rather than going with who they think is most electable. And other than that, I would just hold that progressive values are leading the way. We see that most of the candidates on a congressional level who endorsed Medicare for All were elected to office. And so I ask that we don't compromise on our values and we move forward and asking, what is best for Vermont and what is best for those who are most impacted? I totally agree. Taylor, thanks for doing this with me and good luck on the caucus tonight folks. Thanks for participating. Yeah, thank you so much. Have a great one, y'all. Thank you. That was amazing. I am just so excited to know that I'll be working with these two and I'm already working with these two. It's so exciting. What an incredible conversation that was. We are gonna move on to open up the floor for mayoral nominations. And I know that we have two declared candidates. So in the interest of full transparency, I'm going to invite Max Tracy's nominator to come forward and you have five minutes to tell us why you're supporting Max. That would be me. Good evening everyone. My name is Zariah Hightower. Thank you all for coming. It's pretty exciting to see so many faces here on Zoom but even more than that just how many of us had a big smile on it as we got on this call. So love the excitement in this virtual room. And of course, I'm thrilled to be here to nominate Max Tracy for Burlington's next mayor. As many of you know, I'm a fairly new addition to the Progressive Party. One year ago, I didn't even necessarily call myself a progressive. I wasn't universally accepted with open arms for a variety of reasons. And I also wasn't sure how I felt about the Progressive Party. The Left has a history of speaking for but then leaving behind people like me. And I didn't trust that the Progressive Party would be that different. Today, I'm an elected progressive and proud of it. But I want to see a transformative change in the party. I want us to hold on to our ideologies while also not being afraid to call ourselves pragmatic. I want us to be the party of Black, Indigenous and People of Color or BIPOC folks. For folks of every gender identity and expression, for LGBTQ plus folks, for people with disabilities, for people who are low income, I want us to be the party that is made up of these people. People like me and like many of you rather than just affirming rights on a website. Systemic change is absolutely necessary and it's a long, long, long overdue. Max Tracy in so many ways has shown me what progressive leadership is and what it can be like. Max invites feedback from folks because he genuinely cares about people's perspectives and then he uses what he hears to make decisions that align with his values. And somehow he always seems to make the right decision. Nothing Max does even wavers from his values even a little bit, which I find incredibly sound and authentic. I can go to Max, ask a direct question and get a direct answer. I would generally say that I don't really trust politicians, especially cis-white male politicians, but I definitely trust Max. I'm voting for Max because he's a progressive through and through. During his eight years on the council, he has continued to uphold progressive values with every single vote. He held down the progressive vote after the progressive party was all but gutted a decade ago. He was authentically progressive at a moment in time when it was hard and lonely to be a progressive. But at the same time, Max is not afraid to bring in new voices to step back and let BIPOC folks speak for ourselves. He's humble and brave enough to not be entrenched in how things have been done for years. I believe Max can win the selection and build our party into the diverse and inclusive party we have always sought to be and foster change that makes all of our lives better. I support Max because one, he has voted progressive values on every issue even when he's done so alone. Two, I support Max because he reaches across the aisle to make progress for struggling communities such as the city's response to the opioid crisis. I support Max because three, he will center marginalized voices in our fight for environmental and economic justice. And finally, I support Max because he's authentic, brave and compassionate. Max Tracy has been a progressive voice on the council for nearly a decade, but he can also bring the systemic change that our party and the city of Farlington deserve and that we really desperately need. Thank you all for showing up to this moment and this party and I hope you can join me and nominating and electing Max for mayor. Thank you so much, Zariah. And with that, I'm going to invite Ryan Pines, nominator to come forward and share your thoughts with us. Hi there. Hi everybody, this is Stephanie Seguino. It's an awesome group of people. So many people I know and so many I don't know. It is a distinct honor to nominate Ryan Pines to be the Progressive Party's candidate for the 2021 mayoral election. I do this with excitement because Ryan possesses the unique skills and experience that we most definitely need at this particular moment in Vermont's, in Burlington's history. Let me just describe what I think that is. We in this moment are a divided city. There is polarization about the city's economic development strategy for the last several years, which for progressives has failed to include all Burlingtonians. People are worried that not enough is being done to address the climate crisis. We are witnessing a policing crisis that demands that we change how our community understands a real public safety that includes public safety for everybody. And we face an economic crisis. Our neighbors that work in the services sector are suffering enormously because of COVID and the city faces hard economic times because of plummeting sales taxes due to the revenue losses and income losses due to the crisis. These issues are near and dear to my heart. I have worked for many years to address issues of economic injustice, inequality and poverty. And as some of you may know, I've also with my co-authors produced several studies that look at racial disparities in policing and racial bias in policing, both in Burlington and at the level of the state. Seeing progress on this issue for me is also personal as the mother of a son who is African American because we live these issues of race and racism every single day in our family. Brian has the skills, the experience and the emotional intelligence to confront these issues and to rebuild the city in a way that repairs the social fabric and the economy. But Brian has also more than that, the values he leads with his heart and with his values and he listen and he inspires and motivates people precisely because he is a bridge builder and a problem solver. Even when Brian disagrees with someone, he listens with heart and sensitivity. He works first to understand why people hold the positions that they do and this makes it more possible for him to find the common ground that brings people along. Because of that, more than anybody I know in Burlington, Brian inspires trust and he is profoundly respected across the entire city and across the political spectrum. I'd like to give you some examples. Brian has an amazing experience in housing and community development and so forth, but I'm gonna leave that for him to talk about and for others to ask questions about. I'd like to just give you some examples of Brian as a bridge builder and a problem solver who can unify people, something he does without sacrificing his principles or our values as progressives. This past summer, you may recall that the progressive counselors advanced a resolution to reduce the number of police officers by 30%. Brian called me about it and said, I support this, but if we're gonna get this passed at the council, we need to be able to make a case as to why a reduction of 30% is the right one and not some other number. Without evidence and justification, if you're unlikely, the resolution would pass. So we talked about it, we talked about what data would be useful, compile the data and this helped lead to the proposal being passed by the city council decisively. Later this fall, if you may recall, we were at an impasse. The battery park movement had demanded the firing of three police officers and the city was said that there was nothing more that it could do, that the contract prohibited them from taking any further action. Brian came up with the idea to buy out Bellavance, went to the mayor with this convincing road to sign onto it and the rest is history. These are some examples of how Brian leads. He is somebody who can conceive of out-of-the-box ideas and turn them into reality by making the moral case that often helps people move from their fixed positions. We're gonna need Brian's temperament, his leadership, his emotional intelligence and his technical and financial skills going forward. He is the person to lead the city with integrity, with heart and a wealth of experience and knowledge about running a city. In this moment, we as progressives are in a position to usher in an administration that leaves nobody behind, that pushes nobody behind and where all voices are heard and Brian Pine for that reason should be our progressive nominee for mayor. Thank you. Thank you so much, Stephanie. And now we are going to hear from our mayoral candidates and we're gonna start with Max Tracy. Hey, well, thank you so much everyone for being here and thank you to Zariah for that incredibly beautiful introduction. It's so exciting to be part of the largest caucus in our party's history and to have this opportunity to ask for your support to be the next mayor of Burlington. I wanna especially thank all the people who've worked so hard to build up the progressive party in Burlington from what was a really low and lonely point for us several years ago to now being as strong as we have ever been, including having six excellent progressive city counselors and being in position to retake the mayor's seat. I'm Max, my pronouns are he, him and for the last eight and a half years I've served as the ward two city counselor in the old North End. During my time on the council and for years before that as an activist, I fought hard to make demand that in Burlington, people and our planet must come before profits and special interests. At times, I was the lone voice or one of a small handful fighting against the neoliberal policies of the Weinberger administration. Everything from the F-35s to the mall project to the downtown improvement district to most recently fighting to prevent seasonal city employees from having their jobs disappear. During most of my time as a counselor the city has been controlled by the mayor and his allies on the council and I provided principled opposition to their agenda. When Moreau pushed them all project and made big promises he still hasn't delivered on I stood in consistent opposition. When Moreau advocated for the F-35s to be stationed here and told us they'd only be modestly louder I introduced resolutions opposing the basing and called out the impact that this will have on low income and BIPOC communities. And when Moreau tried to cover up police brutality and misconduct I pushed for those involved to be removed and demanded that we create new systems of accountability. I'm proud of that work and will continue to stand against policies that harm our community. Unfortunately however, because of the current administration's failings I've often been known for what I'm against for fighting fiercely against these failed policies. But right now I wanna focus on what I fought for and what I'll fight for as your mayor. I'll fight for a just recovery from the pandemic that prioritizes those who are struggling the most. I'll fight to divest funds away from the police and toward the implementation of Operation Phoenix Rise, restructuring and transforming public safety, implementing cultural empowerment, securing equal opportunity and expanding racial equity inclusion and belonging. I will fight to address the opioid epidemic and drug addiction more broadly with compassion and resources for recovery including overdose prevention sites. I will fight for expanded tenant protection and rent stabilization policies because I'm a renter and I know what it's like because we are 60% of the city and because for far too long we've been ignored in city policy. I will fight for workers, for workplace democracy and for livable wages. And I will fight with everything I've got to address the existential crisis that is the climate emergency and to build a sustainable and just local economy with a focus on radically transforming the transportation sector where we only continue to see admissions rise. I've been fighting for these issues unapologetically for my entire life. I've not shied away from these issues and I will never waver from the work that we have yet to do. I promise that if I'm elected I'll bring a more grassroots people powered approach in building a more inclusive Burlington that lives up to its progressive reputation. A Burlington that isn't afraid to be the first, a Burlington that leads the nation on climate action, on truly affordable housing, on racial, economic and social justice and on so many other issues that we deeply care about. This is all incredibly important because we are in an incredibly challenging moment. We just finished our worst month of the pandemic today. Our planet is on fire. Economic inequality already extreme has been taken to absurd levels during COVID. Racism, sexism, transphobia and so many other forms of bigotry and systemic oppression remain rampant. With all of these interwoven crises and more is no wonder that so many people are living in despair. But taking incremental steps to address these urgent problems won't be nearly enough. Now is not the time to seek moderate and slow changes or to try to address these problems around the edges. We need dramatic structural and transformational changes and we need them as quickly as possible. But for all of us here in Burlington but for both for all of us here in Burlington but also to have that bigger impact and show that it is possible for truly progressive policies to be successful on the local level. We can be that model for other cities around the country. In this election, our party is well positioned to win this mayoral race. But Burlington's can't and won't be fooled by candidates who fail to offer meaningful and distinctive differences from status quo morale. I'm ready to serve our city as mayor and I offer a vision and a record that speaks to where our city needs to be. I love Burlington more than anything and I believe our city can thrive on people-powered politics where we expand what is possible rather than settling for less than we deserve. Thank you, Max. Wow, everyone is just perfectly timed. You're making my job so easy here tonight. Brian, we are ready to hear from you. Great, thanks, Selena. I appreciate that. I'm really excited to be here tonight despite this backdrop of the growing pandemic both in Vermont and beyond. These times are especially challenging for our democratic process of connecting with voters and exchanging our ideas and vision for the future. So thank you for joining us online tonight. Let me start by offering a heartfelt thanks to Max Tracy. We've known each other since I helped out at Max's first run for city council in 2011 and I consider Max a friend. I also want to thank the Vermont Progressive Party staff, Josh Ronsky and Lisa Gerlach for their hard work along with our local election committee on what may be the largest political party caucus in Vermont history and the co-chairs, Annie Schneider and Gil Livingston. With over 1,300 attendees, we are clearly poised to take this momentum to form a winning People First Coalition to reclaim City Hall. In just 13 weeks, excuse me, in just 13 weeks from today, Burlington has a choice to make about whether or not we will take a new direction. I believe our community is seeking a change and that we can bring about that change by uniting behind a strong, progressive candidate with proven results city-wide. Two weeks ago, I stood at Northgate Apartments in our new North End to launch our campaign, a community that holds special significance for me personally and for our focus on the often left of the margins of civic and political life. As a tenants rights activist, I joined low income residents in a fight to save their homes. We won that fight and many others by building real political power aligned with a real champion in City Hall in then Mayor Sanders and after that Mayor Clavel. I was part of the movement that began as a progressive coalition when Bernie was our mayor and had been a proud progressive party member since we became a party. Our party, which is an inclusive party that welcomes people across the left part of the spectrum was founded on the principles of social justice, economic justice, racial justice and political justice. Together, our focus has always been to elevate voices. So no matter who you are in this community, you have a voice and know that you have a political party fighting for your interests. My life and my career has been about fighting for just that justice and that's why I'm here tonight asking for your vote. Our party and my campaign are about fighting for economic justice and economic justice has been a driving force in my life and in my career. I began my career here in Burlington after UVM with the Burlington Youth Employment Program and have created pathways to leadership for youth across this whole city, including starting youth build Burlington. I worked in CEDO for 18 years to rebuild the local economy and create and preserve affordable housing throughout the city. I helped lead the North Street Revitalization Project which transformed that street into what it is today, a thriving ethnically, economically and culturally diverse neighborhood commercial corridor. As mayor, I will shift our city's focus to a truly progressive economic development agenda. I will drive city resources to those who have often been neglected, too often been neglected by the current administration. We will support and elevate women and BIPOC don't businesses and we will immediately and forcibly take advantage of the multi-year construction jobs that may come at city place with union apprenticeships for marginalized people and requirements for prevailing wages. Our party and my campaign is about fighting for climate justice. I've been passionate about fighting the climate crisis since I was at the UVM Environmental Studies Program and living at Slade Hall. I have direct experience in energy efficiency, renewable energy and clean energy, especially making it accessible to those who have been systematically excluded. From doing the hands-on weatherization work to getting funding invested in low-income communities, I understand what's needed to move us forward on our goals for climate justice at every step of the way. As an activist and an energy justice coalition in the early 90s, we got an $11 million weatherization bond passed by the voters of Burlington which led to significant fossil fuel reduction in Burlington created jobs at the same time. Together, we will move financial hurdles so that everyone gets the benefit of energy efficiency. Our progressive agenda must also center on racial justice. I credit the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, the Black Perspective and the Battery Park Movement for raising the issues we face around police use of force and demanding accountability. We have certainly made some progress but there is much left to accomplish. It is not acceptable that our low-income BIPOC and LGBTQ neighbors do not feel safe in our community. My activism and my career have taught me the need to elevate voices often left at the margins. We must always center our decisions around the needs of those for whom our white supremacist culture have failed. Together, we have made progress with reallocating the police budget but there is much more work that still needs to be done. We need an expanded agenda that includes accountability system with more direct control over public safety and law enforcement. Ryan, I just want to let you know you have just a little under a minute left. Okay, thank you, Selena. Thanks a lot. Let me just say lastly, this campaign is also about social justice. Our city and my administration will set concrete standards to change current and unjust desperate impacts that people experience in this community due to issues around their race, their age, their ability, gender expression, sexual orientation. We must bring all voices into the political process to create a stronger community for generations to come. Tonight, I'm asking for your vote in this caucus, please join our growing citywide coalition so we can make Burlington a city government that stands for positive change and the need to make us a truly equitable and inclusive community. Together, we can accomplish great things. We are one city, we have one future. Thank you very much. Thank you so much everybody. And just amazing to hear from Taylor, Emma, Max, Brian, these incredible candidates. And to make the kind of change we need to make together, we need all of you to get involved in progressive campaigns. We need you to volunteer your time and we do need you to donate. Unlike our counterparts in other parties, the Vermont Progressive Party and its candidates take $0 in corporate money. So we need your help to run people-powered campaigns. We're gonna need your help in this mayoral race and we're gonna need your help in campaigns, in the city council races and campaigns to come. So I really ask you to visit the Vermont Progressive Party website at progressiveparty.org. You can click on the blue donate button there at the top of the page and please give what you can any amount if you're able to become a monthly donor that really helps us to sustain our efforts to continue having paid staff and to support incredible candidates like the ones you've heard from tonight. We really appreciate anything that you can do. And now we're going to take some time to hear about some of the upcoming ballot initiatives that we'll have the opportunity to vote on in March here in Burlington. And I'm going to turn us over first to Farid Munarsia to talk about the Prop Zero Initiative. Farid, you have about five minutes and hopefully Farid is getting unmuted and is here with us. Hi, Selena, I think I'm supposed to ask questions first. Oh, I am so sorry. You are absolutely right. I got... So maybe Farid isn't quite ready. So... I apologize so much, everyone. I got completely ahead of myself in the online queue. So yes, we're now going to have a really important and I'm so sorry to almost shortchange it a really important conversation with our two mayoral candidates. So Meg is going to post some questions to both candidates and they'll have, I believe, two minutes to answer each question. Apologies, everyone. Thank you. And I hope that Lisa can put the three of us on the screen together. Hi, everybody. My name's Meg Pauley. I'm the Burlington Steering Committee representative from Ward 7. I am a progressive. I'm so excited to be here with everybody. I'm hugely grateful to Max and Brian for helping us build this party and for being leaders on these issues and so many issues for so long and to have an actual choice of two amazing candidates is just amazing. And I'm also so happy about the more than 1000 people that wanna be involved in this process. And the only challenge with that was I got the job of reading through the more than 400 questions which came from all of you when you submitted your registrations and trying to decide which three, yes, three questions I would ask of Max and Brian. And so I did my best to pick the ones that were repeated the most often. Again, if you don't hear the answer you want now you could go back and watch the forums that we held which were extraordinarily informative. Max, you're gonna go first on this one then we'll switch to Brian. You'll have two minutes. You'll get a one minute warning, 15 second warning in the stoplight when it's time. And the first question because it was the number one theme of questions that we received was related to housing. These questions included questions about the difficulty of finding housing, the cost of housing and rent control, high property taxes, landlords rights evictions and so, so many people expressed concerns about the growing number of homeless in our community. So I think it's fair to say we have a housing crisis. My question is as mayor, what will you do to address the housing crisis and ensure we expand the stock of safe and affordable housing in Burlington and Max, you're starting. Thanks Meg and thanks everyone for submitting such great questions, certainly appreciate it. Housing in the housing crisis are fundamental to what I see as needing to change in Burlington. Over the last several years have seen a supply side ideology dominate housing policy and the idea behind that is to say that, if we create more housing simply by building more we'll develop our way out of the housing crisis. And while we've seen hundreds of new units come online in and around Burlington, rents have not meaningfully fallen. And so now is the time for us to take a more activist approach as a city government and a more interventionist approach to smooth out and to help to bring affordability that tenants desperately need because people are having to decide between basic needs on a daily basis and whether or not they will have a place to live in our community. And so for me, that means rent stabilization policies. That means mandating weatherization. That means engaging in progressive revenue or creating policies that generate more progressive revenue. So potentially a real estate transfer tax that would help to better fund our housing trust fund and create additional resources for creating social housing that would address that deepest level of subsidy where I think we still have a long way to go to meet the need that exists within our community. So it's that approach, that more activist approach to city government that I would take the market and leaving it to the market is not enough. We need a city government that stands up for all Burlingtonians and make sure that we can be affordably housed. Sorry, thank you, Max. I didn't get to use my other two cards. Okay, so Brian, you're gonna need to unmute yourself and you will now have two minutes to share what your thoughts are around the housing crisis in Burlington and how you would address that as mayor. Thank you. Thanks, Meg. I was having trouble with the mute but I think we're all set now. This issue is obviously super important to Burlington but it's also something that I have spent a good part of my career working on both at the local level as well as at the statewide level. So I have in-depth experience with what I like to call the three P's of a progressive housing agenda that was really created under Mayor Sanders and Peter Clavel and still I believe stands the test of time. Burlington has led the nation as a small city. We have many struggling folks who struggled day in and day out but if we hadn't instituted progressive housing policies, things would be far worse. So let's just be clear that we put in place policies to protect tenants and give them certain security of tenure and that's what we're pushing for with just cause eviction right now. I've been an unabashed supporter of that for over 30 years and I'll continue to fight for that. We preserved every single subsidized unit in Burlington over the last 25 years while other communities saw the loss of subsidized housing across the country. Burlington has saved every single unit of affordable housing that could have been lost to the private sector. We've produced hundreds and hundreds of new affordable housing units. However, we still struggle and tenants still struggle day in and day out. The idea of a rent stabilization policy I think deserves to be fully explored. We also have to recognize that the state legislature doesn't currently allow us to do that. So it would be a huge challenge but I think as a community we have to build political power. When we brought tenants issues to the city council back in the day Bernie would say essentially don't come to me with a proposal unless you have 40 or 50 people in the audience who are ready to change make change and push for change. So we have to build real political power if we're gonna bring these issues forward. It's something I've worked on my entire life and I think the record speaks for itself. We as a community have much work to do. We continue to face challenges of homelessness. I've met with folks who experienced homelessness and I've got some ideas to put forward and people will hear more about it after tonight. Thank you so much. Sorry, thank you so much, Brian. All right, question number two. Many in our community and many on this Zoom are fighting for public safety and racial justice in Burlington. We've been demanding transparency and accountability from the Burlington Police Department. Please share your position on the recent protests defunding the police and what policing and public safety will look like if you are elected mayor. And this time, Brian, you're going first. Thanks, Meg. I supported the reduction that came to the city council and we approved on a vote of nine to three. As Dr. Sugrino mentioned, I developed what I thought was the data needed to both win over other city counselors, the mayor and also be able to explain to our constituents that we were taking a step that wouldn't put public safety at risk. I think we did a pretty good job as a community around that issue. The protest and battery park, I completely supported the rights of those protesters and I actually was there present on several occasions and people I thought were carrying on the tradition of civil disobedience in a way that was both educational for many of us who chose to participate and for those in the community that were having challenges with it, I think that actually the protesters were incredibly well organized, were very respectful and created a real community of care around both their community but also the people who were houseless, who were visiting and participating in those events. I think we really had an amazing movement there that really led us to change. Can you just repeat the last part of your question, perhaps? The last part of the question was, what would policing and public safety look like if you're elected mayor? Thank you. I would believe, I believe that we as a city have worked to do to sort of redefine what public safety looks like. What are our goals as a community? I would be looking to do that in an inclusive way to really reach out to the community and bring that conversation to a whole different level. Redefining our goals, I think we can find common ground on reallocating resources to reduce the demand on police. And that's through social workers, that's through substance abuse, that's through crisis intervention, issues around domestic violence. There's a whole range of issues that we need to address as a community. So my idea would be to engage in that process and to completely revamp, and I would be looking for a chief through a community-driven process, is the chief that would reflect Burlington values first and foremost. Thank you. Thank you so much, Brian. So I'll read the question one more time for you, Max. It's please share your position on the recent protests, defunding the police and what policing and public safety will look like if you are elected mayor. Thanks for the question, Megan, to all of you who submitted data. This is an incredibly important question for our city and something that we've taken far too long to reckon with as a community. I think we are in a moment where we have a tremendous opportunity to address and transform public safety. But I think more importantly to stop the harm that's happening to BIPOC individuals in our community, stop the violence that is being visited upon black bodies in our community. And that we have this opportunity because we've seen social movements come to the table and be willing to leverage their power to push on the doors of city hall, figuratively and literally, in order to really make sure that we are getting, we're getting to a place where we are engaged in more fundamental transformation. This has been something that I've consistently advocated for. I pushed for that in 2017 in a resolution. In 2019, I was one of three counselors along with counselors Freeman and Hansen that advocated for defunding the police, as well as holding officers accountable in support of the DLN greater Burlington demands. That went down on a three to nine vote, essentially that night. And what changed in the intervening year was, well, first of all, that George Floyd was murdered. Let's be honest, we need to say his name. But what also happened is that Burlingtonians stood up and when they did, I was instrumental as council president in welcoming them to city government, in hosting the largest public forum in Burlington history and in centering BIPOC voices and doing so. And this is the exact approach that I want to bring to city hall, because that's exactly what we're gonna need in order to root out systemic racism and in order to take on the entrenched power of policing in the United States and policing in Burlington. We have an opportunity here in Burlington to transform public safety and take resources away from armed officers and put them into the services that our community desperately needs and that more appropriately address the human needs of our community. Super, thank you so much, Max. And you're gonna be the one to go first for this final question. Burlington is a very diverse city with longtime residents, students, homeowners and homeless, seniors, young families, refugees, immigrants working for business owners, progressive Democrats, socialist Republicans and so many other groups. What are your strategies for creating programs and policies that represent the broad interests of Burlingtonians and how will you balance the complex demands and build collaboration between the many diverse stakeholder groups? Go ahead, Max. Absolutely, well, I think that it comes with making sure as we talked about, as our keynotes talked about earlier in the conversation, paying attention to who's not there and asking that question and bringing in people and meeting people more importantly where they are. So I think there are things that we can be doing, specific things that we can be doing as a city much better, like offering childcare at meetings to make it more possible for people with children to attend city meetings. And I think that once people get to these meetings, they need to be met with an authentic sense that they're actually being listened to. So not talked down to, not cut off, not interrupted, but actually given the chance to express themselves and to be heard. And that that's actually manifested in the different projects that we have in the city. I think that that's one of the key things that was missing, for instance, in the mall project and that I think led to its downfall in many ways. They did not internalize and take in the feedback. And therefore we have, I think in many ways, a failed project. And when we fail to bring people in to actively listen to them and to empower them in city government, whether that's city staff, whether that's members of the community, we miss out. We miss out on so much richness, so much benefit, so much power to make our city that much better and make it a truly inclusive city for everybody. So that's the type of approach that I wanna bring as mayor. And that's what I'll do as your progressive party nominee. Thank you so much, Max. Brian, I'll read the question for you one more time. What are your strategies for creating programs and policies that represent the broad interests of Berlintonians and how will you balance the complex demands and build collaboration between the many diverse stakeholder groups? Thanks, Meg. That's something I've been working on my entire adult life. My administration will engage our community and value local ideas that come up from the grassroots rather than coming down from city hall. My work in this community is something that folks are familiar with. And I think that my record speaks for self in that regard. I think that as a community, our work as a community around local democracy is to recognize that we can build alliances and coalitions around issues and finding common interests around those issues and advance those issues if we have a clear, bold agenda coming from elected leaders. And also those leaders need to be informed by the wishes from the grassroots, the people really speaking directly to their lived experience, speaking to us, to educate us on what are the issues that they face. We need to be more inclusive about how we do that. An example, I was invited to meet with some folks who experienced homelessness and they are camped out in the South End of Burlington. And rather than assume that I know what they needed, my approach was to go and actually sit with them, meet with them, hear their stories and hear what they're looking for. And so from that, there's gonna be a proposal coming forward that addresses that issue and that request. And so that's an example of how you lead a community by building a coalition by listening to those who are affected with real lived experience and doing the organizing you need to do that brings folks together across the political spectrum. We have a divided community in some respects, I believe. We have some generational divide. We perhaps have some geographical divide where certain neighborhoods feel that they're not included. We need to break down all those barriers. And that takes a person with a bridge building background and that's a background I bring to this race that I think is very unique but critical for the future of Burlington. We are one city we need to unite to move ahead. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Max. And thank you, Brian, for being here. Thanks everyone for listening. I'm hoping that I can speak for all of you that I am so excited about what you both bring. And I look forward to working with everybody on this Zoom to elect one of you, our next mayor of Burlington. So thank you for what you've done. And I look forward to working on these issues in the future. Selena, I think it's back to you now. It is and before we move on to hearing about our ballot initiatives, we need to know, you've heard from our two declared candidates at this point, are there any other nominations for mayor? I'm hearing none, seeing none and seeing nothing in the chat. I'm gonna just give us one more moment here. All right, so I think we have heard from our mayoral candidates. At this point, and with that now, we are going to move on to hearing about upcoming ballot initiatives. At some point, I'm gonna have to jump off to get to another Progressive Caucus meeting, if you can believe that. And so at that point, Tom will be taking over the MC role. So you may see me disappear at some point midway through this portion of the evening, but it's been wonderful to be with you all tonight. And so next up, we're going to hear from Fareed Munarsia about the Prop Zero Initiative. And Fareed, I misspoke earlier, you have two minutes to give us the summary of this issue. Thanks, Selena. So in democracies, policies reflect the values of the population and Burlington is a city with a decidedly progressive values. In the same election that put our current administration in power, Burlington voters overwhelmingly support economic policies that prioritizes the need of the 99% of the 1% by 77% versus 23% margin and overwhelmingly affirm that corporations are not people by an even larger margin of 87, 80% to 20%. More recently, three quarter of our voting population support raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour as well as more affordable housing. We believe Burlington is ready for some of the much needed fundamental reforms. Our survey over the last four elections indicates strong cross-partisan support for more meaningful participation, more public control over public services, such as the Burlington Police Department and Parks and Recs, also over public resources such as our downtown and Memorial Auditorium and our roads. We're ready for municipal policies that work for tenants, working families and for Burlington's 99%. We're ready for a more participatory grassroots decision-making process where our numbers matter and our voices matter, where we matter. We believe that we have currently the number to pass progressive policies through the ballot regardless of which candidates win and which political party is in power. Our effort to expand participation, especially by the currently disenfranchised communities will cause our rank to continue swelling, but how would we do it? Or rather, why haven't we been doing it so far? Now, grassroots decision-making is a hallmark of Vermont democracy, a collective decision-making process where regular people can band together, develop proposal and petition for popular consideration and decision whether to pass the proposals into ordinances or not or to repeal existing ordinances with majority support. From Burlington, from Montpelier to Rotland, from Bennington to St. Albans, every city charter in Vermont grant voters the power of direct democracy through voter's initiatives and also of referendums and recalls of sitting officials. Now, every town has these provisions in their city charter except for Burlington, and we are here to change it. Our petition has garnered almost 600 signatures through the work of a very small number of volunteers. We need 2,400 more by February and we need you to get involved with this effort. We need to elect strong champions of voter's initiatives, of community control of police, of resources, of participatory budgeting. So we want to invite you to join our effort. Please like Proposition Zero on Facebook or send a message to 802-27-8339 or talk to anyone from the Grace Amir campaign or the recent Nate Lanterry for City Council or even less recent Infinite for Mayor campaign. Make sure you vote for candidates who will champion direct democracy at City Hall, but more importantly, let's not just change the players, but let's change the game. Thank you so much, Fareed. Next up, we're gonna hear from City Councilor Jack Hanson about the ranked choice voting ballot item update. Great, thank you, Selena, and thanks everyone. This is pretty amazing. I feel like I'm living through history and the making right now and what we're doing here in Burlington as a party and as a movement. So yeah, ranked choice voting in two minutes. For those who don't know what ranked choice voting is, it is a voting system that allows voters to rank their candidates in order of preference. If a candidate gets over 50% of the vote, they win the election. If no candidate gets 50% of the vote, the candidate in last place is eliminated and everyone who voted for that candidate will have their votes redistributed to their second choice candidate. That process continues until a candidate gets a majority of the vote. So why does this matter? It matters because this allows people to vote for the candidate of their choice without having to worry about throwing away their vote or supporting a spoiler candidate. It also allows candidates to run without fear of playing that spoiler role and it discourages negative or disparaging campaigning. As Representative Elect Small alluded to earlier, these factors have been shown in example after example. Ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, you gotta stop. I'm only zooming in right now. Christy, if you could mute over there. But this has been shown to increase the number of women and people of color seeking office and the number of women and people of color actually winning elections in example after example. It's also a critical step in ending two-party monopoly and allowing for political diversity in government. So in July, the city council had approved this charter change proposal that would go to the voters and if approved would implement ranked choice voting for mayoral city council and school board elections. However, that was vetoed by the mayor. It's the only veto that he's ever cast. The council then passed a modified version of the charter change that would, if approved by voters in March would implement ranked choice voting for city council elections. That one, the mayor did sign and now that's gonna be up to you all, up to the voters. If you wanna get plugged in with the effort to help ensure that ranked choice voting gets passed in March, definitely reach out. You can reach out to me. You can definitely reach out to rights and democracy, VPURG or League of Women Voters. These are some of the groups that are working on this and they'd be happy to plug you in. So that's the two minute version and happy to talk more with anyone who's interested. Thanks so much. We are gonna hear about two more ballot initiatives and then move on to our district level nominations including city council, but I'm gonna sign off in just a moment. And before I do, I wanna just give you a quick update because I've been getting some questions on it about how you'll vote in this caucus. And then you'll hear more details later at the end of the night, but for anyone who isn't able to stay on much longer, I wanna make sure you get the basic overview. So everyone who's a registered caucus goer will receive an email shortly when this caucus meeting is over with a link to a ballot for the district where you live and vote. You'll be able to vote online until 7 p.m. on Thursday, this Thursday, that's December 3rd. And then you can also register and vote in person at the Old North End Community Center lot on North Street, Wednesday, December 2nd, 5 to 7 p.m. And Thursday, December 3rd, 8 to 11 a.m. So later on in the evening, you're gonna get much more detail about this, see a sample ballot, but I wanna make sure you all know the basics here. And now I'm going to turn it over to Kristi Delphia who's gonna talk about the just cause eviction ballot issue. And with that, I am going to also say, thank you so much everyone, it's been wonderful to be with you and amazing group of people. So Kristi, you have two minutes to give us the overview. Hi, I'm Kristi Delphia, member of the Burlington Tenants Union and a runner in Burlington for the last 36 years. Today I am asking you to support just cause eviction and join us in our fight to demand better rights for tenants. Vermont is currently a no cause eviction city. Your landlord can throw you out of your home for no reason and prevent you from resigning your lease. This causes permanent homelessness, gentrification, raises rent prices and tears families apart. Just cause eviction charter change will allow us to regulate evictions in Burlington and ensure evictions only occur for a non-payment of rent, breach of lease or breaking state law or city ordinances. No cause evictions allows landlords to use eviction as a weapon to prevent reports to code enforcement, discriminate against tenants based on their prejudices and it puts enormous power in the hands of landlords over the 62% of Burlingtonians who rent. Just cause would provide stability, safety and security for tenants. The first vote, the final vote to put just cause eviction on the ballot will be Monday, December 7th at the city council meeting via Zoom. We currently have six of the seven votes we need. All the progressive candidates, city councilors support this, but we need one more vote. To get this on the ballot, we need everyone at this caucus meeting to email their city councilors and to call into the city council meeting on Monday night in support of just cause evictions. For an email template and information on how to call into the city council on Monday, go to our website, justcausebtv.org. Social change only happens when the people demand it. Be part of this movement and go to justcausebtv.org and join us in this fight. Thank you. Thank you so much, Christy. Hello, everyone. My name is Tom Proxler. I'll be taking over for Selene from this point. Thank you so much for her for getting us through the evening so far. So coming up now, we've got Ashley Laporte who will be talking about the community control of police, the community control of police ballot item. So go ahead. Hi, everybody. My name is Ashley Laporte. I live in the south end of Burlington. I'm a member of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance and a proud member of the BIPOC-led Battery Park Movement. I wanted to call in tonight. I'm honored to be able to talk about community control of police and the ballot measure that we're hoping will be on the ballot this coming March. Currently, we have a city charter which gives sole authority to the police chief to discipline the police in Burlington. As a result of grassroots organizing and activists in our community, as well as the passing of the racial justice resolution and the protesting and public safety resolution, we have an opportunity to change this problematic charter. At the end of the day, we don't believe that police should be able to police themselves. The Charter Change Committee began the work to review options around a new charter in regards to police oversight and discipline. They reviewed model policies from across the nation, but most importantly, in this process, Councillor Perry Freeman worked hard to solicit and hear input from members of our community in Burlington. And in that way that Councillor Freeman does, they worked hard to listen to input from historically marginalized in our community. Black folks like me, low income folks, those who have direct experience with substance abuse disorder and others who are historically left out of the conversation systemically. And the result was a draft by Councillor Freeman of a Burlington specific policy for community control of police. And this is a draft that I wholeheartedly support. It follows the ACLU principles around community control of police and what makes it how to create a policy that is truly effective. And like I said, most importantly, it is coming from grassroots organizers and real people who the police are harming today. This Burlington specific solution puts the community at the center of public safety. And that's really the reason why I think we should all support it. It calls for a new appointed board made up of people from across our city. The policy calls for this new board to have disciplinary and investigatory power, which is critical. And it's what makes this new board and this policy transformative. This disciplinary and investigatory power is unlike what the current police commission has or any other only advisory body. And this means that this board could have real decision-making power. This new policy also provides for a framework that I think is truly transformative around ensuring representative and diverse membership of the people who would be on this community control board. A sorely needed framework for dismantling the systemic racism and bias in our traditional appointment processes. It ensures that BIPOC, those who have direct experience with houselessness, substance abuse disorder, and others who are historically marginalized and harmed by the police will have representation on this board. And this policy also ensures that the new board will be properly resourced and funded so that it can do the important work of holding the Burlington Police Department accountable. Our community has spent the year raising our voices for justice and equity in our community. The result of that, thanks to the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance and Operation Phoenix Rise, and thanks to the Battery Park Movement and the 30-day Occupy Protest in Burlington has meant that we have now public will and hopefully political will to make the transformative change needed in our public safety system. The time is now to do this. Currently, this new policy is being reviewed by the Joint Committee on the 3rd and 4th of December. So if you wanna spend more evenings on Zoom, please sign in and advocate for it at that Joint Committee. And most importantly, it will be on the agenda for the City Council meeting on December 7th. It's a critical time to continue with the momentum that members of our community, and most importantly, the historically marginalized Black folks like me have built for this moment for us to truly transform what is happening in our city. We know there is a problem. We know that we have work to do. And I think that the current policy that's being put on the table as introduced by Councillor Freeman could actually change our broken Burlington Police Department. So I hope all of you will hold our elected officials accountable both within the Progressive Party and within the Dems to really support this transformative change. And I hope that when it makes it to the ballot in March intact with investigatory and disciplinary power that you'll raise your voice and vote for it. Thanks for having me this evening. Thank you so much, Ashley. That it really is something which you'll all be getting behind. Next, we've got the Executive Director of the Progressive Party, Josh Ronsky, to talk to us how the vote will happen when you get the link into your email in the next few hours. Hey, folks. So thanks so much for participating in the caucus. It's so exciting to be participating in the largest caucus in our party history. And just so you know, the last large caucus was 1,309 people. And we dwarf that. We now have over 1,400 people who pre-registered to vote. So that's so exciting. But the important thing is that all the people who registered are actually able to vote because as we all know, registrations do not necessarily equal votes. So I'm gonna give a brief explainer on what the process actually looks like because there have been a lot of questions. We want to make sure everyone kind of fully understands the process. So after tonight, after the nominations are done, I will be finalizing the ballot and uploading the ballot for eight wards into our virtual online voting platform called OpaVote. OpaVote is a secure online voting platform that allows for secure online voting through email. It's used all over the world. It's kind of the gold standard for online voting. And we've used it before. It's a pretty good system. So at some point tonight after we finalize our ballot, you'll get an email from OpaVote that basically has a link to your ballot in it. So let me show you what I'm gonna share my screen quickly to show you kind of what you're actually gonna see. So you know what to look out for. So you are going to get an email that looks like this from something called OpaVote. They'll say, hello, thank you for registering to vote in the Progressive Nominating Caucus for mayor, city council, award clerk and inspector of elections. Together we'll once again make history by electing the next progressive mayor of Burlington on March 2nd. Click on this button to vote. So when you find this email in your inbox and this would be the email that you submitted through the Google form, you'll find this and then you just hit the vote button right there. Once you do that, it will take you to a link that has your actual ballot. So your ballot is gonna look something like this. This is just a sample ballot with some really great elected officials that I just threw on for fun. So it'll look something like this. It'll have an explainer. So this is each ward will have their own unique ballot. So for mayor of Burlington, you can check on Councillor Pine or Councillor Tracy or no endorsement if you prefer for city council. You click on the city council candidate that you prefer or no endorsement or ward clerk, not everyone may have a ward clerk candidate but you click on the ward clerk candidate that you prefer. And then for inspector of elections, same thing. When you're finished making these selections, you just hit the green button right here that says vote. And if there are questions around the security of this, the way Opal vote works is that it does it by a unique email address. So once it recognizes that your email has submitted a vote, you won't actually be able to vote twice. It prevents people from doing that. So it's kind of a nice tool in that way. The other thing is if for some reason you have trouble with your ballot, like you don't see it or you're not able to find it or you're not able to access it, please give me an email or a call. I'm gonna put it in the chat right here, joshatprogressiveparty.org and my number is 518-810-6978. So reach out to me please if for some reason you aren't able to get a ballot or you don't see the email, we have the ability to allow you to vote through something called code voting as well. So if for some reason the email is having trouble, we can send you a unique code and a link that you can vote that way and we'll cancel out your email. So that's kind of the backup. And then the final backup or if people didn't register, we really want everyone to participate virtually given that COVID rates are so high right now. But in case someone's not able to participate virtually for whatever reason, we do have in-person voting available and that's going to take place at the parking lot of the Old North End Community Center. It's off of North Street in between right near the T-Rex Tavern, it's like right over there. So we're going to be set up with the table. The two times that we will be set up are going to be on Wednesday tomorrow from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. And on Thursday from 8.30 a.m. until 11 p.m. And what you'll need to do, so that's ideally for people who didn't register, you just have to be a registered voter to vote in the process. And otherwise everyone on this call should be able to receive an electronic ballot and vote virtually. I'll be on call kind of 24-7 during the two-day voting period. You have to submit your ballot by 7 p.m. on Thursday, December 3rd. That's when voting closes. So please make sure to vote by then. So I think that's it. I'm just seeing if there are any questions in the chat box right now. So yes, and that is correct. If you didn't register, you can register at the Old North, you can go and show up and vote in person at the Old North End Community Center. If someone wants to post the times again, that would be great. And also the direction. So that's all I have. Thank you very much, Josh. And just to clarify, on the Thursday, I believe it is 8.30 a.m. to 11 a.m. in the morning. Yes, I'm sorry if I said something different. Thank you. So yes, Thursday 8.30 a.m. to 11 a.m. and tomorrow 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. That is correct. So we have come to the point in the night where we will be opening up the floor for the City Council nominations. Tonight we will be hearing from candidates looking to seek the progressive nomination for their district. And in the next two days, you'll have an opportunity to vote for the candidate seeking the progressive nomination in your area. There are four districts in Burlington. East, Central, North and South. Anyone who wishes to stand for nomination for their area will have an opportunity to do so. I will declare the district and open up the floor for nominations. If you wish to nominate a candidate, please raise your hand using the raise hand function. And a facilitator will identify you and ask via chat which candidate you are nominating. The raised hand function can be found by clicking the icon labeled participant at the bottom center of your computer or phone screen. Then click the button labeled raised hand. If you wish to nominate yourself, please raise your hand using the raise hand function. And once the facilitator identifies you, let them know that you are nominating yourself. Once identified, the candidate and nominator will be given two minutes collectively to make their speeches. The nominator and candidate will split this time as they see fit. So it could be one minute for the nominator, one minute for the candidate, 30 seconds for the nominator, one minute for the candidate. In the interest of sticking to our agenda, you'll be cut off if you go over two minutes. I don't mean to be rude, but I will be tapping on my phone and I will just interrupt you. The first district open for floor nominations is the East District. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves as the progressive candidate for the City Council in the East District? Please raise your hand. I see Mark Hughes. Just give me a moment and I will let, I will unmute you. So the person wishing to nominate a candidate or be nominated themselves is Mark Hughes. I'm going to... Thanks, Tom. Say when. Off you go, Mark. Thank you. It is my pleasure and it is a high privilege to nominate Mr. Jack Hansen, Counselor Jack Hansen as the Counselor for the East. I took a couple of notes. I was just going over some things, ranked choice, voting, affordable housing, racial justice, moral budget, just cause eviction. The list goes on and on and on. This guy's a beast, courageous. It's the intellect, how he shows respect, how he has shown compassion, how he has shown mentorship, how he has done his job above and beyond from the moment he stepped in and he's not doing anything beginning, getting better. I'll yield the rest of my time to the candidate. Thank you, Mark. And Jack, you have about a minute and 20 seconds for your speech. Okay, great. Thank you, Tom. And thank you so much, Mark. And thanks everyone for, again, for being here. It's been an absolute honor to serve in this role these last two years and to work with so many amazing community members and to work with such an awesome team of progressive city counselors. I'm proud of the work that we've done and what we've been able to accomplish, but I'm also so driven and so motivated to really take our work to the next level and really enact the transformative change that I think we all got into office to do and that we all have been doing community organizing to see achieved. So I'm really looking forward to, hopefully adding one or two more friends onto the city council that we can work with and retaking the mayor's seat and working alongside these incredible movement leaders and movement participants and community members to achieve dramatic change on climate justice, racial justice, economic justice and so many of the issues we care about. Thank you. Thank you so much, Jack, coming in under time there. So I appreciate it. Do we have any other candidates seeking the progressive endorsement for the East District? Going once, going twice. Okay, then. The second district open for floor nominations is the central district. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves as the progressive candidate to city council in the central district? I see Rachel Siegel is looking to raise her hand. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you. I'm Rachel Siegel. I use she, her pronouns. I live in Ward three and I am so excited to nominate Perry Freeman to serve another term as the city councilor for the central district. I support Perry for a number of reasons. They are not afraid to put forward a bold vision or proposal even when there's personal backlash which they have certainly suffered from. They bring their organizing background with them to their policy work and maintain their accountability to activists and activist communities through all of their work on the council, their frontline work and elder care gives them a perspective on council that is unique and incredibly valuable. And lastly, while some people get swept up in the drama of politics and end up centering themselves in the work, Perry never seems to lose sight of the actual impact of the policy work and they're able to make the work clearly not about them. I saw this distinctly when the fair and impartial policing policy was passed last year a lot of you were probably there watching it when the whole room erupted in cheers. It was such a high and I congratulated Perry and gave them a hug because hugging was allowed back then and their response was like starting to weep and saying, oh my God, we might have saved some lives. Like nothing about we won but like we might have saved lives. And that's the kind of leader that I support and I hope you will too. Thank you, Perry. You've got about 30 seconds. Okay, 30 seconds. Thank you, Rachel. Let's make you emotional thinking back to memory. Thank you everyone so much for being here. This is super incredible to see this turn out as someone who comes from a community organizing background. It's just so amazing to see this many people. I'm really honored for the work that I've been able to do to run for a second term to work so closely to so many people in the community and really try to make this as an inclusive as a community governance as we can have and really bring people to have a seat at the table. It feels like two years has gone by so quickly and I'm so excited to continue that work on policing, on climate and on having, just a city that can really thrive for everyone. And I'm looking at my sub-watch and it says 40 seconds, so I'm going over. And so I think I maybe have to be cut off but thank you all so much. This is absolutely amazing and I'm super excited. This is wonderful and incredible. Thank you very much, Perry. My sub-watch had you right on time. I, do we have any other candidates seeking the progressive endorsement for the central district? Checking the participants, looking at the chat, going once, going twice. Okay, let's move on. The third district open for floor nominations is the North District. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves as the progressive candidate for city council in the North District? Do I get to go? You do, Meg. All right, so I'm back here. I am excited to be from the North District and I'm excited to be nominating Kenan Christensen for city councilor from the North District. Kenan is a deeply connected active member of our district. He and his partner have worked to build community and provided many opportunities for people to share their ideas and struggles and get involved in making Burlington and particularly our new North End, vibrant, inclusive, safe and accessible. When Kenan sees an opportunity, he doesn't just talk about it, he takes action. For instance, he started our great community dinners and I for one can't wait until we're allowed to resume those opportunities to come together as a community. Kenan is accessible, he's compassionate, he listens, he's a problem solver and a networker and I have no doubt he will be a fabulous city councilor and represent the North District well. Please join me in supporting Kenan as our nominee. Kenan, you have about a minute and 10 seconds. Thank you so much, Meg. I'm so excited to be here and I'm so excited to be working in solidarity with so many of you. My name is Kenan Christensen and I'm running for the North District City Council seat and what's motivating me to run is what motivated me to create the community dinners. It's that I care deeply about my community and I care deeply about my neighborhood. We've got some big problems ahead of us and we've got some big problems now but there is nothing we can't do if we're not working together. We're gonna find solutions to the closure of BHS High School and we're gonna work together with the school district to get our students into a safe environment so that everyone can learn collectively. We're going to create new opportunities for housing affordability across the city and we are going to reshape and reimagine what it means to do public safety in Burlington. I am so excited to be working with all of you. I'm so excited for March 2nd. Thank you very much for the nomination, Meg. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Kenan and thank you, Meg. Do we have any other candidates seeking the Progressive endorsement for the North District? Checking participants, checking the chat, going once, going twice. Okay, let's move on. The final district open for floor nominations is the South District. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves as the Progressive candidate for city council in the South District? Hi, I'm a callous, I can't raise my hand but I've unmuted myself. So hi folks, Nate Lanter here, Ward 5 resident and I'm honored to nominate Grace Ahmed for the South District City Council seat for this year. South Bend's been a tough nut to crack but in recent years, we've seen a lot of really great progress in the South Bend. Without hundreds of people registered this caucus, I really think that we have the ability to bring a new voice to the South Bend when they can speak to the diverse needs or changing the neighborhood. And I really believe that Grace is that person. Grace is a rock star in a lot of ways. She's a 15 year resident of Howard Street, an artist, an organizer, a mother of five and so many other things. She's worked extensively to ensure that the family room stays accessible to parents across the city. She currently works with the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, ensuring that there is adequate data for racial justice related issues. And she's organized with the Worker Center, with mayoral campaigns, Voices for Vermont Children's and more. And most of all, she shows up. I've seen her at so many things, so many council meetings, so many events and please, SouthEnders and folks across the city, please show up for Grace because I really believe that with her together, we can make this change in the Southend a long-awaited reality. And I'll give the rest of the time to her. Okay. Grace, you have 40 seconds. Okay, thanks. So I think Ashley said it well that the time really is now, even in the SouthEnd, where we have an opportunity really to make structural changes so that people have more opportunity for meaningful participation in direct democracy. And I'm really excited to work with the campaigns, working on Prop Zero, working on community control of police and hearing from the rest of you what the priorities of the city are for the people living here. Thank you so much, Naye. Thank you so much, Grace. One of them is exciting candidates. But finally, I do want to leave the floor open for any candidate seeking the progressive endorsement in the South District. All right, checking participants. Checking the chat. Going once, going twice. All right then. Well, thank you to all the candidates seeking the progressive nomination for city council in their district. I am so excited. What an incredible slate. It's amazing what you are all doing and I will give as much support as I possibly can. So thank you and best of luck to all of you. Next, we move on to candidates seeking the progressive nomination for ward clerks in their ward. Burlington is split into eight wards and we will be going through each ward in numerical order starting at one and ending at eight. Anyone who wishes to stand for nomination in their ward will have an opportunity to do so. I will declare the ward and open the floor for nominations. If you wish to nominate a candidate, please raise your hand using the raise hand function. Once again, to do that, hover your mouse over the bottom bar, click participants and then select raise hand. If you wish to nominate yourself, please do the same thing and a facilitator will identify you and you can let them know that you are either nominating someone or nominating yourself. Once identified, the candidate nominated and only the candidate at this time will be given two minutes to make their speech. In the interest of sticking to our agenda, candidates will again be cut off if they go over the time limit but everyone's been fantastic so far and I hope to keep that going. The first ward open for floor nominations is ward one. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves for progressive candidate for ward click in ward one? Okay. Checking the chat, checking participants, not seeing anyone going once, going twice. Okay. The second ward open for floor nominations is ward two. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves for progressive candidate for ward click in ward two? Hi, Jean Bergman here to nominate Wendy Coe who has been doing this for a really 24 years but she has involved so many new people in the most transient ward in the city and she can speak for herself but I'm just really proud to nominate Wendy. She does this amazing job to make democracy work. I told him that he wasn't meant to talk that only I was but anyway, I love doing it. I love organizing. I like empowering people to vote and I just still really enjoy doing it. And like he said, I've been doing it for 24 years and I'm willing to do it again. Thank you very much, Wendy. And as a reminder, if the candidates can be the only ones that speak, I would be appreciated but what would be a progressive caucus without Jean Bergman speaking? I want to keep the floor open for any other candidates that wish to stand for ward click in ward two. Looking at participants, looking at the chat, going once, going twice. All right. The third ward open for floor nominations is ward three. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves for progressive candidate for ward clerk in ward three? And I see a hand raised immediately. We have Kit Andrews. Okay. I wasn't sure how that was working but I'm on. Okay. I'm supporting Charlie Giannone for ward clerk for two reasons. His knowledge of the mechanics of the job and the way he actually runs selections. Charlie has been either the clerk or an inspector in ward three for 10 consecutive years in all 14 years running elections in ward three counting the prior years. He knows the job well. Second, Charlie more than anyone else in my years of service treats all of us workers as co-equals which is to say he highly values teamwork and he's the kind of boss that people like to work for. Charlie makes sure that assistants work at multiple jobs. He both plans in advance and manages the day such that he brings out the best in each of us. Of course the main reason for this is so that ward three elections will go well but a very important secondary reason for Charlie is so that we all will want to come back. That is why ward three probably has the strongest most seasoned team in the city at this time. And for these reasons, I nominate Charlie Giannone for ward clerk. Thank you, Kit. And just a reminder, we are really just taking the candidates nomination speech at this moment. I appreciate it, Kit though and we'll have you stand and Charlie Stead on that one. Oh, I missed that. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought that for this there were two minutes, one for the nominator and I mean, two minutes in all. Apologies, Kit. I'm not clear enough. In this section, we can have someone nominate but they don't do the speeches for the candidate themselves but they can just nominate and introduce the candidate. Then the candidate gets two minutes to make their own speech. Quite all right, easy mistake to make. My bad, I should have explained it better. Sorry, we're keeping the floor open and I see Paige Halleck with her hand up or their hand up, I apologize. I'm gonna unmute you now. Hi, my name is Paige Halleck and I'm from Ward 3 and I'd like to nominate Pat, you know? And with that, I'll let him speak. Hi, everyone. My name is Pat, you know, and just first off, so incredible to see the amount of participation on this caucus tonight and thanks, Paige, so much for that nomination. I miss you as we could hang out. My main motivation for seeking the progressive nomination for Ward 3 Clerk is to really give back to the city. I am new to this. I definitely can't stack up to Charlie's resume that just walked us through there. This is the first thing I've ever run for in my entire life but I'd love to give back to the community in some way and I work in operations in the private sector. I tend to think I have a strong attention to detail and work ethic as well as managing both people and processes from end to end and complex ones at that. And so again, I care deeply about Burlington and representing progressive values and I would ask for your vote for Ward 3 Clerk. Thank you very much, Pat. I'm going to keep this open. Do we have any other candidates seeking the progressive endorsement for Ward Clerk in Ward 3? Checking the participants, checking the chat, going once, going twice. All right, moving on. The fourth word open for its floor nominations is Ward 4. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves the progressive candidate for Ward Clerk in Ward 4? Checking the participants, checking the chat, going once, going twice. Okay, let's move on. The fifth word open for floor nominations is Ward 5. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves progressive candidate for Ward Clerk in Ward 5? Checking the participants, checking the chat, going once, going twice. The sixth word open for nominations is open for floor nominations is Ward 6. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves for progressive candidate for Ward Clerk in Ward 6? Oh, and we do have a hand raised. Megan Eppler-Wood. Hi, I nominate Greg Eppler-Wood. Hi, I'm Greg Eppler-Wood, and I'm happy to be putting my name as Ward Clerk. Ward 6 has had some vacancies in the word clerk as well as inspector elections. And I've been shadowing and participating as acting Ward Clerk in at least the last election, but participating in two. And I've noticed that there's a renewed interest in, especially with young people in our ward. And I'd be happy to put my name out there. I feel like I can organize. And I'm kind of a novice, but I'm willing to put myself out there and to work as hard as I can to keep these elections fair and square, get as many young people involved as possible, and stick with it for the next term, for this term. Thank you. Thank you very much, Greg. I'm gonna keep the floor open for the progressive endorsement for Ward Clerk in Ward 6, looking through the participants, looking through the chat, going once, going twice. All right, let's move on. The seventh ward open for floor nominations is Ward 7. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves for progressive candidate or Ward Clerk in Ward 7? Looking through the participants, looking through the chat, going once, going twice. All right, let's move on to our final ward, this ward is Ward 8 and is opened up for the floor nominations. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves for progressive candidate for Ward Clerk in Ward 8? And I see a hand, Sinead Murray. Hi, I'd like to nominate Cora Smith for Ward Clerk for Ward 8, thanks. Thank you, Sinead. Can I get that name again so we can unmute them? It was Cora Smith. I think it was Cora Smith. I am looking for them, oh, there they are. Hi, everyone, my name's Cora, and I'm from Ward 8 and I served as Inspector of Elections this year and I really love working on Election Day and just learning how to ensure the process of fair and smooth election. And I'd really love to run as Ward Clerk for this. Thank you. Thank you very much, Cora. I do want to see another hand up, Penny Pillsbury. Well, this isn't Penny Pillsbury, this is Keith Pillsbury. This is really new to me. I've never had to campaign or never had to talk about why I wanted to be a Ward Clerk before. We volunteered in 2015 when Ward 8 started and I've sort of been in the position since then. Ward 8, according to, I heard from Jean Bergman that he thought Ward 2 was very transitional. I would say that Ward 8 having the student population that we do, it's very important to have somebody who can engage the students over the last two years or three years, I've been able to get up to 20 to 30 of students to be able to give their time to help out with the running of our Ward 8 elections and also get people to register. We register a tremendous amount of new voters in Ward 8. I'm willing to do the job. I see it as a community service and I think it's important to give the students as much support as we can because they're excited. They just need to make sure they know what to do when they come to the polls. Thank you so much, Keith. I'm gonna leave the floor open for any of the candidates seeking the progressive endorsement for Ward 8. Checking the participants, checking the chat. Can't see anyone, going once, going twice. And thank you, thank you to all the candidates seeking the progressive nomination for Ward Clerk in their Ward. Our final nominating round of the evening will be the progressive nominations for the inspector of elections in their Ward. There are multiple seats open depending on the Ward. I will open once again through each Ward in numerical order. Anyone who wishes to stand for nomination in their Ward will have an opportunity to do so. I will declare the Ward and open the floor for nominations. If you wish to nominate a candidate, please raise your hand using the raise hand function and a facilitator will identify you and ask via chat which candidate you are nominating. If you wish to nominate yourself, please raise your hand using the raise hand function. Once a facilitator identifies you, let them know you're nominating yourself. Once identified, the candidate nominated and only the candidate will be given two minutes to make their speech. Again, if you are nominating someone else, of course you can introduce them. In the interest of sticking to our agenda, candidates will be cut off if they go over the time limit, but you've all been doing fantastically well so far. So the first ward open for floor nominations is Ward One. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves for the progressive candidate for the inspector of elections in Ward One? And I'm getting asked to say how many seats are in each Ward. As far as I know, Ward One is one seat. Looking at the participant list, looking at the chat. Not seeing anyone going once, going twice. My understanding is Lisa Lacks was interested in running for Ward One inspector. Oh, and I see she just popped up in the chat. There we go. Right on the bell there, Lisa. All right, go ahead. I have to be unmuted. Okay, I am nominating myself. I would like to give back to my community and provide the service of making sure that our elections continue to be fair and democratic. Love it, fantastic. Thank you, Lisa. I'm gonna keep the floor open. Do we have any other candidates seeking the progressive endorsement for inspector of elections in Ward One? A little longer this time, just in case. Checking participants. Checking the chat. Not seeing anyone. Okay, let's move on. The second ward open to floor nominations is Ward Two. Ward Two has two seats. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves for progressive candidate for inspector of elections in Ward Two? Hey, Tom, it's Hannah. I'm a co-host, so I can't raise my hands. Hi, everyone. My name is Hannah Brizlin. My pronouns are they, them, she, hers. I've been a resident of Ward Two for over 10 years and I'm nominating myself for inspector of elections for Ward Two. I hear a lot about the democratic process. If you know me, I'd probably nag you to vote when the time comes and we'll argue people tooth and nail if they tell me that they, there's no point of voting. I think that after this particular year, what we have seen and the disrespect of our democratic process is absolutely despicable and I want to play a role in any way that I can in protecting the democratic process, protecting people's right to vote and making sure that every vote gets counted. So that is why I'm running. I will pass it along to any of the other interested parties. Thank you, Hannah. I'm going to keep the floor open. Do we have any other candidates seeking the progressive endorsement? I am, I want to nominate. So in Ward Two, we actually have two openings. I want to nominate Laura McKenna for the three-year term. She has actually been serving all years in appointed inspector of elections. So she knows the job inside out and there's a one-year term also that Solve Overby I would like to nominate her for that one-year term. And she's also been doing it for mega years and, oh no. Thank you, Wendy. We have Laura or Solveig on the line. Hi there. I'm Laura McKenna. As Wendy said, I've been serving in this role, appointed for the last two elections and absolutely loved it. I think this is such a great way to give back to our city. I'm a summer camp director and running the book is a whole lot like a summer camp check-in day. So I feel right at home. Thanks for your support. Thank you, Laura. I have Solveig apologize for butchering the pronunciation of your name. It's fine. I wasn't expecting to speak at all but Wendy had sort of alerted me and I wasn't expecting this to happen. So I have been doing the job for many, many years and it's really an important job to do. So I'm more than willing to be put on the ballot again for a one-year term to fill out what we have left. So that would be great. Thanks for considering me. Thank you so much. I'm going to keep the floor open. Do we have any other candidates wishing to nominate themselves or anyone else wishing to nominate someone else for inspector of elections in ward two? Is NR, I'm looking at the chat NRM or NR McDonald. Are you looking to stand for inspector of elections in ward two? Any of the facilitators, could they check in with NR McDonald, ward three? Oh, excellent. Okay. Well, we all move on to ward three now then. The third one open for not floor nominations is ward three. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves for progressive candidate for inspector of elections in ward three? NR McDonald, the floor is yours. I think you guys can see me now. I finally got the raise hand. I have been a resident of this ward for 23 years and ward two for two years before that. And my husband and I moved from Philadelphia and everybody said, don't move into the old North end. And we're like, this is the best place we've ever lived. Are you kidding me? And the access to politicians here, like at the time you could call the governor, you could call Howard Dean. And one of the first people from the progressive party, in fact, perhaps the first was Dave Keller, the singer, who knocked on our door, canvassing like many progressive candidates too and encouraged us to be involved. And we're like, wow, we are. And so the participatory nature of Burlington and each of its elective or commission officers is really a gem that should be appreciated, especially if you've come from somewhere else where that is not the case. But, you know, we had lives and we had kids and I was on the housing board of review and it was a little bit busy. And now I feel like if no one else is running, if someone else wants to run, I'm okay with that. But if no one else is running, I'm happy to nominate myself for inspector of elections. I have worked at the polls before as an inspector of elections and then as assistant as well. Thank you so much. Do you mind if we just get your name real quick for the record? It's Nina R. MacDonald, M-C-D-O-N-N-E-L-L. And there's another Nina MacDonald in Burlington, spelled the same way. So you have to use the middle initial, R. Well, thank you so much, Nina, it's appreciated. We've got a couple of other hands up. I'm going to unmute Kit. Okay, I'm unmuted. All right. So I would like to nominate myself for inspector. I've served for two terms. I think there was a switch and how many years the terms were at a certain point. I don't know, maybe I've served for three terms. I've been doing it for a while. Running free and fair elections means a great deal to me. I like the job very much. I think it's very important that we represent political parties that we have diversity of political parties and that we come together as a team in order to run the elections. And that's what I've been doing and I hope to continue. Thank you so much, Kit. And then we've also got Barbie, who is also raising her hand. I was actually only raising my hand because Kit hadn't put her hand up yet because I was going to nominate her. Fantastic. Well, retroactively, Barbie nominates Kit. I appreciate that. I'm going to leave the floor open for any of the nominations for progressive candidate for inspector of elections in ward three. And just to let you know, I believe there is just the one seat open in ward three. Okay, going once, going twice. All right. So next up is ward four. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves for progressive candidate for inspector of elections in ward four? There is two seats open in ward four. Checking for any raised hands, checking the chat, not seeing anyone going once, going twice. All right, let's move on to ward five. So we'll open up the four nominations for ward five. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves for progressive candidate for inspector of elections in ward five? I believe again, there is only one seat open in this ward. I'd like to nominate Susan Comerford. I'm not sure if she is on the call though. Looks like she is not on the call. Would you like to give a few words, Nate? Sure. I've only met Susan in passing, but I've heard many great things about her. You know, that she is a professor EVM and does a lot of work with the Indian equality and the roots of it. And she's been involved in the community in the South End for a while and in a number of different ways. And I hope that many of you all can meet her and support her over the next few months. Thank you very much, Nate. And to answer Bob Prime's question, I can't say inspector of elections once quickly, let alone three times. The sixth ward open for four nominations is ward six. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves for progressive candidate for inspector of elections in ward six? I should note there is three open seats. And I am seeing Isaac Lee. Hi, I'm Isaac Lee. I'm nominating myself for inspector of elections in ward six. I believe that democracy is intriguing to achieving and maintaining our freedom. So I believe that getting on the ground, getting involved in the ground level is going to be the best way to maintain it. Thank you. Thank you, Isaac. Keeping the floor open for any other nominations for inspector of elections in ward six. Once again, there is three open seats and I see Kirsten Wilson. Thanks. I'm Kirsten Wilson. I use she, her and they, them pronouns and I'm nominating myself for the two year term opening for inspector of elections in ward six. I served during this past general election as an acting inspector. And I plan to do so again in the upcoming town meeting day election. I've learned an immense amount about election procedures over the past few months and I've taken great pride in knowing that my volunteer efforts have contributed towards my ward's residence ability to better participate in our democracy. I'm ready to commit to taking on this role for the next two years. And I hope that my fellow ward six progressives will vote to nominate and elect me as inspector. Thank you. Thank you, Kirsten. I'm going to keep the floor open for any other candidates seeking the progressive endorsement for inspector of elections in ward six. Checking participants, checking the chat, going once, going twice. Okay, let's move on. The seventh ward open for floor nominations is ward seven. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves for progressive candidate for inspector of elections in ward seven? Hey, Tom, it's Meg here. I can't raise my hand because I'm a co-host but I would love to nominate myself to be inspector of elections in ward seven. I have been working in different roles in elections for a very long time and I would be more than happy to take a role of being inside the, where the voting booths are and helping ensure that our democracy runs smoothly and volunteering in my community. So I hope people will vote for me, Meg and Polite, for inspector of elections on the progressive label in ward seven. Thanks, everybody. Thank you, Meg. I'm gonna keep the floor open. Is there any other candidates seeking the progressive endorsement for inspector of elections in ward seven? Checking the participants, checking the chat. All right, let's move on to the final ward then. And the final ward is ward eight. Wait a second, we do have, oh, Isaac's specifying that he was running for a one-year term, excellent. That would be in the ward six. The ward six area. All right, so final ward open for form and nominations is ward eight. Do we have anyone wishing to nominate a candidate or nominate themselves for progressive candidate from inspector of elections in ward eight? All right, checking participants, checking the chat. This is the last seat you can throw yourself into the ring for this evening. All right, going once, going twice. And that concludes all of our candidate nominations this evening. A big, big, big thank you to all our candidates and really, honestly, best look to you all. This is such fantastic slate. I am so incredibly excited. And thank you to everyone participating in this historic caucus, whether or not you've been on the Zoom, whether or not you're on Facebook, whether or not you're just voting or whether you watch this recording later tomorrow or the day after. So, so proud of all of us. Let's get Moro out. I will now turn it over to our co-chairs of the Berlin Progressive Party Steering Committee, Annie Schneider and Gil Livingston for closing remarks. Tom, you're just fabulous. I think you did a great job, great organization and really compelling. So thank you very much. I am Gil Livingston and hopefully you can see with me, Annie Schneider. We are the co-chairs of the Burlington Steering Committee for the Progressive Party. We're so fortunate and you understand this having heard from them this evening. So fortunate to have such great, qualified, serious, mayoral and city council candidates and a terrific collection of committee members willing to serve both as ward clerks and as inspectors of elections. So we're indebted to all of you for your service. A few quick reminders. You will receive an email. You've heard this a couple of times already but just quickly you repeat within a few hours you will receive an email with a link to vote online through the OPPA vote system that Josh helped us understand earlier this evening. If you have any problems, any questions, any issues accessing it or using that system, please do reach out to Josh. That is probably his email which is info-info at progressiveparty.org. And please do remember you can no longer vote after seven o'clock on Thursday evening, this Thursday and it's the third. So, you know, honestly, when you get that email please go ahead and vote. Second quick reminder and again, it's been in the chat a few times and talked about it this evening. If you did not register for the caucus or if you know of anybody who does not have internet access or any other barriers to participating this evening and through the voting process online, please do direct folks to the two time periods where in-person registration and voting are available. And again, those are tomorrow, Wednesday, November 2nd from five in the evening to seven in the evening. And the second window is on Thursday morning, the day after tomorrow, November 3rd, Thursday morning from 8.30 in the morning until 11. And we will be in the parking lot of the Old Norfolk Community Center. The street address is 190 North Street. So the Old St. Joseph's School parking lot. A final third reminder is we're going to have a great kickoff for the mayoral campaign on Saturday. Both candidates have committed to being there. A time to come together, a time to communicate what it means to be a progressive in Burlington and why progressive leadership is so critical at this moment. So please do join us at Facebook Live 3 p.m. for that campaign rally. And two final thanks. One is I really appreciated both Taylor and Emma in their sincere, compelling opening remarks to get us going, set a perfect tone. Two terrific human beings, two great leaders and I appreciate it. And finally, thank you for spending time with us this evening. It's been tedious at times, but I hope you've learned and enjoyed and share our enthusiasm for leadership. And I join Annie and thank you for being here this evening. Thank you for being part of the party and stay healthy and good night. Thank you so much everyone.