 Questions leading up to the municipal elections on March 5th. We had an hour ago we had the three candidates for mayor of Montpellier and now we have the three candidates in the contested race for the district one seat. They are Donna Bate, Adrian Gill, and Nat Frothingham. I'm Joe Schoket with the Montpellier Rotary Club, one of the organizers of this event. I want to particularly thank Orca for partnering with us to bring this to people over the air. I want to thank the bridge and Cassandra Hemingway for working with me to put this on design the forum and so on and so forth and I want to thank the city of Montpellier for sharing this beautiful space with us. Cassandra Hemingway is our moderator. She's been in Vermont since 1994. When she came to Vermont she joined the staff of the Hardwood Gazette which is one of our venerable weekly newspapers and she served there for quite a while. She was recently elevated to the role of editor-in-chief of the bridge which is our local Montpellier paper. She has done her homework prior to the forums and she will be in charge of the questioning. We have a timer Bill Miles who is the distinguished president of the Montpellier Rotary Club and he will keep the candidates on track and with that it's over to you Cassandra. Thank you. Thank you very much and also thanks to the Rotary Club for sponsoring both this and the mayoral candidate forum that we just finished about a half hour ago. So I'm going to go over the format with the candidates and also I wanted to address the audience and let you know that we will be taking questions from the audience toward the end of our program and if as they come up feel free to write them down the gentleman in the back Ed Flan again has some cards and pens or pencils so hand him your questions and when we get to about quarter of three he'll hand them to me and we'll include audience questions. So the format is that each candidate has a minute and a half to introduce themselves and after that they'll each have a minute and a half to answer the series of questions I'm about to go through and for full disclosure these are the same questions we just ask the mayoral candidates. So a few folks have a little heads up on what we're going to ask. We we've already heard about our timekeeper. I will be calling on candidates in order alphabetical order by last name for introducing themselves and after that I'll refer to them in the first by their first names and I have a rotating list so no one candidate is always asked the first question. So let's I'll go ahead and introduce folks and let you then let you tell us who you are and why you're running and we'll start with Donna Bate who is a current city council member and our incumbent candidate and she has served for more than 40 years in city government and city committees. 10 of those on the council. She's the she has served as the president of the central Vermont Chamber of Commerce among many other roles. Donna tell us about yourself and why you're running. Well thank you. That's a little brief for bio but I do think that hopefully you've seen me on council meetings the last 10 years and I wanted to initially address all the sort of frustration and anger and upset that I've heard from people and that indeed I relate to those feelings that we're all looking for something different. We want to go back to normal that was true after the pandemic. It was true after the flood and it all takes time. I do feel that it's important during this time that we keep our goals out there that indeed we trim the budget but a trim budget still has goals and still makes incremental investments to the future whether that's buying property for future housing whether that's working on the wastewater treatment plant to actually be more sustainable and to actually create energy reducing its cost as well as increasing its customer base that I think austerity for the sake of austerity is not good that we need to have an agenda with golds and that we incrementally build on that as a community and that when something is passed by the city I do feel that we should have follow through for those voters faith and something they supported. Thank you. Thank you, Donna. Nat Frothingham is our next district one city council candidate and Nat has been the editor and publisher of the bridge from where I come at the moment for quite a long time. He is a board member for capital city concerts. I believe he served on the homelessness task force. He holds a master's degree and a bachelor's degree and I better not bungle up your master's. But both a bachelor's and a master's degree from Harvard. Nat, tell us about yourself and why you're running for city council. Well, thank you. Thank you. I want to acknowledge Donna, you and I have been friends for some time, years I'd say. I don't acknowledge you. And whatever happens, you have served the city faithfully and well for many years. I want to acknowledge that that's not and that's not that's not meant to be trite. And Adrian, I totally respect the enthusiasm that you are igniting as as a mother as a woman seeking to serve on this on the council. So I salute you. Thank you. Bill Miles was my mentor at the Rotary Club. When I was in the Rotary Club, you were my mentor. Thank you. And of course, the city and the bridge. And I appreciate what you're doing, because Andrew with your role as as editor. And if I can say this without being super important, I'm extremely proud of extremely proud of what you're doing with paper. Thank you, Nat. Stop it says I'm so sorry after that nice comment to have to stop you for time. But we'll hear a lot about why you're running in the next upcoming questions. Thank you. And let's let's get into it. You forgot about me. I'm so sorry. That's fine. Thank you everybody for speaking up. I've not the first time I've accidentally done that. Okay, Adrian, go ahead. Tell us about who you are and why you're running. And I have I have a little intro for you as well. Adrian is a public health director in program management and a community volunteer. She's worked as a consultant for over 20 years in both transportation and the healthcare fields. And she has a focus on organization, organizational development and project management. Great. Thank you. So today we gather to discuss the future of Montpelier and the responsive leadership it deserves. But first, let me tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Adrian Gill. I moved to Montpelier about nine years ago. And with my family, I have two daughters, Abby, who is in eighth grade, Izzy, who is in 10th grade, and my husband, Adam, who is the operating room nurse manager at CVMC. I bring a wealth of managerial experience to the table. I've spent my career over the past 20 years focused on systems thinking, partnership development and trick and strategic planning and transportation, public health, local state, national governments, nonprofit organizations and for profit businesses. Locally, I am the co founder of the Montpelier Roxbury Partners in Education, MRPS PI, and the founder of the Montpelier Faw Festival, which is the largest fundraiser for our schools caregivers. I also am currently involved in the Main Street Middle School caregiver group. I am a problem solver. I thrive in solving complex systemic issues that impact our community. I'm not an expert on all issues related to government, but my strengths lie within my building relationships, partnerships and being responsive. It is critical to understand where we are now and the vision for Montpelier in the future. I will collaborate with the experts to help us attain our goals in a strategic, focused, responsive and efficient way. These skills will strengthen my effectiveness as a member of the Montpelier City Council. Thank you, Adrian. Okay, we'll get right into the questions now. So we've been talking about budgeting and budgets, and that's a big role for city council. We also know that the city has had for a long time a deteriorating infrastructure. It's the city council recently approved a fairly austere budget going into fiscal year 25. So how would you as a city council member deal with the deteriorating infrastructure and the need to address that and also hold down municipal property taxes? And we'll start with Nat. Oh, thank you. I am, I kind of like to rephrase your question, but letting you know that that's about to happen. On December 18, we had a scary event when the Wienewski River rose to its flood level. And we were lucky that the river subsided and we were spared another flood emergency. And we can think of our flood response as a concern for doing something in a timely way would not when no histrionics sober, timely, effective. We can do things in a totally sober, timely and effective way to comprehensively save our downtown and our community from another devastating flood. And I think that issue needs to be on the top of our agenda. Top. More important than housing, which is very important, but on the top. And that's why I'm in the race to make that point. Thank you, Nat. Adrienne. Sure. So first, we need to create city budgets that are affordable while keeping our public safe and public work departments adequately staffed, which may require looking at the budget holistically and looking at cutting some line items within the budget. This is going to be a hard decision, but it's something that we need to think about and look at to be financially stable and secure moving forward. Secondly, Montpelier must continue to seek assistance and diversify our funding. There's other cities out there that have created funding models from both local, state and federal partners to diversify our funding. We need to be aggressive and looking at those opportunities to continue to support our program services or core services in our city, which means including in looking at the infrastructure, we must analyze the true costs of repairing the water lines, the roads and the critical city infrastructure and really think about accelerating our accelerating our plan to remedy those issues. It's time to be more aggressive. It's not what we've tried in the past. It might not have worked then. Now we need to re look at some of those options and really plan for the future while keeping our taxes intact and our budget in line. And our roads and our roads and water and sewer lines have been deteriorating for too long. So now is the time to plan for our future. Thank you, Donna. Thank you. Well, yes, infrastructure is deteriorating, but the city has definitely a plan and it was updated in 2016, a master plan for all the water and sewer. And as much as people's attention go on the road, the water and sewer is $9 million. We had a hearing last Wednesday on that portion of our infrastructure and we had a handful of people show up and only one person may comment. So it's really misleading, I think when you look at the streets and say, oh, we have some potholes, we have some crumbling, we have some water breaks and not recognize how much money and effort and staff time are going into the whole picture of water treatment, wastewater recovery, as well as the roads, the streets and the buildings. I do feel like we have a master plan. That's good. We've updated it to be with all the regulations, just two council meetings ago. And indeed the staff has some limitations. We have the same amount of staff that we had 29 years ago when Bill Fraser arrived here, 17 in the police, 17 in the fire and within public works. We do have two additional ones since I've been on council. One is the person who deals with the facilities and the other for communication because we heard loud and clear the public wanted more clear communications. So I think that's all part of understanding the infrastructure better. And we, the council have not done well enough to help the public understand the whole comprehension of what is in the infrastructure. Thank you, Donna. Thank you. As a city councilor, what leadership would you provide to the homelessness issue in Montpelier? And I'll start with Adrian. So as a public health professional working in this in this field for over 20 years, homelessness is a international epidemic. It is not something that we are going to solve within our city limits. This is going to take partnerships. It's going to take relationships within our regional area, within our state borders and within our the northeast sector of the United States. This is a complex social issue that needs to really have partnerships. We need to have a plan in place that, you know, the homeless population is transient. So how do we support them on their journey in Montpelier so that they have housing, they have food, they have warm clothes? And I think that is going to be a huge challenge for us that is going to require a lot of partners at the table to have those discussions. And it is not going to, as I said, be fixed by the city of Montpelier. Thank you. Donna. Thank you. I agree. It's homelessness. Those who are lacking permanent shelter are definitely not going to see the city, the resources to meet their full need. We've moved to meet some with adding a social worker and peer counselor. And we do have had for a long time partnership with Washington County Mental Health and other shelter facilities. But the population has changed. It's not just transit people who are now without shelter. We have the working low income individuals. And that is really important to realize how many families, how many working adults are out there and can't find a home. We have to do our piece to increase housing because it's all the way down. It's seniors like myself who are looking for small places to downsize. I got a condo 23 years ago. Was very fortunate to do it quick. And so housing to me is one of the crucial things we can do within the homeless issue. Shelter is the number one problem to solve. I feel our investment in the country club property. We will find investors. We do have bids going out to have a partner. And so we're going to find out what the interest is. Thank you. Thank you, Nat. I agree with Adrian. I agree with you. And I'm listening carefully to you, Donna. It's a complicated issue. Not everyone is the same out there. Homelessness can strike anyone. Nationally, I have read that some 8 million people crossed our border, our southern border in one year. The numbers are growing. People are getting on buses. Governors are putting people on planes and sending them to other places to live. One thing I would like to say. I see no one in our society as dispensable. There is no life out there that I want to pass by. And I think the legislature is struggling with this issue at the moment. And it's a tough one because with homelessness, sometimes comes drug use, sometimes comes alcoholism, sometimes comes illness. But we must struggle to find our humanity and deal with all of the people who are here to be dealt with. Thank you, Nat. And on that same topic, the city has been looking into what it would take to co-locate a temporary shelter, emergency homeless shelter at the Berry Street Recreation Center. And there has been discussion about if those are compatible uses, recreation and emergency shelter. So I'd like to hear from each candidate what is your position on that partnership between temporary homeless shelter and the Berry Street Recreation Center. And we'll start with... Did we just start with you, Adrienne? We did. Okay, sorry. We'll start with Donna. We really need to look at the fact that the shelter needs to be safely, possibly shared. And I would want to have a roundtable of the experts within education, within social services and the homeless population. But I feel like there are ways that we could possibly make it safe. We could limit some shower and bathroom access to just certain daytime hours when the children population is not there. We could have an outside entrance into the basement way. I think there are ways to use the space to separate it. But the space is in desperate need of renovations. And there are like three studies in front of me about the rec building and its flexibility. And they all say it's going to involve a lot of money, five, six million, just to bring it up to code and to totally renovate it and make it more energy efficient. You're talking even more money. So it's a hard building to heart fully renovate for recreation. So I see it eventually being moved to something like a facility for temporary housing. But not right now. We don't have the funds, but we can keep looking in that direction and building partners to make that work. Because you have to have services. You have to have staff. And right now that is lacking not only for us with our social worker position, but with the shelter and bury. They have a hard time getting staff and staff and services are important. Thank you, Donna. Nat. I was paying attention to the discussion with mayoral candidates. And there seemed to be an emerging unanimity that we need to discuss this issue further. There are stakeholders. There are people who have used the building for recreation. They they want to be heard. They want to be part of any decision. I happen to think that we could be very helpful to homeless people if we had a point of contact downtown so that people could come in and get sent to the service provider that would most help them with the basics, of course, but in eventually to turn their lives around. Thank you, Nat. So this topic is very near and dear to my heart because my children go to the rec center. They play basketball there. It is fully scheduled almost six days a week with activities that our community uses. And I feel very strongly that this population should not commingle. My children would not utilize the rec center if there was a homeless shelter in the basement. Regardless if it is cleaned out every day, if there's showers and toilets, they will linger. And it is not a safe condition for my children and the children of my neighbors and my friends. And so we have to explore other opportunities. There are buildings in our city that we can look at. We need to work with our community to have them understand what these discussions are and the limitations that exist and and the possibilities that we can explore. I think working with our partners, our stakeholders, our families, you know, folks that represent the homeless population. I'm confident that we can come up with a solution that is not located with commingling of our children. And so we need to aggressively look for another location. Thank you, Adrienne. 30 seconds. I'm not proposing that we house people at the Recreation Center. I'm proposing a contact point where somebody can get a direction for where to go for needed services. I think the discussion needs to be continued with the community stakeholders. Thank you, Nat. Thanks for clarifying your point. Going to switch gears and ask about your position on creating Confluence Park. That's a park that has received some grant funding and we have some bonded actually Nat's looking at me funny. Correct me if I'm wrong about it's been has received the grant funding yet. I thought I saw that in the grand list for Confluence Park, a park that's been on on the table but back Bernard with City Council for quite a while. Just tell me what your position is on creating Confluence Park or not. And we are starting with Adrian Nat. I'm sorry. I have a chart after this round. I'm going to go back to my chart and even if it seems funny, we're going to it'll be easier for me to keep track. So we'll start with Nat and then I'll go back to my chart for the rest of the forum. I've spent a lot of time on the phone and talking to friends over the years about our are about particularly about the North Branch and the rivers that flow through our our community in our downtown and I think there's there's a missing opportunity to prize those rivers. But at the moment, Confluence Park is not high on my agenda because what's high on my agenda is our needed response to the flood emergency that may await us. And I hope does not await us. Thank you, Nat. Is that is that all you have to say on the topic? Do you want to expand? You have a few more seconds. Well, thank you. You know, I haven't I haven't embraced that idea partly because it doesn't deal with with all of the water. It's just one. It's one bit of the river of the North Branch meeting the Winooski. I think we need to look at we need to look at the whole thing and and plan a strategy for valuing it more and enjoying it more. And so I get where it's coming from. But I think we have other tasks to embrace before we embrace the Confluence Park. Okay, thank you, Adrian. So the Confluence Park was a vision, a design. It had a lot of energy behind it. And, you know, times change. We have experienced what we anticipated was a flooding of our city again. And this is not the time nor the place to have a Confluence Park in a location that is not desirable. It's at the head of the river. We know now that the river was flooded at that location and backed up, which caused our downtown to flood in July. I do not support continuing the funding of the Confluence Park. I know that there is we've spent over we've risen over $600,000 to nearly $3 million over the past couple years. And there's still opportunities to raise additional grants. I would like to put this project on pause. In the future, if there's an opportunity to look at recreation opportunities on the river, we could explore that. But I do not think that is a good location at this time or in the near future. We have other priorities we have to focus on. We need to remain laser focused and look at our top priorities. And this is not one of them. Thank you, Donna. Well, this is one of those projects actually started in 1998 was the first written study done about it. We're not only the city, but the regional and the state City State Commission looked at it. There's like 30 different studies. Over 30 years or several studies. So reward that. And the Confluence Park itself is made to withstand flooding. It actually has concrete that absorbs water. It's the kind of infrastructure you put in to have things there after the flood that will endure the flood and will bring people down to the river when it's its mild self to enjoy the river and bring tourists and bring buildings. It is a positive and it's right now. We have a wonderful partner like most of our capital projects. We have a partner Vermont River Conservancy has been going out and doing all the grants. We just had to provide that initial fund. The bond was passed. It has not been issued. We are waiting for them to raise the rest of the money. We have not committed any more funds and don't plan to. So our six hundred thousand is gaining three point five million dollars from national organizations that know what it's like to have flooding to have things that are resistance that are flexible and adaptable to help our downtowns function all the time year around. Thank you. Thank you Donna. And speaking of positions on city projects. I'd love to hear each of your positions about developing the country club road property that was originally purchased with recreation and housing in mind. And I understand that city council has been moving forward on planning specifically for housing. So I'm going to go back to my chart and in my chart we're going to go. It might look funny but we're going to start with Adrienne for this one. Thank you. So this is obviously we all know this is a hot topic. It's a big piece of land within our city limits. That the city purchased and I did vote for the country club the Alks Club. I think it is a good opportunity to build housing and have a rec center up there. But as we've learned more it is a volatile environment that has wetlands. It has Abinac property. It is ledge and the city you know I think there needs to be a point in the planning that says when one is enough enough how much money is a city going to invest in this property before we may or may not realize that it's not a good place to build. I think there needs to be a plan in place to have that discussion and have that stop gate because it could go on and on and we can go down this rabbit hole that we don't want to continue spending money on a property that is not buildable. I know that we did approve the TIF process last council meeting. We're going forward with that process and also having conversations with developers. I would like to see us. Maybe it's already happening but I'd like to learn more about the opportunities to have conversations with different developers that have built on similar land with a development that is similar to our vision and really figure out is this something that is feasible for us in Montpelier to build on that land to sell to a developer and have this process be successful between now and before the next 10 years. Thank you, Adrian. Nat. I voted against the purchase of that land. So I didn't feel at the time that that the idea of purchase was also accompanied by a detailed detailed plan for how the property would be developed. And I haven't changed my mind and I wonder it makes me wonder about city priorities. That project makes me wonder about city priorities. Housing is a city priority. We can continue to have housing as a city priority but I'm not certain that the Elks project is the place to have housing. It doesn't look walkable to me. It looks rideable, very eminently rideable, doesn't look walkable. So I'm pulling back from enthusiasm for that project. OK, thank you, Nat. Donna. Yes, I've been a supporter of purchasing. I was on the council. We voted to purchase it. It was an opportunity. We have had all sorts of meetings since 2007. There was a citizen committee trying to work on savings pastures. We have another large property owner off Terrace Street. We've tried to work with. But the only one that came forward was the individuals that owned the country club property. That has 12 acres that have been engineered. We know we can put housing on. And it also we had all this massive public engagement about this property. By professionals did it, not just city staff, where we had people could come on the property. They could come to city hall. They could be remote. We really did surveys. I mean, it was a massive extensive engagement process. And those individuals told us again and again, they went housing and recreation. And so that's what we're doing for housing hasn't happened without the city's involvement. This land and other land has set there. It's just like we have empty buildings we want to put shelters in. But the land owners won't work with us. So I'm supporting the housing. I think we have to do it. And our investment is the land. It's just like Taylor Street. We bought the land and we got partners. Developers will pay for the rest. Thank you, Donna. OK, now you've been you've been talking about this since we started. I'd like to ask each of you how you think Montpelier should prepare for future floods. And we're going to start with Nat. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this question because this is the issue that drove me into this race. I felt that we needed to attend to public safety and to our threatened downtown and that needed to be our highest priority. And I was afraid we would direct our attention and other to other projects and we'd get another flood and we'd have more and more pain and a loss of business opportunity and a loss of belief in downtown. I think maybe the next big flood emergency could could really change the way we feel about downtown. I don't want to be in that position. I would like to you know we're talking about I've got 30 seconds. Good. We were talking about changes in the way the city is functions and the city is managed. I think we needed. I think we need somebody in place who is the flood manager who is managing. We need somebody in place in City Hall who has the authority to take us on this ride on this journey of reclaiming and protecting our downtown. That's how seriously I feel about this issue. Thank you Nat. Donna. Thank you. We definitely formed with public encouragement in fact mandate the Montpelier Commission recovery and resiliency and Montpelier City is one of three partners in that commission. They have found it much more difficult than one would think. It's been six months and they have done some good basic work and they are out there trying to hard an executive director. And I certainly hope they do because it is a massive project that needs a commission that needs a staff to focus on it. I feel the city's emergency plan has certainly been improved every single flood. We have coordinated with regions regional focus as well as state resources federal resources. We can all improve. I do feel like the city gets short shifted about its response to the flood that people expected the city staff to be out there and helping each householder empty their basement when the city was working to protect its own infrastructure and particularly our drinking water and our wastewater treatment plants. That nine million dollar investment is on an annual basis needed protection. And that's where they were. They were also manning the phone even though the internet system was down and people were in their homes on their cell phones getting communication out. And the fact was up until two o'clock that Monday the weather was still telling us nine feet. That's seven feet below flood level at 15. By three o'clock it was up to 16. Projection was. And so we started reacting. Thank you Donna. Adrian. So as a public health professional working in the field for the past 20 years one of the areas that we focus on is emergency response. And there are plans that are in place that need required to be practiced on an annual basis. This is not something that we are just going to figure out at three o'clock the night before our rivers flood our city. And so I have looked at the emergency response plan and we have to update this. I'm hoping the commission focuses on that. I'm glad they are a part of this complex puzzle. We need to figure out how to build these partnerships. How to update our emergency response plan. We need to actually practice it on an annual basis. We need to do the exercises. It cannot sit on a piece of paper and just hope that people remember what that is. And so I feel very strongly that an emergency response plan that is practiced every year with community input partnerships. We have once again it's the city but the river knows no boundaries. And so really understanding the water table. We have them for a reason. We knew this flood was coming. If you looked at the rivers they were high. We should have known. We should have been a little bit more prepared for what was coming. But we can do better next time and we are going to do better next time. The commission is is on board and we're going to partner them to make sure that happens. Thank you very much. Before I ask our next question I just want to remind the audience that if you have a question you'd like to ask talk or just hand add your written comment or he'll get you a card. We'd love to hear from you and in about a little less than 10 minutes or about 10 minutes I'll be looking for some of those questions if they're out there. If not I've got a long list of my own. OK so now we're going to really switch gears. And I'd like to just talk about city leadership and do you see the need to increase the diversity in our city city leadership. And if so what steps do you think need to be taken to include more women by Poc people folks from different income backgrounds etc. And for this one we're going to start with Donna. Thank you. I feel like the city council campaign to be on city council has become much more time consuming and expensive and I would like for it to be reduced to more more meetings more forms so that all the candidates whether I can walk whether I'm a woman whether I'm black whether it's not always safe to go around knock on doors and yet our community really likes people to knock on doors but it's not safe and it's not physically everybody is capable of doing it. So the changes have to start with your campaigning and the expectation of the community and that will need a big change in awareness and expectations as well as we had started a fund to help people at least when they're attending committee meetings for the city they're at least to reimburse if they need to have money for gas or child care just it was a little bit that we offered and it was more the attitude behind it than the amount of money and you didn't have to have a need you just had to say gee I would like to have that. So I feel it's important and that we should continue it but it's really hard on a tight budget and that was one of those things that was cut in funding but I don't think it has to be cut in attitude but it means we need to then have some training how to run for a council position we need to offer more education so that all these numerous reports aren't just sitting on a shelf at a counselor's desk but actually for people who would like to get some introduction to it so it would really mean a commitment of volunteers to help people become candidates. Thank you. I'm going to switch over to Adrian and then we'll go to Nat. This is a really great question as this is my first time running for political office as a white woman of privilege this is a really difficult you know I think world to emerge into as Donna said this costs money it takes time it's a huge commitment of my schedule when I work full time I have kids at home there has to be ways to figure out what those barriers are like Donna said you know there's attendance to meetings there's review and reports there's child care there's transportation there's a lot of barriers that are preventing people from participating in our political and our democratic process and our local government and there are trainings I did participate in the merge Vermont training for women which is free for all it prepares women to be a part of local government but we have to figure out what the root causes and work with our constituents to reduce those barriers and you know what I always say it's you know what's in it for you what's in it for me why should people care about this process and this is a powerful position to be in this we create local policy and change and that impacts everybody so I think it's around communication messaging and not just holding public forums like we are today we have to get out into the community we have to sit at the table and talk to people we have to meet people where they are if we want to institute change thank you Adrienne Nat I'm going to say something I try not to be negative because I don't think it I really don't think it often doesn't raise the level of our discussion and people feel they're under attack so I preface what I'm going to say by saying that this is not an attempt to be negative this is an attempt to cause us to reflect I hope seriously and soberly about an issue that needs to be admitted and discussed by various strike innings three out of every ten people who are registered voters turnout to vote seven out of ten people stay home or don't participate I taught school if you got that grade in school you would be flunking you would be flunking you would be flunking and I say that because I want to get attention for the point I want to make we are not finding ways to engage people in city government who have never ever been engaged and some of these are high school students and some of these are people who are working jobs and don't have extra time there are seven out of ten people who need engaged to be engaged thank you now do we have any questions from the audience Ed all right let's have it okay I think we'll have time for a couple more questions from me after this but I want to make sure to get an audience question in and feel free if you have a follow-up question to give Ed your card so the question is the city's managers contract expires in a couple years what qualities do you think are most important to have for the next city manager and for this round we're going to start with Donna I just started last time leadership oh yeah we're doing it okay we'll start with Adrian I'll volunteer yeah okay that's fine so we'll do Adrian Donna Nat we'll do it that way so what I think of any open positions within an organization that's a leadership position it's really important to understand the qualities that we're looking for and with the city manager in 2024 I would love to see a city manager the next city manager whenever that position comes available someone who's forward thinking who is focused on sustainable growth who understands the the complexity of city government of diversified funding models that exist in other cities throughout the country and that brings a very very strong vision to our city and shares that vision has communication expertise is able to speak with the public so that it's understandable for the for the lay person a lot of this the work that we do is complex but people need to understand what we're trying to achieve and so I see that next city manager having those those qualities and really taking Montpelier to the next you know phase of our our natural development and and setting that vision and helping us set goals achievable goals that are measurable over multiple years to ensure that we are achieving what is set out to achieve. Thank you. I'm I've I've I've gotten off track. Let's go now. I think Bill is Bill Fraser is a very talented intelligent person and he's putting hours and hours and hours and hours of his time over the past twenty five years or so. So he's a he's a he's a resource. He knows that he knows across the wall there and in those rooms. Bill knows all that stuff. I think we might we might want to do what what I did at the bridge when I thought I thought sometime I'm going to say there's going to be a point at which I'm not going to be able to do this job anymore because it was it was seven days in one week and six days in the next and and I and I was a lot of fundraising and it was a lot of pressure and the paper and getting it right. And I thought you know I want I want to do some other things in my life. I want I want at least another weekend back to my life. And I began to think about how I make that happen. And we put a board in place and that board has has has found its feet found its traction and the paper is if not prospering very much alive. I think we might plan a transition with Bill that means that we don't have to have a city emergency to find another city manager and a transition with Bill and with the new person man or woman. Yep. Thank you now Donna. I agree with what they've said I do think it's really important that we have a certified professional city manager. Bill has outstanding credentials and is very much been involved in the national organization for municipal executives and is well known there. And he talks about how hard it's going to be to recruit somebody because of our pay scale that even Maine and Vermont pay more in towns of similar volume of business. He has mentioned being available to overlap and after his contract as well as doing his contract we do have an incredibly capable and eager assistant city manager that we can look at that doesn't mean that we'll stop there but I think we don't want to miss what we have in house because one of the connections that I feel has been the big stay is when we do have an emergency we have a want a need we can call a police we can call somebody from another water treatment plant we can call finances all our computers are down because we have so many regional connections and town connections through Bill's longevity here and the fact that he's so good in reaching out and making partnerships with people. So that would be hard with a new person so it would be good to have at least some major overlap to put all those things in place for the new person that moves in. Thank you. Do we have any more audience questions? All right. Okay. I like these better than my questions. I already know my questions. Okay. Okay. Here we go. Will you encourage and support growth of a career center? The career center. Are you referring to the central Vermont career center? Okay. Will you encourage and support the growth of the existing career center? Okay. We are starting with I'm so behind on I have Nat is with Donna. Okay. Okay. I'm trusting what you all say. Donna, go ahead and we're going to do Donna. We'll just do Donna, Nat, Adrienne. Donna, Adrienne, Nat. Let's not get caught up on it. I think the perspective of a career center could be very, very important because one of the things that we've heard from employers and businesses wanting to come to central Vermont, not just Montpelier. Vermont as a whole is the employee market is short and that people are lacking either the skills, the confidence, or changing their mind to apply their skills to something they hadn't thought of before. And so I think it would be really important for young people, adults who maybe have gotten in one career and now want to change that they have that resource. So I think it could be very good. I don't know an in-depthness about their curriculum, but everything that I've been exposed to in similar ones have been very, very good. Thank you, Nat. We got a lecture from the mayor about the divided responsibilities of city government and schools. And I think what the city, here's what I think the city should do about careers. I think that we ought to have a very stuck together program of apprenticeships and internships in this city involving the legislature, involving the city hall, involving what it's like to be a lobbyist, and all the features of what self-government is all about. And make this an attractive program and bring young people through it and honor them when they finish. And it wouldn't be just lies on paper. It would be practical. It would be firefighting. It would be sewage treatment. It would be politics. And young people would come out at the other end understanding what government was about and what their part, and it might be about. Thank you. Adrienne. So this is a great question, one that is, once again, near and dear to my heart, because I see Montpelier as one community. And I know that the school district and the city do not have, are not required to collaborate. But I think that's a risk to our community. We are, we are families that live in this, in this city. And these types of programs impact all of us. And my daughter was very interested in the Spaldinger Center. We spent a lot of time touring there, looking at the curriculum, understanding the benefits. I have talked to many people about the model of the career center and researching the career center up in Essex, which could provide us with an excellent model on expanding our services within the Spaldinger Center, which is part of the Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools. And so I am very much excited about this opportunity, if the city would want a relationship with the schools, which I think we should, because it benefits all of us. We will train plumbers. We will train auto mechanics. We will train electricians. We will train hairdressers. These are the the pathways for many, many children. I tell my my children all the time, you don't have to go to college. That is what my generation was told we had to do. There are so many opportunities out there based on a child's strength that they can pursue. And this is one of them. Thank you, Adrian. We have time for one more question, and then we'll go to closing comments. And we're going to start with Adrian. And we'll go Adrian, Donna Natt, for this one. What is your vision for Montpelier 10 years from now? And how would we get there? Oh, gosh. OK, that's a good one. So when I close my eyes and I think about Montpelier, I envision a robust downtown. I envision commercial properties that are high dense. We live in a city. I envision green space, parks, playgrounds, bike paths, nice sidewalks where I don't my mom's not going to trip and fall and break her hip. I envision our buildings raised so that, you know, will save them from future flooding. I envision, you know, community for me is really important. The health of the community, hence my background in public health. So making sure that people are happy, they're healthy, and they're thriving. So that is a very societal way of looking at things where we have access to food. You can walk and get healthy food. You can talk to your neighbor. Relationships and bonding and and having that social connection is critical. I want there to be opportunities for all ages in Montpelier to have social connections from birth to old, you know, 90 plus, whatever it is. But every single age, I want there to be social connections and opportunities for people to walk, take a bike, have public transit, and for our economy to be thriving with businesses and affordable housing. That sounds like a dream. It's going to happen. It can happen. Let's dream big. OK. And I already lost track. I said, Adrienne, Donna. Yeah, I'm going to say I'm going to use her time to say I agree with all of that. And it'll only be possible if we invest now in the future so that we make public commitments to certain things and whether that's the country club road for housing and recreation, whether it's something like Taylor Street, where we have housing and transit that are resistant to flooding. But we need to make these investments so then we can get partners that go after more money, more grants, more partners to make these things happen. We do need to grow to 10,000 people. Our infrastructure is made for 10,000 people. And we got nearly down to 7,000 people at one time. And we're back up over eight. But that's because we developed these housing projects with the Taylor Street, with Berry Street, with the apartments on Blanchard Block, et cetera. And so we keep needing to do that to make that investment. Thank you. Thank you, Donna. Matt, how do you envision the future of Montpelier in 10 years? Vital place, absolutely vital place. Popping. The popcorn is popping. And the concerts are concertizing. And the sports people are throwing their javelins. And we have, we're confident enough in ourselves that we can say what we think and exchange ideas with each other. And we're not looking down on other people because of their size, or their hair, or their color, or their ethnicity, or where they came from. They're all here. They're all invited. That's what I see. I see something amazingly alive here. And the natural world protected like a child. The river is not flowing with salt and debris, but source of pleasure. The floods, prospect, not on our radar screen is the most serious thing that we face. Because we dealt with it. I had a kid that did a project on a fire in town in 1924. And I looked at that. And 11 people died in the fire, just a door down from here. And the reason that they couldn't respond was they didn't have a centralized fire department. And so 11 people died. And the year later, they got a centralized fire department. That's what we need to do with the flood, that kind of urgency. Thank you, Nat. Thank you. And now that we're at the time where you each tell us anything that you didn't get a chance to say during the last hour that you want to make sure that our folks here and your closing statements. And we'll start with Nat. And we'll go to Nat, Adrienne, and then Donna. Nat, time. How many seconds? 90 seconds for your closing statement. So I taught at a school in Kenya, Nirna, Nairobi. I was in East Africa for three and a half years. And we had a school. And it was a rich school in intellectual resources, but a poor school in things like meals and clothing. We had a shilling a day per boy to feed them. And the shilling was worth about $0.14. And one of the things I learned at that school was that kids could take responsibility for running the school, because we couldn't afford housemasters. So we had prefects. And they took responsibility. I think we have an extended, we've extended our childhood. When you're 16, 17, 18, you are somebody who can make a contribution. And you can understand that. So I want to see that happen. When my friend Bill Schumberker left the school, there was a dinner. And he was there. And he gave a speech. And he said that there were a couple of boys in that mob of Africans that he would take on the most dangerous journey imaginable. He would take them because he trust them. And there are many, many people in this town who can give that kind of companionship in danger and deliver. Let's get them on our side. Thank you, Nat. Adrienne. Thank you. In my closing statement, I just want to say that reiterating how I started, I bring over 20 years of experience focusing on strategic plans. I've built partnerships at the local, state, and national level. And I am a systems thinker. I solve problems. And when I work with organizations, I always hear, well, that's the way we've always done things or we've done that before and it didn't work. And so I am really, really good at asking why and digging a little bit deeper and bringing a new perspective. I've traveled the world with organizations trying to help them solve complex issues. It is what I am really, really good at. And I want to bring my skills and expertise to the city of Montpelier where I love living here. My family lives here. We are embedded into the system. And one way that, one, out of many ways that we can do this is really strengthening our strategic plan. The strategic plan has goals that are outlined. They have objectives. We need to start layering in smart goals and milestones and being accountable every month to those targets. Where are we going? How are we going to get there? And how do we know we've been successful or if we need to change our course based on environmental influences? Thank you, Adrienne. Donna. Thank you. I too see myself as someone with a lot of experience given the 40-some years I've been involved in city committees and projects and studies. And I do feel that I'm open to change. In fact, I do a lot of reading, a lot of conferences, to see new ideas, to see the best practices, and to try to bring them here. And I feel it's really important that you get the right people around the table on any topic so that we can come up with new solutions. And that's always the challenge because you have limited resources. But you can overcome them if you all work together. I also feel like that it's important that we maintain. We have now a strategic plan from the city council. Staff does do their work and mark off how their work and project relates to that strategic plan goal. And so we are trying to track it. We can always get better. And I'm sure Adrienne will have suggestions for that. And you can share them win or lose. That's the other thing. Be on a committee. There's lots of ways for us to contribute that isn't as time consuming because the council is not just the council. You're on four or five city committees. So if nothing else, just think about your opinions and how you would like to enliven them within a committee. There are like, I don't know, two, some dozen committees in the city. Please be more engaged. Call us, write us, email us, and let us know where you are. And I wish everyone the best of luck. Thank you, Donna. And thanks to all the candidates and to people watching on YouTube or on the Orca Media website. Remember that voting is in person at City Hall on March 5th. Early voting has been going on for a while for information about how to vote and go to the City of Montpellier website or to the Secretary of State's website. Thanks again to the Rotary Club as well and to all our candidates. Thank you. Thanks, Bill. Nice job. Thank you.