 This is another edition of Montpelier City Forum. My name is Richard Shear and we're going to be talking about the town hall election. We're going to talk about the candidates. We have a show coming up on the school budget. We have a show coming up on the city budget. We're going to talk about the issues, the bonding issues. Today we're going to be in District 2 and we're going to be here with... Conor Casey. Conor Casey. The redoubtable Conor Casey. Conor, how long have you been in Montpelier? Richard, I moved about 13 years ago with my wife and I had a job at the Vermont State Employees Association which brought me here. I had been in Vermont previously. I went to high school at CVU up in Hinesburg. But once we came to Montpelier we just fell in love with the place to be honest. It's a magical community. It's been so good to us so we really enjoyed living here. Now I'm going to ask the obvious question. The accent comes from what part of the Northeast Kingdom? If you hear a slight accent it's either because I had a pint of Guinness or you can attribute it to the fact that I grew up in Ireland a bit. County Loud just about an hour north of Dublin. How big was the town you grew up in? It couldn't have been more than 500. Oh, okay. It was even smaller than that. It was a village. It was a village just about a mile south of the Northern Irish border and living in Ireland in the 80s. It was a bit turbulent as you can imagine. You'd be sitting in school, the desk would start shaking and you'd say, Master John, is this an earthquake? You'd say no. It's just a custom station being blown up down the road again. The troubles. So get back to the class kids. Is Montpelier a town or is it a city? That's a good question isn't it because I mean it is a city. It's a small estate capital. But the only one without a McDonald's? The only one without a McDonald's. It doesn't have a burger place now, which is a great place. No, but it's got that small town charm and I think that's what really attracted us to the place. It's a type of place people nod to each other when they walk down the street. Say hello. We had moved away to Connecticut for a couple of years there and I was doing a lot of community organizing in Bridgeport, New Haven. And you really miss that feel of a small town, you know. Like I'm saying, it's like stopping to the quirky pets. Say hello to Syndra. There's something quite special and unique about the place, but you know it's not immune to some of the problems that do face cities as well. Okay, what are the problems? Well, you know statewide we're looking at a number of issues, certainly addiction issues and I think that has put a strain on our community in a number of ways. I was talking to some of the police the other day and you know their force has shrunk about four in the last few years here. So you know with some of these issues there are times when they only have one officer on patrol and they do such a great job, but it's hard to patrol everywhere when you're like that. I think they would like to go back to the system where you're sort of a beat cop, you know. You walk the neighborhoods and they do that to whatever extent possible, you know. You see them popping in the pub on occasion, you know. Say hello. And I think it really is a special police force that we do have I want to say. I think we still have our bicycle cop during the summer. We do. It's great. Yeah. It's great. And that does a lot of good. He covers a lot of ground. In terms of opioid addiction or any kind of substance abuse questions, is that a police question? Oh, it's, you could come at it from a number of angles, right? Which angles would you come at? Substance abuse and I would say mental illness is another issue we're facing. When the state hospital closed, you know, I think there was supposed to be more emphasis put into community mental health services. It wasn't properly funded. So largely instead of de-institutionalized people, we move them to different institutions. I'm talking correctional facilities and homeless shelters too. We have a new homeless shelter in Montpelier over at the church there. So I, you know, I think, you know, that's the other thing about Montpelier. We've got a big heart as a community. I think we're welcoming our folks and we want to help folks out. So that's another thing that makes the place special. But you know, you do need to commit resources just to make sure everybody has the opportunities that they need to get on their feet here. Okay. What, in terms of resources, what kinds of resources are we speaking of on the, on the city level? Not the federal, not the state, but the city level. Sure. What are we doing currently in your view and what could we be doing better in terms of resources? And it's part of it like sort of informed, like, you know, why I decided to run for office because we're not talking national level, we're not talking state level necessarily. But I have to be frank, you know, when we look at what's going on in D.C. and Congress, the Trump administration, a lot of pain is coming down in the form of federal cuts. That will trickle down to the state budget and I believe there's going to be pretty severe state budget cuts too. Keeps filtering down. Do you see those made up in the city budget? Do you see where programs that are currently state funded that are serving in Montpelier that won't be able to serve, do you see the city being able to bridge that gap? You know, certainly our designated agencies, you know, we have to be monitoring those to make sure they get the resources they need to succeed. And that means getting creative and that also means as a city, maybe going up to the state house ourselves, we have a $5.8 billion budget. We need to be cheerleaders for our town. We need to advocate for some of those budget line items coming back here to Montpelier. It's something I think I do bring to the table, haven't worked in the building for about a decade there. I know how it works. I think I know how to bring down funding for our town. We have to get creative in the form of grants and some budget line items there as well. So I think I'm up to the task for that. Actually, I wanted to take you back about two minutes ago. Sure. Why did you run for council? Everybody comes here who's running for council and they have one or two things that they feel they can make an impact on. What is that for you? Yeah. I mean, like first off, I've worked on political campaigns quite a bit. So I'll be honest with you. There's a level of discomfort on my part being a candidate, right? I usually work for the candidates and I hope they're not pre-Madonna's like myself. You know, it's... I can assure the viewers on this. One, he's not a pre-Madonna, but two, I can assure the viewers I've met all the candidates and this is an excellent group of candidates. Oh, they're good folks. We're blessed in Montpelier to have contested races in all three districts and to have worthy candidates in all three districts. But what was the decision point? Every year, council goes off. If you're on council in March, they're going to have a retreat and they'll go off and they'll have a white board there with Bill Fraser standing at the white board saying, okay, what are our objectives and our goals? And each of the council people will chime in with that which they feel council should be dwelling their attention. Sure, sure. What are the one or two items that Bill would write on that board for you? Absolutely. And I wasn't calling my opponents pre-Madonna's. No, they weren't. Lovely guys. Now, it's, again, the community has given so much to us. I do feel a sense to give back, right? And I believe we're at an interesting juncture in Montpelier right now. We've got a couple of big projects in the pipeline here and I think, you know, while the diet, it's already been cast that we're going through with those. You know, if we're looking at Taylor Street, we're starting out in May. That's been in the pipeline for over a decade. A long time. A long time. But I think people want to make sure that we're doing our due diligence to execute this in the right way, right? What is the right way in your view? You know, we have to be cognizant of the, you know, certainly the business is downtown, right? There's been a number of construction projects that I think may be, you know, deterred from business over the years here. So we have to be respectful. I think we need to get a lot of community input on this, not just to do the project, but also how to do it right as we go forward. I'm interested, really, in a proposal that's come up on commuter trains, you've heard of All Rail. Right, which is connected to the multi-mold terminal in theory. Would you explain to people what that project is all about? David Blittersdorf is a name many people know. He owns a new company called All Rail and David took it upon himself to buy a number of diesel trains with the goal of operating a commuter track that would go from Chittenden County to Montpelier and then down further to White River Junction. I think it's a fascinating idea. It appeals to me for a number of reasons. One, you know, just reducing our carbon footprint. You look at the town here, we're like a big parking lot in some areas, right? If we can get some cars off the road, it's environmentally sound. It's going to make living in Montpelier a lot better, but it does a couple other things. I think it allows low-income people to get to work without needing to buy a car themselves. And I think it would really go a long way to revitalizing not only our downtown, but other communities along that track. You would see restaurants pop up, it would become a bit of a hub in itself there. So it checks all the boxes for me. I think it's a bit ambitious, but you know, I think we have to think big these days. What is the local share that's being talked about for that? What, you know, it's a business, obviously, and the tracks are in totally great condition from what I understood, from what I gathered. Yeah, yeah, and without being a genius on rail myself, I do know it's been antiquated in some places, the track, and you would have to make some investments to get it up and running there. Is that a state investment or is that a local investment? I believe it should be a state investment. I mean, you look who is commuting into Montpelier and how the city swells to over 20,000 people during the day, a community of 8,000, right? These are a lot of state employees coming in here, and I do think that's a state responsibility to some extent, you know? So I would love to really dig deep into this project, first see if it is feasible. But if it is, you know, I'd love to grab the bull by the horns and see this through and I do think we can do it. Well, let's go back a decade since we're traveling back into old projects. Sure. Savings Pasteur, do you believe that in our lifetime there will be housing in Savings Pasteur? If so, what kind of use do you see Savings Pasteur getting? Yeah, sure, and we've had a number of surveys on this and it's been debated over the years, right? And it seems to be a contentious, I don't know if it's more contentious than the dog issue, but it's been a contentious issue in town over the years. I was asking if I could actually get a tour of it because I actually, I didn't know myself how big it is. You're talking 100 acres here, right? So it's not as black and white an issue as I think I had been led to believe in the past. How so? Well, you know, I think you develop it or you don't develop it. I think you can be a bit creative with it and there are ways to build without, you know, maybe obstructing some of the great views that people have and while preserving a lot of the land that, you know, really, really does add to the character of this community, I think. Now, some of the proposals like build a park there, dog park, you know, I think it's worth consideration here. And, you know, I'm not someone who claims to come in and have all the answers here, but I am someone who does my homework. I am someone who listens to people. And I do think the debate will go on when we do it. Well, it has gone on. Were you following at all the master plan discussion that's been going on for years? I just read the master plan from 2010 and the revised version from 2017 there. You're a brave person. That's very thick and that's... I think the Bible would be a bit thinner than this, right? Absolutely. And I do know the council entails a lot of reading, a lot of homework here. But I want to dig in and, you know, I want to get really into these municipal issues. Some of it's a bit aspirational, you know, as it should be. But, you know, some of it's realistic and really does, I think, give us a blueprint of where we want to go as a community. 800-some people weighed into the development of this. It's not something we can discard. We've got to keep going back to it and we've got to keep revising it as well. Actually, that's one of the strengths of Montpelier is the fact that you have citizen participation. You have citizen engagement. 800 people bothered to get involved in something as arcane as the master zoning plan. It's a beautiful thing, isn't it? It speaks well to the community. Yep, yep, but I, you know, I dug into the... And I don't think I knew quite the extent of the issues we have with affordable housing in the community here. You know, 40% of the community are renters and, you know, they don't necessarily have control over things like energy efficiency in their homes. I think if you look at a street like Dairy Street, which is largely rental housing, you know, it's darkly lit. There's no street lights. There's no waste bins, not even in the summer. So I think we really need to make an effort to not treat renters like second-class citizens in this town, you know. And I'd really love to do a city-wide canvas where we just focus on rental units and do a bit of a survey in ourselves. What could we do for renters without raising rents, without sitting and forcing landlords into repairs that will be passed on to their tenants? Or do you believe that the quality of rental housing should be improved, even if it causes an inflation? I mean, the quality needs to be improved. And, you know, you look at some of our elderly population here. And I was talking to someone the other day. She's got three steps to get up, but it's a bit of a task, you know. I think we need to maybe put some restrictions on this. Make sure we can help people out. Make sure the rental housing works for them, because there are a lot of unique cases. I think it's bringing the landlords around the table, get their end of it. But we really need to make people feel at home, and we really need to make it so it's not an exclusive community, right? Like, you know, some of our shops are trying to buy a pillow the other day in Montpelier. There's nowhere to buy a pillow. Well, we're ultimately a small town. We're a town of 8,000 with a small downtown. And we have the small downtown lose to some degree. And diversity of shops is part of the small downtown. But again, when we're talking about Montpelier, we're talking about 7,500, 8,000. Is there something that the council could be doing for the town that they're not doing right now? Well, something that could, other than renters, is there something else that could be addressed that they're not doing right now? Yeah, you know, I spoke to a few business owners, and the ones I spoke to, you know, there are some mandates coming down from the state house here, you know, paid family leave, minimum wage, both of which I support wholeheartedly. But when I talk to some business owners, it's lack of business, lack of people coming into the shops here. Cintra, I was talking to, said tourism numbers have been down, full disclosure. I bring my dog into the shop often enough there. You know, tourism numbers have been down in the last few months here. I really want to see how we can address that. Is it having more events where you close down Langdon Street for a weekend there? Is it, I was thinking it'd be fun to have a bit of a rivalry with Barry, where we have the Barry Montpelier games there, do events in each one of our towns there. Everybody has a bite to eat afterwards, you know. More fun stuff. Montpelier is a fun town, and I think we can market ourselves better, not only in the state, but the region. How would you market Montpelier? What is the strength of Montpelier that other people would come to see, other than the fact we've got a beautiful state house? What is another strength that other Vermont towns don't have? Oh, my goodness, I was living in, just outside Hartford, Connecticut, right? And not a knock on Hartford. Hartford has a lot going for it, but it's a major city. I came back to Montpelier, independent movies, two movie theaters, some of the best restaurants you could ever imagine. You can go see a great band at night at probably five different venues on the weekends. Pound for pound, we punch above our way to Montpelier. So there's much to attract to this town. I think we've got a great history. I'd love to offer some version of free walking tours to get people off the highways, come in, walk around, pop in the shops. I think we just need to be creative. And I do believe, like the council is at the point where people are largely pulling in the same direction here. I don't think of it as an adversarial body like you do see in other communities in Vermont. Having it nonpartisan by nature, I think that's a good thing, you know? We all work together, we're respectful here. So I'd like to add to that, you know, I de-escalate drama if I can. Do you recognize the infrastructure problem? Everybody complains about infrastructure. And all of these candidate forums will talk about infrastructure. Could you talk a little bit about streets and under the streets and how we can address that within our budget? Yeah, yeah. Because there isn't going to be a federal fix for sewers and water. No, and we're looking at some of the stuff with the wastewater plant, of course. But you know, you bring it up, right? You knock on the door. What do people care about? People care about their street a lot, you know? And fair play to them. It's, you know, if you look at the snow issues we have with plowing, Barry Street, I'll go back to it. You know, it gets very tight there. Two cars can't go down at some times. So I'm not going to be a candidate who is going to refuse to make investments where we need to make investments. If our town crumbles and falls into disrepair, long-term, that's just going to be a cost shift to another area there. So, you know, we need to pave the streets. I was talking about elderly folks again. You know, people need to be able to walk into town. You shouldn't need a car to function. But if you're tripping on the sidewalks, you know, that's not going to be appealing to move into town here. Again, making sure our streets are well-lit, you know? Making sure our streets are safe. These are all investments we need to make. I come from labor. I've been 10 years in the labor movement before I took my current job with the Vermont Democratic Party. I really believe in talking to the frontline employees at City Hall and asking them what they need, you know? I think we have great... You mean a bottom-up approach to be able to see beyond the city manager's office just to be able to get some sense with council as to what it looks like at the point of contact? Absolutely. And I think we have a fantastic city manager in Bill Frazier. And I think that's because of Bill and people like Bill, that's why we can have the model that we do where city council meets like every other week, you know, as opposed to being more a strong mayoral system, you know, with the council having their own staff or something. So, I have all the trust in the world in Bill. But I do believe, you know, I came into the workforce representing correctional officers, plow drivers, classroom teachers. And I do believe in the bottom-up approach. So I think my strength that I bring to the council will be engaging our municipal employees and asking what they like to see from the council as well. Council not only meets, as you know, council sits on committees, council meets, council prepares for meetings. It's a very, very lengthy process. It's a very time-consuming process sitting on council for very little. I mean, we don't pay our people that much. Why? You have other things in your life that consume your time. Why council? I'm not doing it for the $2,000 a year salary. I promise you that, Richard. But I do believe in the importance of public service. My first job was with Senator Ted Kennedy. Doing what? I was just a press assistant in the office. I was very low down the ladder in the office. I, you know, write press releases for him. But I did get to drive the senator on occasion. And I think, like, being with Senator Kennedy, I got a real sense of what it means to be a public servant. This is somebody who had everything handed to him. He could have sat on a beach in high Anas if he wanted for the rest of his life. But he chose to engage. He chose to make a difference. And I think, arguably, you could say he may have done more than either of his brothers in terms of public policy over the years he was in the Senate. I saw him go into rooms, you know, and shake hands. And by the end of it, he was best friends with everybody. And he was really genuine when he spoke to folks. So he was a hero of mine. And, you know, I believe in public service. I believe in it strongly, not for the glitz, the glamour, and not for the parades, you know, but for giving back. And if this is a place we want to live, if this is a place we want to raise families, we have to invest in it not only with money, sometimes in taxes, but also with our time, you know? I think we need to volunteer. We need to help each other out. And in sort of a dark time in US politics, I think we can change the way things are done in Montpelier here, or change the way things are done by setting a good example in Montpelier, I should say. One of the things that city councilors do here, and people don't really see it, it's the hidden side, is they sit on agencies, on local agencies. There's city council representative on Montpelier alive, there's city council representative on Kellogg Hubbard, there's city council representative on the public safety board. Which of these would you want to sit on? If you were in council, which outside organization would you lend your talents and skills to? Sure, sure. And it's funny, you mentioned a few. There's a lot of them. I was talking to the city manager, he goes, three of the councilors on the sprinkler committee, you know? Didn't even know there was a sprinkler committee. I do now. Oh, there's tons of committees and boards in this town. But the first one you said, Montpelier alive, I'd be really interested in plugging into Montpelier alive because I think that's a body that can make a big difference, again, as far as generating that tourism, like we said, taking the temperature. Net zero, Montpelier is another group I think is very interesting. But what's your view on the net zero proposal, the $10,000 competition that ended up with a aspirational roadmap that had a tram from the multimodal center up to national life? What's your view on implementing that? It's an amazing, like the contest itself was an international contest. We got proposals from all over the world there. So we're sitting on a pile of these great ideas. I mean, some of them may be a bit far-fetched, but some of them not, you know? The, what are they called? The gondola that would go up to that. Exactly, the tram, right. Yeah, the tram. I think that's a genius idea. So that is some of the stuff I would love to work on. Again, I'm an outside the box kind of guy. I do believe our staff over at City Hall could get really into the weeds. And, you know, as they said, you know, the city council is the idea's body, right? If you want us to pave the river, we might not like it, but we have to pave the river then, right? So vetting those ideas, you know, putting them on the whiteboard, like you said, see which ones rise to the top. I'm excited to do that brainstorm, you know, go out for a retreat. And if we have to put some to bed, we have to put them to bed. But let's think big, you know, let's think for the next 50 years, the next 100 years in Montpellier. Okay, what do you see in the next 50 years in Montpellier? If you do the same track right now, I suppose 50 years ago, we had 12,000 people here, you know, and it's heading down. By the time 50 years, we might be 3,000. What do you see as stabilizing Montpellier's decline in population? Yeah, yeah, I, in 20 years, 25 years. I don't know if you knew. When I first came back, I started an Irish travel business. I ended up doing like Irish yoga tours, so I got out of it, because I've never done yoga before. It felt a bit disingenuous. But I was working out of a place called Local64 in town here. Local64, yep, if people don't know it, it's a co-working office. You pay maybe 100, 200 bucks a month, you have a desk, and you're next to other entrepreneurs who are working remotely with businesses all over the world, you know? And I saw such great creative energy around the room and these young people who are able to work in Vermont and Montpellier and still keep a good job that they could provide for their families. I think we're looking at a different landscape than we were in the past. It's not just all bricks and mortar, it's the creative economy and trying to nurture that as well. So I think things will change, but at the same time, and I keep going back to it, the charm and the character of our city has to remain. You know, I think that in itself is Montpellier's biggest selling point. And I just love this town so much. I'd be so dedicated to preserving that through all these changes we go through. What you thought on the farmer's market moving? It's been down there forever in that little niche over by Julios. What you thought on it moving to State Street? Oh, I think it's cool, yeah. No, I was surprised when I saw it. I didn't know it was moving. I was about to take a right turn. I nearly went over a barricade there. The farmer's market has just gotten bigger and bigger. I mean, people can't go without the farmer's market some weekends, you know, move to the winter's farmer's market. So I think the ability to spread out is not only going to help the farmer's market, but then you see places like Willowons, the type place opening on Saturdays now. So I think it's one of the greatest assets we have in this community. And definitely something we should continue to build up there. Now, if you were on the Economic Development Board, if you were the council person, not on Montpelier alive, but on the Economic Development Board, which was recently came into existence last year with the hotel, I'm sorry, it was the food and beverage tax. Oh yeah, sure, sure. Right, what kinds of industries would you see coming into Montpelier? What kind of development would you see coming into our town? Yeah, yeah, it's, well, you know, when we look at development, I think we need to keep in mind that we still have a lot of families here. And I use the example of buying a pillow there, you know, but I really do think we need a few more affordable shops in town here that people can go to if you need to buy your kid a pair of shoes or something for class, you know. I don't fault people for going up to Berlin and shopping in some of the big box stores. I don't fault them at all if they can't afford it, but I would like to see more options like that in town because I think people's instincts are to shop locally and to build, you know, it hurts your heart to see some of the, you know, the boarded up buildings downtown here to the extent that we can, you know, even open them temporarily for art exhibits or the net zero competition as we saw a couple of years ago. I think we need to be creative and make use of these spaces. So, you know, I'm happy to plug in anywhere. That's fantastic. I really thank you for coming here and it's been a great session, but I want to talk to you now and I want to say that it's important that you not only watch these shows but also read the bridge because they've got the candidates in there and Times-Argus has covered this, but make sure you watch the one on the school budget and the one on the city budget. Those are going to be hour-long shows and these are important issues, but the most important thing is get out and vote on Town Meeting Day. Have your friends get out and vote, have your family get out and vote, because that's the vitality of the democracy in this town and the fact that we have so many good candidates running for all of the offices shows that this is a community that cares and if this community cares, you should care too. Thank you for watching.