 Thank you. Hello and welcome to Towne Meeting TV coverage of Towne Meeting day 2024. This program is part of a series of forums. We are bringing to you in advance of Towne Meeting Tuesday, March 5th 2025. 4. Yeah. Towne Meeting TV host forum with all candidates and cover the questions you will see on the ballot introducing you to community decision makers and connecting you with issues that shape our local community. You can find all of the forum at cctv.org slash 2024 or on our Towne Meeting TV YouTube channel where auto-generated captation are also available. On tonight's program we will hear from three candidates running for two positions the Willysky City Council and those candidates full name they will introduce themselves we have Thomas right we have Aurora yep and we have Nick. Thank you guys so much for that. We have prepared a list of questions for you and you will have 90 seconds to answer each question. If you are tuning in live we also welcome questions from the listeners and the watchers at 802-862-3966. I repeat 802-862-3966. If you call in we will do our best to prioritize your questions because they important and we also want to make sure that the questions are not repeated and also the questions are also for all the candidates instead of just one candidate. Okay thank you let's get started with one minute opening statements and we will start with the incumbents let's start with Aurora first and then Thomas and then Nick. Hi my name is Aurora Hurd I use they them pronouns and I'm running for re-election. I love Wenusky because of its diversity and the work that we've been doing towards equity. I also love our library the community in general and I really love that we are truly on the way to be a walkable city that we have some improvements with accessibility and access. I also really love that our staff are very dedicated to supporting the community and the events that kind of bring us all together. I really want to continue to serve as a counselor because I want to be a voice for those who have been historically marginalized. I want to help shape our city into one where everyone has that equal access. There's a lot of work left to do and I believe that we're making progress. I also love hearing from the community so please reach out. Thank you Aurora. Thank you so first of all I'd like to thank Town Meeting TV and thank you for moderating us today. Truly what's not to love about Wenusky from our community to our businesses there's really nowhere else like it in Vermont and a keyword to that is community. We are a community the most diverse community in Vermont. We have amazing cultures in our city amazing people some of the most industrious people that I've ever met and I truly love the diversity that we have it's one of the reasons why I live in Wenusky it's one of the reasons why I ran two years ago to represent Wenusky and represent everybody who's in the city. Serving on Council these past two years has truly been one of the biggest honors of my life to be able to take what I'm hearing from the community and translate that into policy and talk to fellow counselors about that is truly something that really just completely fills my heart to be honest. I believe Wenusky is already a great place but there is a lot of work that we have to do making our community more walkable making our community completely accessible to all folks and continuing the work that we're doing in the equity sphere. I love hearing from people from the youngest members of our community to the oldest members of our community. I encourage you always to reach out and I'm really excited to continue doing this work and to represent everybody. Thank you and let's go to Nick. Hi my name is Nick Brownell. I'm running for city council because well I love it here you know Wenusky is a warm and welcoming place. We have such a diverse community as you've already heard is one of the most diverse cities in the state of Vermont and I do definitely echo the fact that we have much to do in terms of making the city walkable but as it is it's definitely a place where you can walk from you know where you live to pick up some food and get some groceries. I'm running for city council in particular because I've been inspired by the work that people have been doing in our community. I myself am a renter. I am an IT worker and I'm also an organizer and an activist. In my experience I've helped organize around labor rights, renter rights, reproductive justice, and racial justice. I feel that I can bring widely and deeply felt issues from the community to the forefront of city council. I've had experience working with folks and winning issues that directly impact their material you know living conditions. Last winter myself and other Wenusky citizens helped pass just cause eviction which is a big success for tenants in the city but we still have so much more work to do. As city councilor I want to continue to work on this type of work and tackle the housing crisis. We need to concrete plans to address the lack of housing, the rise of increase of cost of rent, and the lack of protections that working class people have in the city. Thank you. Wonderful, thank you all so much for answering the questions beautifully. We are going to now talk about both the city budget and also the school budget and for this question we will be starting with Mr. Thomas. So do you support the proposed 10.98 million city budget and associated with 8.07 percent tax increase? Yes or no? And also what experience do you bring to the overall financial management of the city of Wenusky? Sure yeah, thank you for the question. I'd like to start by saying this budget was extremely difficult for us on council to figure out and propose to the residents of Wenusky. We knew just to continue services as we had then we had to raise the budget by about 6 percent. On top of that our city manager proposed to us a budget of about 12 percent that included investments in various areas of the city. But from conversations that I was having with residents I knew that we could not propose a double digit tax increase to folks. It just wouldn't have been plausible for people's budgets. Some people told us they'd have to leave the city if we did something like that. So we had to find a way where we could get the investments that we wanted. Council was really looking for some infrastructure investments as well as in other areas of city government. Some of our folks on council were hoping to go above 8 percent. Some folks were hoping to go below 8 percent. And what I did and where I really feel like I'm a pivotal person on council is I proposed a number where I thought that we could work together. So some folks would get what they wanted. Other folks would get what they wanted. I try to always make sure that I am championing fiscal responsibility on council. We come from a community that struggles financially for the majority of our residents. So it's important to me that we are giving them the services that they want and need but we're also not breaking their budgets. So yes I do support this budget. We did a lot of hard work to get it to where it is and the things that are incredibly important to our residents. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And now we will start with you, Nick, for the same question. Well I will kind of echo a similar thought that this is kind of a tough budget. This is something that a lot of Winooski citizens are maybe not used to. I do think that what this budget does, it does tackle some issues. It does provide funding for some things that I think a lot of people want in the city like repaving our sidewalks. It does offer a lot for the city to operate, do as it does for its citizens. I also sort of think a large part of budgetary increases is it also provides rise of living balance for our city workers, which is really important. They're the people that really keep our city running. Health insurance rates have gone up as well, which is also a part of this budgetary item. In my conversations with people, talking with people door to door, I've heard a lot as well from people who are on, you know, fixed income or in their own house. And people are, you know, went from paying $1,000 a year in taxes to now $7,000 and more. And these are very challenging issues. I think this is something that we need to look to the state as well in terms of identifying a more progressive way to tax people, basically, and not just simply rely on property taxes to fund our municipal government. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And Aurora? Yeah, I do support the budget this year. We did, as mentioned, focus on increasing funds for that municipal infrastructure. We all touched on accessibility, so that's really one of the focus, make sure our sidewalks are usable, especially considering a lot of our students still walk to school that we do have a great bus program now, too. We also included some items under safe, healthy, connected people, specifically our library and our fire and code department. I believe the experience that I bring to council, of course, from the past two years, so that practical experience. But one of the biggest things that I try to bring to doing this work is diversity, equity, inclusion. The budget really is a moral document. What we put funding towards is what we're saying that we value. We really need to think about who benefits and who doesn't in all the work that we do, but definitely in the budget because it affects all of our residents so immediately, questioning, like, are we increasing inequities or are we doing work to repair harm? I also believe that we really need to use data-driven decisions so that we can see what services are really serving our residents and what services they most need to really get their needs met by the city. Excellent. Thank you so much. And it seems all the candidates support the budget and the tax increases. Yes. Now, let's talk about the school city, school budget. And this time we will be starting with Nick. Do you support this year's school budget, $31.97 million? How do you address the challenges facing the state education fund and the impact on Winiski's school and taxpayers? Yeah. So, you know, first off, I do support it. I think, you know, part of the issue is operating the school, running the school, even if we didn't want to propose a higher budget than perhaps normal, would still, it would end up costing us more. This budget, of course, also includes, you know, raises and cost of living for the staff that run the school. I think part of the issue that we're seeing, which starts as a good thing, Act 27, which actually is an act that would definitely help Winiski. You know, we're a city where multilingual city, the school itself also works a lot with families who do not need to speak English. And that's a huge resource for families. But part of the issue is loaded out of Winiski and more. And the state house is, there is a 5% tax cap that has kind of caused some issues. And so the legislature has tried their best to try and rectify that sooner than later. But we really need to be working closely with our state legislatures, giving our input and letting them know that this is something that's very serious. It affects not just Winiski schools, but schools around the state. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And let's go with Thomas. I also support the school budget. Let's be honest, our students in Winiski need a budget that reflects all of the difficult ways that they need to be educated. And it's a lot more intensive than some of our neighboring schools. So that's why our school budget might be a little larger than some people would hope that it is. We're also paying for a big, beautiful new school as well. The school board, similar to City Council, worked really, really hard on this budget. They were dealing with a lot of difficult financial outcomes. And there's still so much in the air. Nick alluded to it a little bit, but between the citywide assessment, folks really won't know what that tax bill looks like until that's done. The common-level appraisal numbers, the legislature is still figuring those out. And as Nick said, we need to be working with our state legislatures. And that's why I have been in constant contact with both of our representatives on the House side, our three senators, and as well as other senators and state representatives in the Vermont legislature, relaying to them and making sure that they are aware of the importance of the current weights that Winooski is a recipient of that good weighting calculation. We need that to continue in order for our students to thrive. So I support the budget. I'm having those conversations to make sure that the state funding for schools continues to benefit Winooski residents. Excellent. Wonderful. Thank you. And Aurora? I also support the school budget. The new student weights that have come in place really are, as I think both Thomas and Nick mentioned, here to help the needs of our Winooski students, we have a high population of multilingual learners. And we also have a high population of students experiencing poverty. And these with the weights allow us to equitably provide that high quality education that students in wealthy districts like Stowe or South Burlington also have. So making sure we have that equity. Our school budget looks a lot bigger because of this new capacity provided by those weights. So showing that those weights really are working towards equity and allow us to invest in those supports most needed by our residents while actually decreasing the school tax rate. As also alluded to, there are a lot of complicated things that determine what that looks like for our individual residents, especially the property owners. But I do think the school board and superintendent did the very best for our students and our residents. That said, I think the system of funding education in Vermont is too complicated, and I would encourage our state reps to look into more progressive alternatives to property tax, such as a wealth tax or income tax to fund education. Wonderful. Excellent. For our listeners again, you can call to ask the candidates any question that you would like at 802-862-3966. 862-3966. Now this is a housing question, and we are going to start with Aurora. And what can Winooski do to meet the needs for safe and affordable housing for the people that work, leave, raise children, study and also visit? Definitely. So the housing crisis has definitely hit Winooski very hard as it has across the state. We are a majority renter city. We have already been making some changes at the city level to try and alleviate some of the crisis. One of those is incentivizing larger bedroom units, licensing and then potentially putting in caps for short-term rentals. We have a Winooski Housing Trust Fund, a rental registry to keep landlords accountable, but there's a lot more work to do. I think some of the biggest things coming up that our council are going to be working on is making sure that Act 47, and now that that's in place, that the incentives that we already have continue to be incentives to get the housing that we most need. And I also think we need to start looking at inclusionary zoning. I'm also really interested in exploring getting some data on rent caps or at least caps for down payments. I want to ensure as well that they're just cause eviction charter change goes through despite the complications and errors that have happened. I've been a renter in Winooski and I just really want to see renters' rights taken seriously. Thank you so much. And we are going with housing. Nick, you second? So I'm a renter. Renting anywhere means that you have a little bit less privilege than you would if you owned your house. Winooski is facing a housing crisis very similar to a lot of other locals in the area. And I think in particular the ways that Winooski can help fight back against this is looking to invest in a more robust public housing system. That's public housing for all that serves people who can afford it as well as people who need help to subsidize their rent. We need to be able to provide additional help to people for speaking with their landlords, being able to negotiate fairly. I think one way to do that is to be able to recognize tenant unions. They're very similar to labor unions and the fact that they are organizations that work with people in order to come to a fair negotiation. That would help with negotiating a rent increase as well as taking care of much needed maintenance that needs to be done on a lot of the properties in Winooski. And I also think that Just Cause Eviction, while it did pass last year with 73% approval rating, we have had a lot of trouble in getting that to the state legislature. We're going to have to vote on it again unfortunately. And the hard part about that is that Just Cause Eviction is much well needed in our city. One of the things I think I'm most excited about with that is it offers the city council to negotiate what's a fair rent increase. That will allow Winooski citizens who are being priced out of our neighborhoods and priced out of our apartments. People will stay longer and be able to really participate in Winooski for as long as they can. So housing is key to so many things. Student performance, how people do in their jobs, how people feel about themselves has a huge impact on your self-worth. And this housing crisis is being felt everywhere. Not just in Shetland County or Vermont, but across the country. That's why I've been very insistent with our planning commission that they work on incentives that encourage common sense housing development in Winooski. We need to build housing that works for everybody who currently lives in Winooski and who would like to live in Winooski as well. On my first year in council, I introduced a memo that asked council and staff to look at Just Cause Eviction. I knew we needed this form of policy so that we could protect renters who are our most vulnerable housing folks in the city. I've currently been supporting alongside other members of council short-term rental policy. We just looked at that last night in our council meeting actually. And this is another thing that we're trying to do so that we can increase rental units within the city. I'm really looking forward to continue working with our housing initiatives director to tackle this housing problem and not just on these small policy levels, but on creating more housing because that's ultimately what we need to do in order to make sure that everybody can be housed. Wonderful. It seems that we have a question. You will answer the housing question and let's answer the question here. Hello? Hello, can you hear us? Can hear something. I need to press the conference. My question is actually still about housing availability and the affordability crisis. Again, this has been a great conversation and rental protections are important, but I know for example Just Cause Eviction now still in the legislature's hands. And the main problem that seems not only in Winnieski, but other Chittenden County communities is actually just a lack of housing to begin with. So could each of the candidates talk actually a little bit more about what Winnieski could be doing to incentivize building more housing actually? Thanks. Thank you so much for that question. What Winnieski can be doing to intensify more housing? And I think for this question we will start with Aurora first. That is a really good question and I think Thomas started to talk about we really need to give guidance to our planning and housing commissions because they're really navigating those state changes coming out of Act 47. We really need to continue that incentivizing and really what that comes down to is building the housing that Winnieski needs, which is the larger bedroom units as well as affordable units. We've seen a lot of big buildings go up, but often they're one bedroom or studio apartments. So one way that we can incentivize is around parking minimums. So looking at that another way is if decreasing some of the application processes, the cost and other ways that we can support different businesses applying or sorry, applying to get that help. I also think one of the other things with housing is that it's the best way to retain our diverse residents and really continue to build community. So I think there's both the renting side and also partnering with organizations like Champlain Housing Trust to create some opportunities for affordable home ownership. I think we have that growing problem of some vacant and underutilized properties. So I'd love to explore, especially during a housing crisis, how we might change some taxes to really incentivize generating the city revenue and encouraging developers to build housing and store funds that we really need. Wonderful. Thank you. And Thomas? Sure. It's almost like we're on ice on the same board. Incentives is really where we're going to tackle a lot of this housing crisis. You know, the Planning Commission came to us several months ago with a plan for incentives that included things like parking minimums, bike parking minimums, and other tools that they were hoping would be successful to get folks to build in Manuski and build what we need, which is the three plus bedroom units. What they brought us wasn't good enough. So we sent them back to the drawing table because we need things that will truly create the housing that we're looking for. We don't need more studio apartments in Manuski. We have those. But it's really important that we bring both sides of the development structure to the table. We really need to have our Planning Commission listen more to some of the development partners that we want to work with in the city. And I have encouraged them multiple times to invite those partners into their Planning Commission meetings so they can hear what it is that those types of folks are looking for. This includes Champlain Housing Trust and other developers who are doing good development in our city. There are many folks who are looking to do the development that we need. There are just some barriers that we need to break for them. So we've asked the Planning Commission to do that. Hopefully they will do that if they bring back something that we think doesn't accomplish what we need for housing. We're going to send it back to them. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you. And yes? So yeah, I mean some great examples already brought up. I think what Manuski has done in the past is adopted a form-based code, which was the idea that we would be able to sort of fast-track development in the city, which I think for a while has proved to be very successful. However, I think part of the issue that we're facing and we've kind of touched on a little bit is the way that Manuski is zoned is we are only really allowing new construction on the corridors of Manuski. So what we really need is large-scale housing and unfortunately the way that Manuski is zoned is we don't have anywhere to put that. So what I'd like to do as a city counselor is work with the Planning Commission and be able to offer them guidance on what Manuski needs. We need to be able to, you know, reform our zoning laws. We need to be able to develop more housing that isn't just in the corridors. We need to get creative with what kind of housing we can offer for people. Part of the other issue is, you know, developers when they're looking at projects, they really only want to take on these studio one bedroom apartments because that's going to make them the most money, right? So incentivizing is a good idea in terms of, you know, if developers are looking at projects, potential projects, we want to be able to make it easier for them to develop. But we also want to make it so that they are for sure developing three bedroom apartments. These are things that a majority of Manuski residents want. Excellent. It's clear that you're all very good at the time. Thank you. And this, thank you again for that call. And again, if you want to call, you can please call in at 802-862-3966, 802-862-3966 to ask questions for these great candidates. This question now is about the addiction and opiate crisis. We will be starting with Thomas. What is the cities doing right now in addressing addiction crisis? What is the biggest changes that needs to happen to help both the people suffering from addiction and those around them impacted by the effects? Do you support overdose prevention sites? You know, one of the things that we love about Manuski is that we approach most things with compassion. And that is one way that city staff has approached this crisis. The city and its police force have long partnered with the Howard Center in making sure that people are being treated with respect, that they're encountering in our community who have this addiction and this illness. And our police force, you know, I frequently said, I never thought I would talk positively about a police force. But the Manuski police force has a deep understanding that this is a crisis of addiction. This isn't about bad people. And we are encouraging them as members of council to continue that approach when they're dealing with folks and trying to help folks. You know, this is a statewide, well, really this is a nationwide problem. Manuski alone can't address it. But the steps that we are currently doing, I think, assist with that. There's no singular solution. But yes, overdose prevention sites are one of those tools and I do support them. But we also need more mental health care workers. A huge part of this crisis is tied to mental health. We need more doctors and APRNs in the field of addiction recovery. Without that, we will not be able to solve this crisis. And I've advocated both on the state and the federal level that we need to create programs that allow more doctors to come into our communities and assist with these problems. Excellent. Thank you. Yep. And then we are going with Aurora. All right. Yeah. Our city staff, some examples of kind of what they're doing on the ground is our police, as Thomas mentioned, as well as the staff in some of our physical spaces, like our community center and our library, do have Narcan on hand and training on how to administrate it. So we have some of those really practical things of how we can support individuals immediately. As Thomas mentioned, we are also working with community partners like the Howard Center as best we can to do that support. But it really is that state level work. We really need the state to kind of move away from studies and surveys. We really have that data and we need to move to that real action and real support for doing that work. I would be in support of overdose prevention sites and there is certainly a need that they'll help everyone be safe. I'm the liaison to the Safe Healthy Connected People Commission, which is discussing some ways on how we can support residents and their families. That's thinking that commission also oversees the police as well as community services. So how we can support our staff to have those tools. But as I think Thomas really touched on, it's a systemic issue that's not going to be solved by us alone. Wonderful. Thank you. So I do support overdose prevention sites. I support safe injection sites. I think these are crucial to keeping people alive. It prevents life-threatening situations. When we talk about the addiction crisis, we also have to understand that the addiction crisis is not just that. It's also a crisis of poverty. It's a crisis of homelessness. It's a crisis of trauma. And so when we're tackling this issue and when we're working with, as we mentioned, this is a large part, a state issue as well, that we need to be thinking about how we can build a foundation for people to be able to pull themselves up. I think, as we mentioned, the Winooski Police Department has a strong connection with Howard Center. Howard Center workers do great work in terms of helping people improve their lives. I think what the City of Winooski should be doing is looking into ways to be able to house more people, period, but we need to be placing a focus on people that are currently unhoused and getting them into shelter so that they can actually start the process of addiction and not relapse into that. Thank you. Seems you all set for that question. This question is about the ballot items. I'm going to make this question a little bit because you guys are very similar in your policies. Let me now see. What are the two ballot items currently in Winooski? And also, do you support them? What are the two ballot items? And this time, we're starting with Nick. Sure. So I do support the two ballot items. One of them is the Burlington Bridge Project, the other being the Main Street Revitalization Project. As we talked about a little bit earlier, Winooski is a great city. It's a walkable city, but a typical complaint is that the sidewalks are not always safe. And if you have accessibility or mobility issues, that's not going to work for you. People can't necessarily get to our voting polls safely if they're on a scooter, for example. So I think this definitely addresses part of that issue. I'm pretty excited about the Winooski Bridge Project. That's something that we... The Winooski Bridge has been in existence for most 100 years. And if you like to bike to Burlington as I do, you'll notice that sometimes there's holes in the concrete. This is something that I'm very excited to see. And this vote itself, what I'm also happy about is we are approving a budget. We are not necessarily approving the final design of it. I'd like to echo what I've heard from environmentalist groups as well and just mention that I think that we need to continue looking at the design and making changes to it that long-term, we are developing our city to be more eco-friendly and encouraging more public transport and bike transport. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And Aurora? Definitely. So with the first ballot item, which is around funding sidewalk and street paving, this has no effect on the tax rate. It is to reallocate some bond funds that we already had, that we already asked residents and they already approved. The project was originally... Those funds were originally for, came in really under budget. So there are these leftover funds that because it's a bond, we can't pay them back early or invest it in other ways. And in fact, we are starting to be charged a fee on it. So reallocating those funds really to do work that we want to do and need to do anyway with funds that we already have, to me is the best way to make use of that. And again, there's no potential tax rate increase. For the Winooski Bridge at this time, I do not support this bond because I don't think the funding as it stands is equitable to Winooski. It is unfair for our taxpayers to shoulder this burden when data shows that Burlington not only has the tax base to fund it, but also Burlington gets a lot more benefit from the bridge. We have to... We've tried to advocate with the organizations we're partnering with, with Burlington, with folks at this date. And we've yet to be successful in having them listen to us and correct that inequity. So I will be voting no on this bond vote, which I never expected to say, but we'll continue to vote no until the inequity is corrected. Wonderful. Perfect timing. Yes, Thomas? Again, we're on the same table. So a lot of the same things. What I really want to emphasize is the bond vote of the real reallocation of funds. This is money that Winooski has already raised and paid for. So we just need this as a procedural process in order to do the work, to repave streets, make them safe to walk on, make them safe to drive on, but there will be no change in what you see in your tax bill for voting. Yes, on that. Similarly to the bridge, I am actually still making my mind up on if I am voting for that or not, mainly because I'm hoping that the state will see that the bridge is really a community bridge. This isn't just Winooski or Burlington's bridge. This is Colchester and Essex and Lilliston's bridge as well. 25,000 people cross the bridge every day. Winooski has 8,000 residents. So it's not just our bridge. That said, I do want the taxpayer to keep in mind that we currently have a very large grant from the federal government that covers the majority of the cost of this bridge. The bridge will cost about 60 to 80 million dollars, which would be near impossible for Winooski or Burlington or even the surrounding communities to fund. So if we do not pass the bond vote, we may risk those government funds and there's no guarantee that we would get them again. Okay, wonderful. Thank you so much. I think you all answered the question, Nick. Okay, perfect. Now, this question is about racial justice. Where do you see systematic racism showing up in Winooski? What can the city council do to solve the problem? And we are going to start with Aurora. Okay. So unfortunately, systemic racism is definitely still part of our systems in Winooski. I think some of our civic systems in particular. I do believe we are very aware, both at the city and at the school, and are trying to work in different ways to dismantle the racist systems. As a member of council, as I mentioned previously, I serve on the Safe, Healthy, Connected People Commission, which provides that support and feedback to police, to fire and code, and to community services. I also serve as the liaison to our now just over a year old inclusion and belonging commission, which provides feedback across our city departments and the council, and we have it kind of separated from those traditional power structures to be able to let it really influence the other parts of the city and provide that feedback normally that has been left out. I also helped put together an equity assessment worksheet last year because I felt our FY24 budget process did not prioritize equity enough. And this tool now is helping guide us in policy creation and in budget review, so really making sure we consider who's benefiting, who is not. I also think when we're talking about updating zoning and housing, we can encourage more housing throughout the city. I think as Nick stated, like being able to build more housing and bigger housing units throughout the city. And I do hope that will help with some of the segregation that has happened by making housing more affordable and participating with partners. I also think we are supporting and being a part of a bunch of community events, especially around thinking how we can plan to use the equity audit that we did in a previous year to make both the school and the city more equitable. Wonderful, thank you. And Nick? Yep. So I see systemic racism and make up our neighborhoods. A lot of our, as we kind of pointed out, a lot of our neighborhoods are kind of segregated. That's based off of racial divides as well as economic divides. We go through Winooski, go to certain parts and you'll find that a lot of houses that need a lot of maintenance are being rented by new Americans, people that don't necessarily have the resources available to them to actually better negotiate fixes on those properties. I think one thing that the city could do in terms of helping with this is sort of like I said before, tenant unions I think historically do work with communities of people that don't necessarily speak English as a first language, people who are new to the country that don't have a great understanding of lease agreements. A lot of people born in the country don't have a great understanding of lease agreements, right? I also sort of see our systemic racism as we've all seen and has been brought out of 2020 with the Black Lives Matter movement in our policing system. I think Winooski has taken great steps at combating that. It's certainly not what it used to be, but I do think that we still need to be vigilant in identifying who's treated unfairly as well as filling our vacant equity director's position. That's something that we still haven't done yet. Okay, wonderful. Night on time. I'll go now. Systemic racism exists everywhere, everywhere, so it'd be foolish to think that it doesn't exist in Winooski. It's embedded in institutions without knowing it's embedded in people. And then let's be honest, racism is also a factor that is still faced all the time in our city and other cities in Vermont. Winooski is the most racially diverse town in Vermont, yet there's only one BIPOC member on council who's sitting right here. There's only one BIPOC member who is running for council who's sitting right here. City council is taking and making investments so that we can consider racial implications along with the work that we do thanks to the tool that Aurora made. We use that for every single piece of policy that we're looking at, everything that we read. We conducted an equity audit that really highlighted what the school and the city need to do, but we continue to do that work and know that there is work that needs to be done, which is kind of half of the battle. A lot of folks do not acknowledge systemic racism and the city as a policy has done that. I'm reminded all the time and one story I like to tell that just really hits on where we are still with systemic racism in Vermont. When I was first elected to city council, my nephew who lives in the city came over to our house and we had a little celebration and said, Uncle Thomas, I didn't know that people who looked like you and me could serve on city council. So until that question is no longer answered, we still have a systemic racism issue. Wonderful. Thank you. We have less than five minutes now, 802-862-3966, 862-3966. And Thomas, to give you the time to breathe because you are going to stop. This is question and it is about public safety. Do you feel safe in Winiskey downtown? What do you do as a city council to make Winiskey a safer and more equitable city? Yeah, so I do feel safe downtown but I say that with a caveat. I'm a very tall man. I don't want to assume that how I feel is how anybody else would feel in the city. I've spoken to residents who don't feel safe downtown for a variety of reasons and I can't discredit that. So it's something that we do talk about and I've spoken with our police chief and I have conversations with him about things like that and as well with our other department heads at the city. One thing I really can say, a moment where I do feel unsafe and I know that many residents of our town feel unsafe is when navigating our streets, whether they're walking or they're driving. Speeding is almost getting out of control in the city. Dangerous driving. Just recently, very unfortunately, right in our downtown, a woman was hit while she was walking her dog and her dog died. Due to that, I've asked our city, we need to invest in more signage, both illuminated and non illuminated, with flashers and non with flashers, more crosswalks, visible and elevated, so that people do feel safe walking around all of Winiskey. We need to empower our police force to be able to ticket people who are speeding. Winiskey is famously known as a speedway that needs to stop and one way is allowing our police force to take care of that. But for any way that somebody feels unsafe in Winiskey, council needs to keep that in mind. The feeling of being unsafe is something that we need to take seriously. And I encourage anyone to reach out to council if you are feeling unsafe in the city. Thank you. We go with Nick. Sure. You know, I'm someone that also feels relatively safe in our city as well. You know, I'm originally from New York and I think, you know, Vermont as a whole, I've always felt a lot safer living here. And talking with constituents, people have brought up the idea that, you know, they feel that they feel unsafe. They feel that there is an issue of crime rising in city Burlington as well as Winiskey. And I suppose, you know, how I feel about that is we have an obligation, I suppose, to identify what people are feeling and respond. I think when people say that they feel unsafe in their city, they're talking about, you know, other people, I guess, basically, really down on their luck. You know, we're talking about unhoused people, we're talking about people facing addiction. And what we need to do as a society, as a city, is invest in more programs that are going to be able to, you know, improve those people's lives. I wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, what Thomas brought up with the idea of speeding in Winiskey and our safety. I do feel that as well, that, you know, we have an issue of car traffic in the city. But I think rather than investing more in ticketing people, we need to be looking at structural changes towards the city's streets. Winiskey is a very small city. We have a lot of cramped streets. And I think we need to be looking at an overall of how we're addressing public access to transportation. Wonderful. Thank you. All right. I do also feel safe in the Winiskey downtown and really throughout the rest of the city. I think unlike a lot of neighboring communities, we haven't created a hostile environment for people just to exist in. I think when I, when thinking about public safety, I think situations that make our residents unsafe often are not getting the health and mental health care services that they need, landlords lying to them and bullying them, losing housing and unsafe housing quality, language access needs, the F-35s, not having access to safe third spaces and not having that necessarily reliable public transportation. So yes, a lot of those are large social problems that really need to change at the systemic level, but we're doing our best to alleviate them thinking about policy and procedure. Another way I think as a city council member, I can make sure that we're doing that work is ensuring that our staff have the funds and resources they need to best serve our residents. That's part of the reason why we're investing in our fire and code department by having a new fire chief with this budget, as well as investing in our library, thinking about those safe third spaces. So I'm really excited that we are able to prioritize those. Wonderful. Thank you all so much and for being here, and I just wanted to allow you for each to take 30 seconds to do a closing statement. Yes, and this time around we'll be starting with Nick. Sure. Yeah, so thanks for joining us. Again, my name is Nick Brownell. I'm running for Winiski City Council because I believe that we can make a significant change in improving people's lives. We need to tackle our housing crisis. We need to think about more radical change. We need to be improving our ability to take public transport, to be tackling our environmental crisis, making significant changes in a way that only municipal government can on a local level, which is doing a fundamental change in our zoning and improving our local infrastructure so that as time goes on we're able to live happily. Thank you. Yes, and Aurora, and then go ahead. So my name again is Aurora Hurd, and I'm really running to try and help ensure all Winiski residents have a voice and that we continue our progress to being inclusive and equitable city. One of the upcoming things I'm excited about is we're doing some language access review, and once we have that data, City Council will be able to put that into policy and procedure to ensure we're meeting those needs. So I'm excited about that way. We're going to improve access. You can find me across social medias, Aurora Hurd, VT, or feel free to reach out via email or Aurora Hurd VT at gmail.com. I really look forward to talking with you. Thank you so much. Yes. Thank you so much for hosting us today. Again, my name is Thomas Renner, and I continue to believe that Winiski is the best place to live. I think there's work that we have to do in housing, safety, and equity, and not all of it is easy, but I continue to commit to listen to all viewpoints and voices and to serve as a connector of ideas, to be a person of balance and reason, and to think of how any decision I will make will impact every single member of Winiski. It's a true honor to be your deputy mayor, and I look forward to serving you for another two years. If you would like to reach out to me, you can email me at thomas4winiski at gmail.com. Thanks so much. Thank you, viewers, for being with us today. Thank you, CCTV Channel 17. Thank you for tuning in on town meeting TV, ongoing coverage of local candidates, local budget, local ballot items. You can find them on ccdv.org slash 2024, or on our town meeting TV YouTube channel. And you can tune in for live election results also, when after you cast your ballot on March 5th, contact your local clerk to find out how to obtain a ballot and to register to vote. In Vermont, you can register to vote on election day. Thank you for watching. Good luck, candidates, and thank you for sharing town meetings with us today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.