 I want to thank everyone for coming out this evening for the Burlington Democratic Party's dominating caucus. It's our first chance in the year of 2020 to exercise our right to vote, our right to choose our nominees for our party, and I think that all of your participation tonight deserves a round of applause. So if you haven't met me or don't know me yet, my name is Sam Donnelly. I'm the chair of the Burlington Democratic Party. I was elected in September at our reorganization process, and I'm again really thankful for you all being here. I'm going to quickly go over the caucus rules, and if you have any questions or clarifications, I ask that you find your ward chair afterwards, or myself afterwards and direct questions through me. First things first, I will hear from myself, our majority leader, Jill Kroinski, and our mayor, yes, for instruction as to where you should go if you're from a certain ward, where other wards will be, so just hold on to those questions. As far as the process, once you're within your wards, all the ward chairs should have these rules, but I'm happy to clarify things with them as well. They will start out by welcoming you all, and then they'll open up the first round of nominations for the city council seats that are up this March. Now, if a candidate let the party know by noon, 10 days before this caucus, then they will already have been nominated and do not need a nomination from the floor, and you can proceed with their five minutes speech as well as a vote, a voice vote following that introduction and question period. Again, please, if you have any more clarifications, come by me or your ward chair in the end. Prior to that, they will move on to ward clerks, same process, there can be nominations in the floor if there was no prior nominations given to the party, and then inspector of elections after that same process, and then they will have a chance to reelect their ward chair and ward committee after that. That will be the end of voting. I want to clarify a couple things when it comes to who is eligible. The first is that the progressive party had their caucus on December, someone know the date, third, second? 12? No one knows. Okay, four. In December, and if you voted at that caucus, you absolutely cannot also vote in this caucus. It would be similar to voting twice in a primary, and it would nullify the vote if you did that. I've asked my ward chairs to make that clear to you all when we break up the board as well. The other thing that I want to clarify is that if you were not registered when you walked into this building and you registered at the door, you can vote, or you can register to vote, or you can vote today, sorry. And that vote will count just as if you were registered yesterday. We have same day registration policy in our state, which I think is a great, great law to have. In my opinion as chair, that that shouldn't apply to our nominating caucus, as it is an important part of the democratic process. The other question I received the fair amount was whether or not non-citizens could vote in our nominating caucus this year. As one of our own city counselors, counselor Ruth, introduced the city council this year, there will be an opportunity for us as pro-entonians to vote on all citizen, all resident voting this March. And I really hope that all of us in this room vote to pass that measure. Yeah, hope to pass an amendment to the Burlington Democratic bylaws that say that non-citizens can vote in our caucus as well, or all residents can vote in our caucus as well. So with that, I'd like to hand it off to our House Majority Leader, Jill Kroitzke. Thank you, Jill. Speaking of organizing this caucus today, it does take a lot of work to organize the meals and childcare, which is really important. So let's give them a big round of applause. It works for everyone, not just the wealthy few. A Vermont where our families and communities can thrive and where the Vermont Dream is accessible to everyone. Your, your Democrats in the legislature, I'm seeing inclusive House and Senate members have been working really hard to pass these policies to help families and create a level playing field. Last session, we invested in affordable childcare and workforce development. We invested in broadband to help our economy. We created a funding source, a long term funding source for clean water, and we passed the strongest reproductive rights bill in the country. We have so much to the governor's desk. We're going to be sending a bill that makes paid family and medical leave part of every job in Vermont. And we're going to give hardworking Vermonters a raise with a minimum wage increase to combat to combat climate change. And we're going to build strong future for the next generation so that they have a clean environment. We have much to do. And we are already hitting the ground running with that. Last week, the governor gave his state of the state address. And the state of the state address is basically an outline of the priorities that we're going to be seeing in the governor's budget later this month. And I have to tell you, my friends, this budget was short on vision, and it was short on details. He signaled that he was going to be pushing back against some of the climate change legislation that we're moving forward. And he wants to spend more money on paying people to move to Vermont. I don't think that's a sound economic development policy, do you? So that's why these upcoming elections are so, so critical. We're going to give every Vermonter a fair shot. We need a new governor. And we need allies across the state, up and down the ballot to do this work and move our agenda forward. So I just want to thank all of you for coming here tonight. We have a big, big campaign ahead of us in 2020. And I know together we can win. So thank you so much for everything. Over to Sam. So thank you, Jill. And I think that the state legislature is doing excellent work. You know, there's a lot of work to be done in Vermont as a young person, myself and as a lifelong Vermonter, I want to see a lot of progress made. And I think that we have the right legislators and the right leadership to make that progress this session and forward. The last speech of the night before I give some more instructions is one that I think is really, really important to hear. It's from our mayor, Merrill Weinberger. So my best stuff is from school. I'm going to try to get this from here and get a little hang of it. Welcome, everyone. It is awesome to have such a big crowd at the City Council of Democratic Congress. I want a special thanks to Sam, Joanna Lorraine, who I've done that have been lifting to Jill's head for all of the district. I also want to give a special shout out to the newest member of the team, Ashley Carol, who's right here. Ashley has just joined the State Party as the new field director, and she is going to be focused on City Council races for the next couple, couple months. We're really excited to be here. Welcome. I'm gonna talk as loud as I can. If you guys keep proud in this way, there's a lot more space in here. So I also want to say thank you to the person who makes it possible for me to be involved in this. Thank you to my wonderful wife, Stacy, and our daughter, Ada, who's here. Thank you to Abby, Duke, and SureSnap for providing the great food tonight. And we did this election season, the 2020 election season. We, the Burlington Democrats have a lot to be proud of. We, since the last municipal election just a year ago, you know, we do this every year. Because of the leadership of city Democrats, we have hit some major milestones. We've been upgraded two steps to the double A credit rating, making good on the promise that we made to voters eight years ago, when the voters put us in charge to fully restore the city's financial standing. And in doing so, we have locked in literally tens of millions of dollars of savings for Burlington voters for school funders and for ratepayers. Season in a row following the 2016 vote on the November ballot to support the sustainable infrastructure bond for the third year in a row, we have built twice as many roads as we do in a typical season. We have built three times as many sidewalks as we have done historically. And we really essentially for the first time ever have been replacing the city's water lines and starting to make the major investments needed in our other water infrastructure. The BT crisis for good again, saving another tens of millions of dollars for taxpayers ensuring high speed internet choice for many years to come. We continue to lead the state in many ways the country with respect to the opioid epidemic delivering on the ground change and results. I am heartwarming to say that for the second year in a row it appears that the number of opioid related overdose deaths is about 50% of what it was in its peak. It's still way too high but we are making progress. And in 2019, we passed the milestone of opening the 900th new home since the beginning of this administration. 300 of those homes are permanently affordable. And in top of that not only have we created these new homes for literally hundreds of households in this community, we are starting to see that we have we're starting to see numbers confirming that this strategy of creating as many homes as possible for all incomes and for all types of proletarians is starting to have the effect that you would want. We are seeing a doubling, you've seen a doubling of the vacancy rate and we have housing inflation level off and it's actually been lower for most of the last few years than the overall inflation rate. Again nowhere near where we want to be but a big progress. This isn't just what we accomplished in 2020. In the months leading up to these elections city democrats have come forward with initiatives that point the way to the future and how we make progress on the major challenges that continue to exist. How we continue to make progress with housing, how we continue to make progress on the climate emergency and the opioid crisis. Following two housing summits in June and September, there have been a series of housing reforms that have been put forward that together represent the most significant comprehensive housing agenda in many years. These reforms include doubling the annual investment in local funds into the housing trust fund, eliminating barriers to creating and creation new homes throughout the city, reducing utility costs for tenants by requiring all Burlington rental apartments to be properly weatherized, and additional new tenant education and protection efforts in part based on the input of the Tenants Union and more. In 2014, becoming the first city in the country to source 100% of our electricity from renewable generation, we released a new net zero energy city plan that has us getting to essentially zero emissions across the electricity, ground transportation, and thermal sectors by 2030. It is, in short, the most ambitious local climate initiative of any effort in the country. It wasn't just a plan. It was accompanied with the new roadmap. We're literally more than a dozen of new initiatives and programs for starting to create on the ground change towards that ambitious goal. And finally, in November, I laid out a set of initiatives to define the next chapter of the fight against the opioid crisis, a chapter that must be based on cities and the state increasing support for long term recovery. You know, as this election season has gotten underway, something a little bit surprising has happened in recent weeks. We've seen candidates coming forward, running against democratic incumbents who are listing housing, the environment, climate change, and addiction supports as their top issues. And, you know, in a sense, this is very positive. We welcomed the progressives joining us in this urgent work. We welcomed this confirmation that Democrats have been focused on the right issues for years. And it is good for Burlington that both major parties are aligned on these critical generational issues. However, when rhetoric, ideology, and a desire to take credit, get in the way of moving forward to needed reforms, that's not so positive. It's our job, people in this room, the Democratic Party's job to make sure voters understand that Democrats have been putting forward well crafted policies that address the root causes of these challenges, implementing them and delivering tangible results. It's our job here in this room to demonstrate to voters that to secure additional real change to make housing more affordable, to fight the climate emergency, and maintain our outstanding quality of life, we must elect more Democrats to the City Council. And that is really why tonight's gathering is critical. Tonight, we must nominate candidates who will work with Democrats in our commitment to housing, quality of life, affordability, a strong economy with well compensated workforce, climate action, public health and safety. And it is important that we nominate candidates who can communicate to voters our city's remarkable recent progress and the importance of continuing that forward momentum. It's also critical that tonight we start this huge grassroots efforts that it's going to take for these candidates to win in March and that's why I'm so encouraging to see a full room like this. And finally, tonight we must put on the ballot a slate of Democratic candidates who deliver ambitious yet practical and affordable solutions. Build on the progress of recent years and ensure that the great city of Burlington continues to move forward in 2020 towards a more inclusive, equitable, healthier and sustainable future. Thank you all for being here. All the work that you put into making this city a better place for all of us to live in. I know in my lifetime I've seen this tremendous change in the way that the city grows, the way the city looks, and I appreciate it. So thank you. One more round of applause. Once you've just came to the beaches, we're going to break out towards and I would ask that we start with Ward 1 because I have a sense that the largest gathering of people is in Ward 1. If you're voting in Ward 1 this evening, I want to ask that you go to that corner of the room where Olivia Pena, Olivia, can you wave our ward chair? Is standing and Olivia is going to take you right above us to the gym where we'll need a couple volunteers to help set up chairs and work to make use of that room, but we're going to be standing there. For other, if you're in Ward 1, if you're in Ward 2, some of the questions that Ward 2 is going to give you are up there. For other Ward's, I ask that you stay here for just a second and once more, my people will migrate out and we'll break out into those Ward's with your ward chair. So you should be in Ward 5, so that's where you're going to be. Not twice if you can hear me. You know, I've been on the receiving end of that all through elementary and middle school. I've never thought I'd be saying that to other people. If we can have the Ward 5 voters congregate in this sort of area, Bill Keogh, your ward chair, is over there holding up a five. If we can have the Ward 6 caucus goers congregate, sorry, Olivia, I'm about to move you. Ward 6 is over there. City Councilor Jones-Shannon will be operating that caucus. At Ward 7, you could go in the fourth corner with the orange over there and then Ward 4 in the other corner in the blue area. That would be great. Ward 2, please congregate sort of towards me. On this side if you can, and Ward 3 will be on the other side. And Ward 8, I'm going to put you guys in the hallway. If you're lost, you can just come find me and I'm more than happy to help.