 Hi friends! Janae would be procure with some exciting news. Town meeting day elections for mayor, city council, and more will be using ranked choice voting and all burling to voters get to participate. Unfamiliar with ranked choice voting? Keep watching or visit the link below. Ranked choice voting is a simple way to let voters rank candidates in order of preference. First, second, third, and so on. If your vote can't help your first choice win, it counts to your second choice instead. Here's how it works. If one candidate gets over 50% of everyone's first choice votes, they win and the election is over. However, if no candidate reaches a majority, the candidate with the fewest first choice votes is eliminated, and their supporters' votes will count toward their second choice. This process continues until one candidate reaches over 50% of the vote. Ranked choice voting is an easy way to give voters more voice, more choice, and makes for a stronger democracy. Learn more about ranked choice or try it out for yourself at betterballotvermont.org slash BTV 2024. Hello and welcome to Town Meeting Television's coverage of Town Meeting Day 2024. This program is part of a series of forums we are bringing you in advance of Town Meeting Day on Tuesday, March 5. Town Meeting Television hosts forums with all candidates and covers the questions you will see on your ballot, introducing you to community decision makers, and connecting you with issues that shape your local community. You can find all our forums at cctv.org slash 2024 or on our Town Meeting TV YouTube channel, where auto-generated captions are also available. My name is Elaine Haney. On tonight's program, we will hear from four candidates running for the position of Mayor of Burlington. These candidates are Will Emmons running as an independent, Chris Haisley also independent, Emma Mulvaney-Stanik, Progressive, and Joan Shannon Democrat. We have prepared a list of questions for each of you, and you will have 90 seconds to answer each question. If you're tuning in live, we also welcome your questions at 802-862-3966. If you call in, we will do our best to prioritize your question, though we will screen calls to ensure that questions are not repeated. We ask that you share your name, the town you live in, and that your question be directed at all candidates and not just one candidate. So let's get started with a one-minute opening statement. Why do you love Burlington and what will be different for the community if you are elected? We'll start with Will Emmons. Yes, and you know, some of this, some of this kind of drew up on the fly when I got here. If you are from Burlington, or you've been here for a long time, I think you remember places like the Ward Street Market, the Beeside, Ron's Gulf, Ethan Allen Lanes, Grand Union, Shana Nas, Nepali Dumpling House, Boves. Those places all closed due to normal attrition, you know, for one reason or another. Recent store closures and business closures in downtown include UPS Store, Sox Market, if I'm not mistaken, Full Tank, Algato, Church Street Tavern, LLB, Penning Fools, Majestic Car Rental. These places closed because the situation in Burlington has become so dire that places are flocking to the seven towns that are booming, that are insulating us. This is a very local issue. A lot of the things that are going on in Burlington, and you know, I think the proof is in the pudding, and I want to make it more like the towns that are around us that are thriving. Thank you. Thank you. Chris Hazely. The people, by for sure. You know, we're blessed to live in a community where we have a diverse group of people. We have a lot of people that come out and get engaged, they come to the public forums, speak their mind at City Council. We don't always agree, but it's encouraging that people come out and be a little more concerned if people didn't come out. I think that that's our greatest strength as our people here in Burlington. And I think what would be different is, is we need to have a better process to kind of harmonize all of those diverse voices that we hear at public comment to try to get everybody onto the same page to kind of move us together forward as a city. And if elected mayor, the thing that would be different is we would be looking at a much different process designed to do exactly that. Thank you. Emma Mulvaney-Stanek. Thank you. And thank you to Tom Meany TV for this forum. I am a State Representative Emma Mulvaney-Stanek. I'm a mom of an eight- and four-year-old, a long-time Old North End resident, a small business owner, a current state legislator, and a former labor organizer. I'm running because I love this community. I'm running because I'm also very concerned about the unraveling of community in Burlington. There's a divisiveness that's permeating out of City Hall, and it's time that our community re-establishes more healthy practices from our leadership. Our local leaders have not been working together as they should be, and we really need to be collaborating to address the significant challenges facing Burlington. This election, we need to ask what skills and experience we need from our next mayor. I'm uniquely qualified among the field of candidates with both local and state policy-making experience as a former city counselor and state legislator. Burlington's challenges are state and local issues combined, and I'm excited to offer my candidacy and hoping for a healthy, vibrant, and safe community for my kids, your kids, and everyone in our city. Thank you. And Joan Shannon. Thank you, Elaine. I have, my name is Joan Shannon, and I have been a city counselor in Burlington for 20 years. I served as City Council President for three years. I've served under three mayoral administrations, and I am also a mom. And I've raised my family here in the Lakeside neighborhood. I'm running for mayor because, like all of you, I do love Burlington. I love the lake, the mountains, but most of all the community that we have here in Burlington. And I recognize we are at a pivotal point in terms of public safety. I have the demonstrated courage, leadership, record, and experience to address the challenges that we face. I want Burlington to be a place you can raise your family and feel safe. Our city employees have a lot of insight into what our city needs are. I'm very proud to have just received the support of the AFSCME Union membership representing over 300 employees across the city. I'm also very proud to have received the endorsement of the police and fire unions. These unions share our concerns for public safety. Thank you. Thank you, Joan. Okay, we already have our first caller. So what I'm going to do is take the call, and you'll each have a minute and 90 seconds to respond. Hello, caller. Please give us your name and your town. Hi, my name is Dee. I'm calling from Ward 3 in Burlington. And what is your question for all the candidates? My question is, I would like you to speak on the relationship you see between incarceration and housing. And specifically, do you consider incarceration as housing? Okay. Thank you. Do you, the relationship between incarceration and housing, and do you consider incarceration to be housing? We will start with Chris and then go around. No, I do not consider incarceration to be housing. I think that we need to do a better job in that regard. And I'd say that our approach to housing is completely wrong and it's failed a lot of people. We wait till people are out on the streets before we offer them help, and then we try to fix a problem that's very costly and it doesn't really lead to good outcomes. If it were up to me, I would take a different approach. I would focus on preventing houselessness because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I'd like to take a page from the playbook from Houston and Denver and maybe look at bringing out a universal basic income to help people keep the housing that they have, because keeping the housing that they have is going to be more cost-effective and, more importantly, will lead to better outcomes for people. Okay. Thank you. Joan Shannon, please go ahead. Thank you. I want to be clear that I believe that if you commit a crime, I think that there should be accountability. Accountability can take different forms, but that does not mean that folks can continue to harm others in this community with no consequences. I think we have situations in the city where there are people dealing drugs and creating a violent environment in our housing. And my concern is that if they are evicted from the housing, I don't think that they should be living on the street. I think they should be held accountable for their crime. I think that they should be incarcerated. I also want to be clear that folks that are suffering from substance abuse disorder need treatment and support. We don't have enough support for people that need treatment. We also don't have enough support for people coming out of incarceration. I think supportive housing is essential. It's a real need in our community. And we need state and federal help to provide the housing solutions that is part of what's contributing to our public safety problem. Thank you. Thank you. Emma Mulvaney-Stanek. Thank you. I do not think incarceration is housing. I think looking at it such in that way creates harm because we know with evidence and I know as a state legislator when we incarcerate individuals not only is it an extreme cost to the state of upwards to $80,000 but we know a year. But we know that when people leave incarceration it's further hard for folks to find employment and housing and that creates further harm for folks and creates barriers that is hard for people to overcome over their lifetime. We really have to treat our housing emergency and the people who are unhoused in our streets with the dignity that they deserve. People deserve safe places to live, a humane response from their community and we're simply not meeting that standard here in Vermont. These are Vermonters who are suffering in the streets of Burlington and this again is not only a local challenge, it's a state challenge that's showing up in the streets of Burlington. I was a leader last May in the state legislature to sound the alarm on the abrupt ending of the motel emergency housing program. I worked with several other Democrats and progressives to put out a number of different policies and solutions to prevent what has ultimately happened here in the streets of Burlington. And while we were able to house several of the most vulnerable households, still hundreds of people were pushed down to the streets and now we're living with that reality in our streets in Burlington. But again these folks deserve dignity and respect and we have lots of different solutions and as mayor I would work with regional partners in the towns and the state to come up with solutions that treat these folks as the Vermonters that they are. Thank you. Thank you. Okay we have another caller so I'm sorry Will you need to go. Hi Dee, thank you for the question. You know my name is Will and I was a three term union representative. I ran for president and was elected for three terms. I during that time I stood on behalf of Defendants a corrective action. You know I would write the case in their defense and you know what you know I believe that prison is corrective action. I'm also the only candidate in this race that's calling for defunding a vagrant housing initiative to see. I believe that we're lowering people from across the country to this town and as a person who got to know a lot of the people on the street after the last election because I'm the only returning candidate actually ran against Miro and the rest of the guys in the last election. I was I got to know a lot of them and I can name on one hand how many of those people are from Burlington which is something that's alarming and at $79,000 a bet I believe that people need to be paying attention to who's paying for this and where is that money going and when we defunded our police where did the money go? You know public needle use is a major problem right now and I believe if you're shooting up in front of the high school then you should be incarcerated for that. Whether the time is extensive I'm not saying that like I said I spent many years and I did some criminal advocacy work on the streets of Burlington where I hired a gentleman a lawyer and wrote his whole case for him so I do believe in second chances. Thank you. Thank you. Okay now we will go back to the phone for another question. Hello Coller please tell us your name and where you're from. Hi yeah my name is Brandon and I live here in Burlington. And Brandon what is your question for the candidates? Yeah so my question is the state minimum wage right now is 13.67 an hour. Burlington has a livable wage ordinance that applies to city workers or anyone who contracts with the city that's currently at $17.44 an hour. My question is is either of these a livable wage and if you could elaborate beyond just the simple yes or no. Okay thank you for your question. We're going to start with Joan Shannon. Thank you. There is a calculation that goes I don't think the minimum wage is a livable wage and I think the livable wage calculation probably has not caught up with inflation at this point. I do think it's very important to pay a livable wage. I think that the workers of our city are the heartbeat of our city. We are reliant on them to deliver clean water to maintain our parks and our roads so I'm strongly supportive of paying a livable wage and I think it will I believe it's calculated annually and it will probably be recalculated to more accurately reflect the increased cost of housing. Thank you. Thank you. Emma Mulvaney Stanek. Thank you. I actually started my career as the director of the Vermont livable wage campaign so this is a wage standard I'm very familiar with. It's calculated by the state and the city does its own calculation based on benefits offered by the city but it's nowhere near what it actually costs to live in the city of Burlington and frankly in the state of Vermont. People deserve to be able to live and work in the city of Burlington and we're pricing people out. Even in my household I hold my breath when we open our property tax bill in order to make sure that our household can actually afford to keep up with that that cost of living also with the challenges of childcare which is really crushing for working families. So we need to do more. We need to know that and treat the city as the model employer it should be with labor standards to support city workers as well as those who we contract with to make sure they're paid a livable wage have a decent and respectful pension and benefits as well and then have that reflected in the other MOUs and leases that we do with other entities in our community to continue to push wages up where they should have been to really deal with that other side of affordability in our community. Thank you. All right. Will Emmons same question. Yes. COLA that's cost of living allowance you know that's something that I represented for many years and you know I believe in a livable wage and through interviews that I've done on a lot of businesses on Church Street and other businesses in Burlington I have found out that a lot of the workers in this city waitresses waiters things of that nature are having a problem making money to make ends meet and paying their rent right now because there is no patronism downtown because where people used to feel safe at night they no longer feel safe during a day and so what is that causing well the last person I said I said why don't you stick around until election day because I'm going to change out if I get elected but she said she's pretty much moving out this week and she said you know with with the daily overdoses that they see outside they can't see people outside it's killing their business and you know that's affecting their wages so I do believe in livable wages and you know I've always fought for that during the course of my career I mean that was my job wages hours and working conditions thank you thank you and Chris Haseley yeah I think we need to do a better job with that little trigger warning here we're going to have a little math lesson so traditionally affordable housing is defined as being no more than one-third of your take-home pay so looking at the federal housing and urban development's fair market rent for this market will go with a one-bedroom apartment for about $1400 that comes at about 16,000 a year you do the math on that that comes out to having to have a $50,000 income after taxes so that's you know significantly more than the $15 an hour livable wage that folks are advocating for so I think we need to definitely move in that direction but I think there's a huge gap here and as Mr. Emmons said you talk to our bartenders our servers our cooks our security personnel our housekeepers our retail people anybody who works you know for an hourly wage or for Luba there is a very huge wealth inequality gap that keeps getting bigger and bigger and when I moved to the city in the fall of 1999 the vacancy rate was about 0.5 percent which is about what it is today the one-bedroom apartment that cost me $500 over on Bewell Street is now costing about four times that amount and the one thing that's changed is the city is now approximately 70% renters the only thing that our policies have really done is succeeded in doing is destroying our stock of single family homes which is pushing middle-class families out of the city and it's also making it unaffordable for younger people I've heard from a number of people who said I'd like to live here but I simply can't I have to look at underheld Jericho Moncton Swanton Fairfax to find something that's in my zone of affordability so clearly there's a lot of work to be done in that regard thank you all right we have another caller hello caller please tell us your name and where you're calling from my name is Michael Long and I'm calling from Burlington I'm a Burlington resident and what is your question for the candidates my question is how would you as mayor hold large landlords and the University of Vermont accountable for their role in the housing crisis okay thank you very much we're going to start answering that question with Emma Mulvaney-Stanik thank you I think this is a really critical time when our housing market and our housing vacancy rate is so low as another candidate just mentioned and large landlords and frankly even small landlords and institutions in our community have a vital role to play in making sure that we can make our city affordable again so with large landlords I think we need to really look at partnering and understanding the need for stabilizing rents and incentivizing landlords who understand the importance of that of keeping working people in within the city and so I would explore policies such as incentives for landlords who keep their rents at a moderate rate of increase and stabilize that for the tenants who are trying to stay in the city in terms of MOUs with large institutions we have a lot more work we could do there I'm disappointed that the MOU moves so quickly through for UVM without enough process to understand the vital community benefits that we need to ask when we these big agreements are reopened in negotiations and I think at the UVM has dropped the ball and the city has dropped the ball in terms of making sure that we are leveraging two sides of the equation related to the housing crisis when UVM has built more housing over the last 10 years they've also increased student enrollment and that exacerbates the problem it doesn't help the the housing pressure here in Burlington so I think we need to not only look at capping student enrollment at UVM but also looking at other community benefits such as re-establishing the child care center they had on campus to help working people in Burlington. Thank you. Will Emmons same question. Yes and I think I agree somewhat with what Emma just said with with the colleges if they're going to have students then the students should have housing yeah at least some sort of options available to them before they come to town rather than just you know essentially kind of like an employer hiring an employee and not having a job for them so I think that that makes a lot of sense and you know Burlington has focused a lot on on housing in the last few years and if you look at the again seven towns surrounding us we are the housing is booming everywhere there's plenty of places available but there's there's always more work to be done I certainly don't support destroying a place like the memorial auditorium to put in housing however you know it's definitely something that I think that any mayor that gets elected is going to have to focus on and you know also keeping keeping the the cost of rent and and homeownership you know within reason is fair too it's lowering taxes is one way to you know lower rent you would you would try to work with the landlords and maybe make some sort of regulation that if taxes do go down then the rent goes down with it but you know I think renters in Burlington also needs to know if the taxes go keep going up the rent's going to keep going up and you know as a person who sold his house on Blodgett Street because taxes were so high in this town I think that it's uh it's understandable what people are going through thank you. Thank you. Chris Hensley. Like Mr. Emmins I am a long-time renter and I certainly understand that relationship that higher taxes equal higher rents that's been true for the 25 years that I've been here and certainly that's contributing to our affordability crisis I think the basic supply and demand it's economics 101 we have a demand is outstripping supply and that demand is being artificially driven by as others have pointed out a university that keeps admitting more and more students and as others have pointed out every time they build more housing so within five six years you know that housing is filled up and more I also think that the students that come here to go to school ought to be able to live with dignity as well and putting three people in a room that was really designed to hold two people that's not an effective solution either it's not really fair to anybody so I think you know looking at the supply side and doing that but I also think we need to look at the um you know increasing the supply and I drive through Williston and Winooski and South Burlington I see all sorts of new construction but I don't really see a lot going on in Burlington and I kind of wonder why and I have some theories on that but I think we could do a better job here in providing for our housing for our students and for our community that's affordable thank you Joan Shannon thank you UVM's last MOU with the city which is a memorandum of understanding expired in 2019 since that time UVM has added 1000 students to our neighborhoods and I think that that's really concerning and it should be addressed UVM now wants a zoning change from the city and initially wasn't keen on the idea of going into an agreement with the city I pushed hard on that I don't think that we should be giving UVM zoning amendments that allow them to increase the number of freshmen and sophomores and then they'll become junior and seniors and and put more pressures on our neighborhoods increasing housing at UVM for freshmen and sophomores is the only kind of housing you could build that actually makes our housing problem worse so I would like to work with UVM because I do think that UVM is a great asset in our community and the students are a great asset in our community and I'm fully supportive of increased density and building more units on campus and even increased height but we need to have insurance that as we give UVM that zoning change that they're looking for that they're going to be drawing students out of the the neighborhoods which is a big part of what is driving up rents in our community I also think landlords should be held accountable and I would support tax incentives for landlords to keep their properties low their rents low thank you and Emma Mulvaney Stanek same question I already answered it pardon me thank you I've gone all the way around I keep going but oh my gosh okay we have another caller hello caller please identify yourself and where you're from hi there my name is Mikaela and I'm calling from board three and what is your question for the candidates I was wondering if the candidates think that we need to recruit more police officers and if so what is your plan to do that okay thank you we'll start with will emmins yes on my website which is will4btv.com you will find staff two and a half officers per thousand citizens that is 112 officers total at the moment and uh you know what what is that going to do well first and foremost uh you know what we're doing right now is we're uh we're using the uh the monies that we have in the city which essentially always is going to come from the taxpayers uh somewhere or other uh and we are using that money to fund private security which is concert security which would do like a fish concert to uh to police our our streets and uh officers go through police academy extensive training I mean there's a lot of mental anguish that they have to put up with uh and they you know they they they they take the oath to protect serve and uh you know walk streets with treating people with dignity and respect and uh I feel that one thing with raising the police force to that level it's actually essentially going to lower taxes you see because when uh businesses return and patronism returns and citizens that are flocking by the thousands return and I maybe maybe maybe by the hundreds I should say but but when they start returning to Burlington because it's safe again then uh I believe that uh we'll have our city in a fabric of community that we once had as a person who's been around here since Miss Miller's fourth grade elementary class I have to say that uh that that Burlington was a place you could run around as a 12 year old barefoot I would not let my child run around barefoot in this town at this time thank you thank you Chris Hazley I think I would look to implement fully the recommendations put in the CNA report that came out a few years ago and based on my knowledge of that report I still think we have some work to do there and getting our officers up to the articulated cap in that report I think would be the first step and then at that point we need to see where we would go from there but again I think the bigger issue for me is you know an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and I think many of the issues that we're experiencing from a public safety perspective are being driven by the housing issues so we absolutely need to get that under control and make it more affordable for folks here in the city if people have a place to live they feel comfortable and they feel safe and secure they're not going to be acting out on the street and so that I think is one way we can work to make the city safer for everyone thank you Joan Shannon yes I do think that we need to increase the number of police officers the number recommended in the CNA report is 87 officers and we're nowhere near close to that at this point in time as someone who has been endorsed by the police officers association and I'm proud of that endorsement I think I am in the best position here to recruit police officers to come to Burlington I think in any job there's two two big things you're looking at one is what is the compensation package and Burlington is offering a very competitive compensation package which I support and secondly is what are the working conditions somebody coming to work in Burlington wants to know that we have a community policing model which is a covenant between the community and the police department that's a two-way street there has to be trust both ways and we have to build that here in Burlington I think the we need to recruit lateral officers officers who have already been through the training officers who are experienced and those officers are going to know whether or not the leadership in the community is going to have their back when they're operating according to their training and their directives and I will be a mayor that will hold police accountable and at the same time support them when they are doing the jobs the very difficult jobs that we have asked them to do thank you thank you and Emma Mulvaney Stanek thank you everyone deserves to feel and be safe in Burlington and we are not meeting that standard right now Burlington residents also deserve to get help when they call for help but we need to send the right professional to respond based on that kind of help that's needed and as a mom with an eight and four-year-old I feel that urgency anxiety to make sure that we get this right in our city I'm also going to look at the CNA report because I'm an evidence-based leader I do that in the state legislature I did that when I was a city counselor and I'm going to use that report as a baseline and update it based on what we need in our city it did not only talk about the number of police though it also talked about a few other important pieces which included social workers and it also included pointing out culture and policies and practices within the police department and I'll tell you as a former labor organizer it's not just money that attracts and retains people to a workplace it's also the culture and leadership of that workplace and I'm talking specifically about the police department as well as the city leadership and the divisive culture and behavior that city leaders have been leading in the last several years so I would also want to make sure that we are using our police strategically that it's right size so we're stewarding the resources of our city in the smartest ways and that we're using those police to really do what they are professionally trained to do which is deterring crime and responding to violence and threat of violence because that's the best use of those professionals and then invest in a comprehensive community safety strategy that includes a well-resourced resourcing our social workers our our community safety officers etc thank you we have another caller caller number seven wins a prize right hello caller please tell us your name and where you're calling from yes my name is pat i'm calling from burlington and what is your question for the candidates yes i'd like to know how they'd plan to enforce drug laws and stop people from shooting up and using and dealing drugs especially in city hall park but in downtown okay thank you very much we thank you we will start with chris hasley well as a downtown resident i'm intimately familiar with the situation downtown and i could go on about the situation but i think really i'm more interested in moving forward with solutions and i think that as far as folks go with the first step to fixing a problem is admitting we have a problem and i think that when you look it's well you know i don't really like to see people shooting up on the street well you know there's a reason for that they have nowhere else to do it so maybe giving them a place to go would help solve that approach and in a similar manner people complain well you know we got all these tent cities cropping up well you know there's a reason for that too and maybe if we had a place to go and the funny thing is we do it's it's a little bit up the avenue on north avenue it was designed for camping it's got facilities and yet it's it's vacant nine months out of the year uh i mean this seems like you know brainer to me and for a long time you know you we see the city council there's a big controversial issue instead of tackling it head on they kick the can down the road hire an expert our consultant buy some time you get some off the hook politically we have a dearth or excuse me an abundance of expertise here what we have is a scarcity of common sense and so i think what i would do is just try to acknowledge the problem and give people a place to go and get them to where they need to be okay thank you john chinan thank you um first i want to say that substance use disorder um is a major problem in our city and i will be a strong advocate for seeking treatment for people that need help it is an illness and uh and people aren't getting the help that they need that is our baseline problem at the same time i think that we do need interventions um i support safe injection sites i think that they can be a pathway to to treatment uh we also need to make sure that we are collecting the data to assess whether or not they're effective and effectiveness isn't just the number of lives saved but also how many people are we actually getting into treatment through this pathway which is really the goal for people to be well um but we also need to focus on prevention i don't think that there's been enough discussion about prevention this illness is very very hard to treat and our best tools are actually preventing people from from um suffering with the addiction that they have now but at the end of the day when people are shooting up and openly dealing drugs in city hall parks and our community living room there needs to be accountability um and i do think that the police should be intervening um and that that's our community expectation it's not okay to do it in our living rooms whether it's our living room at home or our community living room in public spaces thank you thank you and i'm a lady stanix same question so substance use disorder and the opioid crisis is a statewide crisis it's not just a burlington crisis and we have to recognize that it's a medical disorder and one that should be treated with the same respect of any other medical disorder where folks um deserve humane treatment and understanding around how incredibly hard it is to live with substance use disorder the toxicity in our drug supply is like nothing we've ever seen in our lifetime and we have to acknowledge that reality i proudly supported h 72 as a state legislator um it starts overdose prevention centers two pilot programs one needs to be placed here in burlington and as mayor i would strongly advocate for that because it literally saves lives and as commissioner dr levine of the department of health said actually had a community safety forum right here in burlington um we have to open as many warm doors as possible to get folks not only lifesaving treatment but on their path towards recovery and whatever it takes to me is necessary as a mom i want to make sure we have safe communities but i also want to make sure my neighbors are safe and not left to just have to use openly on the streets because that's not a healthy community and it is not safe for them um there will also be a quality of life improvement if we're able to care for these folks like the human beings that they are by renew removing needles on the streets and um and the trauma that people can experience who are not familiar or have seen folks openly using drugs before so i think again i would really want to emphasize a humane approach and recognizing these remoners deserve our care just like any other medical disorder thank you and will emens yes and uh you know i had an answer that i just want to note the 27 dropout rate of bhs it's more than five times the national average uh you know um what are you seeing outside of bhs uh there's a threat of a kid stepping on a needle which i spoke about during the seven days debates february fifth 2021 um that's unacceptable uh if a person is uh and there's a there's an instagram page bronyton looks like shh dot com or excuse me no dot com it's uh it's interesting they just posted a picture of a person shooting up about two blocks if i'm not mistaken from bronyton high school he had his pants down and he had spike marks all over his leg that's unacceptable uh the police are there to stop things like that from happening uh we we heard during the last debates that there was kids in school having meltdowns um you know um sorry for you know that taking place out there ladies and gentlemen i would not let my kid run around on those streets and i can see why kids are having meltdowns in school and is that impacting our dropout rate yeah and uh and i think that uh you know the the drug situation in the city needs to stop and uh you know if a person is is shooting up maybe they need rehabilitation um and if that doesn't work maybe they need prison time but in any case it's unacceptable for that to be happening we're supposed to be focusing on whether you're a democrat progressive republican libertarian whatever those parties are supposed to represent work in class and they are supposed to represent elderly veterans retirees and uh and children and students thank you okay we have another caller so i'm going to take another call hello caller please tell us your name and where you're from okay looks like they're not connected with us is that all the callers on the line at the moment hello caller please tell us your name and where you're from hello hi this is parence so there is no other i stay close to barlington and i stay involved so tomorrow is black history month my question is this as a mayoral candidate how will you prioritize safeguarding the rights and dignity of new americans individuals with sincerely held religious beliefs as well as africans if americans in the town of burlington considering the persistent disrespect they face how do you plan to address the systemic issues or also protecting those who may encounter hostility for opposing the prevailing ideologies within this new progressive community thank you thank you okay we will start with jone shannon um i believe that the mayor really sets the tone um and words from leadership matter uh i also want to say that racism and hatred have no place here in burlington they will have no place in my office and i will work as mayor to make that a value for all burlington residents my campaign mantra has been all hands on deck and that means that as mayor i want to be inclusive in my decision making i do not have a monopoly on good ideas and i am certainly not going to be addressing this issue alone whatever your race your religion your sexual orientation or identity you are welcome in burlington and have a valued place here um i think that city hall should represent the diversity of our city um that we need to have conversations with diverse community groups and there's a lot more work to be done um we had an incident recently at a city council meeting where there was all kinds of hate in different forms being spewed and seemingly an organized effort um including really harmful comments about um one of the candidates running for mayor and i oppose that i and i think it's important to speak out against that which i have um i think that we all need to treat one another with respect and with as much inclusion as we possibly can thank you same question emma malvaney stanek thank you to create a healthy and livable city we really need to make sure that we're doing things consciously to make sure folks feel that they can belong regardless of their identity especially racial identity um as mayor i would utilize the racial equity and inclusion and belonging office in much more strategic ways than i've seen it use so far it's it's an incredibly important investment within our city and on the state level i've seen the office of racial equity used really strategically across state departments and to support even policymakers and understanding where instructional barriers and structural racism exist and where we can be doing a better job of understanding and equities for black indigenous and people of color and i would love to be able to see the reib office utilize in such a way because there's a tremendous asset especially to a city um that does not have um as many BIPOC leaders as it certainly should i would also see council and partnership in an intentionally and resourced way with folks who are part of the marginalized communities to help set priorities and to do more than just using folks in a temporary advisory role that's how we build relationships and trust with folks who have not seen themselves were reflected in city government and that's not only where the best ideas come from but it's when we talk to impacted folks we understand how they're interface interfacing with our city and where harms have been done and where we need to repair that harm to rebuild the trust that this is a city where they can truly um belong and live and thrive will elements yes and um a few months back i sat in on a meeting of the 55th republican council brooklyn new york uh predominantly black uh and um they uh they all they live in a pretty a pretty rough area and um you know everybody in that area wants something better for their community um regardless of political party uh and so um what i learned there is uh is you know um about about establishing events that are community friendly uh and accepting of all people uh also you know i think it i think it's it's reflected in the hiring if you look at the hiring of any city in america uh you it should be uh fully diverse um and uh and that goes all the way across the board uh and if it's not then i don't understand the you know why you would have a council to investigate it i think if it's not then the public should be looking at it say okay it's not so we need to fix that like asap and so uh so you know if i if i get elected then uh then the hiring will be fully diverse and uh you know um i think you'll see it in the pictures that go up on the city website you know i think if if you look at some of the pictures over the years you're like wow that that doesn't really make sense of what we're what we've been saying we reflect all these years and i think uh you know in if i'm elected i'll change that thank you christ i believe we started with you on that question is that correct me sorry with you also chris what is your response uh so um prior to my appointment to the church street marketplace commission i had the opportunity to serve as an elected school commissioner from war two in the old north and and it was one of the most diverse uh wards in the city and as an it person by trade uh my general approach to the issue was how can we increase options and opportunities for our kids and you know i look around uh at our governance here i don't see uh the diversity in our community reflected in our governing structures here in order i see it in our sports teams uh and you know at the high school level and i have had some conversations there about how we can better provide opportunities for kids from the old north and students of color to engage particularly in the sport of ice hockey which is something i'm very passionate about i have spoken to director carcin about this and it was quite surprised to learn that sometimes it's simply because they're never asked well you know maybe you should play football or basketball or baseball well no let's give them a chance to try hockey let's put an outdoor ice skating rink in roosevelt park and you know create opportunities for kids in their neighborhood to go out and play get together and just basically create opportunities for people that don't have them thank you we have another caller and we'll start this one with that stanik hello caller please state your name and where you're from hi evan uh burlington and what is your question for the candidates so housing affordability is top of mind for a lot of the residents of burlington what are four concrete changes if you could snap your fingers and implement policy changes that you would implement to address this housing crisis okay thank you thank you and then the stanik thank you well we only have 90 seconds so i'll try to do four but as i said before it's really important i'm concerned about us losing the economic diversity here in burlington so first in terms of renters i mentioned this before but i think we have to explore rent stabilization since a large portion of burlington folks are renters we have to leverage uh those rent stabilization strategies as much as possible i see just cause eviction a charter change that i helped lead through the legislative process with democrats and progressives as one rent stabilizing practice for folks to stay in housing a second piece as a fellow homeowner or a for i don't know if you're a homeowner but as a homeowner i think we have to look at our local municipal tax structure and perhaps mimic the state income sensitized tax structure for how we fund our education fund system so that we can make sure that fixed income individuals and working class families have the ability to have their local property tax also be sensitized to income i think we also have to think about how we build out new building we're about to build a lot more housing in vermont including in burlington especially with the upzoning process happening and we have to think about our inclusionary zoning ordinance and making sure that that is the right formula and updated to meet the current market the cost of building new housing is astronomical one unit could be almost half a million dollars and i'm not sure our housing trust fund fee or the perpetual affordable units that are currently in that zoning process still makes sense today so i'd want to strengthen that to make sure we have perpetually affordable housing actually being built throughout the entire city thank you thank you will emin same question yes and uh you know again what i was saying before is uh you know i i own the house on blodger street and it was a it was a low-income home ownership program and i think that that was a fantastic program on its offer through champlain housing trust anybody who doesn't know about it should go find out about it there are some stipulations uh but uh you know you know um taxes were were rough for me and um i think that uh lowering taxes is is something that's important in this city i think we need to be talking about that at some point in time but as far as rents go you know uh i would like to see rents be more affordable especially for a a hardworking person who's not maybe making the wages that the person next to them is making and i as i'm walking house the house in the city i'm seeing the disparity you know i i see uh some people living in a nice lap of luxury household and i see some people that are struggling to make ends meet on a week to week basis month to month basis and i would like to make it more affordable you know and and have rents be a little bit more accessible for more people thank you thank you chris aizley i think what we're seeing here is the cumulative result of some 25 to 30 years of failed housing policy um the uh issue here for me is i think we need to work and focus on um prioritizing home ownership whether that's a single family home or a condo we hear a lot about bringing people out of poverty one of the best ways to bring people out of poverty is to build generational wealth and the best way to do that is through home ownership and when you look at black and brown communities who've been traditionally marginalized through practices such as redlining uh inability to get capital to you know purchase a home or start a business one way we can do that is to prioritize the home ownership uh and i think that that's really important um as i mentioned before the percentage of uh renters has increased from about 50% to but nearly 70% in the past 25 years we have a huge wealth inequality problem where you have a small number of people i think it's something like 11% statewide that actually own property uh and the pollens that own the property are you know are the ones that are renting it to the rest of us that uh don't own it and so i think that that's one thing that we need to deal with uh there is to make it more affordable okay thank you jon shannon uh thank you i agree with everything chris just said about home ownership uh being being key to stabilizing a family's finances and we do know that there has been racism has prevented black and brown families from owning homes and creating that generational wealth that he's talking about and we've had policies in burlington that have prevented um housing from becoming condominiums because we have a huge tax for it's called a condo conversion tax so that apartments cannot be converted to condominiums cannot be sold to the tenants that live there and i am working on changing that policy so that we can offer home ownership opportunities and hopefully even offer ways to subsidize the families who are living in that rental housing when it converts to condominiums to allow them to buy their home and stabilize their housing cost um another issue is that the development happening in burlington is mostly rental housing there are things that we can do in terms of financing to help create more home ownership opportunities in built housing another thing is uh the uvm mo u that's going to be key to making sure we have more housing for students and we have more housing available in neighborhoods and lastly i also agree that inclusionary zoning is important and inclusionary zoning can discourage development so we have to make sure that that's applied appropriately and we get the most that we can thank you okay we have another caller we'll take a call hello caller please state your name and where you're from my name is connor smith and i'm from the north end of burlington and what is your question for the candidates connor my question is how do the candidates propose to address our infrastructure needs in terms of updating our utilities and continuing to improve our transportation networks for bikers pedestrians and drivers okay thank you for your question we will start with will elements yes um you know i think i think engineering uh one of the things i was saying when i was going around getting signatures for uh to run for office was uh you know while new york city has effectively engineered a way to bring eight and a half million people plus a two million visitors uh fresh water on a daily basis uh we are still trying to convince our citizens that it isn't a possible feat to clean up the waterfront and do simple maintenance like bring a new sand into the beaches so we don't have to worry about kids stepping on needles and things of that nature um you know i think that the engineering exists i think that updating some of our facilities uh is uh is is imperative uh to make sure that we maintain a clean waterfront i think that uh uh you know you know as far as infrastructure goes not allowing some of our facilities to become old and dilapidated and some of our vacant buildings need to be restored as well um such as the memorial auditorium uh but you know uh that's not necessarily infrastructure but i did want to mention it uh you know and um and then maintaining you know the water water delivery systems in our city is very important and uh and i think that you know as mayor i'll i'll be focused on making sure that that stuff is again i believe in defunding vagrant housing initiatives i think that we need to focus i think that a city's job is to provide its citizens with proper infrastructure with public safety with the ability to go shopping in peace and you know that's what i'll be focused on as mayor thank you chris hazley uh yeah this is a great question i'm really had psyched to have the opportunity to do it and you know whether they come and look at our situation and ask why i prefer to dream things that never were and ask why not uh one of the things i think we could do in terms of infrastructures we absolutely need to have a conversation about establishing a modern civic center here in burlington where the largest city in vermont 45 000 people and we do not have a usable public space because we didn't maintain the one that we had we also in the process lost our one and only youth center so that's something we need to do and in addition to that what are we missing out on in terms of economic development how many artists and performers are skipping over burlington because we simply don't have an appropriate venue for them but i wouldn't just take it there i'd say let's put some ice in that thing let's bring a minor league hockey team to town something that'll draw people to downtown will generate tax revenue and while rat it will float a bond and have the city purchase the team and then once we pay off our proverbial credit card and then we'll sell share then we'll sell shares to the community so that it becomes a community owned team cap it at five percent so that we'll never have you know majority owner will never have to worry about it leaving the city uh i'd also like to see about putting an outdoor ice skating rink on the waterfront and honoring our heritage is the site of the first ever international ice hockey game and have an international ice hockey tournament to not only bring people into downtown but also as a form of cultural exchange you know we'll have them bring their mascots for the kids and we'll have them bring their mayors and city counselors from sweden and finland and all across europe to come over and share how they've addressed these very issues in their community because i think that there's uh something that we can learn from our folks over in europe so those are the ideas that i have and as for the transportation we need to bring back the trolleys okay thank you it's a door's out of my jon shannon wow that was that was a lot yeah um my answer is so much more mundane but uh i think we have a lot of deferred maintenance in our city and i think this administration has done a good job of trying to get at that deferred maintenance um we've passed many bonds which is unfortunately why one of the reasons our taxes are as high as they are but it's necessary delivering clean water um and maintaining our streets and sidewalks are all essential services of the city we i'm also proud to have supported the great streets projects which is a wonderful infrastructure pro project because it will deal both with our storm water it will deal with the um ravine that historians know goes through uh kind of under the library and across most of our downtown we have pipes that are 30 feet underground desperately in need of replacing that will be replaced through this project which is funded through tiff financing not through our property tax dollars and that's really important to take advantage of those opportunities um in new developments i think with the south end innovation district that zoning that we have approved we're really looking for um more creative ways other than other than individual cars for people to get around we need better bus service but also car share programs can be really helpful um and making more use of those in new developments will improve our transportation needs thanks and emma vanie stanek thank you one of the things i love the most about local government is getting into the weeds about infrastructure and how important it is for our city to actually function and have a decent quality of life for folks whether that's sidewalks that are actually repaired whether that's infrastructure for our wastewater water treatment plans our public utility for electricity working for folks but it takes planning and it takes strategy and understanding what capacity that does the city have both in terms of human power our city employees our hardworking city employees but also within our affordability as a city for transportation again as a mom of two small kids i want to be able to give up one of our cars but we need a easy to use public transportation system that's free that's efficient and that's um easy to use and we're not there right now and we need to be able to do creative thinking in order to public do public and private partnerships perhaps so folks can get to school get to work no matter where they live in the city um in efficient and easy ways i think we also need to do a better job of fiscal planning because i would disagree we have when i started on city council we had a mile long capital budget and we never seem to get ahead and so i think we have to get out of political cycles of fiscal planning and think with a 10-year view of all the capital needs we need for the city and then really have more transparent and deeper community engagement methods to make sure you all are able to set the priorities and know why we're spending money on a versus b so that we don't have our beautiful public asset assets like memorial falling apart from years of deferred maintenance thank you thank you we have time for one last question so we're going to go to the forum one more time hello caller please state your name and where you're from thanks my name is annie i'm in burlington in ward four and what is your question for the candidates annie um they're all applying for a full-time paid job as mayor how has your current paid job prepared you for this role and why should voters trust you to bring ethical values to the office of mayor based on professional uh field that you've dedicated your life to so far okay thank you very much great wrap-up question we'll start with chris hasley uh it's my belief that public policy should be based on facts and data not an ideology or raw emotion uh as someone who worked in the it sector we tend to base our decisions on data so that's kind of the way that i would approach the issue uh i've run a couple of small businesses i understand that the challenges face there at the end of the day what we really need is a better process to bring people together to really come together and address some of the issues that we have here and right now we have a lot of division in the city we see that at our council meetings and if we had a better process we could do that and do great things together thank you thank you john shannon uh thank you i've had a lot of different paid jobs many of them working for different small businesses and owning my own small business which was a manufacturing business um and most recently i have been a realtor trying to find housing for a lot of first time home buyers and i see firsthand the struggles of people trying to find housing in our community and it's devastating i uh see people coming from outside with more resources than the workers who are providing services here and this is a real challenge but i've also served 20 years on the city council and i know uh i know the city's needs and i've i've weathered the many storms in the city i have helped during the burlington telecom debacle um i helped create a process that the community had faith in and trust and it took 10 years to resolve that it took um a long time a long process and it involved engaging community members and bringing other expertise to the table because nobody has all of the answers and it's really about gathering the experts around you that can help you navigate difficult situations and uh i think that that's i have a broad base of experience including direct city experience thank you and i'm on the any stanek thank you i set most of my professional career as a labor organizer and also as a community organizer and what that taught me is how to collaborate how to convene people how to listen to people truly and deeply um and then move towards action and that is what we desperately need with how many complex challenges we have in the city we need to be able to have a mayor who and i will be that mayor who'll be able to bring stakeholders to the table folks most impacted and having meaningful engagement that can again bring our community back together um because it really has unraveled over recent years i'm also a state representative which pays a small salary we should pay them more frankly um and i have to say i think this is it makes me uniquely qualified to be the next mayor of burlington because again the challenges facing burlington are really state level challenges and we need someone with that state level policy experience the relationships in the state house the understanding of the administration to be able to better and effectively tell burlington's story in that state house to leverage the resources and the support and the partnerships most importantly to really solve these complex challenges i also have the experience of working with lots of folks who share different political backgrounds than i do i serve on house commerce which is chaired by a northeast kingdom republican and we find common ground every day to make sure that we're serving the people of vermont and i want to be that next mayor who brings that kind of leadership back to burlington to make sure they were working together and finding that common ground to better serve all of you as residents of burlington because you deserve that thank you thank you and will emmonds yes um i uh currently i sell cars in 2073 willis dorota and you can pop on down for the facetime with the mayor sales event i uh also you know spent a lot of time coaching youth sports in the city of burlington so a lot of parents know me um i just three terms i ran for uh president of the america postal workers union afl cio one term state president uh i've done a lot of community liaison work i've also um uh didn't done advocacy work for a patient in uvm and mass general harvard healthcare centers that was off the books i did that out of my own heart um you know uh i volunteered three years with burton chill um i think that that was important because i was working with underprivileged kids um i also have filed a lot of cases on behalf of people's defense for a lady right around the block i was there when the when the oig came through when the us postal inspection service came through um you know i represented that person and uh you know um also the uh the national labor relations board albany and boston knew my for my name on a first name basis because i filed so many cases because we had some issues in the city of burlington and uh you know um what i did through those years uh with that experience was uh put myself through a brick wall for my constituents i think uh it's time for burlington to not just vote for the same party different suit i really think that you should take a chance and uh and and think where we're at as a city i think it's about time for some new uh new blood in in office thank you thank you thank you candidates and thank you for tuning in to town meeting televisions ongoing coverage of local candidates local budgets and local ballot issues you can find this and many more forums at cctv.org slash 2024 or on our town meeting tv youtube channel and you can tune in to our live election results show after you cast your ballot on march 5th contact your local clerk to find out how to obtain a ballot and to register to vote in vermont you can register to vote on election day thank you for watching and sharing town meeting television