 Hi, thank you Joe and thanks to the Montpelier Rotary Club for organizing this event. I'm Cassandra Hemingway, I'm the managing editor of the bridge and welcome to the forum. We've got our three mayoral candidates here and we developed this forum to give them a chance to share their views and explain why they think they should be elected. This is not a debate so they won't be questioning each other. Before introducing the candidates I'll quickly review our format. We asked the public for questions in advance and we use them to help develop the list of questions we'll be asking candidates. During this program we'll also take live questions from the folks who are here in the room. We are asking people to write your questions down on a slip of paper. I believe Ed Flanagan passed some papers around. He's in the back of the room so if you didn't get a paper he's got them and then he'll bring them up to me at about the halfway point and we have plenty of questions to ask if you don't have any but I suspect you do. We'll fit as many questions as we can in during this 90 minutes and the candidates were not given any questions in advance. Sorry. Each candidate has two minutes to make opening statements and after that they'll have a minute and a half to answer our questions. At the end of the forum they'll get a minute and a half for closing statements or to go over anything they weren't asked but they wanted to talk about and the moderator has the discretion to make adjustments should any be needed. Joe already introduced Donna who's timekeeping so we're going to stick to our time frame and I may have to interrupt folks if you go over your allotted time so pay attention to the time cards. So when I introduce the candidates I'll introduce an alphabetical order by last name and I'll start asking the questions in alphabetical order by last name and after that we'll switch it up so nobody is asked the same question first with every question. So today with us we have Dan Jones, Jack McCullough in the center and Richard Shear and I'm going to let you each start with your opening statements starting with Dan. Well thank you, Sandra, thanks to the Rotary Club, The Bridge and Orca Media for sponsoring putting this together. So like you I truly believe that I love our little city and it's scenic valley it's historic downtown and it's really it's pervasive sense of community identity and like you all of that is becoming threatened by the climate, economic and political forces growing around us. You may know from my work of past several years that I've been working to create a sustainable Montpelier where we can foster the local resilience needed to respond to these foreseeable disruptions. But such local resilience needs to start by preparing for what I think will be decades of challenges. It will require a water system that can will predictably function for 100 years. Enough housing to keep our community safe including those who we need to keep things running. And I'd like to add those climate refugees who are arriving en masse and bidding up the cost of the housing that we have. We need emergency response capacity not only in police and fire but also to the climate disruptions of storms, floods and heat events we can foresee. We need a responsible tax system that is not threatening the financial stability of many of our citizens. A flexible administration which recognizes the growing challenges and is organized to be responsive to such rapidly changing circumstances. And all of this is going to require engaged citizens who understand that it is all of our responsibility to meet the community safe and running. I'm hoping that we can all embody a vision of a forward thinking people who can prepare and adapt to the challenges ahead. But we need to start doing the hard stuff now in order to prepare for a future that isn't going to look a lot like yesterday. As mayor I hope to provide the needed leadership so that our wonderful little city can adapt and prosper in the coming times. Thank you. Jack. Thank you Cassandra. And like Dan I think Orca the bridge and particularly Rotary I really value the good work that the Rotary Club does. I'm running for mayor to continue the good work we've been able to carry out during the last five years on the council. In that time we've led the council led the city through the economic and public health disasters arriving from the COVID pandemic and emerged with a healthy downtown and community. We carried out a top to bottom review of the police department heard from a broad section of our cross section of our community and codified our policies and practices many of which were already in place to ensure that our police operations will stay consistent with the values of our community. We've also started to emerge from the critical staff shortage on the police department so we can continue to meet our community's public safety needs. We've added services for unhoused residents including social workers and peer support workers attached to the police department and expanded shelter resources. We've planned and constructed an award-winning upgrade to our water resource recovery facility that has brought us up to modern standards while creating energy savings and reducing population. We've committed completed the downtown master plan which will reduce congestion by adding a traffic signal to Barry and Main Street intersection and this year we will also begin reconstructing East State Street from the pavement all the way down to the embedded infrastructure. With the support of our voters we have acquired the former Elks Club property and we are well on our way through a public process to begin the planning. Beginning in December with Mayor Watson's resignation I led the council through a successful budgeting process meeting the city's needs within budget parameters we established to control tax impacts. I know that to have an effective government we must involve the public, mayor, council and administration to work constructively and collaboratively to fully understand the issues. Thank you. Richard. Well if you do because of them I'll say thank you to Orca, thank you to the bridge and especially to the Rotary and thank you Donna for timekeeping. I'm going to be succinct and I'm going to be to the point. There are problems in this city and there are significant problems with our infrastructure and that's what brought me into this is the idea that it is not regular to have whack-a-mole water main breaks around town where council will address them send someone out to fix them and then we have another and basically what I'm going to speak to you have three distinctly different visions here and I think they've been well articulated by Dan and Jack. My vision is better management my vision is to grab problems that have been allowed to be neglected and tackle them head-on before the next budget so that what we're able to do is realistically appraise what is the total cost that we're facing so that we can build a consensus about an intelligent consensus and how to move forward together. Thank you. Okay so starting in the set actually no we're going to start with Jack for this next question and we're going to start right in with talking about the budget so it on March 7th citizens will be voting on a nearly 11 and a half million dollar budget for FY24 it raises property taxes by about 7.6 percent so given the many priorities reflected in the budget describe how you plan to control and prioritize spending. In the beginning of our budget budget process I started out with one fundamental or I guess two fundamental rules one is that we would not ask to either the staff of the city government or the taxpayers to take on any new projects or initiatives that we were had not already adopted because I just think that people have taken on a lot and it was not a time to add more initiatives. On the other hand it was also clear to me that we had initiatives we had projects that were well underway that were high for the city for the city priorities and we needed to continue to work on them to continue to address them we would I didn't think it would be responsible to drop anything that we were doing at that time already. For years we've worked on limiting our tax increases to to the rate of inflation and that's the goal we started out with that's the goal I'm going to continue with inflation is a fact of life and I think we need to responsibly carry out the operations of our government we can't say no to inflation because we don't like it and I do think we have an obligation to pay for the services that our residents value. Thank you. Richard. Okay I'll take off on the last point from Jack not because I disputed because I agree with it actually inflation at 7.5 percent is not happening right now it's much less than 7.5 percent but we're projecting a budget not now we're projecting a budget will start in July of this year 2023 and run from July through June inflation for July is projected by economists by in the particularly in the Philadelphia region who do this thing at 2.9 percent there's a great deal of difference between 7.5 percent and 2.9 percent taking last year's inflation rate and calling that the inflation rate that will be present in July just isn't true it's not sound business practice and I will hopefully later on in this debate be able to debate I'm sorry to say to this forum I will be able to show you savings that can be taken out of this budget and redirected not given back to taxpayers but redirected towards other priorities that I believe that most of us if not all of us believe are more pressing thank you Dan thank you I know Richard is trained as an economist so I hate to dispute him but CPI comes the consumer price index is coming with between five and six percent right now and the projected inflation is actually closer to seven to nine percent this year so the city's budget is within that same range what I'm hearing around town is people are frustrated and angry at this because they do not feel their personal incomes are going up anywhere close to that kind of number I think our budget is like a given right now it's either yes or no next week on the thing so we don't actually have a chance to respond much other than turning it down which citizens very have done but we do have the chance over the next year to say what are our real priorities and I believe that we need a capacity to start getting more of the citizens involved in that process that we need a more vibrant discussion we have to start looking at what are we actually putting into administration how many administrators do we need in the city how many of crucial people do we have in other areas I don't think we've had that discussion what projects do we need do we are we wasting money in places like the else club where we could be putting it into things like preparing for real public safety emergencies so it's my sense that we actually have to broaden the discussion and we have to be serious over the next year on creating what will be a budget that more reflects the real economy and not the hoped for economy thank you thank you we may come back to parse this out a little bit more but I want to move on to a big topic that comes up at almost every city council meeting which is homelessness in central vermont and also you know throughout the state at last count there were 450 people who are houseless in central vermont there's ongoing controversies around town about folks who are in house related to panhandling sanitation or lack of the transit center incident where there was a stabbing just last week and most recently elevated numbers of police calls so what do you think the city's role is in addressing homelessness and we will start with richard this is a difficult one and this is one the only question that I'll answer by reading last week I posted in front page forum regarding the failing policies in my period that resulted in fires vandalism public disturbance and even a stabbing I questioned the city council's selective policing policies allowing some antisocial behavior to avoid consequence and not other I now find myself attacked in a barrage of character attack postings as well as incredibly abusive emails a common theme is that I lack compassion someone posted a post in today's front page forum they found a heartfelt eulogy for my son Carson online Carson struggled through his adult life with mental illness homelessness and grinding poverty I spent three decades alongside other agonized parents constantly sharing what worked and what didn't work for our troubled adult children for most it was structuring consequence that kept our children visiting mental health centers and taking their meds during the good times parents strongly support consistent policing consistent consequences in life helped troubled adult children in the short term in the long term firm social boundaries invests the time to look up Carson shear and the eulogy it's tough reading you're taken inside this hard world as on as well as my ongoing role as his dad through thick and thin I'll always be Carson's dad all of the self-righteous I know what compassion is you don't follow by a string of vicious personal character attacks has deeply hurt both his stepmother and me has hurt our close friends who know what we went through well this has got to end personal character attacks from either the ideological left or the ideological right have absolutely no place in Montpelier the Montpelier I want to be mayor of in the Montpelier you're at time I'm sorry to interrupt you thank you so okay thank you um okay so um Dan sure um it is a difficult problem and I think we have to actually look at a couple of features that we don't talk about because we are the downtown central Vermont so Montpelier is like a funnel at the end of the funnel where all of the problems in a 25 mile radius get funneled into my period where the downtown where the place where services go now I'm very impressed with what we've been able to do with such difficult circumstances and I'm friends with Rick de Angelis uh at Good Samaritan and Ken Russell at the Homelessness Task Force they're doing really good work right now in trying to uh do the best they can within the the circumstances and the resources available the failure that we're seeing is two things first one is we have that don't have a regional structure that can help support the work that needs to be done so we're stuck on our own and secondly the state's complete failure after de-institutional institutionalization in the 80s which has created a circumstance where a lot of people who normally would have been in mental health institutions are on the street and they're creating a difficult situation for everyone so now it is time for us as a city perhaps going gaining with other cities in the state to start asking the state to begin taking its responsibility seriously and I put this out to our legislators our senate and especially our governor because we've been failing in that regard and that's what I think the city can help start doing thank you thank you Dan jack thank you as everyone recognizes homelessness is a terrible problem it's not limited to Montpelier it's not limited to Vermont it's limited to the entire country it's uh it expands to the entire country one thing that I think we all need to recognize is that homelessness is not something that the homeless people are doing to us they're not doing homelessness to the community they are suffering often from circumstances way beyond their control Montpelier does not have within our budget and within our resources the enough money enough resources of any kind to end homelessness even within our 10 square miles we just can't do it what we have done is provided as much as we possibly can in the way of services for people who need those services social supports from from every agency that we can do shelters as we as we can provide both voluntary and and city funded services and we need to continue doing that we will not ever be able to arrest our way out of homelessness in Montpelier and and the policies that we've adopted reflect that we need to provide the services that we can possibly provide thank you thank you jack um and a follow-up question um related to homelessness um I want to talk about the what happened at the transit center last week and um we know that it has been used as a warming space for the homeless this winter as it was last year um it was staffed by another way in Good Samaritan Haven and the Montpelier simultaneously the police department is saying it has been called to the transit center 175 times in the last year with a large portion of the calls related to the warming shelter or the unhoused recently there have been two arrests as the result of separate assaults um two different people one was houseless one was not the question is um we know that organizations and churches in the community picked up the slack and have opened up while the transit center has been temporarily closed um should the transit center open to the unhoused again for as a warming center and what if anything else should the city do to help the oh we already talked about sorry but just let's just talk about specific to the warming center and should they open up um and uh we will start with Richard that's a really difficult question and I certainly do not want to minimize the pain and suffering that Rick D'Angelo and his partner are going through all my compassion to that family whatsoever um 175 times they responded is that what you said can I get that correct how we don't know how many times they responded police and fire to that Hubble that was that city council placed next to the art store I mean police were there repeatedly the problem is that city council didn't respond in either way 175 times the police are there and city council didn't have a single hearing on this I mean where the entire community could participate and vent their concerns that just seems incredulous to me and it was the same thing with that thing that was next to the um next to the art store the merchants were repeatedly concerned about stating concern city council didn't respond if I were mayor it would at least make it on the agenda so that the community could sit and voice their concern to council and we could try and sort it through that those are my feelings thank you jack okay thank you first off I you mentioned the stabbing at the um at the transit center it's important to point out that the person who's accused of doing the stabbing is not one of the people who has been identified as someone living out in the street in Montpelier not one of the people who's a client of of one of the agencies that provide services and I think it's important to say that this is not this is not an attack caused by criminal caused by homelessness and criminality I think that's important to keep in mind during the years that we've been talking about the homelessness crisis we have had many many many occasions when homelessness homeless services have been on the agenda at the city council not not a single meeting but many and and we've had many members of the public although not my opponent coming to to address the council on those on those occasions what's going to happen with the with the transit center really depends as much as anything else on the willingness and the ability of the agencies to to resume services on that location we can't do it without them thank you Dan I am afraid to actually take a position on this one admittedly because I think this is something I would like some guidance like I said from the homeless task force I'd like some guidance from the people at Good Samaritan and I would again like to see what other services and protection capacity the state can help with because I as I said before I think we have been abandoned by the state and by our region and stuck working with a problem that's way beyond our limited resources to provide yes Jack was right this kid was from Marshfield okay we don't know why he was there but uh you know this was a gathering place so we have to then be careful in reopening the transit center and by the way I do believe it should be reopened as a warming shelter because it gets cold people are freezing we have to figure out how to be able to help people stay warm but we've got to do it in such a way that there's some level of protection and guarantee what that is I like I said I would like to go to the homeless task force and ask what they think how we could do this how we could manage this and other parties in the city because I think this is one of those issues that is now coming to the four that we have not been doing a good job of actually addressing or saying well okay what are we going to do in the future here so again this is a community problem the council has to be part of it but so are other parts of the community thank you thank you Dan okay so our next question is on a different topic but related I wanted to find hear from you all about confluence park a planned park whose cost projections have tripled in the past couple of years from one million to three million dollars um the city council recently voted four to two to give park advocates another 18 months to find grants to help pay for the park um and just to fill in the gaps for listeners this is also a place where folks who are experiencing homelessness gather um there was a shelter there at one time that was removed so given all of that information and the city's various needs and priorities um and the past use of this site how would you vote on um let me rephrase that can you just speak to your thoughts about building a confluence park in the space where it's currently planned and we will start with jack thank you um when the advocates for the confluence park first came to the city council and I should point out that the planning for the confluence park goes back to something like 2002 but when the advocates came to the council I thought it was an exciting prospect because it's in line with one of the city council's goals which is to develop uh my pillar as an outdoor recreation hub and have that be uh opportunity for economic development in the city um the voters supported an allocation a bond of 600 000 for confluence park and as we went way above 600 000 I heard from a lot of people who thought that there was just no way they were going to support two million or three million dollars and I completely agree I'm the reason that we had the discussion at a recent council meeting was because the supporters of confluence park recognized that nobody on the council is going to agree to spend 200 or three or two or three million dollars of taxpayer money to do this um I can't tell you what we're going to do uh because we're talking about what might be a year to a year and a half from now but we're going to be looking at uh what the prospects for funding are and what the uh all the rest of the circumstances in the community including where what our housing resources are for homeless people and what our recreation needs are we're not going ahead the way it is now thank you Dan this is a painful subject for me because when I organized uh six years ago the sustainable Montpelier design uh competition a number of the best loved entries all had some use of our riverfront more than parking lots and uh steep faces um I believe a really dynamic city would be able to make use of its riverfront but that was before uh the realities of what's happening in the economy began to crash in on us and so we're now in a situation where the costs of this project have escalated beyond what we can afford like I said before I think we have some real issues that have to be done in terms of what our planning is what we're going to prepare for etc and I think the confluence park as much as I would love to see some recreational development along or really love to see it I don't think it's in the cards in our near future because we have other choices that we have to make in terms of our planning and recreation dollars that do not include what is becoming a impossibly expensive project and we don't have the money to support it thank you thank you Richard well I'm not going to be unambiguous about this uh this is the capital budget we're talking about it's not the operating budget these funds wouldn't be going over to help the homeless not out of the capital budget these funds go to paying for sidewalks in our communities and for bridge repair no I am not going to put off sidewalks and bridge repair and other capital projects that are needed in neighborhoods for confluence park I just I didn't support it I didn't vote for it at the time and I don't support it now but keep in mind you use the word how would you vote the mayor doesn't have a vote unless council is tied three to three but we're counsel tied three to three my vote would be against it I just do not see why we would do that I mean we're going to talk later about pushing off infrastructure under the ground this is the equivalent of pushing off infrastructure under the ground when you're pushing off sidewalks thank you all of you at various times have pointed to housing as a pressing issue in our city lack of it and lack of affordable housing how will you use your position as mayor to address the growing housing crisis and we'll start with Dan oh boy um the um I guess I'll I'll start by saying the current crisis demands more than hopeful long-range planning uh we have an immediate need for workforce housing okay something that this happens in the next couple of years not something that's 10 or 15 years in the future uh otherwise we don't have teachers health care workers and the other people that we depend on every day to keep things running so we're looking at a rear view mirror also if we expect developers to step up and provide the density high density housing even on the else club site because the cost of construction uh and development and interest rates have gone so far up that a lot of what we have now assumed in the past is no longer uh going to be happening so we have to start looking at other places the things could happen now my first one which I'll probably get in trouble with is saying I think we ought to zone VCFA dorms as housing and turn that into a place where low-cost um efficiency apartments could be created fairly quickly uh now how that gets paid for is an interesting issue uh we need uh to illegally make airbnb's that are not in owner-occupied homes illegal that will open up some more housing available we've got to look at our downtown office space and uh you know what could be turned in there I can also go on on parking lots and how we could work with the state to create housing there is a big issue here there's lots of possible approaches but we're not going to get there by pretending that somehow things happening 10 years out in the future are going to make a difference the the crisis is now and we have to pay attention thank you um Richard boy this is going to dovetail with the inevitable question about the Alks Club so I'm going to stay away from that but I will say that infrastructure for housing unless you're going in the core city which we have we're a mature city with very few vacant lots available for housing we have Alan Goldman's property way out on terrace we have the golf club potentially way out there but in between there's very little except for Sabin's pasture and Sabin's pasture sits in a tax incremental finance zone that could pay for the under street infrastructure required because it paid for the under street infrastructure across street and bar hill we didn't pay for the water and sewer for that but the taxes in that tax incremental finance district I would suggest that we seriously start working with the Zorsi family and Alan Goldman and get housing in Sabin's pasture when we moved here in 2001 our first vote in 2002 was to purchase Sabin's pasture for $700,000 for low income housing or something on that level well our kid is post graduate school now so yeah it's a very very complex issue but you can't think of it simplistically it's not a binary well we need more so we're going to get more thank you thank you jack thank you you see this is one of the problems here and one of the problems we addressed by proposing to buy the golf course and that is that we can spend a lot of time looking at property that's owned by other people and saying well I wish you would do something with that piece of real estate that you owned the city has been working with the owners of Sabin's pasture and we've amended our zoning bylaws to enable it to facilitate its development but we still do not control it the fastest way to get housing is to is to put your money on the horses that are already at the starting line or have already left the gate and so we have projects that are have been proposal and enter in the planning and development process like a couple of projects on the in the northfield street area the habitat for humanity project there's a project that's in the planning process on Isabelle circle and we've got the country club road which is well into the planning process beyond that I would look at all of the downtown buildings and the upper stories and talk to the owners and say what does it take to turn your your upper stories of your building into housing thanks and you don't have to be clairvoyant to guess the next question is about the country club road property and so I'm reading it as it was sent to us from from from the public whether or not you supported last march's bond to purchase the former elks club the country club road property do you favor building affordable housing there and do you see that property having potential to be a legacy for future generations if so in what sense and if not do you do you favor reselling the property I realize that's a multi-part question we will start with jack thank you I was I was going to start my answer with absolutely but then I recognize there is an or there but absolutely I support developing housing in the property we've engaged with white and Burke to to plan and study for all the possible uses on the property and the survey is still open so anyone who's not replied please do so I think we need a substantial amount of housing every place we can put it in Montpelier for all income levels and all types of housing single family housing condominiums or other cluster type housing and rental housing we need that all there and I think that my number one priority for for the use of that property is to put housing there I recognize we also have enough room to put a new recreation center there although we're not there yet to make that happen and there's plenty of open space that adjacent to conserved space that that we will be able to conserve I think this this is absolutely a legacy and I think if we do not proceed with the with the proposed development of that property that 50 years or 100 years from now the residents of Montpelier will be cursing us for our shortsightedness in in not doing it thank you Dan I was not a supporter of the Oaks Club purchase I'm not now I think it was not part of the master plan I thought there was no planning attached to it in fact backing into the planning once you bought it was sort of the opposite what any sensible city should do nobody even talked when they offered it to the populace about what are the road and infrastructure demands that are going to be required on the property if you are to want development there and that's going to be millions and millions and so I look at it as saying if we could find a buyer I'd sell it again I don't see it as a future possible development because as I mentioned I think the actual costs of creation of housing right now have become so high that the construction materials costs that we are not going to be seeing much happening at all I would it's also you know not walkable from downtown I they say wait it's on the bike path if you you know have two and a half miles you want to do so it is not actually part of what would be downtown central city development it is not cluster development it is an area that I think is a dream without a reality and like the Taylor Street units which took 20 years for free property to be developed by downstream because no commercial developer wanted to touch it I think we're in a position where we have to really take a hard look at the property and figure out what we want to do that would actually save the citizens some money thank you thank you Dan I lost track of Richard there's one other who is it please okay okay there were two things in that that caught my ear and one was affordable and one was legacy let me stop with affordable to who is it affordable to the city taxpayers and to water and sewer users to be constructing a whole new set of water and sewer under that that will be borne by people who are going to be paying at the same time for the remediation of the mess that's in Cormont Piliar right now is that affordable but let's let's take it to a different affordability yeah the current all of you who are sitting in the room and all of you who are watching who are homeowners I have a reappraisal coming and when you see the reappraisal you're going to be amazed at what the level of housing goes for yeah it will be affordable it might be 10 or 15 percent 20 percent below appraised value you're talking over $300,000 you know these are going to go at market rates or you're talking about state there's state funds available to help with subsidy but every community is chasing those same state funds I hate to say it we need to make sure that this project first of all is feasible can we provide city services to this can we afford the streets uh the sewers underneath are we dueling with repair of existing sewers we don't want our legacy to be continuing a busted sewer system for this thank you water system thank you Richard um okay well let's talk about the water system should the city spend more in the future than it has been on replacing water main pipes and street repairs and we'll start with Richard one more is the verb so we're asking if the city should increase the annual spending on water mains and street repair it should it's not sure does the city have to I think it's a proper way of putting it the city has put this off for years has neglected routine repairs and the result of this is whack-a-mole our water mains busting around town it wasn't planned it's not in our plans to have the water main bust in front of TD North Bank bust behind positive pie bust on Langdon Street bust on College Street within a two or three week period the water mains are telling us something and they're telling us you can't simply do spot repairs there's a day of reckoning that we have to come to and that's what my entire campaign is based on is realistically bringing that day of reckoning so that we understand intelligently what's in front of us we can't continue infrastructure denial it's not a choice of of should or could it's a choice of have to thank you Dan okay um look you cannot have a sustainable city without predictably clean water okay and that's threatened a quarter century of deferred maintenance as they call it has led to an increasingly fragile infrastructure as Richard says we're playing whack-a-mole and uh this has got a we've got a demand better now I entered the race because my fear that Montpelier was not addressing the water crisis within the urgency you know and they I've told well we have a 50 year plan for doing this yeah right okay that's another exercise in kicking the can down the road and leaving the next generation to deal with it I've actually reviewed that plan okay it's an 83 million dollar plan and it actually does a little more than emergency repairs until 2040 when then it will kick into something more resilient by that time most of us will be gone and the whole system will just continue to deteriorate the supposed plan has no actual priorities of locations because as Richard noticed we don't actually know where the pipes are okay so now the state is telling us we have to fix a whole other dynamic which is the pressure of the system because it's running at 200 pounds per square inch well designed to operate at 90 now the Montpelier has promised the state a remediation plan by May 1st and I really will be looking forward to say seeing what that says but the pipes keep bursting uh we're already spending over 1.3 million a yearly cost just for the repairs it's time to have us for us a complete picture of what's going on with our water system and we need a plan not a 50-year fantasy thank you jack thank you the answer is yes we should spend more money in the future and we will spend more money in the future our our current expenses for the water system are based in part on our repayments of the bond that that we invested into establish the water treatment facility up in Berlin the payments on that bond are about to fall off the the budget and when that happens it has always been planned and it continues to be the plan that we will invest the the amount that we're paying on the bond to more and more maintenance and improvement of the of the water system we are engaged right now in in a study of the hydraulic needs of the water system I've heard people talk about well we need to get a report within six months about what what the state of the water system is in fact we've contracted with an outside engineering firm and that's to do a hydraulic study and that study is about 90 complete now so we will have a report well before the the timeline that we've talked about and finally the entire system is mapped contrary to what people have said thank you so going along with that what do you propose we should do about our city paving policy this question came in from Steve Cease in Montpelier who lives on northfield street and he asked what is your reaction to the proposed city budget for paving how do you decide which of the worst streets get fixed after the good streets and again multi-part question let's just stop there there's a couple other questions in there and we will start with Dan okay if one thing Montpelier was in agreement on is the quality of its streets you know which have inevitably been picked on now I'm lucky enough I lived on northfield street which was a mess but a few years ago it was rebuilt it's now lovely but going up north street it is a mess as many of our streets as I've told others however I I think it's a priority I believe that we're actually facing a future in which we have to make some hard choices about our dependency on the car to get around I know this doesn't endear me to many folks but we're going to have to start thinking about other ways of doing things so if it's a choice in our funding between fixing the streets and fixing the water system I'm going for the water system and I'll drive on bumpy roads on the other hand if we're in a situation where we want to keep some level of good maintenance going then we have to be a lot more clear about what we're doing because what they did on northfield street was actually go down to the bed and build up what they've done other places that basically a skim over the top and then put a new layer on which works for about two years and then starts going up again so our you know this is where we're going to have to have a hard discussion within the city not just the council about what are we demanding for our water for our road system and how much do we want to pay for it compared to the other needs that we've got to face thank you jack thank you over the last several years through the administrations of of the last two mayors we've had a goal of expanding the amount of money we put into our street maintenance program so that we can bring streets to the level that people in Montpelier expect and doing that we have been quite successful as Dan said we completely rebuilt northfield street which has not only provided a good driving surface but also has provided upgraded and stable and secure water and sewer systems underneath we've in the last few years repaved college street we've repaved main street and we've repaved a number of neighborhood streets it's not everything that that we need to do this year we were looking at our budget and we were thinking well what can we do how much can we afford in light of the other demands that we have and we're not quite back to the level we want to be but we want to keep keep putting money into it and I should also say that we devoted most of the first year's worth of our our money that we got from the federal government into into paving and capital maintenance thank you um so this question comes from oh my gosh Richard okay um we're going to move to audience questions very soon but you get a chance I'm so sorry Richard yes go ahead about the paving my wife and I have actually addressed the question of north street paving we stopped driving to Mary Hooper's house it's very difficult to get there but on a on a more serious note the paving budget under John Holler was much different than the paving budget the last two years I mean that that's a statement of fact John Holler's council was working towards a constant replacement policy that was displaced and I'll make one more uh elaboration on jack to help him the art of money on east state street is also going fundamentally for sewer and water as well when that project happens it's not simply straight straight paving it's a lot more elaborate than that but in terms of street paving finding the specific funds for that within the existing budget the Elks club has 250 thousand dollars projected for fine detail planning when they haven't even discussed feasibility yet if you were to take feasibility and study it it would cost about 25 000 I propose the 225 000 be taken from the elaborate planning that could be done later if if it's feasible and put it straight into street funding this year paving funding this summer that is when jack talked about budget priorities that was a budget priority rather than the street paving was advanced planning on the Elks club thank you so I have one more question and then we're going to take some questions from the audience and just a reminder for folks in the room if you haven't yet written down a question um you can hand it to ed flanigan ed can you he's in the back and um and then he'll bring those up to me so this and then I have then we'll start asking what folks in the room want to know um so the last question on my list for now um all three of you um running for mayor this year are in the same demographic older white men um what and if elected how would you use your privilege as being a person in that demographic to make more room for and lift up the voices and leadership of women folks of color young people lgbtq ia plus people and working class people in order to truly diversify city government and um we'll start with jack for this one thank you um that's a good point when I came on the council I think that uh donna bait and I were the only members of the council who were not in our 30s and and there's been a bit of a change since then um I support bringing more people into city government I support I've supported the uh the younger members of council who who've run and have uh have made great uh contributions on the council um ashley hill who is here before me and and lauren hurl who I sat beside for many years until I moved to the middle chair um we're going to continue to do that we've done a number of things already to uh to address this we have uh created the social and economic justice advisory committee and and that has done great work to address people feeling uh left out of of their city government we have adopted a policy to to pay people stipends who for serving on city committees because we recognize there are um there are sometimes financial barriers to serving on committees and finally one thing that I would like to do is we always have vacancies on committees what I'd like to do is have like a a city committee fair where all the city committees and we would reach out to the major employees employers to say we want people to come and serve on our committees thank you richard I can't see bringing more people into the city government when we when our population is stable right now if that's what they were talking about we don't need more city employees but in terms of of our city and and making sure that everybody feels that they have their say no matter who they are actually that comes down to city council and that comes down to how city council communicates with people and with all due deference to dana that comes down to the two minute rule which I think that when you've heard a presentation from one of the sub committees and you step up to speak and you have two minutes and council people are told not to respond to you that simply has a chilling effect in terms of your feeling that city count that the city government is open to you I I've also felt like again in communications a city council meeting happens and the minutes aren't are the results aren't even published online by the next Friday there's a communications breakdown between the city council and the rest of us and and I feel like as mayor it's one of my few duties I break the vote I break the tie I show up at meetings representing the city and I am the person who establishes the protocol that opens up city council meetings to everyone and I intend to do that if I'm elected mayor thank you and um before we go to dan I just want to give jack uh just about 30 seconds to respond just because I thought I heard you say you were looking for a fair for city committees absolutely we're not talking this isn't new employees this is making sure that all the members of the public get to participate in all the committees that often what they discuss on committees winds up coming before the council as as policy questions and so we need to hear from everybody okay and those are volunteer committees yes okay um Dan all right I could tell you just preparing for these debates okay there's just a whole lot of stuff you need to know in order to uh be responsive it's a constant learning curve now if you're a young family okay and you have to worry about the kids the budget the everything being able to take the time for doing a city job like being on the council or being mayor is a lot of commitment so yes it tends to you know not always but it tends to flow up to us old folks who have that extra time also we have that commitment because we have not been building a system that engages people to be involved you know I agree with Richard on the two minute rule I think that's a problem but I also think we need other mechanisms that are going to engage our people in discussions of the key issues and I have some ideas on that that would say I'd like to see expanded we'll call them town halls where both the mayor and the council would be able to listen to people on critical issues and over enough period of time that they can be brought in and actually have an impact on what's being thought I'd like to see us being able to look at the ways of recruiting young people and unfortunately I think the city committees are not working the way they should and I think we need to rethink them so that they're more uh conversant with the challenges the city's going to face and I'll leave it at that for now thank you okay it's now time to see if we have any questions from our audience who's here in the room yes okay thank you all right and this doesn't have to be the end folks if anything else crops up just um hand your question to Ed okay how will you make Montpelier more affordable property taxes specifically and rent that's what's written down here so um let me look at my chart here we're going to start with Richard for this question I don't believe that rent control is going to work here I I if it doesn't work in other cities I don't think it'll work here in terms of rent there's very little that the city can actually do uh except for perhaps restrict work work in our planning committee to make it possible for more rental side units and things like that on the margin we can increase the number of existing structures that have side rental units on the margin but unless you're you're able to really flood with brand new apartment housing the market rate is going to be the market rate I mean these things are under tremendous demand when a when an apartment opens it closes very quickly I don't want to overstate what government can do on this in terms of property taxes and the like I fully agree that new projects need to be stopped but projects that don't have feasibility that are already in the pipeline we need to take a serious look at those and like and I'll name names like the Elkssclub and Lake Confluence Park um we need to sit and revisit things and it shouldn't be all we voted on this years ago we need to stay with it forever that that's just not good governance thank you um let's see um jack the question is how will you make my pillar more affordable and specifically around property taxes and rents scarcity creates uh rent increases it's as simple as that we have right now a rental vacancy rate of one percent or lower there's nothing that's restraining uh upward pressures on uh on rents and there's no way to prevent that as long as we continue to have the uh limited amount of housing we have now so we need to build more housing we need to build more housing for homeowners so they can afford to buy houses in the city and we need to build housing for renters so they can afford to rent houses in the city um doing that in I think we can expand the city of Montpelier the population I think that uh we for 100 years or so our population has been around 8,000 I think we could uh easily uh accept a population increase over a period of a few years of up to 10,000 without a change in uh any of the quality of life that we all love in Montpelier and and that's more taxpayers more people to support the uh the expenses of providing services to the city and and housing development and economic development will help meet the budgetary needs of our community thank you Dan oh how many oh I only have a minute and a half uh the problem uh we have with affordability is that we're living in inflationary times and it's not about monetary policy so prices are going to go up on our food whether we want it or not okay they're going to go up on the energy whether we want it or not so the areas we have to control is basically what we're spending on city government okay and what we're spending on housing now as long as we're living in a so-called free market uh housing prices will continue to go up because there's no other alternative for doing that you know Bernie Sanders has basically just released a new book on the failures of capitalism so I recommend that because I think we're going to have to start looking at more socialized responses on how we do things we don't have a mechanism for doing that right now the city only can operate in uh local property taxes and zoning so we're we have a very limited palette for from which we can work on the other hand we can start looking at some hard things perhaps with other cities about what we're limited to we're not limited to in non-oaker uh owner occupied investment housing we can start looking at uh what's available to people like I said uh you know whether it's VCFA or downtown offices that we could get stuff happening uh quickly 10 or 15 year plans is not going to solve the inflation problem for people so we have to start looking also at what is the city expenses how many administrators do we really need how many uh other pro special projects do we need in order to keep the city functioning at the level we all want to have it happening again so this is a big problem it's one that's not going to go away and it's going to require constant communication within the city to talk about this thank you thank you Dan um okay this person asked two I'm going to start with one and if we have time we'll come back to the second one can you please respond to John this assumes you've read this article that appeared in the bridge it was John Holler's commentary about infrastructure spending did everybody here read that okay so essentially um he spoke about um he felt that the city government was um had a plan that's gone off track on infrastructure spending um and so we will start with um jack thank you um building a budget is a struggle it's a constant balancing act it's uh it's refreshing to hear someone say well we need to spend more money on some particular part of the budget because mostly in our budget hearings we don't hear a lot but mostly what we hear from people is you're spending too much and they're not even saying redirect it from one thing to another they're just saying you're spending too much and don't don't raise our taxes I the what the policy that the city council has uh has followed uh under uh mayor Ann Watson is essentially the policy that uh John Holler established of maintaining uh investments in infrastructure over the years we we lost revenue we lost a lot of revenue when the pandemic hit and you and you'd be you'd be surprised uh we lost we zeroed out our parking budget completely you'd be surprised that that's a significant contributor in our budget but it is so we're doing what we have to do we're not up all the way to where we want those investments to be but we're on track to doing that thank you um Dan sure I thought John brought up some interesting points uh I I noticed that the city manager uh two days later had a rather impassioned response back so obviously he had ticked off some issues that were critical um you know part of what he was saying is that there was a question about how we're managing those monies that are being assigned to uh various projects and I think that is actually a fair question that has to be looked at because I believe we do have a situation where there's some critical infrastructure needs like the the roads etc that really require more in-depth management review than what then they've been getting now we've had changes in public works department etc so I you know I can understand where some of that happens the other part of it is that we are requiring a uh we've given up I'm sorry to say um you know some of these management things by kind of a diffuse management structure where this people do this thing this people do this thing and and there's not a centralized control that thinks about what is the budget that is being required okay and so we have you know and no concept that actually people are hurting so the seven percent increase in the budget is basically saying well everybody just can pay more because it's not failure and they can pay more so it's now time to actually start looking and making hard choices about where are we doing things if the infrastructure is failing that's our critical point that's what the city has to do and we don't have any choices thank you Richard yeah uh I read John Hollers in fact I referenced that a few questions ago um John was totally right the path that his council set was not an easy path and it was abandoned by Ann's councils uh partially abandoned uh we were furloughing people during those years we had federal funds coming in during those years it's not as if oh my goodness the city fell apart during those years we've in terms of paving we simply have abandoned that goal it's it's black and white the numbers are real we're spending less than would have been projected and that's just given the amount of need in the community that's just not that's not right and in terms of under the ground we have not done the systematic studies the hydraulics will tell us about the water pressure but it won't tell us about the condition of the pipes in every part of the town and it won't tell us about the locations which are some in some parts of town strictly guesswork in Harrison when they did the work the work was paused in three for two to three weeks because they couldn't find the pipes they couldn't find the pipes on northfield that is not my speculation that is what happened um I'm going to give jack 30 seconds to respond to the comment about abandoning that it's just not true it's just not true we have continued to pursue the funding levels the appropriation levels established under under mayor holler and as I said you know even if even if we'd had the money during the pandemic you know we we didn't have the workers we brought the workers back but but we continue to do the paving and we will will continue to do that paving in the future I'm hoping that in the next year and the year after that we'll be able to get back up to the appropriate budget levels we need okay thank you okay we have a great question here there have all been good questions this one is a totally different tack um why would you want to live in a city where you were the mayor so we'll start with um with Dan for this one sure well because I'm the mayor uh it's got to be great the the fact is I think you want to live in a city where I'm the mayor because it's a city that's now going to look forward rather than in the past it is now going to be understanding that there are going to be challenges coming down the line and the city is going to be mobilized to meet those challenges rather than assuming that tomorrow is going to look like yesterday we're going to take a hard look at our future and figure out how to manage that challenging future in such a way that we're going to be safe humane and comfortable here in okay this is not easy stuff it's hard stuff because we don't know what's coming down the line but we have seen enough whether it's bare ground unfrozen in february that says oh climate change I guess is here okay whether it is uh you know the number of workers who cannot find housing in town that says oh my we have a problem that we actually have to start talking about real problems and stop talking about pretend solutions and that's going to mean that a city with me as mayor is going to actually start paying attention to that and paying attention to how do we engage the entire citizenry in the problem solving of town not just leaving everything to the city council because that's unfair in a small town like this thank you thank you um let's see Richard I have an advantage that others don't have my wife owns the pet shop and basically she sees people from out of town each and every day and talks to them and she knows why they came here what they love about Montpelier what brings them here what is the Montpelier that they think we are and they think we're a pretty darn cool place besides being the only capital without a mcdonald's I mean basically they see a community as we don't see ourselves and she brings that home to me every night that's what I would like to see Montpelier be I'd like to see us be what they think we are and what we could be you know this is not the Montpelier when we moved here 20 years ago and things change but it that wasn't the Montpelier they think we are either the Montpelier they think we are is a friendly place more friendly than others where people care about each other and where the streets are good you know basically it's it's a great place to be of course they're not here after nine o'clock at night or seven o'clock and looking for something to do but that's a wholly different question for another 90 seconds thank you jack well that's an interesting question I was doing some calling some voters on the phone just yesterday and I talked to someone who's a young woman who hasn't been here well I think she's been here all her life but quite young less than I've lived here we'll put it that way and and she said that she thinks that Montpelier is not the way it was that she remembered that it used to be more like a family and I said you know I think you're right I think that what we see when we have a family is a group of people who help each other out who take care of each other and and I think that that's what we want to see in our city and and part of what involves in that is is doing the planning to address the issues that that we were faced with and as we confront who's going to make be the mayor of Montpelier one of the things we consider is who's the one who's actually been doing the work who actually knows how city government works and who has been doing the planning for our needs now and in the future and that's why people would like to have me be and myself included be the mayor of the city thank you okay switching gears this this person asks are there big problems with our current city manager city council form of municipal government and let me consult the magic chart we're going to start with jack we've got we've always got a challenge of figuring out how we're going to provide services in a city given the fact that we're a city of 8000 that grows to grows by 20 000 during the day or it did before the pandemic but it still grows significantly during the day so we have a substantial need for services beyond what you would think for a city of of our size the in my view the most effective way and most efficient way to do it is to have a professional city manager and professional department heads and professional city employees who know what they're doing who are know from top to bottom the operations of each one of the city departments and can provide those services what the city manager does is sit down with the city council listens to the priorities established by the city council every year and we do work on developing our priorities every year and then the city manager takes his lead from the city council and follow does what we tell him to do applies the priorities for the city and I think that's been a very effective way for for the city to operate during the 40 years that I've been here unfortunately our weak mayor strong manager system leaves a real problem as far as the capacity for either the mayor or the council actually to do things because the both are so dependent on the managers feeding them information creating the decision system we are I think the state in general okay and this this has to do not just with Montpelier the only town that has a strong two towns have strong mayor seems to be Rutland and Burlington so we've got to then start looking at okay what is the actual rule for the mayor is it just to sit and preside at meetings follow Robert's rules of order and here when something has to come on the agenda or is it something where the mayor has to and the city council have to be more an appropriate part of the actual decision meeting I've been watching now for the time I've been here and the city manager basically gives a seven decisions to the council the friday before the meeting has a meeting with each city councilor before each meeting and basically lays out the agenda of what's needs to be done and it's up to the city council then to sort of rubber stamp what's being asked for I think there needs to be other ways of the citizen engagement and the creation of power within the city so that there's a wider variety of imports than just the manager's management of what the agenda is thank you Richard well this is going to be one of the rare cases where I agree with Jack I agree with Dan I think those are perfectly valid particularly Jack's description of the current system but the current system depends on oversight and it depends on meaningful oversight of the city manager and the departments and that's where I believe we've gone wrong and I think that the pinnacle of oversight lacks oversight is the streets and the infrastructure and the idea that you would have this whack-a-mole and the city manager would talk for a couple of minutes about what's going what construction is going on where that's not oversight when we had the discussions with the state over the water pressure and went in to talk to bill as you should have there are no minutes of those meetings there's no emails back and forth bill address the council afterwards in a very extensive discussion after the fact that's not meaningful console oversight the city's strong city manager works when there's oversight when there's when there's strong oversight and that is the element I think has been missing and that's the element that I see my role as as mayor being it's it's not grand vision it's making sure that the city is properly see oversight is properly done thank you okay this person asks if the country club road property is developed a robust consistent and regular transit system will be needed between there and downtown how can that be achieved and we're going to start with Richard for this one well we currently have my ride that Dan put together but on the other side of that again that's dependent on state funding we're right back to the state again on that I would say let's expand that discussion not only a transit system we have to educate those kids if we have a significant input influx of new kids we could possibly handle it at union we certainly could handle it at the high school that middle school is is the point that's the choke point you can't expand that middle school if you're planning for a significant number of school-aged children you have to plan for how that middle school can can be moved we did that back in 2005 we plan that we plan to close the middle school move them to the high school and expand the elementary school the price tag for that inflation adjusted would be 30 million dollars that is a hefty tag I don't know what the price tag for adequate transportation would be I have no earthly clue okay um Dan yes I do think we need to rethink our transportation system in large after the design competition a few years ago we had this one wonderful winning design that actually showed a linear city you know going down along the moon you see all the way to the traffic circle there key to that was a reintroduction of the streetcar system if you will now then one local entrepreneur in Burlington David Blittersdorf went off and bought some bud cars which could operate on that well where you get into is that actually those would work they could become a very viable berry to waterbury uh rail connection but the state doesn't like that because the rail system that now operates on there only wants to operate with their uh granite trains they do not want any public transit operating this is uh because we have a state that's dependent on roads and cars uh you know and you can look at what the governor makes his money at and you can see why that might be reasonable so if you want a transit system it would have to be multimodal okay I believe a train could work from Berryam up here which would get people from that point into town I then believe we need my ride which would be a vast expansion of the three port buses that we've got now and have something that would be much more with many smaller units that would actually operate much more efficiently but that's a whole question that requires state uh input and we're not allowed to do that right now thank you jack public transit is essential I uh I have talked to many people who uh who rely on my ride regularly for uh for their day-to-day transportation needs most people find it works very well for them some people who for one reason or another do not find it works well for them and I think those people can't be left behind I think we need to address that we clear I don't see us I I went over to uh to Barry I went for a ride on the bud cars with with dad in fact and uh and and the mayor a few years ago and I think that's a very attractive idea to for a commuter line between Barry and Waterbury possibly even up as far as Burlington I don't really see us uh establishing street cars from here to country club road but I certainly agree that we will need a robust public transit to meet the transportation needs of of the people living on country club road and I'm going to follow that question up we have one more audience question but I just want to get to this one that was sent in by Rebecca um and because it's related to transportation she asks will you push as mayor will you will you push green mountain transit to re-establish the hospital hill bus route we need a regular dependable bus route from downtown to the hospital the Berlin mall shaws and back to downtown um and then the question goes on my ride may work for folks who don't live on a regular bus route but it is not reliable enough to get people where they need to go on time um so that was a comment but also a question will you will you be pushing for that regular bus route um to hospital hill and around and um oh my gosh I don't know about my magic solution is a little muddle so we'll start with Dan and we'll go around um maybe the uh the idea is that yes I understand people elderly people with disabilities find my ride difficult to use um because it isn't as predictable as before they say well I don't have a smartphone I don't have this you know and uh and they may be true you know so you have a small number of people as Jack mentioned who do not uh use the my ride efficiently and it should be reconsidered how that could happen problem is the state only puts as much money into the system as it put into the previous bus system so if we're going to try and operate something that's both on demand and have some fixed route there's going to have to be an expansion of uh the bus service uh you know of the services that available and that's not Green Mountain Transit's uh decision that's uh the state's decision and as I've often said before uh VTrans is where you can take good ideas and send them to die um where we we need to start looking at other options that we could have for creating something that would allow the state to then have you know once an hour up to a bus up to the uh mall and back but otherwise if we're going to expand my ride there has to be other ways of organizing it financing it et cetera because it's not going to be effectively done with Green Mountain Transit and I think that's one of those areas of inventiveness that our city could be a leader in but we're going to have to take some effort to make that happen thank you Jack I know people rely on uh my ride to even get up to hospital hill um not everybody but it still works for people I think that uh for access to the hospital and the shopping up there there there are two main problems one is what do we do for the people who cannot realistically use my ride and for whatever reason they need to be listened to and we need to figure out what we can do to provide those services the other thing is that given the uh low density of the population and uh and the small population people have sometimes have to be up there at the particularly at the hospital in the medical offices later than uh any um any service we can predict is is going to be running and so we need to address both of those to to meet those needs and I think it takes study before we can uh say what the absolute best option is to to do that thank you Richard I'll create space for another question I concur with both of them okay um we're actually at time well we're not at time but we have just enough time left for your closing remarks um so I think we'll do the closing remarks in the opposite order that we did the opening remarks um so we'll start with Richard these are 90 I want to open by saying that it's been my absolute pleasure to be in the same platform with Dan with Jack people I've known for a long long time very thoughtful people and uh a vote for Jack or a vote for Dan is perfectly valid vote I think that um I'm running for a reason you're have you can listen after you've listened to this you know that there are three distinctly different paths you can stay the course you can go into comprehensive visionary planning but what I'm saying is the the problems are pressing and the solutions need to be coming very quickly particularly in the infrastructure we simply cannot go at the pace that we've gone at that is we can't pay we can't do paving at the budget that we have for this summer we need to find extra funds it's very clear it's it's clear to everyone that what we're doing isn't working and staying the course just doesn't seem prudent so you're stuck with two paths either you're stuck with a long-term vision path or you're stuck with the path of let's address the most pressing problems immediately and uh when we do that there's going to be a lot of hard discussion I can promise that and I can promise that your water bills are going to spike we've just put it off far too long that's that's the truth and I think that that kind of truth that facing truth is something that Montpelier will benefit from in the long run as well as in the short run thank you jack thank you before I went up went on the council I spent many many many nights and many many hours sitting in council meetings listening to presentations of various kinds and advocating before the council on housing in many other areas at one point I was saying I'd probably spent more time in city council meetings than anyone who was not a member of the council I think that's probably true but but even at that what I found when when I got on the council was there's so much that I did did not know and it really was a learning process to get on the council to see what what we're faced with an issue after issue after issue and and how we would address those issues how we would do something as simple as allocating the time that that we could spend on each of the items on the agenda and how we can have a mayor who can how we can establish a collegial atmosphere so that people on the council can work with the mayor with the city manager as a team to to get the work done of the city and not defend not descend into into bickering or unproductive productive discussion because of my years of experience on the council I think I'm uniquely qualified to lead the city to complete the projects we're already working on and to meet the challenges that face us in the future and I hope you will all vote for me on March 7th thank you Dan okay well like Richard I'd like to offer my compliments to my fellow candidates here who are willing to give up their time and provide their service so the Montpelier can be honorably governed but I believe this is a crucial moment for our city where old assumptions on the ways of doing things is not sufficient to the challenges that are coming our way and this approach is really hard to state in a state that is famous for well shall we say not embracing change but the changes are coming whether we want them or not up until now most of us in Montpelier have not demanded a robust response to growing challenges well because we're comfortable and tend to assume that our tomorrows are going to look much like yesterday however this will winter reminds us that climate change is real and here inflation will continue to fray our downtown merchants and our personal economics our infrastructure is much more fragile than we wanted to admit and our assumptions of continued economic growth prevents us from seeing how grand plans for parks and developments are assuming a tax base that may start shrinking so the list of challenges just keeps growing my mayoral campaign is aimed at asking difficult questions about our city's future and the choices that we should be making while we still have the time to adapt it is time for a new more disciplined approach to the challenges of municipal planning finance and governance but this is hard stuff but I do believe that exploring with you the citizens the difficult public policy choices now can help spark a municipal commitment to building a humane and resilient future for all of us and that's why I'm asking for your vote and thank you very much thank you I want to thank all of you thank you Dan thank you Jack thank you Richard vote thank you everybody who showed up here in the middle of the day on a Monday and thanks particularly to the Rotarians the Montpelier Rotary Club voting is on March 7th at Montpelier City Hall from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. registered voters can request to file or file for mail-in ballots from the Vermont Secretary of States my voter page at mvp.vermont.gov thank you for joining us the best thing you can do to protect the democratic process is to vote