 My name is Adam Roof from the chair of the broken democratic party. And I'm going to just introduce, I just want to quiet y'all down first. I'm going to introduce David Glidden, who is the new chair of the Vermont Democratic Party. This is a good start to the two weeks! Two weeks of chair shift! It's a good start! I want to thank you all so much for being here in Burlington. I want to give the amazing Justin, who if you haven't met as our field organizer, built so much data and entered so much data! Incredible supporters around the state who've given us the resources to build the infrastructure that we see displayed in tonight's wins in Milton, in Barrie, and here in Burlington. It's such a good night for Democrats all around the state. We have really pushed back on some opponents. In Milton, we had opponents sending mailers about transparency that didn't have legal disclosures on them. And we still won! So it's a wonderful night to be here. And I thank you all so much for being here and helping us invest in every corner of the state. And one particularly important corner that we are currently in is Burlington. And it's truly my honor to introduce a wonderful mayor and an incredible man. Mayor Weinberger! David, thank you. What a great room to walk into. What a great night! Probably the Democrats have had. David, thank you for stepping up and serving in this role for the party. I also want to thank Jim Dandenau, who is serving as the executive director for the party and who made a commitment to be fully engaged both in the special election back in December. And then again, tonight, Jim was around here somewhere. Where you go? Thank you, Jim. There's a few other Democratic leaders here. I also want to recognize, I think I saw our brand new state treasurer, Mike Piacciac in the back. Thanks for coming over the river and being with us tonight. I also want to thank Justin for everything you did in both cycles. It made a huge difference to have you out there working on the ground and being at so many doors. Every door in the key races, we're very grateful, Justin. City Council President Karen Paul is here. Karen wasn't on the ballot tonight, but it's been a huge part of the last year with the leadership she's brought to the City Council and her long commitment to the city. We're going to bring each candidate up here in a moment, and so we'll say a little bit about each of them as they come up. I do also want to make sure, though, that we recognize tonight Adam Roof for his leadership at the Berlin Democratic Party. Adam took over the party in a challenging time. It's had to lead us through multiple pandemic era caucuses. It has had to figure out issues that no chair has ever had to work on before and has also been there on the ground in more City Council races than anyone else in the city for years now. And tonight it showed, and you deserve a lot of credit for tonight's situation. So before we bring the candidates up, I have a few remarks about tonight that you just want to share. From my perspective, this is now the fourth local election in three years, going back to 2021 that has been dominated by debate about where we're going to go as a community with public safety. With each cycle, voters have made it increasingly clear that they value public safety, that they believe in putting the appropriate resources into the police department, and that good 21st century policing is a high priority. With each cycle they have increasingly rewarded the candidates who shared these beliefs and these goals. And tonight, Burlington voters delivered a decisive outcome by defeating a charter change that would have left us more divided and farther away from these goals than ever and by delivering a new Democratic majority to the City Council. The members of the media are going to have to do a little bit of fact checking here, but we believe that this is the first Democratic majority on the City Council in decades. I can tell you definitively that it is the first time there has been a Democratic mayor and a Democratic City Council in over 40 years. This new majority and this new consensus is going to allow us to accelerate our efforts to rebuild the police department, to restore the levels of public safety birth that Burlingtonians expect and deserve, to ensure that Burlington remains the vibrant welcoming place for all that it has long been. But the results of tonight, the impact of tonight goes beyond that. This new much needed consensus, this new majority is also going to allow us to move forward with our historic infrastructure investments. It's going to allow us to continue to make major investments in equity and racial justice. It's going to accelerate our progress towards our very ambitious climate and housing goals. In short, it's a great night for the party. It is a great night for Burlington. Can't wait to work with the new Democratic majority. Can't wait to get back there and get to work. Thanks everyone. Let's work maybe geographically. We'll start in the north. Is Mark Barlow here? Mark? No. All right. So he's over at Tommy TV. So Mark did an outstanding job with the north district. Has been reelected by almost unanimously and had a great night. Then let's, I want to welcome up here. Tim Doherty stepped up to run in the East District in a district that has been a challenging race for Democrats for years and he worked incredibly hard. He showed people of the East District how conscientious he is, how thoughtful he is, how committed the community is, and he worked out a great one. Congratulations. This is what a wonderful night and what a wonderful experience this has been in the last two months of the campaign trail. I just want to say a number of thank yous and I know I'm going to forget somebody, but this campaign has been such a collective effort. I have learned so much. I have never run for anything before in my entire life. I have learned so much doing this. Adam Roof, thank you so much. Justin, thank you so much. Sam Donnelly, thank you so much for your support. Karen, thank you so much. Hannah, my running mate and my son Sam, who worked so hard. Abe and Malachi, who are out with me. Thank you so much for all the incredible work. Fee, thank you so much. This has been so much fun. I am so excited to join the city council and to move Burlington in a positive, healthy direction that we're all going to be really, really proud of. Let's get to work. Thank you. Any Democrat candidate had done it in some time. But she fell a little short. And you know, a lot of people, especially just out of college early in their career, might never have tried it again. But here we are a year later, this unexpected opportunity for a campaign for the seat came up. And Hannah put her hat in the ring again. And she worked even harder this time. She did an even better job. And she's now the councilor-elect in Ward 8. I'm going to keep it to thanking folks. Yeah, it took us two tries, but we figured it out on the second one, so we're grateful about that. This time around, it was great to build the Team Hannah Coalition, mostly these folks in the middle of the room. Big thank yous to Susanna, who didn't want to be a campaign manager, but became one. To Seamus, who was our community captain, and kept the group going, and to all of the other Team Hannah members that really worked so hard, and I could not have done it without you. Also, special thanks to Ryan and Colin, could not have walked into any debate forum interview without you two. Thank you to all of the counselors and the mayor for all of your support. I know it was not always easy, but you stuck by me. And then special thank you to Adam Roof, of course, for everything, and for helping me along the way. And to Tim. So, yeah, thanks. We also owe a real debt of gratitude to Avery Muzakar, who ran a great race in the central district. It has long been a very challenging part of the city for Democrats to run in. Avery jumped right in, ran a great dynamic race, and has a really bright future. It looks like, Joe, I think Ten Grillo is here, but Ken, I don't see Joan yet, right? She isn't quite... She's over at Tale 17, too, so let's close this out by just having a huge congratulations, round of applause for Joan Shannon, who ran a great race in the south district, and who did a great job rallying on the ballot. Thank you, Joe. Sorry, we're not quite done. Jim, thanks again for your partnership. Thanks for being here. What a great night. It's real to be here. Folks, thank you all so much for joining us tonight to celebrate these big victories. It's not just a win in Burlington, though. The party has been working hard on behalf of candidates in Vernon, in Brandon, in Newport, in Barrie, in Montpelier. We've been working all around the state to help elect good folks, dedicated public servants who are going to work hard on behalf of their communities, and we can only do that because of your support. So you will find QR codes around the bar tonight. We are entering into a period where there are no elections. There's nothing that's exciting that's going to get donors to give us money, but it's the work of our full-time staff. It's the work of Kate Lapp, our data director. Justin Cersic, who's been on the ground in Burlington since before the special election. Emily Bowers, our communications director. It's the work of Sheldon Goodwin, our finance director, to build a sustainable 24-7-365 Democratic Party that is going to bring home results for Vermonters everywhere. And we need your support to continue that work. So scan one of those QR codes, and if you can throw us some money to help us get through this debt period that we've got coming up, it's going to really go a long way towards supporting our continuing efforts to help get good, strong, hard-working, dedicated Democrats elected everywhere in every corner of Vermont. Thank you all for joining us tonight, and let's go have some fun. What's going to be your first priority when they get sworn in? Well, we put out a new plan, a public safety plan at the beginning of the year. It's a 16-point plan. I think tonight was, in a lot of ways, a referendum on that, on the fact that Burlingtonians want to see work on public safety. They don't want us to go through a summer like we experienced last year, and they don't want to see the levels of gun violence that we saw last year come back. So I think we have a lot of work to do with public safety, and you're going to see us bringing forward that agenda, working with the council to get it approved and get it implemented. Are you surprised the Democrats did so well after you mentioned it's been at least 40 years since you've had a majority? No, Pat, I'm not surprised, because really, like I said, I think this is the fourth straight election. So the 2021 mayor's race, where it was a divided community, but where clearly public safety was a major debate in that race, then the next last year, there wasn't a change in the council, but you saw a real shift in the way voters were voting, and then the special election last November, last December, and then here. So I think it has been building towards this. I think it's clear that Burlingtonians are concerned about some of these ideas that have been put out there, these experiments that we've had with public safety, wanted something different, and they... So Tealcomai was hoping for a night, and Tealcomai did expect having been out there talking with Burlingtonians, leading up to today. What do you make of the results of the citizen-led propositions that were on the ballot with results there? Well, I respect the hard-working individuals who went out and sought those... you know, led those petition drives. It is a right that they have under our existing charter, and I think we had a major debate, particularly about ballot question number seven, and to a lesser degree about number eight, and I think these were decisive results that I think make it clear that people understand that police accountability is important, but that proposal was not the right way to achieve it, and I think as a result of that, we will now continue the work that we've been doing since really 2016 to strengthen, refine, clarify how our existing police oversight board, the police commission, how that should work, and how that will properly work. And I think voters got it right with question eight as well. We already, as you can see, we had an eight-question ballot this year. There's already a great deal of direct democracy in our system. I think voters got it right to say we shouldn't go further than our current system. Let's keep the current system. What shift gears on you mentioned housing? Yeah. Yeah. Why don't you talk about your thinking for that? Yeah. So we have a terrible housing crisis. There are a couple elements of the crisis. Overriding reason is we have a lack of housing supply. We also, within the broader housing crisis, have a particular acute problem right now with homelessness and with record numbers of people in Chintin County being unhoused. A little over a year ago, I put out a 10-point plan for addressing both elements of that, and we've made a lot of progress over the last year. I do think with tonight's vote, we will have a consensus to move forward with further regulatory changes that make it easier to build housing in this community and continued investments, targeted investments to approach homelessness as a public health challenge to make sure that we have a kind of all-hands-on DAC approach to connect people who are unhoused with this community with the resources that exist and strengthen those resources. So to connect people with drug and mental health treatment, to connect people with temporary shelter and then permanent housing, and in many cases, to work with people so they can get back to work. A great example of how we're doing that is the recently opened Elmwood Avenue shelter, but we have unfinished work on that 10-point plan that we'll be moving forward with aggressively over the next year as well. Tell us about what you're feeling right now after tonight's results. Well, it's exciting. I mean, it's very exciting. You know, I've known Hannah for some time and I think she's going to be a wonderful city counselor. I've gotten to know Tim. I think they're both going to be effective and amazing additions to the city council. I'm excited. And how will it specifically impact your work with these new faces? Well, you know, I mean, I've spent the last year, you know, as council president doing, working with everyone. And, you know, I expect that that work will continue and we will continue to be a collaborative body. That to me is the most important, that we work together and, you know, and we try to find common ground. I think that's what Burlington expects from us, that we be a respectful body. They didn't pass. Did you learn anything from the propositions that were on the ballot? Well, I think when it comes to ballot item seven, that what we learned and what is that we need to address police oversight with urgency, but not with urgency by a ballot item that hadn't gone through as much of a deliberative process. And I think now we have the opportunity and my priority tomorrow, starting tomorrow, will be to implement the resolution that we passed on the 6th of February, which called for the Charter Change and the Ordinance Committee to come together with the Charter Language, the resolution that was passed in October of 2020, and other things that we have gathered since then to come up with a process to, probably to start with an ordinance to change what we can, but also to eventually come up with a Charter Change. I think we've heard from people fairly loud and clear that the idea of police oversight resting with one person is not a model that works for Burlington. Anything else to add? I think that's it, except that I don't want that light on me. What's that? Tonight? I mean, I think it was a, you know, I mean, yes. I mean, was it a telling story? I think what it said is that, you know, the, you know, in some ways it is telling, and in other ways, you know, I think that Hannah and Tim ran phenomenal campaigns. I think Hannah must have knocked on each door four times. Tim knocked on each door four times. We had calls, hundreds and hundreds of calls made. And yes, did their message resonate? It did, but I think it was also that in a combination of a lot of really hard work. What do you think about the turnout? Do you think that was representative? You know, the turnout, yeah, I mean, I think that helped. You know, obviously you got to get your voters to vote. But I, you know, having stood outside in Ward 8 almost all day, there was a good flow there. I was over at Ward 7. I was over at 6. I was over at 1. You know, it was a steady flow of people. A lot of people put their ballots in by mail or drop box. So there were certainly, clearly that does help to get voters out by being able to have a ballot come to your door, which is great. You know, we want people to vote. Thanks so much. Anytime. Thank you.