 Hi, I'm Gene Bergman and we are right now on Burlington Progressives TV and I am the War Two City Councilor and the host for this show and I am so pleased to be here with Lena Greenberg and Dan Castragano and Joe Cain. They are three candidates for City Council and I am just going to try to navigate us in the conversation so that you get a chance to speak to people in your wards and also in the city as a whole and each other and let's start with you Lena. Why don't you just try to introduce yourself give us a brief personal and political history. Sure thing. Thanks Gene glad to be here today. My name is Lena Greenberg I use they them pronouns. I am running for Ward 5 City Council because I care about my neighbors and I want to see Burlington thrive I think with a compassionate and energetic and focused ambitious City Council we can get there I am really concerned about public safety about affordable housing about the climate crisis there's so much we can do to take care of our neighbors and we're not doing it we need to get to work we have seen a lot of stalemate in City Council and what I really want to see is us prioritize urgent action on things like reducing the demand for drugs in our city which I think will make a big dent in in crime and will keep our neighbors more safe no matter their circumstance whether you're in a home that you own or if you're sleeping in a tent we need to make big moves on the climate crisis the clock is not waiting for us to get our political act together we really need to move on counting our emissions and thinking about how to make good on that promise to weatherize rental units and make it possible for folks to navigate this really challenging climate time in a way that doesn't put undue financial burden on them we also need to make moves on new housing I am in the ward with the Southend Innovation District I want to see that be affordable housing that turns into a community in a real neighborhood not a place for luxury condos and someone said to me selling the soul of the Southend I want us to keep the soul of the Southend I grew up in New York City I watched my neighborhood get totally destroyed by development and I don't want to see that happen in Burlington I want to live here for a long time so bringing bringing all of that intention and energy to this race and really glad to have the opportunity to serve my community great we'll have a chance to explore a little bit more of all of that the platform and also your personal history it sounds really interesting Dan tell us about nice to see you again tell us about yourself that Dan and I go back we've organized a bit in this community and so why don't you give us a little brief personal history and political history and to extent to which you want to also raise the political issues of why you're you're running that'd be great cool thanks Jean yeah and good to sit between Lena and Joe fellow organizers and folks stepping up to run for City Council my name is Dan Castro Gano I use he him pronouns I'm running in Ward 4 as a progressive for City Council I'm a teacher I'm a dad I live with my partner and my son in the New North End been teaching for about 15 years and that's what I do right now I work with high school aged kids and love what I do I the last six of my seven years or so have been working specifically on climate education both in the classroom so teaching a lot of middle school kids and high school students about the climate emergency and what we have to do and then spending a couple of years coaching teachers on how to teach about the climate emergency so and I'm choosing to step up into this race because I care a lot about our city I love Burlington my family loves Burlington and have been organizing since I got here around things like climate and transportation and housing and just see these series of crises in our city and we use the term crisis right so for climate crisis for housing crisis for substance use for safety right and see the city not responding at the level appropriate for these crises that we are facing so you have an example of some of the organizing that you've done yeah definitely yeah real highlight of real highlight GM and Jean you and I worked together at first the city of the Burlington International Airport wanted to expand 11 more acres into the working-class neighborhood the Chamberlain neighborhood of South Burlington to expand the footprint of the airport which means you know more flights more emissions more noise and then the destruction of over the continued destruction of more housing sort of creeping into that neighborhood and how that impacts everybody so organizing against that and we were able to win that that organizing you know fight and yeah just care deeply about workers about families about children and organize a lot around yeah things like climate and things like housing and transportation justice I gotta tell you Dan that it was a pleasure to work with you I would love to be on the city council with all of you Dan brought such value to that fight and I think that we saved a neighborhood at least the remnants of a neighborhood you're talking about you know gentrification and displacement in New York and we'll go back to that in the similarities but it's so important that we have people who are coming in who are not bureaucrats but are really working to organize folks and and have that learned experience Joe hi so nice to see you again we've seen each other at the at the NPA and around some important international issues and I wonder if you could just introduce yourself personal history and your political history and the extent to which it bleeds into the the reasons that you're running by all means within the short period of time again yeah for sure it's nice to be here with you all I'm proud to be on this slate with other progressives who who do do good work in the community I'm running because I think the progressives have done great work in the city for decades and I'd like to continue that tradition I also I'm running because I watched the meetings and the city council meetings that is and the meetings are very frustrating I think there's a lack of urgency on council there's a tendency to kind of kick the can down the road on urgent issues climate housing tax policy you know I think there are real democratic process issues as well I'd like to see counselors paid more I'd like to see publicly funded elections I would like to see Burlington continue its long and storied history of providing you know international solidarity solidarity more broadly than than just within the city as in the issue going on in Palestine we collected signatures for an anti-apartheid pledge that we failed to get on the ballot one of the several but not for lack of not for lack of signatures yeah yeah right it was a yeah democratic process issue where one of I think three items at least that a lot of people worked hard to get on the ballot for this this March that is not going to be on the ballot because of yeah I think real issues with democratic process in the city I have a background as an economist as a professor I've done research in housing policy health policy environmental policy I am a labor economist I work at the Bureau of Labor Statistics right now calculating the unemployment rate and I've been teaching students for many years what good and bad economic policy looks like and I have a lot of ideas I I think I could you know jump in from day one and introduce agenda items that would move city policy forward that would be helpful I'd love to serve on a city council with an economist who is coming from a progressive point of view we're gonna be going through a budget that is gonna be tough to say the least we need to be able to figure out how to build more housing how to stabilize rents for example so having your expertise would be really great let's turn back and and try to blend a little bit more of your reflections on growing up and your activism and your community service because I know that you're on the MPA for example and its relationship with the reasons that you're you're running sort of like blend that a little bit more for me sure thing what I learned as a little kid is still true when we let developers make the rules we lose our communities and we can't afford to do that in Burlington we need more housing and we need housing that people can afford and want to live in one of the things I've heard from folks when knocking on doors is people go out of their way to renovate their home and make it more housing for for friends or for family members they're trying to add an ADU in their backyard and instead of getting support from the city they're faced with permitting and hurdles that they they have to clear I think helping folks be developers at a small scale will both preserve the beautiful character of our neighborhoods I love the south end I love the way it feels to walk through the south end and bike through the south end and I don't want to lose that and I think supporting folks in in doing that infill development work really will will kind of pave a way out of this crisis for us I know that when we get together and try to figure things out we do better than when folks tell us what to do or when developers tell us what to do at the NPA I've watched people who I never would have met otherwise come together and say oh here's a problem let's think creatively about how to fix it and and see movement I've been attending and watching the city council meetings for months and and seeing that we're kind of stuck in this stalemate when we can't make decisions we can't deliver for people and when we bring people together we are able to find consensus and then we can make decisions I I really value the work of facilitation and collaboration I've done a lot of that work in in the climate field and the food access and food justice field as a communications professional trying to find a way forward when it feels like we're stuck is really natural to me and seems like some of the energy we need on the council okay so last night we had the neighborhood code come before us I don't know the answer to this it's always hard to ask questions that you don't know the answer to and be out of control but but be that as it may one of the arguments for the neighborhood code or in the promotion for the time frame that we're being asked to do that is that there was a tremendous amount of public process so did the neighborhood code which is purportedly to do much of what you're talking about in terms of helping people develop their properties and infill development did that come to the word 5npa and and just give me some of your reflections on that all yeah I loved hearing about neighborhood code at the npa we had a really great meeting there was a meeting right before our npa that was about the south end innovation district so it was a nice kind of lumped opportunity for folks to just come to the Department of Public Works one time on one afternoon and get the full slate of of information about development in our neighborhood it was great to see people engage on that one of the things I'd really like to see in the future of our city and our city council is that people don't feel like their voices are getting heard and I know that there are so many community plans for I don't even know what it's called the pit city place yeah yeah yeah yeah no the there was a beautiful community plan for that there was plenty of input and resistance to the Champlain Parkway which has transformed the south end neighborhood forever we have to live with the legacy of bad planning decisions and people have good ideas I want to see there be less of a difference between what people want for their community and what actually gets gets you know pushed forward through city council and I think the neighborhood code has has those foot the planning department has done really good due diligence on on shopping and around to npa is and showing up at community led events and I want to make sure that we can really arrive with that that we're not just you know saying we're doing public input and then and then letting letting things fall apart afterwards zoning is an amazing tool it's slow we're not bulldozing neighborhoods just because we up his own them we're actually saying here's a here's a possibility here's potential for us to develop there's gonna be so many more steps so many more ways we have to approve developments and I appreciate the way the neighborhood code has kind of unfolded well that's helpful for me because they are going no I say that because I've been focused on other things like climate and so I have not focused on that and one of the complaints has been that at least in Ward one in the Hill section there hasn't been that type of engagement so there's always room for more engagement right and and I think that if we can make the engagement happen throughout the process we have fewer problems like that that is perfect Dan there are issues that prompted you to run yes why did you decide why did you decide to run now yeah just yeah like I said before just these series of crises and like where the crisis is and then the proposed solutions or the implemented solutions don't match don't match the crisis to give me some examples yeah so you know on climate we have to get to zero emissions as quickly as possible the 2019 net zero energy roadmap is flawed we have to rewrite it it doesn't count the two biggest polluters that are owned and operated by the city of Burlington which is McNeil generating station and the airport right we need a realistic plan to get to zero emissions as fast as we can that's one the second one is trans you know my platform is transportation justice and safe streets so the ability for everybody to get around the city however they want so walk bike roll public transit or drive and everybody should have the freedom to do that and if we build these robust systems especially for walking biking rolling in public transit then it makes getting around the city and through the city better for everybody even if you're driving a car so that means like bus shelters and bus stations that means protected bike lanes that means implementing with quick build infrastructure and volunteers the 2017 plan BTV walk bike plan which is just woefully out of date it's just not even close to where we should be so that's some on that and then housing is we need more housing like Lena was saying and and building housing in the biggest city in Vermont is good and it solves both the climate and housing crises at the same time I think neighborhood code is good I think it doesn't go as far as it should go there are certain neighborhoods that are still designated as RL and I know that was discussed last night is that at the very least everything should be brought up to RM including the new north end and the south end which I think have been left at RL for the most part which is I think that the rub that I heard last night where the pushback has been Ward Ward 1 as opposed to really upzoning in the other zones yeah and then the goal is to legalize housing right we have to legalize housing in both of our opponents actually in one of the neighborhood code meaning said you know let's keep it restrictive zoning and so that and the ability to have mixed use right so the goal of a city is to have mixed use and that means residential and commercial and it doesn't mean like an industrial ironworks but it means like on my street or like in throughout the whole city of Burlington having the ability to have a cafe or a bakery or a barbershop there and so it solves the housing crisis solves the climate crisis you know takes a step forward for the climate crisis because the two biggest sources of pollution are buildings and cars right so if you build more densely and people drive less you know we're more socially connected it's more joyful and you can get around however you want and sort of like leaning into the next era of Burlington and then wanted to touch on what Lena was saying too about just just process and sort of how the city is the rolls things out and like what public engagement looks like and wants that like actually listen to people and not just corporate interest and special interests and if you're checking the public engagement box just like let us know like if like this is the plan and like these are the things that aren't going to change like the Burlington-Wanooski bridge like four lanes and they're going to widen the lanes faster travel speeds more traffic violence louder like lots of stuff like that then just tell us at the beginning like and and so that you know the public process is robust and actually is meaningful. Dog and pony shows are not your public engagement. It's a waste of everybody's time. Yeah I hear you. That's right. And Joe you're running now. Why? Well I have the same vision I think that Dan and Lena have. Yeah for a city that is a nicer place to live and it's where it's easier to get around where ordinary folks are footing less of the bill. There was a reappraisal process in 2021 that shifted the burden onto residential to some extent from commercial because of lower revenues during COVID. We have a woefully out of date tax code where we have a completely flat property tax system. Buildings get taxed how they get taxed. Residential structures that is get taxed how they get taxed regardless of who owns them or how they're used. Progressives including our mayoral candidate Emma Mulvaney-Stanek are running on making that progressive so income based occupancy based just like the state does to finance the education system. I would also be in favor of a vacancy tax which is something that Democratic mayoral candidate former mayoral candidate CD Madison advocated for. You know I think we need a land value tax. Right now we have disincentives for development because if you improve the value of your home if you add an ADU your assessment will go up and your tax bill will also go up. If we just tax the land we don't disincentivize development that would go along the way towards helping with the housing crisis. Obviously most of the revenue for the city comes from property taxes comes from taxes and the tax code being regressive is surprising I think for a city that is known to be or has a reputation for being progressive and so I'd like to update the tax code and I really think we need democratic process reforms that I'm just concerned will not happen if progressives don't have a strong voice on council. Talk to us about those democratic reforms the process reforms. Yeah so I think we need a whole host of them so at the governor lieutenant governor level there is public campaign financing but it's limited it doesn't it doesn't go up to match the financing that somebody a well-financed candidate who's not taking the financing might receive. So we have a limited public financing system at the highest levels of government in the state we could extend it downward. Other states and other cities have so for instance Portland main allows at the city council level even down to the school board level if you solicit you know small donations fifty five dollar donations in Portland main then you unlock four thousand dollars of public funds that would make it much easier for you know us for us to have a representative government you know some city councils many city councils around the country treat it like a job they they pay people enough for it to be their job and what do you know they get you know diverse young yeah balanced in terms of gender and background city councils that take up the issues that we care about so you know I think it's unlikely that we're going to see progress on environmental issues on housing issues you know the tax code until we reform our democratic process well and all of you are young working people and this is good i'm a really old retired guy so this is good as well but it does speak to the difficulties that that come and the lived experiences not only of what you have lived but what you are living and experiencing that we need to have let alone the the energy that it takes to to run as a as a city council and to be a city counselor so um let's let's talk about what you're what you're hearing out on the on the campaign trail and then yeah well let let's just leave it at that what are you hearing plenty plenty to say about that good the first thing i hear at the door is folks are struggling to stay afloat people are really having a hard time paying the bills whether they are in burlington housing authority housing or if they're in a home that they own i've heard from folks across the economic spectrum that it's really hard to think about staying in burlington which is really really sad we need people we are we make up a beautiful community because of the folks who are here the folks who are committed to living and working here to raising their kids here to thinking about a future here and unless we push forward those those property tax reforms that joe was talking about unless we really think think critically about how we're making it possible for folks across the income spectrum to survive here we're going to lose what makes our community diverse it's also you know it's not just the cost side but it's also the wage absolutely right and and last night we were we were hearing about the responsibility of the city to be a good employer i think that's essential we we need living wages and thriving wages here in burlington the cost of living is incredibly high another great way we can get at that is rent rebates for folks rent tax credits and making sure that as joe was saying you know our taxation needs to be responsive to people's incomes and and you shouldn't be punished for doing something like building more housing on your on your lot and we need different different policies at the state level as well right we need health care we need child care we need paid family leave all of these kind of cornerstones of being a person and having a life that we've really left people to to figure out themselves and we've left big corporations to to suck our bank accounts dry that's not okay it's not sustainable and if we want to see this community thrive we need to take care of our people which happens at the city and the state level i gotta say i'm gonna and we'll follow up with what else you're hearing there but you know you do not hear that if you get the um the flyers from the like the two the two former democratic or the two democratic nominees for the big ones not cd for the for mayoral you don't hear anything about a critique of of a system that basically leaves everybody out on their own to to scuffle and shovel shuffle and to um while all the wealth just gets appropriated at the top and so at the very least i just want to say that it is really important at this level when we're out there on the street talking about sidewalks talking about climate and what we can do that folks are raising that issue um we have an obligation because the the democrats and the rest of the system are not going to make what is necessary and possible um available to people they are not going to push that window open that says this is this is acceptable ways of thinking and i see all the time people saying at the council level you know no we shouldn't be talking about that don't talk about that the narrow and the window gets smaller and smaller and so then we fight vigorously over little stuff so what else at the at are you hearing at the at the door well you just brought up something that i've been hearing a 10 that i'm sure every anybody who's knocking on a door in 2024 in burlington is hearing we've really left people to fend for themselves we live in a system that encourages us to leave people to fend for themselves and it's not working we are people are not feeling safe in burlington and for folks who have been here for a long time for folks who have been here for a few years we can all feel the difference and we deserve to feel safe here we need to make some common sense investments in harm reduction we need to reduce the demand for drugs in burlington people are telling me about syringes that have led to the the demolition of the playground around the corner from their house we're hearing about you know folks breaking into cars people are struggling to find warm places to sleep and to find sources of hope addiction is a symptom of hopelessness and if we start to constructively build a way out of a cycle of struggle for everybody then we'll see we'll see that change i cannot tell you how many times people have you know mourned not being not feeling safe when they walk their dog after dark or not wanting to let their kid walk home from school alone we need to invest in community safety for everybody which is going to take a really broad range of solutions i've spent a bunch of my working life in direct service helping people get food we don't have well-networked services if you get food you're not necessarily getting connected to housing you're not necessarily getting connected to health insurance or or debt relief support we have so many wonderful services in this state and then in this city we need to connect them better so that folks who do get as far as that really hard step of asking for help are really getting needs met across the spectrum dan what are you hearing yeah just you said a lot of good stuff um just wanted to um outline sort of what i'm thinking and what kind of what you were saying gene and then like pivot to that a little bit but just absolutely the yeah like the systems the systems that prioritize you know profit over human beings um so it's everything from yeah health care to our uh being in debt for going to college to just um food insecurity low wages um and people are struggling um was just in between jobs for a couple months have spent like at least six hours on the phone like figuring out health insurance and like it's not done like i still have to like do at least three or four more steps just to figure that out just so that we you know don't go bankrupt if we have a medical catastrophe um and so all these systems mean that yeah people are struggling um people are struggling um for food for housing um and for everything and agree with what lana said that um everybody deserves to feel safe in the city i deserve to feel safe my two-year-old deserves to feel safe children deserve to feel safe um and we have to holistically we have to grapple with these you know big systemic you know issues and then and take care of people today and respond appropriately so that means doing things like not displacing the displaced right i just spoke with one of my friends um at the howard center he's like there are no beds you know there are no beds we don't have you know we need emergency low barrier shelters having people sleep outside in the middle of winter children sleep outside in the middle of winter is not acceptable i know it's a complex issue i know that a lot of people from vermont come to burlington it's the biggest city we have to partner with this state but making sure that people's basic needs are being met first um and i think the core of that is housing um and making sure that everybody everybody feels safe at night um and then we can you know create those wraparound services that's like you have food you have you know job development um you know access to health care um a translation services right all those things um to make sure that everybody's taken care of and feel safe and that everybody feels safe no matter where you live in burlington yep so pivoting to the doors yeah yeah um a lot of it um housing in like affordability is like especially in the new north end is like especially if you're on a fixed income um can they stay here these are folks that own their own homes so homeowners uh saying like it's like property taxes are increasing and i think um and i think carter spoke about that last time when he was in this in these chairs um but is that like that zoning right like zoning is not a cure all but like that zoning of like that is what makes a strong city is to have um to legalize more housing so that people can live more closely together so that the tax burden is shared by more people so that we you know income sensitize it um uh and i have a lot to learn from joe on this stuff but um that all of the costs of the city and all these things that we want you know we want more social workers we want all of these things cost money yeah um and if you have more people living in a smaller amount of space then you can share those costs and so that's like um road repair and maintenance sewer electric water like all of that stuff there's there's more to go around we had this fight we had a fight over increasing the density of the city 20 25 years ago where there was a plan that then progressive mayor peter clavel put forward to increase the size of the city by 60 to 66 thousand it's been around 40 now it's like 45 and the outrage that existed at that time was you know was stunning actually so i think that we are reaping the negative benefits of of some of that um and really from my perspective and sitting where i do um the um you know the choice is austerity or figuring out the way that we're going to build a solidarity economy that raises the money to do the care that we need to take because we're all going to pay for it i mean just because you uh you don't tax it doesn't mean that you're not going to pay for it in some other ways and we are paying for it right now so i always say that austerity kills and what we need to do and it's a global phenomena that we need to um figure out the ways to uh to raise the funds that we need joe what are you hearing at the doors thanks jean i'm hearing uh similar things i think to what dan and lan are hearing uh definitely stress about finances about affordability in the downtown area ward three a lot of renters uh rents have increased quite a bit in this city in the last couple years especially with high inflation um and we don't have rent stabilization um portland main recently passed a version of rent control i've studied it and think we should implement something similar emma is also running on that i was knocking someone's door just the other day who was saying that that their rent doubled and they're on a fixed income and they're in their 80s and the lists are full for moving into affordable housing and it was one of the the famous wealthy families who who bought the house and and is trying to drive this person out and uh yeah it's it's very frustrating and it's it's not um not as uncommon as you might think so affordability the housing crisis is definitely very much on people's minds people want to be able to uh own their homes and you know people who live in my ward are mostly renters and uh don't feel like they'll necessarily ever be able to own their home and and want to uh yeah just live in live in a society that where things work different economically and i think we need fundamental change if you look at uh yeah this upcoming austerity debate that's already being previewed at the city council if you look at what the administration presented even last night uh they were saying you know how are we gonna um fill in this this shortfall upcoming well you know we can maybe grow the grand list a little bit while we aren't developing very much more housing maybe we can raise a little bit more money through fees and such um you know they talk around the major issue which is the way the whole tax system works in the way it's biased in favor of people who are well to do snowbirds go and save uh 10 15 thousand dollars a year in state income tax in Florida the state of Vermont taxes a little bit of it back through the education program and the city of burlington um lets them off the hook otherwise there there's a lot of low hanging fruit that would make you know that would increase revenues and make things more affordable i think starting the reappraisal process as soon as possible to uh rebalance after the burden was shifted towards residential properties would make sense the golf course got a 40 percent tax cut and we'll continue to get a 40 percent tax cut every year until we do another reappraisal um so you know why why should we wait another five years or however long i'm also hearing concerns about community safety people are saying they want to be able to walk their dogs in city hall park on on church street um it's it's yeah it's really sad to hear these stories and i i feel this uh you know too in our city um i certainly see see what's going on um you know there was a shooting in city hall park uh last summer um one evening i was in the park i think at the same time the evening before um you know people are are very stressed about safety and uh i'm uh you know certainly looking into what what can be done we we are hiring um you know trying to restaff the police department as aggressively as we can right now we don't give the same level of aggression in our hiring to the unsworn positions of the the uh cso's and the csl's the you know social workers for instance don't qualify for this $15,000 hiring bonus that the traditional officers do qualify for you know maybe we should hire more aggressively right now we only have four uh put on patrol four officers on patrol in the city center area on a good night um and we have uh open air drug use and other things that you know lead to a perceived lack of safety as a priority three of three for the police department i i read the chief's reports and and the tone in them is is clearly not the tone of someone who is trying to modernize the department to meet the needs that we face in our city which are you know mostly mental health issues substance substance use issues that sort of thing other police chiefs uh in in this state are making more aggressive efforts to you know modernize modernize the departments to meet the needs that that cities are facing um you know at this stage of the opioid crisis at this stage of the covid crisis so lots of discussions about safety lots of discussions about um yeah affordability and then certainly democratic process as well so it's it's it's pretty heartbreaking actually i knock a lot of the same doors that i knocked for months um trying to get petitions signed for this anti-apartheid pledge um and so it's it's sad i knock these people's doors who were really excited to sign it really grateful for the work i was doing really glad that somebody was doing something um and yeah just they they are shocked uh to hear um what happened and uh very disappointed like i am so the fact that you're going back and talking to them does that reinforce a cynicism or does it say okay we're going to we're going to keep fighting thank you so much for being out there and letting me know and carrying on the fight how how's that getting manifested um well i think people are uh waking up to the um stark difference between progressives and democrats in terms of respect for democratic process um i i think uh you know in a particular instance it might be justifiable to you know do more uh you know research and try to find consensus but if you're making the certain the certain argument over and over and over again on every issue you know for instance the police oversight measure is not going to be on the ballot in March because we didn't have proper consensus with the uh police union and the high turnover police commission you know this sort of argument is a conservative argument the democratic party is a conservative force in this city um holding back progress holding back democratic process and i think people are starting to understand that um yeah quite a bit better maybe than they used to great um before we forget we want to talk about uh some of the things that are in terms of voting so and this is important for i think all of us because all of our districts have been changed but first of all uh and i think we've got something that a slide can be shown um there you go this is information about voting and we'll know that the um ballots are going to be mailed out on the 14th they're not done yet um and it looks like we'll be getting um people should get their ballots by the 20th of February so in about three weeks um the polling places have changed ward two which now has lots of war the old ward three people vote at uh from my world the ho willer school but it's also the integrated arts academy it's a great magnus school at in your ward ward three joe they were they they were sustainability academy um and that's on it's on north street right and your ward has changed there are a number of people who used to be in ward two maybe some who have been in it were in ward five yeah i think uh the old north end used to be split um sort of the western portion was in three and the eastern portion was in two and and now it's split uh sort of very differently so north and south yeah north and south i spoke to a voter um just this morning who who told me that they uh if they hadn't spoken to me they would have gone to the wrong polling place okay and dan your ward four saint marx catholic church on north ave okay and lana at the burlington electric department on pine street and yeah many folks who were in who live in king maple which is the neighborhood i live in are either in three or five um look at the map you may have moved without without actually moving it's really just a reminder that the king maple neighborhood has long been sort of split up to to make make it such that we don't have the political representation we deserve so if thinking about that when i look at the map too yep wait if you guys get elected know that you will lose many battles so this redistricting was a battle that i fought in and lost um non-citizens who are legal residents in the uh in the united states and they live here in burlington with legal status are for the first time allowed to vote uh we had a cctv program on that just recently and there'll be there's information um at the clerk treasures you can see that in the third bullet up there and so uh that's really really important and the last thing in terms of the um the the election is that we continue not only to have early voting allowed and mail in voting but same day voter registration so a person can who is a resident of the city of burlington can actually register on election day and vote and we also now and who has a three-way race in this uh here i think i do you do so um we have ranked choice voting so it it does behoove us to um to appeal to all folks this was a democratic reform that i was happy to have uh shepherded through the charter change process and um 68 percent of the the people voted it may be a reason why they want to keep things off the ballot because things like that um i think that we've been told that we're out of time and so um let me thank you all for uh for sharing the time here i think you guys are great candidates and i look forward to uh to have a new sit and and and help me out thank you thank you