 Hi, welcome to CCTV Time Machine, where we take a look back at the CCTV archives, and we look through the eyes of folks who are in those archives, who are on the tapes that we have there, and we have today Peter Clavel. Great to be here, Megan. Thank you for the invitation. Yeah, and you've been here, you're familiar with CCTV, you know who we are? As I understand it, you have like 40 years of archives, right? Correct. I've been around for all those years, so yes, I'm sure you can take me down memory lane, but I think more importantly, CCTV's done a remarkable job of recording Burlington's history, starting shortly after Bernie was elected mayor of the city of Burlington, so I think it's amazing that you have not only have these archives, but you now organize them where they're accessible. Well, thanks to Nat here, who really was recording in and around Burlington, both things that his kids were doing, but also political activities and political actions, and then struck up a relationship with both Lauren Glendividian and at the time Bernie. Nat and Bernie used to like go around and do a program called Bernie Speaks with the community, and Nat meticulously, like all of this stuff that you see behind me has got his handwriting, and I remember working here, I was like, I had to prove to Nat that my handwriting was worthy of being on the spines of the VHS tapes. It's quite a legacy and quite a gift that he left behind. I'm curious, there's been a lot of recordings over the years. Do you have them all archived? We have recordings from 1984 to the present, and anything that was not a municipal meeting up until like 2015 or so, we would keep some of those. If there was something in particular that happened, there's a famous one where the city council goes back and forth, and Bernie finally has to be the tiebreaker vote. They're trying to elect the president, and I think they had 40 votes. Trying to finally elect a single president. So we kept some of those more notable meetings, but what's amazing is since 2015 we've kept everything that we've recorded and born digital, and are in the process of making that accessible to everybody, including digitizing all the content. But Peter, you've lived here for a long time. Tell us a little bit about you grew up. When I was born in Burlington, 74 years ago, top of the hill was then the Gojbrin Hospital, I grew up in Monuski, and my ancestors on both sides of the family, both the mother and father, were well-roading in Monuski, so I go back about seven generations, I think. And your dad was politically involved in Monuski? My dad was, yeah, on the fringes of political involvement. Most notably, he served as a tax collector for the city of Monuski for 45 years, actually being a delinquent tax collector and being a popular guy. Those don't always happen to come together, but he was both. He and his brother, when I was a young kid, owned a small grocery store in Monuski, Klobel Brothers Market, and his brother Bob was involved politically. He was on the Monuski City Council for a while, but probably most importantly, their little market was a gathering place for politicos from around Chittany County. They would gather in the back room and talk politics and drink a few beers and play cards, and so, yeah. How when did you know that you wanted to get involved with the work of sort of the political work and the people work in these politics? Probably one of my early indications or early indicators might be in politically interested happened in Monuski, where as a young kid, I don't know, maybe 11, 12 years old, I was elected mayor for the day. And so I spent a day with the mayor and city manager and city clerk of Monuski. Looking behind the scenes, you know, the sausage was made. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I grew up here and I've known, of course, known you throughout the years. And one thing that's always struck me is like a really good politician, but a kind, caring person, you know people. I was like, that guy, you know everybody's name. I mean, I feel like it comes from a genuine place, caring. Well, thank you. It does. And, you know, I came into Burlington politics from an unusual path as the kid that grew up in Monuski across the river. Back then, maybe even to this day, they called us river rats. Yep. Not many would have suspected that one of the river rats would have swum across the river under cover of darkness and emerge as mayor of the city of Burlington. My background before becoming involved in the Sanders administration was more as a manager, as a public administrator. That was my educational background with a bachelor's degree in urban studies and a master's degree in public administration. And at the age of 23, I was a town manager in Vermont, in Castleton, Vermont. And then I returned home to my hometown of Monuski where I served as a city manager for three years in the late 1970s. And after that, I came across the river. You're a deep people person but a systems thinker and we'll get into that a little bit in the international work that you've done. Going back to Monuski, Monuski is a different place today than it was when you grew up. Right. Now, let's take a quick look at a piece on Monuski urban renewal. This is a compilation of some demolitions in downtown Monuski and some residents of Monuski filmed by Dan Higgins who was also one of the founders of CCTV by back in the day. I know. Yeah. Well, it was one of the best eating places in town anyway. Sure. It was open all night, right? Open all night long, yeah. All night. Crowd used to go in there. Yeah. Now that's down on that. That's on the corner, isn't it? It's on West Illinois, isn't it? Yeah. That's the Monuski block. And that one is... That's the American restaurant. Yeah. See, they sat there down. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Uh-huh. That's the team you played on, Claire? Yeah. That's when she played. That's the diner. That's the diner. Yeah. Phil's diner when they took it down. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know. That was the best eating place. I wish it was still back here. You wish it was still there, huh? Yeah. You could have put it down the hill a little bit. It's home. Look at that building. It doesn't want to come down. Not all events work in that one. It will after a while, right? I know we watched that before. But we had run across the street, so we didn't miss anything in there. That's right. You didn't miss nothing up there. That's right. What did they do with all the people who had homes in there? I don't know. Did they pay them off? Yeah. They paid them off, and they bought new homes. Yeah, some of them got homes. Yes. We all got paid. I mean... Did you live in there? Yeah, I was down on East Center. On East Center, and then they just... Yeah. The city said that they were going to buy it all up in a new domain. Yeah, they said they were going to tear it down, and we'd have to move. We had five places to move. Was there any... I was always curious how the decisions were made for that. Was there any... Did neighborhoods get together to fight it? No. The urban renewal just said we had to move, and that was it. So the idea didn't come out of... No, it didn't come out of the people. It came out of... When the urban renewal came in, I mean, that's what happened. So what a meta-experience. We're watching people who are watching the film. Yes. Did you recognize any of the spaces or those people who were speaking? I didn't know the people speaking, but I certainly knew the spaces. Over the years, I had numerous paper routes in Wanozki, and one of my paper routes as a kid was delivering the free press to the urban renewal area. So I knew every building in that area. I also knew the bars in later years. I spent some time in those bars, but spent time in Bill's diner and the building across the street unfortunately was saved from urban renewal destruction. Wanozki Block was built by... The one at the top? Right, it was built in 1867 by one of the developers of that building was my great-great-grandfather, Francis Leclerc. So yeah, it all comes together, and then I became city manager in Wanozki in 1976, which was after urban renewal had occurred, but we had a large chunk of downtown Wanozki that was vacant for many, many years. Then we had the audacity of saying, well, we're going to revitalize the former mills of Wanozki, which included the Champlain Mill, the Woollen Mill, and also the Porter Screenshop, and Porter Screenshop, and East Allen Street became senior housing, and I was working for the City of Wanozki when we received an Urban Development Action Grant, a U-Dag, which helped with the renovation of the Champlain Mill by Ray Peacore. You used the word audacity. Why we had the audacity? Well, it just was a very bold move to realize that we're going to renovate 400,000 square feet of mill space. It was bold, and it happened not all on my watch. Some of it happened after, but it happened in a place that those old mill buildings were saved. One of those mills was a place of my grandparents, my father's parents, work for their entire lives, basically. My grandfather quit school in the fourth grade to go to work in the Woollen Mill. Yeah. And Urban Renewal, of course, so that story, well, a lot of that footage is obviously earlier than 1984. That was the shop idea in Higgins, and he actually had a camera in that Wanozki lock building, shooting time-lapse of where now the Wanozki Circle is and where a CCV is built. When I grew up, it was a parking lot for years and years and years in front of the Woollen Mill, or not the Woollen Mill, the Wanozki Mill as a shopping center. But that Urban Renewal story is also in the archives because it's told it happened downtown. It's where you're having the new buildings built and, ironically, new streets brought back in. Talk a little bit about how would something like that happen today? What was the process? You know, the Urban Renewal votes, Urban Renewal, as I recall, both in Wanozki and Burlington, it did require a vote of the people, so it wasn't that people weren't totally involved, but there wasn't much of an engagement to folks in the process, and it was a wholesale demolition of entire neighborhoods, both in Wanozki and Burlington. I don't think that would happen today. I think it would be a little more discreet. Some of the buildings were slums, were substandard and beyond the point of being rehabilitated, but others were very, which sound housing stock and some of them historical buildings that should have been saved. I don't think that... I mean, generally, I think Urban Renewal was a failed experiment. Driven largely by the federal government and big money being dangled out there will make your city better, and for most of them, it's debatable whether they emerged better. I think we're going to do a quick leap, but one of the things, you were the first... We're going to have your mayoral announcement, so let's go straight to the mayoral announcement. We'll keep everybody on the edge of their seat, whether Peter is actually elected for mayor when he ran in 1988. My name is Julie Davis, and I'm here to welcome all of you to the Peter Pabelle for Mayor announcement party. Let's give a big hand for Peter. It's easy to get excited about Peter's candidacy for mayor just by knowing who Peter is, a really great guy with a great sense of humor. But it's a lot easier when I look around the room and see all the wonderful people who have come out here tonight in very cold weather to support Peter Pabelle. Thank you very much. By the way, Peter is the only person I know who can console a distraught citizen, be thinking of some bold design or other, and write a successful federal grant with his third eye all at the same time. Because of that skill, we have South Meadow and we have a new complex on Riverside, which will preserve Northgate as affordable housing. As I mentioned earlier, I've known Peter for many years, and to know Peter is to know Peter's family. Who here does not know Peter's parents, Mooney and Elle, Peter's brothers, Peter's sisters, Peter's wife Betsy, and of course Peter's three children, Luke, Jay and Will. It is not rare for Peter to conduct business meetings at his home juggling a baby on his lap, nor is it uncommon to see him strolling church street on a Saturday morning with one, two, or three children in tow. Family and family values are important to Peter, and as mayor, he would initiate and promote ideas and programs to enhance the lives of Burlington families. We as a family are excited for him. Baby Willy gurgles a lot, making political points to him at 5 o'clock in the morning. Jay wears her clavelle for mayor pin. Faithfully, she repeatedly points to it saying, Daddy-o, mind Daddy-o. But it was Luke in his four-year-old manner who asked the question that will be answered on March 7th. Mommy said, how far does dad have to run to get to be mayor? It will be long, but with all of your help we can win. Please join me in welcoming Peter Covell. There are people out there who are afraid of our vision, who are embarrassed by our accomplishments and who grow tired of our resolve. They want progressive government out of City Hall, and they want progressive politics to be dead and to be buried. We cannot, we must not, we shall not, and we will not let them be successful in this endeavor. No way, progressive government is here to stay. I'm confident that Burlington will continue moving forward. We will not slip back to the old ways of the old days, because we stand on the progressive side of history. Let us keep moving ahead with leadership that puts people first. And with your support and with your help and with the enthusiasm that you've shown here tonight, I hope to, and I will be your next mayor. Thank you. It's hard to believe, 36 years ago, wow. Do you get what, I mean, what's your feeling when you watch that? My feeling is, man, how did I do this with three kids? The oldest being four years old. Thank you Betsy, man, she did more than her share of the responsibility of caring for those kids while I was out in the campaign trail. Well, and Will is politically involved today. He works for the city on economic development and my son Luke remains very much part of this community and my daughter Jay lives in Rhode Island now. She married a firefighter. But, yeah, and the kickoff was at the community boat house, which obviously had a special place in her heart. It was built only a couple of years earlier than that. And this was a very uncertain time in the city's history. I mean, many thought that Bernie's election initially was a fluke. And then they said, well, we'll just batten down the hatches and after two years he'll be gone. Well, he surprised them and hung on for eight years and when he left, he left on his own. It was his decision. He didn't lose an election. But then all the pundits were saying, well, that's the end of the progressive movement in Burlington. And I think we surprised them a bit by continuing the progressive run in the city of Burlington in 1988. That's the kickoff in December of 1988. The election itself occurred in March of 1989. And you were technically the first progressive mayor in Burlington because Bernie ran as an independent. Bernie ran as an independent. In 1989, I recall that I ran as an independent. In subsequent elections, 1991, I ran as a progressive candidate. First, the progressive coalition nominee, then later the progressive party candidate. My last election, I also had the support of the Democratic Party. The first woman who spoke remind me her name, Ginny. Ginny Nguyen. Yeah, she's a tough kooky. So you got her endorsement. Yeah, she was a strong woman. And she actually volunteered. And she headed up an effort to organize volunteers in the city. She worked at CVOEO, Champlain Valley, Office of Economic Opportunity, and was a fierce advocate for poor folks and a fierce advocate in Northgate. So we're going to talk a little bit about that when she's talking about what you all did prior to being elected when you were working for CEDA. Yeah. You know, I went to work for Bernie shortly after he was elected. I was one of his first appointees for a brief period. I served as personnel director. Then in 1983, we created the Community and Economic Development Office. After a national nationwide search, I was selected as the director of CEDAW. And one of the responsibilities of CEDAW was affordable housing to preserve, protect, and produce more affordable housing. And at the time, it was interesting. Virtually all of the time that Bernie was mayor, Ronald Reagan was president. But we had some fairly substantial programs supporting cities at that time, including the Urban Development Action Grants, the so-called UDAGs and another one called HODAGs, Housing Development Action Grants. In Burlington, we received more federal money than virtually any community of comparable size per capita. I think we came close to leading the nation. That was your third eye that you used to write those grants? Well, it wasn't just me. We had a dynamite team in CEDAW. Some of those folks still around, like Michael Monte, he's still writing grants for affordable housing. John Davis, Brenda Torpy, Brian Pine, Bruce Seifer, Doug Hoffer, you know, a really dynamic team working for CEDAW. But one of the efforts was Northgate, which had benefited from federal subsidies. The federal subsidies were up in the property. They could have been essentially flipped into more expensive condos at a spectacular location close to Lake Champlain. Yeah, that happened in Essex with the condos there. And we said, no, we're not going to let that happen. And so with Bernie as mayor, at the time I was CEDAW director, we put together a massive effort to save Northgate, which involved very complicated financial transactions. But also putting intense pressure on the developers, telling them that no way, no how, are we going to allow you to convert this property. And so it involved financing and involved and created condominium conversion ordinance. And there are a lot of pieces of it that all came together. And at the end of the day, we saved 336 units of housing, which would have been lost as affordable housing stock and continues to serve this community well. 336 families continue to live up there at rents that they can afford. And it's a resident owned. Exactly. A resident owned. I mean, the story that I heard from somebody out there was, we went from people who were relying on handouts to folks who, because of stable housing and because of the community, were able to give back and donate to support our community. I mean, to me, idealistically, this is the antithesis to the urban renewal type of government that we saw in that first clip. Yeah. So you become the mayor. And I think we have an interview with you here in the CCTV studios with Peter Frane. So that's 1992. Is this still in your first term as mayor in 1992? This would have been my second term. Second term. Okay. So let's look at that clip and see Peter and Peter. Peter Frane. Whoa. Yep. Wonderful. We're going to go to your phone calls for the mayor. And I know there's probably a lot of issues that you might imagine that you'd like to ask Mayor Peter Fevelle about. And we'll take care of that. I'm Peter Frane. Right now, a bi-weekly columnist from Vermont Times. It's good to be back. Bi-weekly. Yeah. The inside track is back. Catch your name. It's back. Yeah. And I got a... They're the trash politicians. No, no, no. All persuasions and strikes. I got a phone call with you, Mayor, because as you know, well know, we've talked recently. And I, in fact, in my last column, had something nice to say about you. That was very unusual. It was. And I didn't take but a few hours before I couldn't walk down Church Street without being buttonholed by people who said, hey, come here, Frane. I got a phone to pick with you. What is it? Well, maybe you think he's doing a good job as Mayor, but you know, I have never got such negative feedback from anything I've ever written as that. It's amazing. Now, a lot of these people... Welcome back. We're city employees. Yeah. Some wearing the color blue, hint, hint. Yeah. And that was... I just thought I'd mention that. So don't expect any other kind words for some time. I'm glad to see that you're not the only one on the spot. Okay. Okay. And good thing you're only bi-weekly. That's it. I run out of nice things to say quick. But we have... Let me see. I'm looking back there. And I got to say this, and you probably agree with me on this, having been in Channel 17 over the years since its infancy... Wood furniture, can you imagine? I expect David Letterman. Not plywood, but hard wood. David Letterman is going to come out and tell me to move over here in a second. It is really looking pretty good. We actually have... There are three technical people behind the camera. Yvonne. Yeah. And Nat Ayer is kind of acting like a producer. Bill's in the back working on something else. But it's looking very good. Channel 17 looking very good. So let's start off. You can see on your screen the phone number for calls. I'm just going to throw a few questions to the mayor and just get... Let's get up to date on a couple of things. First of all, barge canal. Question. Oh, so I guess if you want to hear what your answer, what the question was about the barge canal and what the answer was, we can go. So... I probably said that the Southern Connect here will be built next year. Yeah. And I'm pleased to say that 36 years later it is under construction. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. That was that. So Peter Frane. Peter Frane. Remarkable political journalist. And he was tough. You know, not only on me, but most of us in the... Most politicians of all stripes, he would give us a hard time and keep us honest and keep us honest on our toes. Yeah. And it was interesting that I was in my second term here about ready to launch a campaign for a third term. So about three months after that interview was recorded, I lost an election. Yep. In March of 1993. And it's not because you didn't follow the roads. Yeah. And I said, I'm done with it. I'm done with Burlington. I'm done with politics. And my family and I, kids were young at that time, ages five to ten. We packed up our bags and moved to Grenada, the Caribbean island of Grenada for a year. Yeah. And so it was a sabbatical of sorts, but while there I had some time to reflect and think about what I wanted to do with my life, and I decided there's nothing I'd rather do than be mayor of the city of Burlington. And I came back after a year there. And... I think you're going to talk about why you lost that election. Yeah. You're going to talk about why. And was he referring, what's he referring to when he's saying people were wearing blue? Do you remember? I don't remember. I think back then Howard Dean was the governor. Okay. And Howard's a friend in broad terms. We got along, but we had our disputes over the years, and this might have been during one of those... That's how our political system gets things done. It's through disagreement for better or for worse. That's right. And so for Peter to hold your feet to the fire, respectfully, that's his job as a journalist. But you asked about why you lost that election. Most people would say that I took a position that at the time, among many in the community, was unpopular. And it's hard to think today that that position was domestic partners policy. It wasn't civil unions. It wasn't same-sex marriage. It was saying, as a matter of a fundamental issue of human rights and dignity and equity, if you're a city employee and you have a partner, we don't care. If you're married, we don't care. If your partner is same-sex, that partner is entitled to the same benefits that the partners of other city employees would have. Yeah. And that... You know, not everybody thought that was a good idea. And it brought... It's before Vermont had approached the conversation around civil unions. And it reminded us that back then there was, and there continues to be, a conservative segment of the Burlington population. And they came out and voted. And they all came out. And many of my folks that supported me assumed that I'd be reelected. I was a reasonably popular mayor and stayed home. And I lost an election to Peter Brunel. Yeah. And did Peter Brunel... I don't even remember it, but did he reverse the domestic... Did he reverse that policy or did he keep it in place? Do you know? He did not reverse it. No. No. No. Because he wasn't... He wasn't a hard-line social... No, he wasn't. I don't... It was interesting. I was just thinking at that time when I was out of office, I also took on my first stint in international development, which... Was that in Grenada? No, I traveled to Gaza. Oh, okay. I actually spent five weeks in Gaza working on an assessment of the capacity of local governments of Gaza. Yeah. Yeah. So that was an eye-opening experience. And so, of course, today, I follow what's going on there very closely, having a real sense of the community, this little place, the size of four Vermont towns with 2.3 million people. I know it fairly well. Gaza, a place the size of four Vermont towns with 2.3 million people. 3 million people. Yeah. No infrastructure. No economy. Yeah. And you're in the archives. I mean, we are talking about the archives, but you are in the archives talking about Gaza. Yeah. And I just... Yeah, talk about that. What is that to you, to see that? Well, you know, I... Certainly Hamas, their attack was brutal. It was incredibly violent. And I understand the need for Israel to respond. And I think the world, and Gaza would be a better place without Hamas and Hamas. But going about it in a way that's going to... that is resulting, as we sit here today, and the loss of so many innocent lives, particularly children, it's got to be a better way to resolve conflict. Yeah. I feel like there's... Yeah. Let's move into the next clip. It's a hard segue, but our next clip. So you came back, you ran for mayor again, and you were elected again. Yeah, it was a... Let's get it back all screwed up. I came... Right. I came back in ran election and one of the bumper stickers at the time said, even the hippies plowed the streets. So the progressives, I never quite consider myself a hippie, but as a progressive, somewhat characterize me as one. And I think we did a reasonable job of providing basic services and... Do you align with the term sewer socialism? I do, yeah. Talk about that. It's just like making government work for ordinary people and providing basic services whether it's sidewalks or plowing the streets or providing drinkable water or sewers at a price that folks can afford. Yeah. So that you can implement policies that will allow other folks to live here, affordable housing. Yeah. Then after... So I came back and I went on to win five elections after losing that election. And... To be clear, sorry, I just want to be clear. Peter Brinnell, there's a lot of Peters here. Right. Peter Brinnell was mayor for one term and then he had cut the plowing budget so some streets didn't get plowed. We had some of the worst snowstorms and people were just fed up. Yeah. And they were like, we need Peter to go back, he knows what he's doing. Yeah. So five more terms. Five terms. There were two-year terms. So I served a total of seven terms. All two-year terms with the exception of my last was a three-year term. We reformed city government along the way and there was talk about going to a four-year mayoral term. Some folks thought that was too long so there was compromise to go from two to three years. So it's now a three-year term for mayor. My last election was in the year 2003 and I left office on my own in 2006. Yeah. Just as an aside, do you think Burlington's better off having a mayor? I mean, I know this is a charter issue, a mayor or would be better off with a city manager type government? I think that, you know, having been both a mayor and a city manager, I understand the benefits, the pros and cons of each. And I think in Burlington where you have a population that's very engaged and politically active, I think the mayor as a chief executive makes sense, but I think you also need to support the mayor with the building managerial capacity within city government. And we did that in a couple of different ways. One is to create the position of chief administrative officer, which in some ways functions as a city manager. But we also gave the mayor for the first time the power to hire and fire department heads. Yeah. Which I think many folks argued with you against. I argued against that. Yeah. Because of this, the potential political swing. Yeah. And back in the day, we had commissions that had that authority. And I used to say that when everybody's in charge, nobody's in charge. So we moved to a place in Burlington where we moved from a weak mayor, former government, a strong mayor, former government. And yes, the mayor did have more power, but the citizens could also hold the mayor accountable, which they do. I remember that. I remember being on the opposite side of that argument. Yeah. In my grassroots political work. Let's move on to the governor's debate of 2004. So you run. So I'm in my last term as mayor being elected in 2003. And, you know, having been mayor at this time for, it would have been a total of 15 years, but in my 13th year as mayor, I said that, well, you know, there needs to be some change at state level. So many local initiatives are stymied by inaction at the state level. And I was particularly focused on affordable health care. And I decided to run for governor in 2004. I decided in 2003 to run and the election was in 2004. It was tough. And I knew it would be. There's a real strength and incumbency in the governor's office in the state of Vermont. There's only been one incumbent that's lost in the history of the state. Yeah. Was that when Phil Hoff won? Right. And so Jim Douglas had just been elected governor at the time that I announced that I was going to run against him. He had only been in office for a year. So it was an uphill race. And you remember the central issues of that? By far, the most important issue was health care. Yeah. We had a, we did not, there was no Obamacare and there was none of the work that the dean went on or had done around providing extensive. Yeah. Talk about that a little bit. Well, you know, I wanted a system that everybody could participate in irrespective of how much money you had. And, you know, it obviously gets very complicated and then if you move towards a system that is not financed by premiums at one page but if financed by a system of taxation, folks are always going to argue, oh no, I can't have this. You're going to raise my taxes. Yeah. Well, we're going to raise your taxes but we're going to lower your premium and we're also going to create a system that's going to be fair and equitable and everybody's going to have decent health care and Vermont could have been a leader but it didn't have the traction that it needed. Then later when Peter Shumlin pushed for universal care, it didn't have the traction that it needed. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it didn't have the, I think it was going to be a good on a state basis, particularly a small state. Yeah. Let's look at the governor's debate. 2004, this is you and Jim Douglas at the Farmer Steiner in Berry, hosted by Mark Johnson. I've heard of him. Yeah. One of the questions that I asked the Lieutenant Governor's candidate was, the candidates, was what you saw as the biggest problem 50 years from now in Vermont that something can be done about today to prevent. And Governor Douglas, let me begin with you. 50 years from now, obviously economic cycles are generally five to eight years and so probably that wouldn't qualify for the half-century mark. I think it's the natural environment of the state and how important it is for us to preserve for future generations. I launched a clean and clear action plan to address the profound pollution that we have in Lake Champlain and other impaired waterways and it's taken more than 50 years to get to this situation. It's going to take us a long time to get out of it. But if we care about the next generations of Vermonters in terms of maintaining the quality of our air and water, I believe that that's a commitment that we have to begin that we are beginning with the leadership of my administration right now. I mean, what's real important is that we'd be planning today to make certain that Vermont is a better place, better economically, better socially for our kids and their grandkids. That planning is not occurring within state government today. There is no vision for the future of the state of Vermont. We are ignoring problems. We are missing opportunities. We are ignoring the problem of the health care crisis. We are not addressing the energy needs of the state of Vermont. And the Douglas administration talks a lot about the environment in cleaning up Lake Champlain, but the investment that has been made has been miniscule. They've rolled out a plan that costs for $150 million investment to address the phosphorus problem of $1 million of new state money in the budget. You can judge an individual's priorities by looking at the checkbook. Look at the state's checkbook that Jim Douglas has a responsibility for, and you will find that there's a lot of lip service to the issues and the challenges and the problems facing the people of the state of Vermont, but the investment that's necessary to address these challenges is not being made. So that's to the halfway point from 2004 in that 50 year cycle. I'm just wondering what does that stir up in you when you watch that? Hmm. You know to this day I feel that government needs to be more engaged. We need a more activist government and we need to lead to tackle the tough issues of the day. Whether it's healthcare, whether it's environmental protection or whether it's affordable housing and I think we've had issues that have not taken the tough positions and made the difficult choices and made the investments that need to be made for Vermont to be a better place. What was Jim Douglas like as an opponent? Oh you know I guess I'd like to forget that time. I mean he was pretty pretty smooth you know good talker but I think Peter Frame referred to he was surrounded by some young political operatives who were taking a playbook page out of Carl Rose work and he called them the trench coat mafia. Yeah they were also called they were also called the nasty boys. Yeah Yeah you got raked over the coals during that camp so I can understand not wanting to revisit it but so thanks for watching. Let's move on to international work which is probably near and dear to your heart you did work in of course you've mentioned Gaza you spent that time in Grenada but it wasn't just a vacation for your family. No not at all I very much threw myself into the Grenadian community and became involved in a campaign of an individual who was running for prime minister at the time he went on to be elected and served for of Grenada but while being mayor I also you know had the opportunity to experience Burlington's foreign policy and again you know Bernie was mayor during the Reagan administration and we very much disagreed many of us disagreed with the Reagan foreign policy but we took actions to discuss the implications of foreign policy on the people of Burlington and on our national budget but we also decided to enter into relationships with folks that sometimes would be characterized as our enemies by then president Reagan so you know the first relationship was with Portica Basis which when the government was supporting the Contra war Burlington said well we don't agree with the constitution of the Contras but let us get to know the people of Grenada of Nicaragua on a personal basis so in 1983 Burlington and Portica Basis also called Bill we entered into sister city program a few years later we partnered with Ursula of Russia and then in the early 90s we entered a Palestinian community Bethlehem and there was some objections to that and we ended up creating a triangular relationship involving a Palestinian community Israeli community Arad in Burlington then later there's been additional sister cities created including non-flir France but I visited each of those communities five or six times the foundation of Burlington sister city programs is people-to-people exchanges and there were many remarkable exchanges over the year I'm pleased that the sister city programs remain intact I'm disappointed that they're not as active as they once were and anybody who's watching this that wants to be engaged in a meaningful way and wants to better understand and learn about people from interesting places around the world I would encourage you to get involved in a sister city program the people-to-people place and specifically Portico Basis was chosen because it was a place that was not necessarily a Sandinista stronghold it was and I think right now Ortega is not is no walk-in-the-park kind guy no he's really changed the Sandinistas into he's changed the Nicaraguan government in a way right and this is an area populated by indigenous people the mosquito Indians and they historically have not been necessarily aligned with the Sandinistas they've had their own party yet to man their suffering as a result of that today yeah I think you know we just learned it with the Yadama leader who was arrested and taken to Managua right and you know you talk about going to visit the sister city so let's watch this clip I will say you've had relationships mayor-to-mayor relationships you brought the Little League Burlington Little League down you brought the Little League team up here there's a massive undertaking but that's that idea that we are world citizens I mean I think back to the co-op had a third world surcharge on things like sugar other products so we were recognizing our relationship as community members in the rest of the world let's watch this clip and then let's think about that relationship a little bit in 1984 the city council proclaimed Burlington, Vermont to be the sister city of Puerto Cabezas this port community of 20,000 people is on the isolated Atlantic coast of Nicaragua what this is about a sister city relationship between Burlington and a similar type city in Nicaragua is of extraordinary importance through visits with Nicaragua and welcoming Nicaraguans here through contributions of medicine educational material agricultural material we will be able to stand up definitively for peace and for the needs of the people rather than for war and destruction and I think it's a very exciting event and I hope that the people of Burlington will respond enthusiastically about that I'd like to send warm greetings to the people of Burlington and I would like to let them know that we feel satisfied to be the sister city and that we will be able to exchange not so much the given of materials and money for projects which we do need but more important very clear human relationship people becoming friends with us from Burlington, Vermont and we becoming friends with them then there are the people who have benefited from port from people coming here like I think some of you might remember I think it was three years ago the dancers who came NECO and the dancers from Puerto Cabezas came and performed in a dozen or so schools in the area here there is a difference between a sister city program that only manages relations between the city council and a sister city program like this that brings people together would you like to explain that a little to the people because sometimes it's confusing and people would believe that a sister city program is only with the Alcaldia and we the people don't have anything to do with that but this has been a different experience I give regards to my people them in Burlington Burlington the whole hemisphere of that place that we love them and every time they visit us we feel good if you ask make us feel live again make us feel good because we are a sister city you know great yeah what do you see when you look at that you know I see the sister cities has been an opportunity at a time when this world is very troubled when we face huge challenges things are complicated it's a way to get to know folks on a very personal level and to understand their life and exchange ideas and hopes and aspirations and understand that we don't have all the answers but we've made mistakes that we can share with folks and sometimes they can avoid those mistakes but it's been a very in Burlington our relationship with sister cities have been very equitable mutual and I think that we benefited from them and they've benefited from us I think it's been a wonderful exchange it's also what my appetite for world affairs and international issues I went on after being mayor to pursue a career in international development working on USAID projects for a Burlington based company it was ARD it's now called Tetra Tech which was I found very rewarding and interesting took me to some interesting places including Afghanistan South Sudan and actually lived in Albania for four and a half years and more recently I've served as chair of the board of the Vermont Council on World Affairs which has been another way to deepen my understanding of world affairs and the people that inhabit this world we're coming up on a mayor's election there's Bernie Sanders as the mayor standing on the City Hall steps talking about the importance of sister city relationships to bring about peace, understanding but also to push back are we going to see anybody is that even possible to have that kind of talking points in today's political arena? I certainly think it is and I'll be interested to see if the mayor or candidates even mention this as being one of the the areas of interest for them you've got to have strong values that understand you have to have strong values that underpin beyond trying to make things better seeing ourselves in a global context I know one of the things that's being pursued now is to establish a sister city in Ukraine which I think would be a very interesting and meaningful way to better understand what the folks in Ukraine are facing the challenges they face but also provide them support because we see a little bit and I did get the pleasure of going to Nicaragua with Dan and Jane and visiting and doing an exchange bringing some television production work and learning from folks there and you can watch it and get a sense from looking at it on television but then being there I think maybe so much of our experience is mediated and these programs that have changed my life and my outlook on the world and my guess is the same for you I don't know of many people that have immersed themselves in one of the sister city programs that hasn't been profoundly impacted by that experience well that's a little trip through our CCTV archives memory lane is there anything that we didn't show today that you're wondering about that's in our archives? There's a lot there, yeah Anything that comes to mind that you think of? To dive a little deeper into that election that I lost then to come back two years later would be interesting also to understand some of the battles of the day some of the successes some of the learning points along the way I'm thinking specifically about the waterfront so much happened on the waterfront in my political life both in CEDO and later as mayor in terms of the purchasing of the waterfront the removal of the tanks the development of parks the boat house, bike paths the argument between the greens the democrats and the there's a lot of stories that can be told from the archives There's so many stories and lessons to be learned about housing and continues to be a challenge that Burlington and cities across this country face but I think sometimes people are not mindful of what has been done in Burlington and the fact that so much of our housing stock today remains affordable because of the programs that have been put in place whether it's the Community Land Trust now, Champlain Housing Trust or the Section 8 housing program which pegs your rent to income Burlington has done some remarkable things and I think sometimes those accomplishments are lost sight of interesting Thank you Peter for joining us today Megan, thank you very much for the invitation and thank you all for watching if you want to dig into the CCTV archives further for yourself www.cctv.org and if you need help finding anything just let us know and we will look for it in our shelves