 I just wanted to say a quick welcome and thank you for ARP and the BBA for putting on tonight's candidate. I think these types of forms are very important and the Y is happy to host this and to welcome you all here tonight. I wish everyone well and we always like to emphasize whether it's our staff and our decision-making or our youth in our programs or our members, the Y core values which we conveniently put up above here which is caring, honesty, respect and responsibility. We think that's always helpful to keep in mind and again good luck to all the candidates tonight and thank you all for being here. Well welcome. Good evening. My name is Linda Bowden. I'm the Volunteer State President for ARP and we're thrilled to see so many of you folks here tonight. Tonight we're hoping to get to know our Burlington City Council candidates just a little bit better. These candidates are vying for to represent voters like you in wards one and eight. The livability of our communities is long but a focus of our work at AARP Vermont. How our cities and towns prepare for and accommodate an aging population has a profound effect on the health of our community and the quality of life today and in the future for residents of all ages. We hope to explore a number of critical issues tonight including transportation, housing, job growth and mobility and give you the opportunity to answer and to ask your questions as well. We are fortunate tonight to partner with the Burlington Business Association who shares our commitment to educating voters like you on how these candidates stand on important livability issues before you all go to the polls in March. We encourage you to ask questions of the candidates by filling out an index card which you might have seen at the table when you entered. Right in the back Phil has got those index cards, he's raising his hand so please feel free to pick one of those up, put your name on there as well as your question and we will come around and pick up those questions and select as many as we can to cover tonight. Our moderator tonight is Marcus Serta right back there. He is in charge tonight folks. He will ask the questions of the candidates and manage the format. He will go over the details with you in just a moment. Tonight's event is meant to be an educational forum. Now I've got my teacher hat on. We ask audience members to please respect the spirit of this event as well as our candidates and our audience members and refrain from any rallying, hackling or loud cheering please. We want to use our time efficiently and promise to get as many questions answered as possible. You're invited to join us for a reception after our forum where there are going to be lots of yummy desserts. Before I go further I would like to give a shout out to the volunteers that are working here tonight. Can we please have a round of applause for all those folks donating their time? Thank you. For those of you who do not know as well, advocating for older Vermonters and livable communities is just one part of what AARP does in Vermont. In addition to our local advocacy and education work, we are encouraging, engaging with lawmakers at the state house on a host of issues important to older Vermonters. In addition, we work at the federal level on issues like prescription drugs, social security and older worker protections to name just a few. We are assisted in our efforts by teams of volunteers and you may have seen them out in the community doing tax aid, driver's safety, livable communities, advocacy and of course fraud. So please join us if you'd like or find out about being a volunteer with AARP, you can see me after the event. Otherwise, Marcus, let's get going with the program. Good evening everyone. I'd like to first say thank you to Kelly and Kelly from AARP Vermont and the Burlington Business Association for putting me in charge tonight. Please don't tell my wife. All right. The candidates that you see before you on town meeting day will be on your ballots and it's going to be very important to be able to hear what they have to say. So again, I would please ask that we refrain from any heckling outbursts or any other type of noises because we want to get through the questions about. We want to be able to hear their responses. Elections are very important. We want to make sure that the electorate is duly informed. Um, each one of the candidates will have 60 seconds to respond to each question. They do have the opportunity for rebuttals. Rebuttals are 30 seconds. There is a timekeeper. Our good, good man Bob up here up front is going to be keeping time and letting them know when their time is up. Uh, I do also have the opportunity for to ask follow up questions at my discretion. Uh, candidates will have 30 seconds to answer those questions. Again, you have the opportunity to also answer, ask questions of the candidates so at any time, feel free to get an index card from the back table and fill out one of those cards and we'll get those questions. Hopefully answer tonight. All right. Everybody ready? All right. There are no opening statements tonight. There is an opening question. The candidates were prepared for this particular question. So we will start with Adam Roof who will answer this question first. Like the rest of the state, Burlington's population is aging. According to the U. S. Census Bureau over the next decade and beyond the percentage of people 65 and older will grow more than any other age demographic. Right behind older adults are people in their 20s. How can our city grow, develop and redevelop in a way that addresses the needs and desires of these two demographics? Name two changes you would support to address their needs such as housing. All right. Can everyone hear me? This is the first time we're doing. Okay, everyone seems to be nodding. So, you know, I think, you know, when thinking about this question, I'm glad that it calls out the biggest challenge that we have not just here in Burlington but statewide, which is our demographic challenge. Because that really is an existential economic and community crisis that is playing out, like I said, not just here in Burlington, but even more so in other parts of rural Vermont. But here's that that's the challenge, but I see the opportunity is I see the opportunity as rather that older folks, older Burlingtonians and younger folks here in Burlington, their needs are demonstrably the same. They're looking for a place to live affordably, to play, work, learn, exercise as we have people running above us. And that's what we need to be focused on here in Burlington is that their needs are the same. And so the question specifically about what two things I would do, you know, I would provide drastic amounts of increased housing in the downtown and in our major corridors, the densest parts of our town, affordable housing. Adam, that's going to, sorry, time's up. I got to keep, I think I had five more seconds, but the second would be to invest in workforce development. Thank you. I'm sorry about that. But we're trying to keep to the time so that again, we could try to get through as many questions as possible. And I did forget to introduce each one of the candidates. Let me take a moment to do that now. Adam Roof is a Democrat running as an incumbent right now. He's currently on the city council for Ward 8. Next to him is Jane Stromberg. She has the, she is a progressive looking for your vote for Ward 8. Then we have Zariah Hightower, progressive for Ward 1. She is looking for your vote this, this town meeting day. Sharon Bush, who is the incumbent and independent for Ward 1. And then we have Jillian's, I'm going to, I'm going to get this right. Scannell, she's Democrat looking for your vote for Ward 1. All right. Carrying on, Jane, if you don't mind, if you need me to re ask the question. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much for having me here tonight. My name is Jane Stromberg. I know I'm a newcomer amongst you, so I just wanted to say hello. But in court, in regards to this important question, I think we need to focus on balanced housing here in Burlington. We have long term residents and we have renters and I've talked to a lot of long term residents that say, you know, they get new neighbors every single year and I can see how that can be stressful and, you know, not very conducive to building community. So I think that we need to focus on holding UVM accountable to creating more housing on campus and more affordable housing as well as holding our landlords accountable downtown. You know, if people have accountable landlords and our tenants are being well taken care of, they're more, you know, inspired to take care of the space that they're living in, the property that they're taking care of. And I think that that's awesome for everyone here in Burlington. Thanks, Jane. Zariah. Great. So if you know me, I'm always going to talk about housing in transit and that does not matter what age you're part of. So on housing, I've talked to people who are afraid that they're going to lose their housing because of the growing tax base. I've talked to people who can't stay in Vermont because the entry wage salaries aren't the same as our incredibly high renter costs. And so to me, it's absolutely revitalizing our housing. Our housing is not reflective of our population. We need smaller homes for seniors. We need smaller homes for smaller families. And I think that there's a lot that we can do to do that. I think that revitalizing our housing, having more housing, allowing our population to grow when it wants to grow so that students can stay here, allowing our housing to grow so that seniors don't necessarily have to move into senior housing, but can stay in independent living situations that they want is absolutely important. Then transit, of course, we need to make a transit system that's accessible to all. Millennials don't want cars. Seniors often can't drive, so it needs to be more accessible. Thank you, Zariah. Sharon. Thank you. As I said, there's more in common with these two age groups than is different. So I'll get right to it. As far as housing, I think that that is one of the issues and accessibility to services. So for housing, I think that we need to, we've sponsored a proposal for accessory dwelling units that allows to create more housing and allows people to age in place. More on-campus housing, inclusionary zoning deals with some of the affordability and city plays should create workforce housing. As far as accessibility, it means pedestrian accessibility, all in multimodal ways of getting around in the community so you get all your needs met, health care, food, et cetera. We've got the intervail. We've got all of so you can live, work, and stay in Burlington and we can sustain ourselves. Thank you, Sharon. Jillian. Hey there. So I'm one of those folks on the other end of the spectrum, one of the 20-somethings who happened to come to this town, fall in love with it and now I want to stay and I'm having a little bit of trouble doing so and that's because of the housing crisis that we're facing. And I think that we need all actors to step up in Burlington and so we can see more affordable housing and also a higher vacancy rate in the city. And I think the way forward to do that is that the University of Vermont built more on-campus housing for students that will relieve some of the pressure on the housing market for the city. And I think I am in a unique position to do that. I'm currently the student body president at UVM. So I have a lot of relationships built with folks on campus and with the forthcoming agreement, housing agreement between the city and the university, I think I can be a valuable voice in the room to facilitate those conversations so we can see action taken. Thank you, Jillian. Moving on to land use and development, here's a question and Jane, you will be the first one to answer this question. Are there policy changes that you feel are necessary to address the downtown mall project, otherwise known as City Place, to ensure its completion? Would you mind repeating that? Sure. Are there any policy changes that you feel are necessary to address the downtown mall project, City Place, to ensure its completion? Sorry, I had to think about that for a second. So I think that we're not doing the groundwork and the outreach necessary to bring all voices into our decision making process in the city. And the City Place and a lot of the downtown development is kind of happening under the auspices of leaning towards privatization. And I think that we need to keep our assets public in the city and we need to seriously attend to the fact that we are, you know, we're in a very unique position to bring in more and more voices and do that groundwork here. And I think that that kind of slowness that we're seeing, that delayed process we're seeing in the City Hall Place, I mean City Place and a lot of the development downtown is a product of not having a good plan in the first place. Thank you, Jane. Soraya. I'm not aware of any policy changes that are necessary. I think it's more a question of how we implement projects once we decide to do them. I think it's a question of are we, you know, to change points, listening to all the voices in the room, and then if there's dissenting voices, are we pushing something through without putting enough accountability and that kind of legal backbone that we need to really enforce what agreements that we're putting in place. And so I'm not sure that there needs to be policy changes. I think that the redesign will hopefully be much, much closer to what the population wanted to see in the first place. I think we could have negotiated that to begin with, seeing as maybe it didn't need to be so large in order to accommodate profitability since now the profitability will be done on a smaller basis. So no, I think it needs to be done the way that we as a community negotiate with outside partners needs to change. Thank you, Zariah. Sharon. Thank you. I concur. I don't believe that there really are any policy changes that need to occur, but we do have a development agreement with the, so this is a private entity. And so we have a public private venture for the streets, but we, but the, it's private. And so the developer really controls that site. What we have is the agreement, and we've tried to hold that the developer accountable. And we've taken action when appropriate. I think that 30 seconds, okay. I was one person who voted against the original project because I thought the size and the scale were inappropriate. Actually, what is being proposed is very much what I tried to get the rest of the council to agree to. I spent my whole summer working on redesigning that project and trying to get the developer to go along with that because it was more in keeping with what Burlington needed. Still the same three components, but just smaller and more compatible with us. Thank you. Thank you, Sharon. Jillian. As Sharon mentioned, this development is now privately owned by Brookfield. And so the power that we have in to policies and create over it is a little bit more limited. I think any policy needs to prioritize making progress on the site. So it no longer is a pit. But what we can do is Brookfield accountable when it comes to that development agreement, and there will be in changes to it and edits to it, we need to ensure that there's commitment to public engagement and sharing progress on the project. My mic is really loud. We need to commit to making sure that there are progress measures. So if something's not met and the performance measure is not met, what does the city get back? So we're not we're not losing anything from that. And then ensuring that there's a commitment around the construction schedule. I think that with a lot more communication, both with people in City Hall and with constituents, I think a lot we would have a better idea what was going on if they were held accountable to telling us what was going on. Thank you, Jillian. Adam. Yeah, thanks for the question. You know, this is, you know, it's important. I think it's been mentioned, sort of this gets wrapped up into the, you know, is the city of Burlington privatizing assets. And let's just be very, very clear about this is the city does not own this property. And if it did, we'd have a lot more control over the development and as it progressed. In fact, you know, if you want to talk about privatization, we actually got back from this property to streets, which will be publicly owned and managed, which I think is an important piece, if not the most one of the most critical pieces. Also, the development agreement that's in place now that was negotiated years ago did protect did do its job. It appropriately protected the city in this delayed situation. No taxpayer dollars, for example, or not substantial taxpayer dollars have been at risk during this process. So the development agreement does need to be our carrot in our stick because that is how we can have control or somewhat control over private property in the city. And again, we need to be focused on what it's going to take to move this project forward because we are not going back to the days of a dead mall in the middle of our downtown. We're in a better place than we are now than where we were then. And I'm looking forward to supporting the project going forward. Thank you, Adam. Governments and taxes on this year's town meeting day ballot voters are going to see two questions asking for their approval to increase taxes. These are proposed a proposed increase of the housing trust fund assessment to a full to a full penny as well as a three cent increase for the public safety tax rate in the public safety tax rate. What are your views on these tax increases which are likely to result in higher housing costs? How would you address the concerns of older and younger citizens who are already say they cannot afford a living cost in Burlington? This question will start with Zariah. I absolutely agree that this will increase housing taxes. And obviously there's that's a hard issue in Burlington. I think both of these are important issues specifically to me, CHT. I do think we have an obligation as a community and I know it's hard to ask given you know what the current tax rates are, which I understand. I'm also a homeowner in Burlington. We do have an obligation to make it more affordable for others. So Champlain Housing Trust is a huge part of that. The increase to a penny tax will make housing more affordable in Burlington for other participants. And I think that's extremely important. The other one, the public safety tax, it's not a huge tax. I think it's an important part of keeping all members of the public you know, accessible to emergency services. So that's absolutely something that we have to do. I think we have to expand the tax base in Burlington. We can't say we're not going to improve public services. That's something that we're going to have to continue to do. It's extremely important. If anything, we just need to have more housing, have some infills. So we've got a growing tax base to cover those rising costs. Thank you, Zariah. Sharon. Could you actually read that question again? Certainly. I apologize, but I just want to make sure. On the town meeting day ballot, voters are going to see two questions asking for their approval to increase taxes. These are proposed, a proposed increase of the housing trust fund assessment to a full penny, as well as a three cent increase in the public safety tax rate. What are reviews on these tax increases, which will likely result in higher housing costs? And how could you address the concerns of older and younger citizens in Burlington who already say they cannot afford the cost of living? So I my job is to evaluate whether or not the need is real for these taxes or these increases and then put that forward to all of you to make your own determination on it. I feel the housing trust fund, we already have a half penny and we've been fully funding it at a penny. So this is formalizing what we are doing currently. That is used to generate millions of dollars for affordable. So it's seed money. So look at that as an investment and it mushrooms into far more dollars. As far as the public safety tax, that's three cents. That's 81 dollars and 92 cents per 100,000. So for around a $200,000 home, it's $163, 3,245. Once again, for ambulance service and other public issues, I think they're needed. Thank you. Thank you Sharon. Jillian. I think it's interesting that a lot of us on this stage are advocating for both of these increase in taxes and saying that this is important because housing and public safety are by far the two most important things. In regard to the housing trust fund, there's no one silver bullet to solving the affordable housing crisis in Burlington, but this is one of the tools in our toolbox to do so. So I think giving to this, like has been said, I think giving to this and approving this is important to have more money to build more affordable housing in regards to the public safety increase. I 100% support it. It's a one-time increase. So I do understand the concerns around housing taxes and prices. And as counselor, you know about 70% of your housing taxes go to the schools and that's for the schools to deal with. But I do say as counselor that I want to I want to help keep the other percent that I can control and I want to help make sure that it's what we want and that we can keep it low. Thank you Jillian. Adam. The question about my views. My views on these two taxes are that they are necessary but they are feeding this central conundrum that we are dealing with here in Burlington, that we are expanding the cost of providing critical services, both affordable housing and public safety in this case, while not expanding the number of people who are paying for it. It's like going out to dinner with four people and you put the check four ways and if you go out with six people and the bill's a little bit more affordable. That's what we thought that when we talk about expanding our tax base, that's essentially what we're talking about. More specifically on the public safety tax, I think this is really important to recognize. This is a lean budget. This is not a bloated tax increase that we are requesting. This is going to add a new ambulance to our city and nine new firefighters to our community. That is absolutely we have an amazing team at the fire department and bringing nine new people on board to be a part of that team is a good thing. The board of finance did its due diligence as did the full council. This is not frivolous spending and the housing trust fund as we talk about all the time is critical because of the need for increased affordable housing. Thanks. Thank you Adam. Talking about transportation and mobility for a moment and this question will start with Sharon for an answer. What is your strategy to make transit a practical daily option for a wide range of Berlintonians and to ensure it Excuse me. Oh, I'm sorry. My apologies. Thank you. I'm obviously not in charge. Go ahead. I'm sorry Jane. Okay. Back to the tax increases. I'm sorry folks. Well, I think that taxes are, you know, they're already burdensome for the average Vermonter, especially Berlingtonian. So I'm not an advocate for tax increases in general in the way that we have it. But for these particular items, of course, I'm supportive of increasing our tax increase. Did you say five seconds? Oh, sorry. Oh, sorry. So I think that we have a very regressive taxation system here in the city and we need to find more progressive ways to form revenue. I can give you a couple more seconds if you want. I think we, I think there was a thought there was a rebuttal, so I just want to make sure that did you Oh, he thought I was rebutting. So all right, I'm gonna keep going. Sorry Bob. Again, not in charge. All right, well, long story short, we need to bring large institutions into the taxation process in the city, such as the hospital and UVM. These monstrous organizations on top of the hill, you know, should have some kind of involvement with our taxation process. And I think that, you know, we shouldn't be shifting the burden on to, you know, people like you and I in the city. I don't know about the numbers of population. If that should matter or not, it really comes down to where we're getting that revenue and how we can make this a progressive system rather than a regressive taxation system. All right, Jane, thank you so much. I'm sorry for, sorry for skipping you. I'll make sure I'm on top of it in the future. Adam, you wanted to use a rebuttal at this time, so I'll give you 30 seconds. Yeah, I, you know, I think that, you know, we need to be looking at different ways to expand our tax base, but I think we also need to be realistic about the powers that a city council has, because we're running for city council, not for governor, not for state senate. The thought that we would be able to somehow tax nonprofits at a rate that's going to fix our tax issue is unrealistic. We have payment in lieu of taxes that we need to be pursuing, I think, more aggressively. But when we talk about expanding our tax base and having institutions be a part of the affordability issues in town, we have to be realistic about what the powers that we have are. All right, thank you, Adam. Jane, you were going, you want to use a rebuttal. All right, Jane is going to use 30 seconds for a rebuttal. Well, I think that a UVM, you know, in all large institutions in the city, they don't pay the same type of taxes that we pay. And I think that that needs to change. And I think participatory budgeting in general should be more of a reality for us, and it should be more of an inclusive system in terms of where we are allocating our money and getting our tax revenue. Jane, let me ask a follow-up to that because I guess I need a little bit more clarity about how you would exactly what kind of policy you would create in order to create this fair taxation you're talking about for these organizations? Well, I think that, you know, this kind of goes back to the time of Bernie and Clavel with their franchise fee. That was a very progressive idea for their time. And I think we should do something like that even though we do have that kind of in practice as is. It can be a lot stronger and especially in times like, you know, 2020 is a lot different than the 1980s. So I think that we should instate some type of system like that that's a lot stronger and really does actually bring in UVM just because it's a nonprofit doesn't mean that they're not entities associated with that university that can help us out. All right. Thank you, Jane. Okay. So Sharon, this question is for you and we'll start with you for talking about transportation again. What is strategy? What is your strategy to make transit a practical daily option for a wide range of Berlin Tonians and ensuring that they it will be accessible to everyone? Is that better? Okay. So we have wanted to have better public transportation, but the hurdle has been we don't have the ridership. And so actually I've been trying to work with Katma and Way2Go to try to figure out how to increase ridership. A couple of years ago they abandoned their, they had every year one day where everyone could ride the bus for free and leave their car at home. And so my thought was let's expand that. Let's go to having them initially do it once a month and then have them do it twice a month and then have them do it once a week. Like every Tuesday you put out your recycling, you leave your car at home and you take the bus. It would increase ridership and ultimately it would potentially make it more affordable. We need to find another way to fund it. If you say you want free busing, that means somebody has to pay for it. So we need an alternative source to fund that to either offer reduced fees or free busing. Thank you. Thank you Sharon. Jillian. For me part of the city councilor means working in partnership to try to find solutions that are going to address the needs of our community. So I've been speaking to some possible shareholders and I think that moving towards the idea of a regional intermodal transit facility between UVM, South Burlington, the city of Burlington Medical Center and really bringing everybody to the table for this intermodal transit facility would decrease our reliance on cars. So it stops cars that are going into the city and it would allow more opportunity for people to take public transit. And I think that it's a good option to sort of hit on multiple issues, both addressing issues with the emissions caused by more and more cars coming into the city but also making it more accessible and pushing public transit to become easier for more folks. Thank you Jillian. Adam. You know in order to make this a reality because we talk about transportation a lot. We heard a lot about it at the state level and the national level. We need at the local level we need to do three things. We need more options. We have to market it better and we need a way to pay for it. When it comes to more options, we hear it a lot. We need lower and no fare buses, more electric buses. We need better sidewalks. We need more bike lanes and car share programs at every chance that we can get. We also need to market it a little bit better. I was the opportunity to help announce the bringing two new electric buses to Burlington that will run on the red line which cuts through ward 8 and there's a lot of excitement about electric buses. We have to capitalize on that excitement and get people more interested. Lastly we need to pay for it and I'm the only candidate that has brought forward a way to pay for sustainable transportation without going to the tax base. It's called my plus one for climate action and it adds $1 to every paid ticket to concerts and events on the waterfront which will generate tens of thousands. It's not hundreds of thousand dollars a year which over time can pay for these sorts of things that we talk a lot about without any actual plan to pay for. Thank you Adam. Jane. The intergovernmental panel on climate change said that we have a decade to cut our global emissions in half or we face the catastrophic effects of a 1.5 degree Celsius increase as a globe. What that means to me is that those two buses that's great. That's a great start but we have 10 years and the city of Burlington has a net zero energy plan to be net zero energy by 2030 which is great but as a globe it's not matching up so we need to take that seriously and we need to actually focus on making public transit free for everybody. We have a $193 million budget as a city. It's about $2.5 to $3 million to make it free for everyone in Burlington to use public transportation which will incentivize the usage of that and we want to work together to electrify that as well and I sat on the board of EPIRG and I have a lot of coalition building experience in Montpelier and I think that we can make this work. Appreciate it. Adam, did you want to use or a buttle? I see it hot in your hand. I don't want to use it but I think I have to because we don't have $192 or $3 million budget. We have an $80 million municipal budget which the city council gets to mostly control. We also have enterprise funds which things like the airport or BED and I do think that BED needs to be a critical partner in doing this and just to be clear these two buses they cost a million bucks each and it took a state and federal and local partners and non-profit and other community partners in order just to bring two. So I think that pie in the sky words without hardcore plans I think are just as dangerous as anything else that we're facing today. Jane, you wanted to use your buttle? All right. Go ahead. So yeah, the general fund has about $75 million and BED is the next largest chunk which is a huge opportunity for us and I think that this doesn't come down to like how much we budgeted as a city. It comes down to our coalitions with the state of Vermont and it comes down to are we willing to actually push for this as a council and put pressure on the state and you know our friends So as a follow-up let me just so that I'm clear it looks like what you're suggesting is that to pay for the policies that you're pushing for you would be asking the state to put down the money for that. For electrifying the buses and all public transportation because quite frankly I think we can afford to make it free for everybody as a city. Okay. Thank you for that. Zariah. Great. Yeah. This is obviously an issue that I care about a lot in terms of free busing how we pay for it and so on. I don't think it's a marketing problem having lived in a lot of cities that have good bus systems. You use them because they're convenient not because they're marketed a lot. So making sure that we're just making it making it competitive with walking and so on in terms of time having more routes having them run more frequently makes people use the bus. In terms of how you pay for it I think there's lots of ways you pay for it. The ridership doesn't pay for the buses like it doesn't do it now it's not going to do it when it's free. It's that's an acceptable thing to do. If the city can subsidize let's have a hard conversation about parking if the city can subsidize on street parking then they can also subsidize bus ridership or they could replace one for the other which I would be an advocate of. Thank you Zariah. All right. I've got some questions here from the Neighborhood Planning Commission so a couple of questions for you and well Jillian you'll get to answer this first. Enforcement of some city regulations aren't fully enforced such as lot coverage used for parking for unrelated adults sharing a residence. How would you improve the enforcement process in our current penalties sufficient and appropriate? Thank you. Those are two really important issues. I think that when it comes down when we're creating policies around zoning and any ordinances a policy is really only as productive is how we can enforce it and how that works. When it comes to zoning laws and even enforcement when we're talking about rentals I think that our code enforcement office is doing amazing work that being said I think that they're stretched very thin so I think that we need to provide more support there and in regards to the for unrelated folks all living in the same spot and what the rules are along that I think that there's a lot of complexities to that ordinance and some things where there are grandfathered in rules and just some things that are very not are unclear and it's applicability to the average whether it's the renter or the landlord doesn't quite make sense so I think that we need to clarify exactly what that ordinance means and how we're enforcing it. Thank you Jillian. Adam. Yeah I think of course in every community in our country we have ordinances or rules that from time to time aren't enforced and that's frustrating. It can be anything from zoning or jaywalking I think I jaywalked on the way here. You know we need to be realistic about how we invest in the departments that are responsible for enforcement and so I'll go back to we used to call a code enforcement now we call it permitting and inspections Bill Ward who's an amazing public servant and his team do amazing work but they are only so few that coupled with competing state laws and federal laws around property rights and like this foreign related issue that we talk so much about which I do think is critical for for our neighborhoods it's hard to enforce. You have people going in and counting toothbrushes or bedrooms or trying to figure out how many people own a lease. We need to invest more in our team and through that we can we can do a better job enforcing what's on the books all this ad that I was last year I did push for new new zoning rules for example to ban lawn street parking on lawns here in ward eight which so we do need more policy as well. Thank you Adam. Jane. I did touch on this in the beginning but I'll add to it. Holding our landlords accountable and really putting an emphasis on landlord licensing this would definitely decrease the amount of you know garbage and furniture and things like that. I've talked to a lot of folks who felt very strongly about those things being out on the street and that's totally valid like that it shouldn't be but I mean those things shouldn't be out on the street but so landlord licensing and rent control if we have rent control people wouldn't feel like they need to pack into a house at such rates like six or seven plus people. It's not ideal like no one really wants to live with that many people but it comes right back down to affordability and you know what the price versus the quality of what you're getting in the square footage that you're getting. So I think we have to have a realistic talk sorry realistic talk about landlord licensing making sure that they have benchmarks to meet and rent control. Thank you. Thank you Jane. Zariah. If we're looking at our housing stock and trying to keep it intact we're losing like Burlington is losing the battle of keeping quality housing as it is and so we can't depend on enforcement that's the route that we've been trying to go for decades and it's not working. We need a better avenue. To me that's improving tenant protections improving tenant rights giving them the right to call the landlords themselves if the landlord is the problem but don't put the onus on the tenants. Why are we counting toothbrushes is that like a real as someone who sits on the developer view board it is extremely invasive when you go into somebody's house and try to say how many people live there not saying I would get rid of it without having other protections in place that's important to say it is protecting some of our neighborhoods but it is not doing enough and it's putting the onus on the wrong people the tenants instead of the landlords. Thank you Zariah. Sharon. Thank you. No the issue around lot coverage and foreign related our system currently depends on neighbors reporting there's no real way of verifying that what is submitted on the on the registration form annually is actually what's either in the yard or in the house and I think that really what we need is to have some sort of audit sporadic audit just to verify to hold people accountable for what they first of all submit to the city of also coming on next Tuesday I've asked I've worked with another counselor to have that property owners give a map for their tenants so they know where they can park and that map would be submitted at the time of registration and then code would have that map and it would be easier to have people comply and hold them accountable. Thank you Sharon. Zariah you want to use your rebuttal? All right. 30 seconds. Fiercely against the idea of an audit. I think that in some cases such as green space fine absolutely do it fan of it and other places I know where there are there's a house of six black men in our ward that are illegally living without their landlord knowing it in one home are you going to audit them and tell them that they can't live there is that really the city that we want to live in is the one that's going around auditing members of our community and telling them to move out that's not the community I want to live in. Thank you Zariah. Sharon you want a rebuttal? Okay. I would take issue with the example used because it suggests that there's a bias an audit is done randomly to just see if compliance is met and I think that I really do believe that if indeed you're not I understand that the renter is often times the victim here but the landlord is responsible for following the rules of our ordinances and laws in the city and so I really believe that that is one way to hold the landlord accountable and therefore hold not have too many people. Thank you Sharon Zariah you want to rebut again? Just want to point out there is a bias the the people who are doing it against their landlord's wishes who would also be auditing they're most likely to be low income they're most likely to be minorities there is a systemic bias that is in play here if you're doing a blanket audit even if it is everyone there is a bias that's involved in that. Sharon go ahead I'll give you 30 seconds please. Sorry with the foreign related there is a functional family component and most of the people that that are that live in ward one that when I go knocking on their doors there may be far more than four people living there but they function as a family even though they may not be related and often they are minorities or people new Americans coming here and so I don't agree with the comments made thank you. All right Zora 30 seconds. Using my last rebuttal on this if there weren't a fee to apply for a functional family that you had to read a pay for every single time somebody in your member changed then I would not be against this but there is a fee that you do have to pay to become a functional family. Moving on you got another question from the neighborhood planning commission and again for those of you who are incumbents please take this this question into account might be slightly different for you as it is for those who are running against you. How much time do you have to devote to council work? What experience do you have on boards and commissions and how many council meetings have you attended so please take that and strive if you're an incumbent and for those running against please but please we'll start with Adam. I spend too much time on city council no realistically I mean so you didn't pay nearly enough to compete with a part-time job or certainly a full-time job so you end up paying you don't have to work full-time I work for a local non-profit work 40 hours a week I do between depending on the time of year 20 to 40 hours a week on on city council and that's what I plan to keep on doing because that's what I believe is the requisite amount of time to serve the way that I see fit. I was the other question what else do I sit on? Yeah, talk about the committees I could spend 30 seconds so on the city council I chair both the Public Safety Committee and the Licensing Electrical Control Liquor Control Committee I've chaired the CD&R Committee which will waste too much time for me to read out loud I sit on a number of boards nonprofit boards in town and I also sit on volunteer boards as well go to my website adamroof.com to see the long list thanks. Thank you. Jane. All right I'm going to give you a little context because it's important to answer this question when I was an undergrad I ran two clubs the Renewable Energy Network and the UVM Progressives I even ran the IKeto Club for a little while I sat on the VPURG board which is our state's largest environmental and consumer advocacy board for two terms I was a fellow for our climate and I completed two degrees in four years now to answer that question though I'm no longer running those clubs I'm no longer in school I am working but I do have the time thank you Jane Zariah great so I've obviously been an active member of my NPA I sit on the development review board as I mentioned I'm on the Planning Commissions Ordinance Committee I'm on the BTV Stakeholder Commission and I forgot the rest of the question so how much time are you going to have to devote to council work? Oh yes absolutely I recently changed my role at work so now I'm working 80 percent time one and two I no longer travel as much so I am around and accessible and I have the experience Zariah if I may just as a follow-up how many city council meetings have you attended? Oh sorry yeah and city council meetings I haven't attended a whole lot I watch a lot of them on CCTV but I've probably been to four thank you Sharon so for those of you who don't know I'll be very brief but I've been a city councilor for a long time and so I have no idea how many city council meetings I've attended I can tell you that I've probably missed four in the 30 plus years that I've been on the city council and so I take this as a serious commitment to the people that have elected me to represent them I'm a member of the Board of Finance and the Ordinance Committee but I also regularly attend planning and DRB meetings especially when there are items that are city issues or ward 1 issues and also Department of Public Works commission meetings I'm there really representing you for the issues that matter I watch dog what's happening and make sure that I keep you informed and hopefully bring your voice to the issues that matter for our ward thank you Sharon Jillian I have plenty of time to devote to this I will say that after graduation I will have to find another job if I want to continue to live in the city in regards to meetings I've attended attended many city council meetings been to multiple MPAs spoke in front of different commissions in front of the city as well as gone to community coalition which happens at the university which a group of students and a group of long-term residents come together each month to talk about the issues Sophie right here she's an active member of that group in regards to experience and if I think I can be on city council as student body president right now at UVM I serve a constituent base of over 10,000 students I hear their needs I hear their concerns and I work with them to see the action being made and to see that their expectations are being met and so I think that I can do very much the same for my neighbors and ward one Jillian thank you all right we have some questions from our audience here so first one and this one Jane you will answer first wards one and eight have significant student populations how have you engaged with both students and permanent residents well given my previous answer I've engaged quite a lot with students in the area but in terms of residents I am very active in my community I and also my fellowship with our climate I actually had to do a lot of work with energy independent Vermont and a lot of people a lot of leaders local leaders who live right here in Burlington in wards one and eight to put on a very special event that happened about a year and a half ago now as a forum as a panel event about carbon pricing and we had professors and we had students and we had local climate activists on that panel and it you know it took about three months to plan that but in that there's a lot of networking because of a lot of the networks that I have here in Burlington itself so it kind of made it easy but yeah I do I do work with a lot of people as much as possible because that's all this is for thank you Jane Soraya yeah so I have never been a student at UVM but I interact with a lot of UVM students I don't want to say it because my partner's in the crowd but I used to date one and yeah so definitely I feel like I've got the student when I first moved here I was working in you know my first job and so a lot of my friend base as students and I think I have a good understanding of what students are facing in the city and then obviously I've been extremely involved in the community in terms of the residence side longer term folks and on the development review board I get to see the problems that those people face and has seen people come before the DRB every two weeks and talk about housing changes that they want to see and like what specifically is impacting their exact home and trying to get yeah changes that they would like to see or permits and so on so I think I've got a pretty good understanding of both groups thank you Sharon thank you so as a city counselor I reach out to people that of any age that are in the ward I'm a member of the community coalition I actually was a long-term member of the community coalition and did the moving off-campus workshops when they existed I'm also a community gardener which brings me in to interact with people from around the community at the hospital I taught clinical laboratory science students that were from UVM I go to the NPA and I and occasionally when invited get to go to Fern Hill or Macaulay Square to find out what's on the minds of people living in those senior centers thank you thank you Sharon Jillian I won't spend too much time on the student piece certain because I spend too much time on my student piece already but I do feel like I have a good understanding of the needs of the students at the University of Vermont because they're my current constituents and I'm talking with them every day in regards to engaging with long-term residents a lot of that work has happened from just living in the neighborhood and being around and going to community events I've really enjoyed in the past few weeks while we've been out on the campaign trail my favorite thing is when I'm knocking a street and in that street I see both a knock on students' doors and young adult doors and someone who's been retired in a long-time resident so I think that this question is really important for our ward is because there is such a mix of folks living there and we need to make sure we're finding ways that we're communicating well with all of them and I'm looking forward to doing that more as City Councilor thank you sure this is a great question you know Ward 8 came to be in 2015 and it was the first year that I ran and too often it was referred to as the student ward and it's not that there are families and young professionals that live there as well and so I've tried to focus on bridging the gap between student residents and more longer-term residents and young professionals as well and much like an answer I gave before a lot of their needs are similar and overlap so I've worked on things like community cleanups that both of those communities benefit from we worked on increasing foot patrols paid for by UVM because we have we had luckily it's dipping but we don't have as much of a burglary problem as we did in many years ago and then on the you know I believe that you know we need to bring more people into the democratic process in Ward 8 especially with turnout being low at times but I'm very proud to have brought over a thousand students to young people and otherwise into the political process over the five years that I've been in office thank you madam another question from our audience they're noticing a huge increase in graffiti it seems to be a real problem so wondering what ideas you may have to combat this Soraya I was not expecting that question I don't know what do you do with graffiti I guess paint over it put some art I don't I honestly don't have a good obviously this is a public safety issue I think graffiti is often an art expression I honestly have not noticed this in the ward I wonder if I'm just blind to it having lived in bigger cities I am sorry to say I don't think I have a good answer to this all right Soraya thank you Sharon so I'm not certain in what sections of the city we're seeing an increase but we did have an episode of graffiti and it's really hard to remove we had a committee actually that used to go around and remove graffiti but as Soraya stated sometimes graffiti is actually art so it's it's it's sensitive and but if somebody is is doing that to a building that they don't own then that's vandalism and so so you have to balance all of that the best thing to do is get people together if you can find the person who did it and and have and have that come to a resolution and so that is the most effective way to have the person that created the graffiti remove the graffiti and understand the impact it had on the property owner thank you Sharon Jillian I also didn't quite expect this and don't quite know where in the city which graffiti we're talking about I think that we've done a little bit of this in Burlington but in a lot of other cities in order to combat graffiti they've had teams and collaborations go out at least on like a lot of public places whether that's like an electrical box or or just an empty wall they'll like paint something very collaborative and expressive of the community because people are less likely to graffiti over someone else's art I mean I don't know if that's always the case and again I'm not sure which graffiti we're talking about but I think that that's a great opportunity for community building but you know we also get some beautiful art and my my team has been laughing at me because of the the mural on Chase Street I've made it like my computer background my my phone like the minute I saw that I just I just fell in love with it and so I think seeing more of that in the neighborhoods would maybe combat any of the graffiti stuff thank you Adam I think there's different types of graffiti there's graffiti that is at times offensive or damaging to property then there's other types of graffiti which is more of art based I suppose you could say and so I'll kind of address it in two different ways first we do have a position at DPW that is funded but unfilled someone that removes graffiti what you need to remove graffiti is either a paint or a power washer it's not that complex I've done both on the other side and I think this is more of an inspired answer to the question is let's invest more in the artists that are looking to express themselves in our community it can be done our northern neighbor the city of Montreal has done an exceptional job with this I and next time you're up there walk down take the long walk down St. Laurent Street and look at all of the amazing public art that's done by what used to be graffiti artists there is a balance to strike here between removing it and enforcing the the damage side of things but also let's invest in it and and make it a part of our public art commitment thank you chain this is going to be a dense answer so try to stay with me but this is a concern of someone in the in the crowd so I you know I want to answer this as well as possible but I think that offensive graffiti is this is a representative of a larger issue maybe a mental health issue and which is another huge aspect of what I'm trying to focus on as a candidate across the city and I think we could also bring in CEDO our community economic development office and you know they are instated they're here but they could be doing a lot more and they could focus on inclusion more and maybe that can you know encompass the local artists and a lot of the characters that we have here in Burlington because honestly like graffiti can be a very positive thing but again I'm not sure the specific piece that you're talking about but offensive graffiti absolutely needs to be addressed ASAP thank you so we're going to take one more question from the audience before we get closing statements this question comes from Richard and he says I believe Burlington has a very large pension liability how may we address this liability should the money from the sale of Burlington Telecom be applied toward this Sharon thank you Richard so I was part of a press conference earlier today speaking about taking the proceeds from Burlington Telecom and reinvesting it in the new BT because it would yield 12 and a half percent interest rate and we would have a constant revenue stream that could keep taxes down so but part of the proceeds are already going to paying out the retirement for the employees that were city employees that now have gone to BT I'm not sure taking that money and trying to deal with the the pension problem is the smartest thing to do and I think I'd have to refer to the actuary and study it I'm one that likes to get all the information before I make a decision and this is a serious decision thanks for the question though thanks Sharon Gillian I'll be honest and tell you that I don't know much about this pension fund problem that you're speaking to but if Richard wants to find me after this I would love to learn more about it thank you Adam I mean we can so sort of two parts of the question a little bit about pension liability and then whether or not using BT proceeds is a smart way to deal with controlling for some of the difficulties with the fund we have as I understand it the a board that works on pension liability that are professionals that are consistently looking at this this large pension liability which I believe the government does have a responsibility to do right by those who have worked for our community and they are consistently working on how to keep that pension fund in line I trust them on that I think we all should on the issue of using Burlington telecom sales to help offset some of the pension liability I don't think that's a smart move it's like spending your savings and expecting some sort of return on it if we invest those dollars we have a far better chance of returning money on a annual basis as opposed to taking that money putting it one time at an issue that really is something that's growing on an upward scale I think that would be unwise thank you Adam Jane I think at any opportunity possible we should be investing in renewable energy here in in the city but also as a state and I I'm not too familiar with the pension fund thing either but I also think that you know our pension fund is currently invested in fossil fuels and I think that that has something to be said about the current trend that we're in and we really need to be investing in a really wise way moving forward especially if we're going to meet our targets moving forward Adam you want to use your last rebuttal yeah I think I do because I mean I take I mean I think to mitigate the the pension fund to a pension fund thing is incredibly problematic let me just reiterate this pension fund much like much of the city budget and what we spend our dollars on are for taking care of people that's through salaries and benefits and one benefit that we've offered for a long time as a public institution and we should be proud about this are our pension funds and so this is a serious thing and if we are changing how we invest in it we need to make sure that we're not hurting people's pocketbooks because this is what they live on thank you Adam Zariah yes so I think what pension liability is a global issue that's becoming more and more important as we have aging populations that are on average getting older which is a good thing we do have to re-plan how we're going to pay for pensions I don't think we're alone in this problem I don't think I have the answer for it I think that the sentiment of it doesn't make sense to apply this one one-time like fund makes sense I think it's about re-planning and I haven't met the team but I assume that they are making a plan or thinking about that and that we can be progressive about dealing with that I do think that there is definitely a discussion that also needs to happen around divestment divestment is important in all facets of our investments including pension funds which doesn't mean that there's not other cost-competitive alternatives that can be invested in that aren't around fossil fuels thank you so based on the time we've run out of time to ask more questions for after this particular event the candidates will be here hanging out so you can continue to ask more questions to them if you wish after this event right now we're going to move to closing statements of the candidates we're going to start with Jillian thank you we need bold move action that addresses the current climate crisis affordable housing and the real needs of the neighbors in our communities ward one needs a counselor who will propose creative and realistic solutions to problems and what you know that you'll get with me is that I can promise you that as counselor you can hold me to the values that are listed above me thank you YMCA those values of being caring honest having respect and being responsible as student body president at UVM I've proven time and time again that I have the skills to set these tangible goals and achieve them and hear the needs of my constituents and see action make action be seen and I'm really looking forward to talking more with you tonight and I really appreciate you all coming out to this and it's really you know wonderful to see to see all of your faces so thank you thank you Adam yeah also thank you for for being here you know if anyone that knows me you know that I'm a lover of public policy sometimes a little bit too much people laugh at me sometimes I see a few in the crowd who know that I love this I'm a believer that it can change communities and transform people's lives I've seen it happen and I've done it but for these remarks I instead want to talk a little bit about who I am and what guides me because I don't talk about that enough and I'm a middle child born to two of the most amazing people I've ever met and my parents worked for me and my siblings to give us the opportunities that they never had and they succeeded in 2011 I graduated first in my family from the University of Vermont and while there while I didn't come from a political family I became inspired by Barack Obama's message of hope and change and it's still what drives me today I don't have a lot of time left but I'll close with this because it's important to think of who you're voting for because the local level you have the option to do that it's not a lesser of two evil sting I'm someone that's guided by the values of which I was raised which is to help lift others up push back against those that work to tear you down and above all else work to leave this world a little better than the way that you found it thank you Adam Jane I would not be running for city council if I thought that the current leadership was taking these incredibly time sensitive issues seriously we are in a climate emergency and I can't stress that enough we are in an emergency that is time sensitive and terrifying and I can speak for not just my generation or college students like this is a cross-generational issue that we're all going to be dealing with all of our families everyone we know and I want to build a very strong coalition to actually address these pressing issues and I am willing to do the outreach and the homework and the groundwork way ahead of time before we propose anything and actually knock on the doors of those that are going to be affected and impacted by anything being proposed from city council I you will see my face like I love to talk to people and that is this job and you know I want to make decisions with the community and not just for it thank you so much thank you Jane Zariah I think that our housing and our transportation is getting worse not better our transportation climate emissions are going up our housing stock is getting worse and we're going to need different ideas to change that we can't depend on the solutions that we've been trying to do because they're not working they are just not working and I don't speak in platitudes I'm not going to make but I've dealt with housing insecurity I'm an environmentalist by trade I am running on housing and transit because I know housing and transit and I know that I can pass policies pragmatic everyday policies that will make a difference so that's why I'm excited to run yep thank you Zariah Sharon thank you although I've been your representative for quite a while it doesn't mean that I have exhausted all of my ideas I haven't and I'm up for the challenge I like working with people multi-generational I've always gravitated towards younger and newer city counselors and proposed legislation with them I'm sorry I'm close I think the environment is really critical I've come forward with a couple of initiatives with one with getting away from fossil fuel and going to electrification for heating and cooling and new development I also think a key issue in Burlington is affordability and have put forward supported with the waste water bond the fact that would have a tiered water rate system so water would be more affordable for you all look forward to that this spring thank you very much I ask for your support in March thank you Sharon I want to thank everybody for coming out tonight really appreciate your respectful attendance tonight as so we get through as many questions as possible but again let me start first by let's give these counselors and these incumbents round of applause thank you and again I want to say thank you again to ARP Vermont and to the Burlington Business Association for putting this on because elections are the most important thing we participate in and having this type of information and informing the electorate is one of the most important things that they continue to do for us so again are my appreciation and I believe it's all of our appreciation for that I'm going to hand it over to Kelly Devine from the Burlington Business Association how about a round of applause for our moderator Marcus Serda thank you so very grateful for our partnership with ARP grateful to you all who came out we want to try to help and vote inform voters about the issues that are important to our organizations the shared issues the election is on March 3rd you can also vote early at City Hall the polling place for Ward 1 is the Martyr Christie School the polling place for Ward 8 is the Fletcher Free Library we have same-day registration in Burlington so we want to make sure that you get out and vote and get informed in advance and that we can get our democracy working really strongly in this upcoming March election because it is really important because it does help to set the agenda for the future of the city please stay around and join us I hope the candidates will stay as well and you can have a conversation with them we have some coffee and some snacks and we apologize for not being able to get to everyone's questions but thank you all for submitting them and we will at least offer them up to the candidates for their consideration as the campaign moves forward so thank you