 Hi everybody. Andrew Champagne here. Let me get my seat. I don't think I'm squared up here. Stephen? Okay, there I am. I'm glad to be here. As Keith Richard says, I'm glad to be anywhere. We had an amazing caucus at Edmunds School and virtual. The Burlington Democrats, in case someone's watching this and doesn't know, we had our nominating convention this weekend, and for mayor and for city council, we nominated, we had over 3,800 people. I'm sorry, just trying to get my stuff here together. 3,800 people were involved in the caucus, and mostly virtually it took place at Edmunds School. I'd like to thank Edmunds School. I'd also like to thank Town Meeting Television for their great work. I'd like to thank Jordan Mitchell, my executive producer. Thank you, Jordan, for spending the afternoon there. And also Bella and Luna, who are the crew, the camera people. We really had a good set up there. There's a lot of things. I need to thank the chair of the Burlington Democrats, who is Adam Roof. And I'm sorry, I'm just trying to get everything together here. And when you look at the screen, it's the other way. So Adam Roof, former city councilor, UVM alum, he did the Herculean work on the, on the canvas, on the caucus, canvassing for the caucus. I'd also like to thank the legendary Andy Voda. Andrew, thank you so much. Beth Robinson, all the volunteers. Let's see who I can come up with. Muffy Milans, Rob Gutman, and his wife. It really went well. Edmunds was a good spot. There was plenty of parking. We did have some people there. We had some food. We had some good guest speakers. We had the mayor gave a great address and all the city councilors gave a great address. So let's, let's go over what happened here. We had three very strong candidates. Let's see, maybe we have their pictures. Kevin, who's my line producer tonight. Joan Shannon, the winner. Like to thank you, Joan. You campaigned hard. Congratulations. Oh, Karen Paul, council president. Karen, you did a great job. You've done so much for Burlington. You and your whole family generations here. And I'd like to, oh, and there's C.D. Mattson. Miss Mattson, you did, Mattson, you did an excellent job. You, you brought the issues a little further left. You brought some good organizing. You are a longtime loyal Democrat. And I'd like to thank you. Thank you. Now, so out of that 3,800, I don't have exact totals. I don't know if we have any totals for that that we could put up. Is that possible? No. Okay. No. I believe over 3,800 people voted. The winning candidate needed to get 50% of the vote. And Miss counselor, we can put her up there because she's our candidate. Miss Joan Shannon, city counselor, city counselor, and she is in Ward. She is in Ward. She is five, she is five and six. She is one of the counselors that have two wards. We have eight counselors for all eight wards. And then we have four that have two. Kind of a way to bring the council down from four. I think it was at 14 or 16. I also have a list here of the city council Democratic candidates. And they all look good. Several of them are incumbents. Okay. In Ward one, Jeff Hand. Jeffrey, good job, my friend. Zariah Hightower is stepping down. Who's a progressive. And so we're hoping to fill that seat with a Democrat. And I think we will. Ward two, we did not have anyone. I have to say counselor Gene Bergman, who's a progressive. He's a strong candidate. He really kind of fits that word well. So we're looking for someone in that. You can contact me. I'll put my telephone number up. Okay. If I could 802-540-0717. If anyone has any questions, needs to register to vote, wants to talk about the caucus, is interested in running in two. I think that would be an uphill fight. I have to be honest. And then in three, we have Malik Mines. Mr. Mines, excellent. He's going to run hard. He's going to run hard. Now, remember everyone that the words have changed a little bit, especially two and three. So you might want to call City Hall or get on the, get on the internet or again, you can call me. For example, for many years, I was in Ward two, about 25 years. And now we've changed over to three. The thing is that the words have to be, they have to be within 10% of each other. So what they were trying to do is move the students around a little bit so they weren't all in one ward. Okay. In Ward four, incumbent, I think we have a picture of her too. Ms. Sarah Carpenter. I don't know. Maybe we do, Kevin. Okay. We'll give it a try. And then in Ward five, we also have my great friend who I worked on his campaign last time. And I'll be, I was told I'm hired again. His name is Ben Travers. Okay. In Ward six, a new candidate who did very well. She ran against a, she, she had a tough primary fight and her name is Becca Brown McKnight. Okay. Ms. McKnight, we wish you luck. We'll be helping you. And then in seven, which is, you know, that's a big ward. That's in the new North end that makes things happen up there. That is Mr. Evan Litwin. So I'm going to go over these one more time. The first one is Mr. Jeff Hand. Ward two, we do not have a candidate again. We hopefully will get one. We'll see what happens. Ward three, Malik Mines. Ward four, incumbent Sarah Carpenter. And Ward five, Ben Travers, another incumbent. In six and seven, two new candidates. The first one is Becca Brown McKnight. And in Ward seven, up in the new North end, the candidate is Evan Litwin. So I hope I got everyone's name right and pronunciation right. You can go to BrawntonDems.com, mightbe.org. You can give me a call. We can put my telephone number up there again, please. 802-540-0717. We can keep that up for a while, Kevin. I'd like to thank Kevin and Stephen tonight who are my, my producers and they're doing a great job. And you know, I'll tell you, it's a little bit of whirlwind. I'm a little exhausted from the caucus. It was quite something. I didn't know who was going to win. I thought it would be between Karen and Joan. And what we had here was, Joan seemed to pull away. I'm not that, I'm not, I think it's for a variety of reasons. I think she's very well known as a realtor around town. She sold hundreds and hundreds of houses. I think it's also her 20 years of campaign, you know, being a city counselor. And, you know, she got off to a fast start. She had a good, she had a good kickoff in City Hall Park with at least 100 people there. And she seemed to, her message seemed to resonate of public safety. I again want to thank and I'd like to put them up one more time, please. I would again like to thank Karen Paul, City Councilor Karen Paul. There you go, my friend. And citizen and activist, Democratic activist, involved very much in the tech world, Ms. C.D. Mattson. And she prefers to be called Mattson. So, Mattson, thank you so much. As I said, these two, I think, brought the conversation a little toward the left. Now, so now everything is set. We are ready. As of right now, the two candidates are State Representative Emma Mulvaney-Stanik, okay, and again, City Councilor Joan Shannon. Now, these two, for example, Emma was endorsed at the Progressive Caucus. And that happened, I think, December 3rd, maybe December 4th. They had about 150, 175 people. So you see when there is a contested caucus, people come out as evidenced by the Democratic Caucus, where we had the mayor and then we had several competitive City Council seats. You have a very clear distinction between what the Progressive Emma Mulvaney-Stanik is looking for and what Joan Shannon is looking for. I think the choice is quite clear. Obviously, I'm endorsing Joan Shannon. I'm doing that on television right now. I did not endorse anyone in the caucus. I thought highly of all three candidates. I thought about voting for all three. But that caucus is done. What we need to do is come out of the caucus with the energy that we put into the caucus and not lose it over the holidays and take it through the cold, cold January and February when we've got to hit the doors, when we've got to do the letters, when we've got to write to the editors, come on talk shows, talk to your neighbor. And again, what wins elections, knocking on doors, personal contact with the voter. Now if anyone would like and can we just put that phone number back up and leave it please. Again, we have so many people that are not registered in Burlington. Either they've moved and what happens when they move is that ballots are now being mailed. And so for example, if I live on Green Street and I move the ballot goes to Green Street, the postman, I'm not there. So it's sent back to City Hall. And then there's a challenge put on your ballot. And so it's very easy, especially with students, you know, they live year to year in Burlington, you know, June to June. And the ballot doesn't follow them and they don't always know to re-register. So if you have questions, you can call me, you can call City Hall, 865-7000. You can give them, you know, type it in on the internet. You can stop by City Hall any day from Monday through Friday through 8 from, I'm sorry, from 8 to 430. And I'd like to thank all my friends in City Hall and more like the City Clerks. They're doing a great job. Sarah and Catherine and Tenzin and Keaton and Phillip and Laurie, of course, the legendary Laurie. These people are here to help you. And unlike other states, we want you to vote. So let's say you've moved here. Let's say you're a student or let's say you're just here for the winter or something. You want to go skiing, but you're living in Burlington. You're living anywhere in the county. And you don't have a Vermont ID. Okay, in a lot of states, that's the killer. They say, hey, you're done then. You've got, for example, in New Hampshire, which, you know, is, it's very conservative and very behind the times and a lot of things. And I dropped my microphone, sorry about that. You have to have New Hampshire ID. So for all those students at Plymouth State College and Keen State College and University, I'm sorry, Keen State University, Plymouth State University and UNH or New England College or, you know, all sorts of schools there, without a New Hampshire ID, you can't vote. I personally think that, you know, voting and driving are two different things. And so what we do in Vermont is, let's say you come to us where I grew up in Connecticut, and you don't have a, you don't have an ID, a Vermont ID. We can use the last four digits of your social security. Okay, we don't want your full social. Please never give that out to anyone. Okay. And this is the most important form you fill out, probably, in your life. And even we don't want your full social. So what can you do to register to vote? You can give me a call. You can stop by City Hall. You can register yourself. We, we really want you to vote here. So it's not a big deal to register to vote. It takes about 90 seconds. I do a lot of voter registration at, at higher ground and at concerts like at Shelburne, Shelburne Museum or at Champlain Valley Expo or at Nectars, all my great friends. I'd like to thank them all. I'd like to thank Alex Crothers and Melinda Vichon and Danny Bennett for helping me at higher ground. Did over 50, I think closer to 60 events through the higher ground family this year and they are unbelievable. I've also registered about 80 members of their amazing staff. So I want to thank you again, Alex, Danny, Melinda, Joe, James, let's see, Danny, Kurt, Kyle, everyone, Kat, my great friend Kat who always helps me there. So we also have, about four years ago, we put into effect, we have same day voting registration and it's so easy. You go to your polling place. Now let's go over the wards. Ward one is up by UVM. Modern Christie School. Ward two, HO Wheeler School, the heart of the old North End. Ward three, again, heart of the old North End, very close to each other, is Lawrence Barn School. Ward four, St. Mark's Church. We take it up to, we take it up to the new North End. Ward five is Burlington Electric. Ward six, where we held the caucus, Edmunds Middle School, and Ward seven is the Goss Senior Center, right off the avenue. Now if you live in the North End and you're on the left side of the avenue, you vote at St. Mark's. If you're on the right side of North Avenue, you vote at the senior center on Goss Drive, Goss Court. So what's going to happen is all, there's going to be eight city council races. We have some incumbents. We have some new candidates. For example, Karen Paul chose to run in the, she chose to run as a candidate for mayor, so she did not run again for city council. So we're going to have a new counselor there. It looks like, Mr, maybe you have a picture of him. I'd like to thank him. Ali Zhang in the new North End. I think he's been on the council for either six years or four, no, probably six I think. He is stepping down and what a good man he is. Now to everyone watching the show, the thing is about the council, it's an extraordinary amount of work. Like tonight, they will have a full slate. They'll have some resolutions. They'll have some controversial stuff. They'll have some stuff that has people upset, angry, yelling even. They'll also have routine run of the mill, small town business. But they have city council about 30 times a year, maybe 35 times a year. It's sometimes on Monday, sometimes on Tuesday. Also, many of the city counselors are on the board of finance and they are, sorry, putting this on so you can see who I'm supporting for presidents. So they have a great deal of work to do. They're only paying $5,000, nothing. She's what, 50 bucks a meeting or something? And it comes with a lot of work, constituent paperwork, people calling, people texting. And I have to say, Burlington, sometimes people love to complain here. So not every comment they hear is peaches and cream. And there are some tough resolutions. And that, you know, sometimes they're very emotional and people leave with their heart. And it's not easy being on city council. And I'd like to thank all the city counselors. The ones are staying, the ones are going. There are four city counselors that are not up for re-elections. And that's the people that represent the two wards, one in eight, two in three, four in seven, and five in six. Again, oh, you know what? You know, I haven't thanked Kevin. My main man, Mr. Mayor, you did a great job on the caucus 12 years after your car. I know we have a picture of him. 12 years after your historic win. There he is. That's in City Hall Park. Sharp suit, my friend. Also on a personal note, Mr. Mayor called me and asked me and I registered his daughter to vote, Leland Weinberger. Leland, congratulations. A senior at BHS, applying and getting into colleges, working. What a great young person. And you were in first grade when your dad started as mayor and you're now a senior. So you and the Weinberger family have lived through all this. His great wife, Stacey, his daughter, Ada, his wonderful parents, they're great people. And Mr. Mayor, I don't know what's going on with you. You are thinking strongly about running for governor. Bring it on. Why not? You know, in a state that is two-thirds democratic, we have a Republican governor. He is very popular. But you know what? I haven't seen him here on the fentanyl crisis. I have not seen him on the economic crisis that is facing the whole entire north part of the state. For example, from Johnson to Newport, it's about 60 miles. It is so economically depressed. They have terrible drug problems. They are losing their young people. They're losing their soul there. And Newport, through terrible, terrible fraudulent stuff where guys went to prison, there's a hole in the ground which has not been developed. Now our hole in the ground is finally being worked on. Thank God. It looks about eight stories. There's also a lot of housing going up in Burlington. Our fear of Burlington sometimes in Burlington is we can't have Burlington just for the rich folks. You know, to keep Burlington weird, that kind of, I mean freak power, that's Burlington. You know, our colleges, our universities, our music, our downtown, our arts, our culture, things like Seven Days, things like the movie theater, things like the black box, our amazing bars and clubs like Nectars and Three Needs, and I can go on and on, is what keeps Burlington going. Burlington is not cookie cutter. We all know that. Let me just catch my thoughts here and catch my breath. I'm talking so fast. All right. So moving on, okay, wrapping up the caucus. I'm going to read it one more time. Our nominees, please support them. Vote for them. See if you can help them. Jeff Hand. Word 2, we do not have a candidate at this time. That's a tough one for us. Word 3, Malik Mines. Word 4, Incumbent, Sarah Carpenter. Word 5, Ben Travers, Incumbent. Word 6, some new candidates here. Becca Brown, McKnight. And Word 7, Evan Litwin. Again, our candidate for mayor will be Ms. Joan Shannon, City Councilor. Congratulations Ms. Shannon, and congratulations and thank you to City Councilor Karen Paul and Citizen Activist C.D. Madsen. I'm going to switch away here. I'm on, I believe, for another eight minutes. Is that right, Kevin? Okay. So we are going to talk about the national. We're going to go to my main man, besides Borough and Senator Leahy and Senator Welch. And that is our wonderful, wonderful President of the United States. There he is. He had a birthday since the last time we saw him. Happy birthday, Mr. President. You are flying from his work, from flying to Israel, from in Europe. He is everywhere. His energy level is off the hook. And I want to thank he and Dr. Jill Biden for their leadership. I think we have a picture of her. She is wonderful. She really, really is great. Now, while I'm speaking about First Ladies, I better, I don't know, maybe Kevin can find a picture. I sure hope so. She just passed away at age 96, Roslyn Carter. So great. You know, one of the first, she and I'm sorry, she and Eleanor Roosevelt were the first two First Ladies to really get involved in policy. And she loved politics so much more than her husband. And I don't know if we can get a picture up there and tribute to her. Can we do that? I'm not sure. Okay. We're working on it. My crew is the best here. And we, again, it showed her amazing life when at her funeral, there was three presidents there and with her six First Ladies. So thank you all for them coming. You know what, maybe I'm hoping maybe for the last 30 seconds of the show we can put Ms. Carter on a picture and then I'll fade out with that, Kevin. How does that sound? Okay. I have six minutes. So it looks like as much as I would hate to say it, it looks like it's going to be, again, former President Trump and President Biden. They're going to do it for a third time and Joe's going to kick his ass for a third time, okay? Second time, I'm sorry, Hillary there. What I think is that we're going to win. I think by this time that President Trump might be a convicted felon, how do you vote for a convicted felon for President of the United States? He tried to change 10, no, 11,000 votes in Georgia. Now, we got him on this. He's also done so much financial chicanery. His net worth is much reduced from what he's claiming as to be. He's committed perjury. He's committed fraud. People in his organization have gone to prison and he just casts them aside. I think his coercion with the Russians is treason. Boy, you know, that's tough. I'm sitting here, Andrew here, a citizen saying the former President of the United States is maybe a traitor. And boy, that hurts to have to say it, but I think he is. We see the good work that Vice President Kamala Harris has done. Maybe we can get her up there too. She's done a good job. She is going to be going coast to coast. I bet we'll have, oh, there's Ms. Carter. I'll tell you what we'll do is can we save that for the last 30 seconds of this? No, we can't. Okay. Okay. Boy, what a beautiful person, mind, body, and spirit. Her relationship with her husband, her kids, grandkids, great grandkids. She was a wonderful person. Look at that smile. I miss her. I miss her. She, you know, there's a poem, I think, Delmore Schwartz or something. He said, for those who are truly great, and that was her. That was her. I have about four minutes left. So we're just going to keep that up for the rest of the time as a tribute to Ms. Carter, if that's okay. Three minutes. Kevin, thank you today. And Steven, thank you. Megan, Emily, obviously Ms. Lauren Glendvidian. Everybody here at Town Meeting Television. And again, to Bella and Luna and my executive producer, Ms. Jordan Mitchell, who covered the caucus so well. It was quite something. And you know, democracy, when it works, you know, democracy can be unruly. Democracy can be angry. Democracy can be turbulent. But it really went smoothly the other day. And for those I'm taping on Tuesday, December 12th, at about six o'clock, and I'm still a little, wow, amazing. And exhausted from it, too. I have about two minutes left. So let's talk about, if you want to register to vote, so you can vote in March. That will also be the presidential primary. Go to City Hall. Give me a call. Register at your polling place. You can register yourself. Again, you can call me. This election's going to be big. The winner will have to win about 10,000 votes. That's a lot. We will be knocking at your door. We will be on your porch. Progressive Democrats, independents. Everyone wants to talk to the voter. And so in my, what do I have? About one and a half minutes left? Is that right? Okay. Again, we'd just like to thank you all. I'm pretty much finished for the night. I think I'm going to take my microphone off. I'm going to hope we can just leave it on with a picture of Ms. Roslyn Carter, one of our favorite First Ladies. Again, I'll give a little more talk here. Thank you so much. Thanks to everyone on Channel 17 TV. Town Meeting TV. Thank you to all the candidates. Win, lose, or draw. It's not easy being out there. It shows you care. We'd love this town. Treat this town with kid gloves. Be kind to each other. Happy holidays. Take care. We will see you in the next year. Thank you, everyone. It was a good 23, and it's going to be a great 24. Thank you.