 And the hush comes over the crowd. Amazing what a microphone will do. I think it's 3.30, so I think we should get started. I am Kim McCurley. It's my pleasure to welcome you here on behalf of Bethany Church. I serve as the pastor here, have for three and a half years now. And during those years, we have asked often and continue to ask lots of questions about what it means to be church in community and around the globe. And one of the questions we ask ourselves often is what do our neighbors need? How are we positioned to be neighbor? What are the resources that we have to make our neighbors' lives less cumbersome and difficult? My guess is that some of those questions might be at issue today. And so I'm glad that you are here to listen to the questions and the answers and to add your own questions to the mix. We are happy to host this on behalf of Vermont Interfaith Action. You will learn more about that group as the day goes on as well. But the real reason I'm standing here is that I should tell you where the restrooms are. I know my strengths. Just inside the door that you came in on the left-hand side is a one-size-fits-all restroom. If you want to go there, you go there. The one behind you at the back of the room is for women, because we all know the line is longer at the women's room always. So help yourself into whichever room is comfortable for you. We'll have some cider and donut holes in a bit if you want to move about, if these chairs aren't the most comfortable. So feel free to do whatever you need to make yourselves at home. We're glad to have you. And now I'm going to introduce Reverend Ken White, who is moderating today. It's good to see everyone here. What a great turnout. Thank you for coming here on your beautiful Sunday afternoon. Thank you, candidates, for spending your Sunday afternoon with us so we can learn more about where you stand on important issues. My name is Ken White. I'm a pastor in Burlington, part of Vermont Interfaith Action, which is a statewide group that wants to get involved in the voice of religious folks, faithful folks of all different brands and stripes and categories, and see how we can make our community better. So this is a nonpartisan forum. This is a forum for us to get to hear people from all sides and for us to not take a side but just to listen to y'all. So thank you very much. All five of these candidates are vying for two seats in the Orange Washington Addison District. And they'll each make a one minute opening statement and a one minute closing statement at the end. We have six questions for them this afternoon. They've been given these questions in advance, and they'll each get to spend two minutes on each question. We have a timekeeper over there, Mr. Reverend Coopercamp, who will hold up this show. See, this is what y'all need on Sunday morning, right? This is what you need. So he's got a yellow sign that says 30 seconds, and he's got a red sign that says stop to help y'all figure out where your time is. And as a once we get to the end of our six prepared questions, we'll be opening it up to questions from the floor. And so what we're going to do is we're going to hand out cards and let's just hand out the cards right now, Melissa. Melissa's going to hand out some cards to you. We're going to invite you to write your questions down on those. And then we'll take those up before the sixth question. And we'll pick some of those questions. We won't have time for every question, I suspect. But we'll pick some of those and then invite you. We'll give you back those questions and invite the ones that are selected to come up and ask their question themselves. Does that make sense? It will make so much sense. And also just to be fair, we're going to rotate the order that we ask all the questions. So why don't we get started with your opening statements. Just handing this down the line. Just hand it down the line and I'll try to make sure that the court doesn't create a problem. Perfect. Thank you. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Ben Jekling. I'm running as an independent. For the last two years, I've worked with Democrats, Republicans, independents, and progressives on a host of policies that have impacted this district. I worked and helped to write and pass one of the strongest prescription drug transparency bills. I worked with a tripartisan group of legislators to expand high-speed internet and advance that bill through the house to make sure that we have high-speed fiber on some of our back roads. And I worked to ensure that small health care providers like Giffer just up the road are treated fairly in health care reform processes as they're going on throughout the state. There's more work to be done. That's why I'm running for a reelection. We still have a stagnant population. We're still struggling to attract and retain young people in this state, especially in our rural areas. And we're seeing that we haven't done a good job of making sure we can revitalize downtowns throughout our state. So I'm looking forward to this debate. And thank you all for attending. Thanks, man. My name is Jay Hooper. I'm the other incumbent representing this town and four others, Brookfield, Brantree, Randolph, Granville, and Roxbury. I grew up in Brookfield. I've since moved to Randolph Center. I live right at the top of Route 66 in an apartment with modest rent. I serve on the House Ag and Forestry Committee. And I'm pleased to have been put on that committee because there's issues of water quality that I really care about improving Lake Champlain and Lake Manpermade Gog and Lake Carmine and the lakes. Issues of declining milk prices, Act 250, emerald ash borer invasive species, all these topics I've learned a lot about over the first two years in office. And hopefully I'll get a chance to do two more because there's a lot more to learn. I had a, in the winter months, I had a radio show here in Randolph. Good afternoon. My name is Larry Satowitz. I live in Randolph right here near the hospital. I've been living in town for about 15 years. My wife and two daughters. I teach up at VTC. I teach computer applications classes and the occasional math class. I'm on the select board here in Randolph. I work closely with the recreation, energy and police committees. I really appreciate having the opportunity to talk about the issues here. These are a bunch of really important issues and I appreciate everybody coming out here on a beautiful Sunday afternoon when we're inside. So thanks so much for being here. I'm Steve Webster. I live a couple of houses from Larry up on the hill. I do have some legislative experience myself I served in the house for several years at different times and I was in the Senate for 10 years. When I was, the last time I was in the Senate the last two years I was actually President Pro Tem due to the death of the person who had been elected at the beginning of the term. I served on the Health and Welfare Committee in the Senate. I mean in the house rather on the Ways and Means Committee in the house and I chaired the Finance Committee with the Tax Committee in the Senate. My bias is against government programs generally. I'm willing to listen but I jumped into this race because I think the governor needs something besides a super majority of Democrats in the house come in this next session. I'm hoping that Governor Scott will be reelected and I'll be able to support him. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Daniel Brown. I've never run for a political position but due to the current climate and things that are going on in Montpelier someone tapped me on the shoulder and said maybe I should make a run at it. So I, here I am. Currently I drive truck for a living. I'm putting in almost 70 hours a week we're in my own campaign. So if I don't get to knock on everybody's door I do apologize. But I too am against all these regulations that we have all this extra taxing that is pushing people out of Vermont. There's just too much regulation and too many taxes and the more people that leave the state the burden gets put on to those that are stuck here and then they try to stay. So I'm hoping to get up there and lower property taxes a lot and get to the bottom of a lot of the wasteful spending that goes on there. Thank you. In 2017 Governor Scott named making housing more affordable as one of his top priorities. And the legislature agreed. Together they passed a $35 million bond to build more housing units. What other measures would you propose to make both rental and home ownership housing more affordable to those with low and moderate incomes? And Jay we'll start with you. Sure. Thanks Ken. So I think we should, the state should incentivize for rental property landlords weatherization initiatives. I think we should also, you know, intended to, I think that landlords should be incentivized to weatherize their rental properties and invest in renewable energy where it would be most cost effective so that the cost savings would be shared with renters tenants. There's a lot of housing stock in our district and I think they're generally large homes and they're probably very expensive to heat. So I think we should entice developers to purchase these homes, rent them to own and utilize, it would utilize existing housing. It would fix up buildings that are already built. It would make the district and the state downtowns across the state look better. And it would give first home buyers a fighting chance to get into a home of their choice. And we should also see where that 70, well the $35 million bond is expected to leverage between $70 and $100 million of state, federal and private capital. So I think we should use a portion of that money to do just that, incentivize weatherization and renewable energy investments for property owners so that renters will have a cheaper rate and we'll have more housing available because this state is lacking options. So I agree with Jay on the rental issue that in a lot of cases landlords do not pay the utilities and so they have very little incentive to make the unnecessary investments to lower those costs. In addition, we know that efficiency in Vermont has been working on efficiency for residences of all sorts for a long time. One interesting thing that's been happening lately is they're running up against a wall of people who are afraid to make the investments even though they're clearly cash positive. So there are folks who could easily borrow this full amount that they need to make improvements to their property and their monthly payments would be more than balanced by their savings every month. But people are still reluctant to do this and I think if we can figure out how to get those folks on board, it's a real win for everybody. That just seems like we need to come up with the right way to approach the problem. So that's one area of real work. Caughts in central Vermont are high, at least in part because there's just not enough demand here to create lots of homes at once. We get no economies of scale. Maybe one thing we could possibly do about that is think more about the efficiency of actually building the structures. We can maybe have an organization that's charged with coming up with plans that could then be unique to Vermont and our climate and the way we do things here and we could use their plans to have builders that have some standard plans that they could work on that could be duplicated all over the state. If builders could make the same house more than once, they could be doing so much more efficiently. I'm probably the one here at the table that would do less government things here. To promote housing, what I'd like to do is to create better incentives for and better treatment of people who actually invest in housing. In this last session, the non-resident property tax, which of course applies to rental housing that's privately owned, that was increased beyond what the residential tax is. I think that kind of discrimination should be ended. I've noticed that it's difficult to have people moved out of apartments when they failed to pay their rent. There seems to be a huge bias in Vermont against and I almost think I sense it tonight or this afternoon here. Bias against people who've invested in housing, rental housing, so I would try to end what I think is a bias in the legislature. So I'm gonna agree with that. Well, first of all, the government was able to secure 37 million, not 35 million, and it's on a 20-year bond. I couldn't find any details on the ending of the bond, so a lot of us in some people in this room may not be here in 20 years, so the people down the road are gonna have to pay for this bond, so I would like to know the details behind securing the bond and then how they're gonna pay it back. And they're planning to construct 550 to 650 homes statewide over the next two to three years. So, but what is the purpose of building the houses if no one can afford the property taxes? Property taxes are a huge concern right now. And people that are not aware of bill H233, which was posed in the house but pushed off and Jay Hooper over here voted for it, but is to expand state control over privately owned property. So they're gonna tell you more of how to regulate your own property and it actually says it's by making it legally difficult and expensive for landowners to develop or subdivide their property. So they're handcuffing you and they're gonna make you pay property tax. And then as he had mentioned, it's anything over a two acre parcel. So it's your house in a two acre parcel. They're applying a non resident property tax to everybody that has lived in Vermont for who knows how long. So that is completely unfair and they worded it that way to try to hide the issue. And that is my opinion on that. So, and that's gonna roll down. I mean, people that own businesses, they are going to charge more money to have their business in Vermont to pay these extra property taxes. They're not just gonna sit here and just give everything away. Nothing can be given away. You have to go out and you have to earn it. Everybody here has earned something. And it's very, and it's important that we continue to fight for the people that need help but we need to help the people that are also providing for us all. So thank you. So I believe the question is mostly around rental property. Well, around housing and expanding housing and the high cost of housing. We can talk about education financing and another time look forward to that. But I think the stat that surprised me most throughout the two years of the legislature is many counties in Vermont have the same rental vacancy, percentages of rentals that are vacant as New York City. So we're, you know, there are, that leads to some of the high costs that we're seeing in rent because our stock is so limited. So, you know, one area that I think that the legislature could move to expand the supply of housing and therefore decrease the price is, and this has been an idea that's been kicked around at least in the house. I'm not sure about the Senate, but a tax credit for revitalizing a lot of our housing stock. Like many New England, you know, old states, we have a lot of housing stock that's old and dilapidated. And right now, there isn't much incentive for people to come and buy, fix up houses and sell them and get them back into the housing stock. You know, a development tax credit for those that are willing to turn over a house, flip a house within two years would expand the amount of stock on the market and provide more options for people that are looking to live in central Vermont. The lack of affordable housing can and does lead to homelessness for some members of our communities. Our organization, working with several other allies, has taken up a campaign to eradicate homelessness county by county in Vermont. What can the state do to help accomplish this goal? And Larry will start with you. Okay, well, several of the questions being asked here this afternoon are squarely in the realm of economic justice. Homelessness is clearly one of them. So why are people homeless in Vermont? Very often it's combination of things, right? A high cost of housing is certainly an issue. So are low wages and high healthcare costs. Family might be able to manage one or two of these, but it's easy to imagine facing all three and really I'm having a hard time coping with that. So in addition to creating more affordable housing, we can raise the minimum wage, we can make healthcare more affordable. One catastrophic illness or accident can easily send a family into bankruptcy. And of course, mental illness and drug addiction, plus it played big roles. We need to keep working on the programs that address these situations. It's also true that ex-convicts are frequently members of a homeless population. They need more support both before and after they get in prison. We have another question that will address this site this topic a little bit later. I'd also like to note that the problems being addressed here, many of these questions have common closely interconnected roots and that policies that help one are likely to be helping other ones as well. I'm inclined to think this is something that can be best addressed on a local issue where people actually meet people face to face. In my own life, I spend a good deal of my time working for the ambulance, the treasure of the local ambulance organization and I spend time seven days a week, probably 20 hours a week working on that. And I think what needs to happen is that people need to actually meet people face to face and help them. I don't think this is something state government is gonna be able to help with, except possibly with funding shelters or something like that. But if we don't do it locally, it doesn't go to happen. Because bureaucracies don't deal with this issue very well. So I went on to the website that is there for your organization, because I was trying to figure this out myself. It's kind of like an open question for me. I'm not really sure how to answer it, the most knowledgeable. So I'm just gonna return some questions. It says that you picked to eradicate homelessness in Washington County by 2020. So I'm wondering, why did you pick Washington County? What is the estimated number of homeless people that are currently there? And then you have allies helping you. And I was just wondering who your allies were, because I couldn't find that on your page. And I'm today. And I would like to know why you did pick Washington County. But it also intertwines with housing being with the first question. Property taxes, people being able to afford to live here. Believe it or not, people that pay rent are paying property tax. The landlord is not going to just not have his costs covered and let somebody live. He doesn't want to break even. He's renting it out to make a profit for his family. So the property tax is a huge, huge concern for affordability. So thank you. Thanks. I know that we focused on Washington, just Washington County as a focus point for homelessness in the last session, because we do see much higher rates of homelessness in Washington County and the resources haven't been there historically to deal with that. So we did fund some additional shelter space, et cetera, in the last couple of years to try to address that need. That being said, I think Larry's exactly right. Homelessness is very complex. One organization that I know the state has been supporting and actually has increased investment in is Pathways Vermont, which has an incredible housing first program that has a success rate of placing people into housing and then providing wraparound services to address other needs, whether they're mental health, whether they're job, whether they're accessing other types of services and their success rate is incredibly well and people are in housing accessing the services they need and end up doing very impressive things. So that's something that I know in the last session we've worked to partner closer with Pathways Vermont because they have a proven model that is helping to get at the zero homelessness goal. The state of Vermont should identify Vermonters who have homes, who have space, who have guest houses that they don't use and maybe want to use to create an Airbnb or something like that and create a directory of places where people would be willing, if they say they were to opt into a program, maybe we would partner with Airbnb or something, to create a directory of places where people would take in a homeless person for a week or two or three or however long they might be willing to do it and of course to create a mechanism also say a person or people who are homeless who have been taken in by one of these places were becoming a nuisance or a problem the state would have to have a plan B for that but I think that there are plenty of people who would do that. I really think that people would open their doors to people in need if it were the segment of time that that person or people needed to get into a better position. A lot of folks aren't fortunate to have alternative options. I'm just thinking of the coldest nights of the year when people need shelter and I think that Airbnb or some kind of infrastructure like that could usher in some basic level of accommodation that would really impact this problem. I think Washington County is a good place to start. Much is discussed each year about pre-K through 12 education in our state house. Last year's topics included changes to the funding mechanism, continued consolidation of school districts, changes to special education and the implementation of an ethnic and social equity curriculum. What changes or additions would you make to the list and how would you prioritize them? And Stephen will start with you. Sure. My priority would be to foster school choice in Vermont. So students could take a voucher or take the credit from the state to whatever school they want to go to. We have a bias in our Vermont Constitution against Catholic schools and the Supreme Court I think in the not too distant future is going to declare that kind of provision unconstitutional. And I think if we had a better, a broader school choice program than we have even right now that we would have a better educational system for all students. The property tax is a good tax. It's a stable tax to use for funding education. I think we've distorted its effects. We certainly did. The legislature did in this last session when it exhibited its bias against non-residential property owned by businesses, rental properties and out-of-state people. I think what was done also borders on unconstitutional and I think that should be reversed. I would incline to lower the tax credit ceiling from I think it's 140,000 now. It's a huge bias against non-residential property and also higher income people. It ought to be down much lower, much below 100,000 because many people get income that's not taxed. Teachers are in particular and state employees who have a good portion of their income, not tax, because it's benefits. The education is a huge cost to the state, enormous. So first of all, I would have to get a major breakdown because I don't have all the numbers in front of me and I would like to be able to know where every penny is going. And I'm still trying to verify but someone told me that the supervisory union gets 40% of the school budget. That's quite a bit of money. And I really wanna fight to have the towns take care of their own schools. Towns are smart enough to run their communities. They don't need the government to step in and meddle and push kids around on buses and consolidation. There's no need for that. People in towns usually spend their money much wiser than if you were to hand your money to somebody else. I mean, I would say keep the government out of everything. The government doesn't handle money well. Let's just look at the post office. In 2017, they lost $2.7 billion. Amtrak lost $227 million. The teachers unfunded pension is $1.5 billion in 2017. So I would like to get rid of the teachers union. Have the towns hire their own teachers. There's no reason highly educated people need a third party and we need to pay for them to speak up for them and have a voice. There's no reason for that whatsoever. Vermonters are smart people and they don't need people to come in and tell them how to vote and what to do and how to pay your money here and there. They're very smart people. We've been around for a long time and we're gonna be around a lot longer. For funding the education, the lottery is supposed to be a big portion of funding the education system. And in 2017, we took in over $122 million to fund for the lottery and only 25.5 million of that made it into the education system. That's a big gap. There's a lot of money spent there. I wanna know why we have five lottery commissioners. Where all of this money is going in. We're not even printing our own lottery tickets in the state of Vermont and creating jobs in Vermont. We actually have them being printed in Canada. So I know we have to think about what we're doing. When we're looking at the education system, I think it's important to highlight the amount of reform that's already going on that our school districts are undergoing. Act 46 is in the final stages. And that was a major reform for many communities around the state, Roxbury, a town that we represent, underwent a transformational discussion about how they provide education to their dwindling amount of students. We have to understand school boards, community members have had a tall task over the last five, seven years of grappling with some of these issues. Secondly, this last session, we passed a pretty sizable special education reform that changes the way we pay for special education. It was actually piloted here at Randolph. And we saw some really encouraging results of empowering districts and empowering teachers to provide the best level of support and teaching they can in a more flexible way. That's gonna take a significant amount of time to be implemented, but it's expected to save in the hundreds of millions of dollars while providing better results for children across the state. Over this last two years, I think we should be having a larger conversation about the mechanism of how we fund education because right now, there's not enough incentive for frugal towns to keep their budgets low. And I could go into the numbers, but I won't. But right now, there's not enough weight for frugal towns like Orange Southwest that has historically done a good job of managing their budget. And there's not enough tie to the corresponding tax rate. So districts have less incentive to manage their money frugally. So Ken, the question right is what changes or additions would you make to this list and how would you prioritize them? I think you got a pretty good list. But I would make an addition. I think that the state really needs to or should continue to invest in early education. The youngest Vermonters are smallest people because I was privileged to report the farm to school bill on the floor of the house. That was the bill that my committee gave me to explain to the general summit. And I think that expansion of that bill is terrific because it gets fresh, healthy food, local food onto the plates of kids who don't actually always get to eat meals at home, kids who are hungry. And that includes universal meals. So I think that, well, kids are younger. Kindergarteners, preschoolers, these kids, their brains are developing. They're vulnerable because that's the developmental stage of a child's life. And so I think that if we invest in firstly helping local farms to get that food, to sustain that demand, those kids will really benefit from healthy meals. And in terms of property taxes and how we fund our education system, which is an expensive formula at the time, I haven't learned enough about that process because it's extremely complex to suggest an alternative. But I do think it's of course important for us to explore maybe a transition to income-based spending system. So thank you. I completely agree with Jay about the importance of early education. I think it makes a difference. As someone who's spent 13 years teaching middle and high school math, follow education issues closely. I can tell you though that there's no one thing we can do to our school system that's gonna make it much better. Partly this is because our schools are already pretty good. I mean, we're always ranked up at the top of the country's rankings. But mostly it's because education is complex and messy and very hard to measure. All the low hanging fruit was really picked up a long time ago. In addition, we're constantly asking our schools to do more. It wasn't that long ago that we just didn't expect all of our students to make it through 12th grade. Now we expect all of our students to graduate. So the challenges for the schools have grown dramatically in recent years. But we do know what the biggest barrier to educational outcomes are. It's poverty. This is really clear. The biggest single correlation between educational outcomes and any other factor is the income of the parents. So the more we can do to help families do well economically, the better we're gonna see our students do in school. There's been a lot of top down change happening in our schools recently. I'd really like to see how all this pans out before we do a lot more work in that area. We need to get schools and teachers a chance to respond and to keep as much as possible local control of our programs and the curriculum. That was the last one. The current cultural climate in our country is marked by divisiveness and hatred, particularly with regard to race. What role should the state play in dialing back the divisiveness? What do you think about our collective lackluster response to the decision of Representative Morris to drop out her reelection campaign because of racist threats towards her and her family? How can the state safeguard equitable treatment of people of all races in Vermont's public systems and institutions, including inside our state house? And Daniel, I believe it's your start. So first of all, racism is never okay. It doesn't matter where it's at. I spent a lot of time in the military with many races and all types of people serving this country. And clearly a lot of it is media-driven. People are being misinformed, misfed, and it's a big problem for information. It's really hard for me running as a Republican in the state of Vermont. I get blamed for everything that Donald Trump does or says. It's pretty, I have to remind people I'm from Vermont, not Washington, D.C. But I did some research on this question and I've contacted, consulted with some people and the truth is that Ms. Morris, Representative Morris was asked to step down by the Ethics Committee because her husband was threatening people on Twitter and on Facebook and he was taking pictures of guns and sending it to people and she made up this racist thing to hide the accusations of what he had done or the ethics thing that is, which I'm surprised has not come out in the news yet but I would be not surprised in the near future to see it come out. I'm my first-hand knowledge of the gentleman that was accused of it and the police department was unable to find anything viable of any racist comments made on their computer but I do know that their computers were confiscated by the Vermont State Police and they were given consent to have the computers but Ms. Morris refused to give them the passwords to get into the computer a few days later by direction of the state attorney. State attorney went back and told the police department to get the passcodes. They went and got the passcodes and shortly after that, a few hours later, her Ms. Morris' husband went down to the police department, demanded the computers back and they did not hand back the computers so it's not a racist issue. Vermonters are not racist people. Well, I know Kaiawell. It's at right near her. These last two years really appreciated working with her for the last two years. I believe her. I know she's been forced to deal with racism, both in her community and throughout the state and I think that's clearly unacceptable and I think we have to do more as Vermonters to acknowledge the problem that we have. It's easy with, you look at our diversity numbers, it's easy to think that we don't have a problem but just because we don't notice it doesn't mean it's not there. So I think I know there's efforts gonna be this session to take a broader look of how we treat systemic racism in many of our institutions. I know that if you look at state police data about who's getting pulled over, there are much higher numbers for minorities and we need to do more in terms of training and trying to address this situation but obviously it's not easy and it requires a frank discussion about who we are as a state, who we are as communities, both on the local and state level. I think if indeed racism was the reason why Kaia Morris, the only African-American female legislator in Montpelier would decide to step down having no opposition in her re-election bid. She was going to win this election regardless and that means to me that we have a serious problem because she felt compelled, threatened enough to back away from an unopposed bid for the legislature. So even if I've heard this thing that Vermonters aren't racist, we aren't hateful people. I believe that, I generally do. But in the instances that hatred and prejudice does arise, we have to be able to deal with it and from what I've read in this instance on her, on the Kaia representative Morris's case. It seems to me that our local law enforcement, our Vermont state police units and the attorney general's office could probably establish better channels to work more cooperatively in responding to these issues because the local police department doesn't have a cyber crimes unit or a way to look into who said what at what times in the back and forth on the internet. But the Vermont state police does and the attorney general suggests discrepancy as to when the Vermont state police should and can use those resources to assist. As far as I can see, all three of those entities are on the same team and they might as well behave as such when it comes to responding to these types of scenarios in an efficient manner so that we can get to the bottom of it quickly and people like Representative Morris wouldn't feel so threatened as to drop out of her race. When incidents like this happen, we must all speak out from the governor on down. We have to do so without hesitation with the unified voice. We need to continue to improve education and awareness about racial bias in our government. In Vermont and all across the country, you are much more likely to be stopped by the police if you're black. In Vermont, you're much more likely to be in prison if you're black due to efforts on part of the state. This is slowly getting better. Efforts like that should be replicated wherever we find bias. What happens with Representative Morris is horrific when it happens to anyone, but in this case, it rises to a whole new level as her withdrawal from the race means that we allow harassment of this nature to undermine our democracy. I was disturbed to read that this had been going on since 2016 and while the Bennington police did investigate, they don't have the expertise to deal with these kinds of internet threats and it wasn't taken up by the Attorney General, the State Attorney General or the state police until after she withdrew, this was far too long. We need clear guidelines as to when the Vermont State Police and State Attorney General get involved in these kinds of situations so that they can be handled in a much more timely manner. I have to confess, I don't know much about the situation involving Representative Morris. I will say we probably all have some bias inherent in us. Recently, the library, I think, had for a book discussion, a book called The Warmth of Other Sons. My wife purchased a copy and I looked at it and asked what it was about and it's about the migration of black people from World War I into the 1970s and that's actually why we have a black population north of the Mason-Dixon line. And I found the book so fascinating. I read, I don't read a book from start to finish in one night because I'd read too slowly but I read it every night until I finished it. It's a fascinating book. It's very well written by a woman reporter who herself is black and I found it so sensitively written that I could actually feel comfortable reading it and realizing how obtuse I had been in the 1960s when the civil rights era was going on and I was, you know, 1,000 miles from Alabama. I was first. You were first. People of faith believe in redemption and second chance. What could the state do to ensure that those who come under the care of our correction system can succeed when they are released so that they have a true second chance? So there's a number of things that I think we should be doing in the correctional system. You know, first and foremost, I think we should take a broader look of why we're incarcerating people and whether incarceration actually makes sense for certain subsets of the people that are currently in jail. We're spending $70,000 a year keeping somebody in jail. I think that money often could be spent in a more productive way for our society and for our communities. You know, I think the question was, you know, reintroduction into society and to that aim, I think it makes very little sense that we have that we're now sending prisoners from Pennsylvania down to Mississippi, I believe. If you're trying to get people reintroduced to the communities that they know and love, be able to maintain, you know, contact with their family and friends. And then it makes no sense to have them in Mississippi and then expect them to be fine when we spit them out back in Vermont. So those are some of the key ways that I think we should be rethinking the way we deal with our correctional system because you look at our state budget after education and healthcare, we spend an enormous amount of money every year in our correctional facility and I'm not convinced that we're getting the best bang for our buck. Just for the record, I'm fundamentally against private prisons, even though that's not really on the topic, that's just, I'm just going to express that. There is, there are a number of programs that help people who are coming out of incarceration get back into a daily routine and structure. People who are coming out of jail need a job, they need a place to live, they need structure, right, they need purpose. I am proud to say that I have observed successful instances of circles of support and accountability, which is a local group. I'm sure maybe some of you have heard of it. The amazing work of people like Kim Anderson help get people a second chance. And the reason I say I'm proud to say I've seen that be affected, that work, is because my brother Miles at Ayersboro Goat Dairy takes in some of that labor, providing employment for people coming out of jail. And I think we have those types of groups that thank for creating a sense of community for people who have never really had any. I read an article about this topic yesterday and one of the inmates said, you know, I was planting tomatoes and the support group was with me helping weed my garden and I was doing good things and they were praising me for that good stuff that I was doing. And I'd never had that before. I'd never experienced that in my life. And so I think that those kinds of components of compassion are really important for providing that second chance. And I think that the state ought to do its part to help fund and assist these types of groups in whatever ways that we can as a state government and halfway houses included. Yeah, I completely agree with Ben. We send far too many people to prison for far too long. Other countries send far fewer people to prison. In Canada, they lock up a third as many people as we lock up here in Vermont, not across the whole country of just Vermont. And Vermont does a pretty good job compared to the other states. We still send far, far too many people to prison for far too long. We spend over $100 million a year here in Vermont on sending people to prison. This is a vast sum of money that could be put to far better uses. We need to change sentencing laws. We need to incorporate more rehabilitation and restorative justice for nonviolent crimes. We can stop sending inmates out of state if we're not sending so many people to prison. As Ben said, over 200 people now are being sent to Mississippi. This is a really bad idea. And there's been a little talk from our governor that we should be building a new prison here in Vermont. We would not need to build a new prison if we simply stop sending so many people to jail. In order to have better outcomes for people who are released from prison, we can do a few things. We need better education, training, and healthcare and drug treatment while in prison. For example, just in today's news, almost no prisoners with hepatitis C are receiving treatment that they need for this disease. This is crazy. We expect these people to do well when they get out when we can't even treat them for serious health. Concerns while they're in prison. This isn't okay. We can also help out with transitional housing when inmates are released. In California, here's something that we can do to make them well. Ex-cons can obtain a certificate of rehabilitation that is issued by a judge. It basically vouches for them that they're doing okay and that they're trustworthy, and it often helps people like that get their first job out of prison. I don't seem to reason why we couldn't have something like that here in Vermont. Well, I don't think I can improve on what's been said. Certainly what Jay told us is very heartening. Again, it's the local community really has to get involved. You can't expect the state bureaucracy to solve these problems, I think. There are halfway houses in Vermont. I can't remember the names. There's one in Burlington that I know about and another in Rutland and one in Hartford. We, as in private individuals, can support those. Again, those aren't run by the government. They're run by nonprofit charities and we probably need more of those. But I don't think it's fake government that's gonna do that. That's kind of a tough question. Kind of open-ended. I mean, we have to remember that the lawmakers are the ones that set the laws and the police are only doing their job. So they're not just grabbing people off the street and deciding that they're gonna go sit in a jail cell. I mean, they're out there protecting the public from the laws that were enforced from or that were brought up in Montpelier. A big part of that is going to be what was the severity of the crime? Was there a victim involved? A lot of that has to be taken into before you introduce them back into the community and how you introduce them and where you put them. I mean, you have people in there for all sorts of heinous crimes. But so I guess I would just throw one idea and we'll say like a minor infraction whatever they're in for, but I would get a lot of these people introduced into trade jobs, shortage of trade jobs, running around Vermont, electricians, plumbers, builders, and maybe have them start building houses, introduce them into getting, taking them out of the facility during the day and start putting projects together so they get to work with their hands, work together and then build houses for people. I think that would be a good idea and pretty soon the project will probably pay for itself, but once again, we have to remember what the severity of the crime is and if we want to change it, we have to change it in Montpelier to empty out the jail to make it no longer a crime to do whatever you're saying that they're doing because the police have to enforce whatever they've been given, so thank you. So before we get on to the sixth question, I want to first of all just thank y'all again. This is a wonderful diversity of views and that is a good thing in the democracy. Thank you very much. I think we want to take up the cards now and Melissa, how do you want us to do this? Should people put their names on their cards? Yes, you can write it down, put your name on the card and we'll call those up. It's important to VIA that our state's economy provide dignity and opportunity for all Vermonters. Yet 40% of the Vermont workforce currently does not earn enough to meet their basic needs and far too many Vermonters must work two or three jobs just to survive. What specific measures would you propose and or support regarding our economy to ensure that Vermonters are no longer left behind even as the economy grows? And thank you Interfaith Action for doing this. Even though I probably could have performed better on some of my answers, I'm public speaking. Don't worry, I'm looking to get better at it. I was proud to support the minimum wage increase. I voted for the bill that passed only to get vetoed by the governor. $15 minimum wage by 2024. So I think honestly, I think we need our minimum wage to be $15 sooner than that, like a lot sooner. But I do trust and respect the work that the committees who made the final judgment as to what our small state's economy can handle for a minimum wage increase. So I voted symbolically for a quicker increase, but I also voted to increase. I voted for the one that passed and I was happy to do that. I also voted for paid family leave bill because I think those two things in tandem will really make Vermont an attractive destination for young emerging families. So I've talked about demographical challenges in the state. I think if we had a $15 minimum wage and 12 weeks of the year that let's say a pregnant mother could take out of her job to handle that and proceed that new addition to their family, I think that more families would move here. This is a place that people would wanna be. So I'll tell you what, last summer I worked at the Veteran's Cemetery in Randolph Center. I was a caretaker, so mowing and burying bodies and things. I got paid $10.44 an hour by the state and it was not livable at the time for me. And now I thankfully do have a $15 wage and that is livable, but just barely. Yeah, paid family leave is a great idea and it will definitely help. We also do need to increase the minimum wage. I know what it's like to live on very little money. It doesn't take a lot of cash to make big differences in your day-to-day life, as James have pointed out. We just heard that 40% of our monitors can't meet their basic needs. That fits in really well with the statistic that about 40% of adults in America say that if they had a $400 unexpected expense, they would either not be able to pay it or would need to sell something or borrow money. So 40% of people in this country are living on the edge of a financial disaster all the time. So small amounts of money can really make a big difference in people's lives. Other things that will help. Affordable childcare, affordable and energy efficient housing, as we've already talked about. We have made some steps in this direction. We should be doing a lot more. I know I've already talked about energy efficiency. I just want to point out here that a huge amount of money that we spend on fuel in this state goes out of state. If we can be generating more power here in Vermont and using it here in Vermont, that money stays here. It's money that we use. And if we're spending less money, we can put that in our pockets. Well, I'm the Grinch because I don't support a minimum wage. I've never voted for an increase in minimum wage when I was in the legislature. And my first job was at 50% of minimum wage. I think we need to remember that minimum wage was started to discriminate against black people, kept them out of the workforce or kept them in the very lowest jobs. When the state tries to interfere in the pricing of jobs, they're just so many side effects of that that it's not worth doing. If people have the skills, develop the skills, develop the work ethic that Vermonters traditionally were noted for, they'll get jobs. And some people will to get themselves ahead. We'll have to have more than one job. I can remember someone who used to live up on the hill. He had a nice job at GW Plastics, so he still had two other jobs. And he eventually paid his house off very quickly. Ironically, he hasn't lived here anymore. He moved, I think, to North Carolina, which he found to be a more attractive place to work. I don't like the idea of the government setting prices or telling what people's work conditions are gonna be, telling employers. I'm actually, in part, part of an employer. I work a lot for the ambulance and realize every time we turn around, we've got a new state regulation to deal with. Right now, we're dealing with a tax on our diesel fuel, which the ambulance is in Chittenden County because they're owned by municipalities, don't have to pay, but we do. Once again, I mean, we keep coming back to the same thing. Taxes are the real struggle in the state. I mean, they keep going up and there's no end in sight. All this stuff that we're talking about, they're gonna have to come up with the money somewhere. It's gonna be tax. It's gonna keep adding on to the burden that's already here for us. Currently, Vermont is ranked number four in the highest tax states in the country. In a tiny little state, we're ranked number four. We have Act 250. Act 250 is restricting us, stopping the progress of any real growth that we should have. Vermont ranks number 48th in the country for land use and energy freedom. The other country or other countries, other states have this and they're allowed to grow. So people are not looking at what's restricting us. When, and it's the same thing, you know. We need to look at, well, let's see, we already talked about minimum wage. I do not support a minimum wage increase. If someone is smart enough and has a hard enough to start their own business and hire somebody, the government has no right to step in there and tell somebody what they have to pay for minimum wage because they haven't done the science on every single business to know what each business can afford to pay out because the cost of healthcare keeps going up. You know, and if things continue on this way, there is a carbon tax on the back burner and they have it on the back burner, I'm guessing maybe to hopefully win some seats so they can push it through, but there will be a carbon tax and it's gonna affect everybody. And that's gonna be tough. And then there's just so many regulations that it's, you can't, there's no progression here, you know. People have got to get back the power and just live without the state and the government being involved in it. That's all I have. So the question, you know, asked for specific measures to ensure that Vermonters aren't being left behind. And when approaching this question, I thought, you know, I'm on the house healthcare committee, so I'm spending probably 60 or 70% of my time doing healthcare related policy when in the state house. So I'm gonna answer it from that lens because I think that's where I've had the most experience and impact on trying to reduce the cost of living here in Vermont. So three things that we worked on and were able to pass largely disframed by a response to federal actions on healthcare. We passed laws around short-term limited duration insurance plans, which were, you probably have heard about in the news recently, were greatly expanded under the administration. They have very low standards and without the state backdrop, we would have exposed Vermonters to purchasing plans that often didn't cover a number of benefits that we've grown accustomed to insurance covering. Second, association health plans, which was another action by the federal government to basically cut a ton of regulation around association health plans. You've probably heard about these in the 90s. There was a rash, especially out west about association healthcare plans going bankrupt. They couldn't cover claims because they had no requirements around having reinsurance or other mechanisms to prevent, to be able to pay members' claims that they were claiming to cover. Finally, and this is something I worked on, was a state individual mandate. It's a controversial issue, but my mind was made up when we got an actuarial report that said, if we didn't do this, because the federal mandate was effectively zeroed out, if we didn't do this, healthcare premiums would go up between one to 2%. When you think about that in healthcare dollars, it's huge. So by passing a mandate and ensuring a broader participation in a market that everybody already belongs to, that will help limit the cost on Vermonters through their healthcare premiums. Any questions? But we probably won't have too many, too much time. So I'm gonna start with a couple that we haven't talked about yet. And then if we still have some time, then we'll add some others in that folks have already touched on, but maybe could have a little bit more time to explain. So Ruth, if you wanna come up and read yours, and then I think it's Betty, Edson. Okay, so we hope you next. Our congregation is an open and affirming congregation. I am quite passionate about the discrimination that occurs in the LGBTQ community. And I'd like to know where you stand on these issues. I'm totally in favor of all the protections that we've been recently enacting for people in that community. I think it's really important. I was very happy that gay marriage passed in Vermont as a law not too long ago. And it's important for us to keep on these issues to make sure that people aren't discriminated against, that people can be who they are without fear of repercussion. We recently passed a law saying that single use bathrooms need to be labeled as for everyone so that all people can feel comfortable using the facilities of their choice. I think that's really important. And yeah, I fully support the efforts that have been happening all over the country to support all people. Interesting point about the bathrooms here. I believe that children are best served and the communities best served when married people husband and wife raised the children. I was not in favor of so-called gay marriage. And I still am not. But it's obviously the law. And that's the way it'll be. It won't be an issue in Montpelier. But that's where I come from. My, well, that's what I'll say. I was happy that the Supreme Court defended or the Baker in the, I forget where it was, Oklahoma, out west somewhere that was, Colorado I guess, who was discriminated against by a state institution, brought the whole level of the state down. I think that's wrong. I don't discriminate against gay people. I've had clients who were and I have friends who are. But I think our culture has shifted too far to the left in that regard. Sorry. I personally, I don't support it, but I don't go out criticizing people because of it. I'm entitled to my opinion as they are of theirs. And I appreciate if people would respect my opinion as much as they want me to respect theirs on this issue. So like I say, it's nothing that I support. I don't think, me personally, I don't think it's healthy, but I'm not a doctor. I've been all over the world, I've been to Iraq, I've been to Afghanistan. And seeing the diversity of people is something that happens. I'm not sure why people make this choice. But it's something that happens, it's happening and it's gonna be here forever now. But like I say, I don't personally support it, but I'm not going to make a law that goes against their constitutional beliefs or anything that their constitutional rights or their constitutional beliefs. So that's all I have. I support gay marriage. I think we need a broad discussion about making our communities open, accessible and comfortable for everybody. That's why I was happy to support a number of initiatives. These last two sessions supported the Bathory Bill. Also in our committee supported a bill that would make accessing mental health counselors and treatment much easier for youth in general. But also there was a significant highlight about some of the trends we see in LGBT and some of the stuff they face. And making sure that everybody has access to making sure that they feel comfortable in their communities. I also supported the Bathory Bill. Just for anybody who's not aware, it's basically any bathroom that has just a toilet or a single, any single bathroom is you may be male, female or in between. You may go in whatever gender you might declare. I am a champion of LGBTQ PKIA, I think is how big the acronym is these days. That community. In fact, there's one blazer that I have. I think I have five or six that I cycle through. The navy blue one has a little lapel ornament and it's got the shape, it's the icon of the United States and it's got a rainbow flag, American flag rainbow basically. So I say, be who you want to be. I think diversity is an asset to society. That's great. I thought that last year's gun legislation was reasonable and that in no way impinges on gun ownership, but does impact safety and that is sorely needed. I'd like to know what other views, the views of those of you who are running and weren't there to vote on it, I think. And I'd be interested, I have all kinds of respect for what Ben and Jay have done, but I'd be interested to know if they have any second thoughts regarding the portions to which they were opposed. Well, let's see. There was the magazines, there was the telling people at 18 years of age they couldn't buy guns. Trying to think what the other piece was. Bum stocks? Bandied bum stocks? And transfer of 847-21. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, UMass Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has already declared the magazine one unconstitutional in California. I think that will ultimately be declared unconstitutional, our bill will be in that respect. Bump stocks are not automatic weapons. They require the trigger to be pulled each time. I doubt that I would have voted for such a bill. It's obviously not going to be repealed. The governor, the legislature won't vote to repeal it. So it's really almost a non-issue now, unless it gets declared unconstitutional. I guess that's what all. I'm totally against the bill of S-55. There's only one thing I would go in there. It was probably maybe I would put training to own a firearm. I mean, they train kids to drive a car. More people are killed by cars every year than there are by guns. And I just find it sad that the government would step in and tell somebody how they can defend themselves. A lot of people live two or three hours away. Like, I met them on my call at the State Police when they came two hours later. So if somebody from New York who brings in drugs and abides by all Vermont laws, and they have a 30-round magazine, well, now I am down. Like, I have to carry more magazines to defend my family. And everybody says, we don't need 30 rounds. That's my prerogative if I wanted to defend myself a 30-round magazine. I think it's made the state more unsafe, because people that do come in from out of state are not going to follow the laws and regulations. And everybody ties these gun laws to hunting. Well, you don't need 30 rounds to hunt. It's not for hunting. We need to remember what the Second Amendment is here. It's to protect the First Amendment and protect us from the government. And people say, well, they were talking about muskets back then. Well, back then, the government and the people both had muskets. So it's to keep up with the governments when I say protect us from the government. We have the entitlement to protect ourselves almost the same statute, except none of us can probably own an F-35 fighter. So, but I think it's important that we are able to defend ourselves. And nobody, and nothing in the school bill or nothing in that was, the school is not even in the work bill. And the two weapons that were going to be used were not even brought up in the discussion of S-55. So they just pulled out a weapon, which everybody's afraid of for no reason, because they have no training with it. And then they call it an assault rifle. And we need to remember that the word assault is a verb. And you only use a verb when it's been in the action of something. So a golf club can be an assault weapon. A rifle is just a rifle. But if you take it hunting, it's a hunting rifle. It's not an assault rifle. So I think the question to us was whether we had qualms about the way we voted. Second, no, second thoughts. I don't. It was a decision I took really seriously and thought through very carefully. I think in addition to S-55, there were two other bills, gun bills that we discussed at length and voted on both S-221, which is extreme risk protection order, which has already been used. As soon as it went into law, it's been used, I believe, a couple of times. And I believe it is making the money safer. As well, age 422 was a bill about the removal of firearms at a scene of domestic violence. I think that's an incredibly important bill. And it is being put to use already since enactment. Actually, I think that those two bills, S-221, extreme risk protection orders in 422, they both actually, I think they've been put to use right here in Randolph. I think a few weeks ago there was a shooting on Maple Street. And the resident, his guns were taken. By the police because of these two laws. Second thoughts about my votes. I'll tell you, the gun bills, particularly S-55, were the most difficult bills to vote on by far. They, when you say, did you have second thoughts, I had second, third one. I had thoughts and thoughts. And I'll be honest with you. I was actually kind of queasy when I voted because I wasn't entirely certain if I was making the right decision. But I did my best to strike a balance between my conscience and my constituency. And I really felt that this constituency was going to appreciate, ultimately, based on the numbers of the people that had called and emailed. It was stifling. This was a very, very important issue for a lot of folks who probably tend to lean more to the right side of most issues. So yeah, it was tough. And I will tell you this. When a gun bill comes up again in the future, I'm going to put just the same amount of thought and consideration into that. I'm not going to say that I'm going to be against a bill or that the Second Amendment is absolute. I think that these things can change. And we should amend things where it fits. This is a pretty easy question for me. I would have supported all those bills. I thought they were moderate and reasonable. So I'm going to ask you our question. Do we want to take one more question? Or are we like call it quits and let them wrap up? You don't get to do that. It's about an issue that we haven't really talked about yet about climate change. If you guys want to hear a question about climate change. So one more question. Would you guys mind limiting your time to one minute for answers? Or is that OK if you can keep people going? About 20 seconds. Oh, 20 seconds? OK. Do you want to see your time with someone else? Nancy writes from Randall Center. And my question is, if you represent us in the legislature, what would you do to mitigate climate change in Vermont? And specifically, what would you do to encourage our citizens to actually conserve energy? And would you support an idea like the Essex plan? I'm not really up to par on climate change. I do think it's important. I know everybody is really in tact with us, electric cars. We live in Vermont, and these are a lot harsher conditions here in Vermont than there are in the southern states. And how we get that electricity, that is currently electrical use, is a big concern in Vermont where we get it from, how we make it. So all that's going to play into effect and how that all comes about. So I guess I'm for the protection of the environment. So we'll see how it goes. Thanks. I think that you're exactly right that conserving more energy is really how we should be focused. I applaud the work that we've done in energy efficiency so far. Senator McDonald has been a champion of that and a real pioneer, and I think we can be doing more, as both Larry and Jay has talked about, to be incentivizing more weatherization, especially on our dilapidated stock. In terms of the Essex plan, which you referenced, which is a tax on carbon, from my analysis of the Essex plan, I haven't seen a carbon tax that wouldn't disproportionately affect rural residents more. And I think that it would be a significant cost to a lot of people in rural areas, and I would not support any carbon tax that I've seen so far. So I went door to door advocating for a carbon tax when I worked for Vermont Public Interest Research Group. But in 2016, when I was initially running for office, I heard from so many people about this topic on that exact concept, that so many rural folks who have to drive to Barrie or Burlington or Rowland or someplace far away for their job, that tax is really going to add up, and it's going to really impact the affordability issue in the wrong way. So I'm totally open to a carbon tax discussion if a revenue neutral tax, that'd be a good thing. But I think I err on the side of concern when it comes to a carbon tax. I will say, though, I did sign on to a resolution asking the governor to explore a regional carbon tax with other governors, so states around us, because I think that the carbon tax would have to be on a larger scale than just Vermont if it were to work. Yeah, we've talked about efficiency and obviously very much in favor of incentivizing efficiency. I'm going to just echo what Ben and Jay said about a carbon tax. I could definitely, before a carbon tax, we need to be working towards getting out of pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. But we do need to make sure that the most vulnerable Vermonters are not the people who are going to pay the biggest price for making that switch. We need to be very careful how we institute such a carbon tax. In this coming legislative biennium, I would not support a carbon tax for just Vermont. That is something that would have to be done on a national level. If we did that in Vermont, that would be almost insane. It would ruin our economy. And it would affect low income people and elderly people. I guess I'm one of those more than anybody else. So I'd like to thank you again for being here today. Thank you for being willing to take our questions from Vermont Interfaith Action as well as everyone who is these questions that we've offered, kind of off the cuff. You now have a minute to make a closing statement each. And then we'll start back at the front with you. Thank you all for coming. I really appreciate this discussion. It's so good that in Vermont we can get so many people to show up on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of fall to talk about policy. That's why I got into politics, and that's what keeps me going. I think the challenges ahead of us are clear. We didn't talk about some of the demographic challenges that we're facing in terms of trying to attract and retain more young people in our state, trying to figure out how to get rural Vermont going. Because we are facing challenges that are clear and well-defined. So I look forward to working on that, as well as continuing to work to bring down health care prices, bring down prescription drug transparency, and ensure that we have access even in our smallest towns. Thank you. So I'm going to use the closing statement to kind of finish my opening statement. If I get reelected, I would really like to go back to the Ag Committee, because I've learned so much, but there's so much more to learn if we're going to impact the biggest issues, like declining milk prices, water quality issues, like I said, invasive species, emerald ash borer, and Act 250 reform, whether we should expand it or shrink it or what. I also want to answer Nancy's question a little more. I think the state should invest in electric vehicle charging stations all across the state to talk about the impact in climate issues. I also wanted to tell you that in the winter months, I had the opportunity of hosting a talk radio show for an hour every Saturday. From 11 to noon, I would have hopefully two or more guests of differing opinions into the studio at the foot of Hebron Hill off Radio Drive, where WCBR is, that's 1320 AM, now 100.1 FM, and we talked for an hour about political issues in Montpelier that were relevant that week. It was called the heat of the house, and I hope to do it again if I get re-elected. So we talked about a lot of really important issues, and I just want to say that we need to keep working on social justice, economic justice, and environmental protection here in Vermont. And I would also like to say that no matter who you're voting for, please make sure you get out and vote, tell your friends. We live in a democracy. If people don't vote, we are giving up our voice, and then we no longer live in a democracy. So please make sure you vote. I'd like to, again, thank the VIA for holding this forum, giving us the opportunity to discuss this set of really important issues. And I'm sure I haven't answered all of your questions, so I look forward to staying here this afternoon and continue the conversation. And thanks again to everybody for being here on this beautiful afternoon. Well, as I said earlier, I got into this race because I want Governor Scott, if he's to be re-elected, if he should be re-elected, to have some support. That legislature is totally out of balance right now. Both houses are heavily democratic, and we need another point of view up there. And that's basically why I'm running. It has nothing to do with my prior service. It really has to do with the current situation. Well, thank you for having me. I'm sure I haven't answered everybody's questions like they'd wanted, but that's who I am. My biggest thing is to go up there and cut wasteful spending. I think if we cut wasteful spending and some other stuff up there, we can control all the things and help other people in other ways. I think the state government is kind of living a little fat and happy up there. A lot of, I've been posting ads in the paper. I'm not sure if anybody's been following the Randolph-Herald, but I do have a few ads in there about the spending that goes on. And I think it's just ridiculous when we have people that are struggling. And I think we're being extremely poorly represented as the people in the state of Vermont. Like Steve is saying, we need to even it up a little bit and represent everybody. And I'm hoping to bring everybody to the center. I'm now looking to bring work with just one side. So thank you. Well, thank you very much. So as you know, Vermont Interfaith Action is a faith-based community organizing group of 53 member and affiliate congregations throughout the state of Vermont. We focus on systemic change and social justice. Have a confession to make. These questions were not randomly pulled from the internet. These six questions we ask you today are questions around issues that are important to us at Vermont Interfaith Action, ways in which we spend our time and energy, things like affordable housing and homelessness, corrections reform, education, and economic dignity. And if you or your congregation would like to know more, you can visit our website at biavt.org or see me or Debbie or Melissa or all of us. And we'll be happy to talk with you about this. And just to follow up on what Larry said, please vote. Please make sure to invite other folks to vote. It is such a gift and it's really easy to do in Vermont. You can get a ballot right now. You can go online or call us to where your polling place is. It's pretty easy to do. So please vote. And finally, thanks to Kim and the church for having us here. Thank you so much. And can we show our candidates just a round of, I appreciate it.