 Hi friends, Sinead here would be perg with some more exciting news. Town Meant Day elections will be using ranked choice voting for the first time since the 2021 charter change and all Burlington voters get to participate. Unfamiliar with ranked choice voting? Keep watching or click the link below. Ranked choice voting lets voters rank candidates in order of preference. First, second, third, and so on. If your vote can't help your first choice win, it counts to your second choice instead. Here's how it works. If one candidate gets over 50% of everyone's first choice votes, they win and the election is over. However, if no candidate reaches a majority, the candidate with the fewest first choice votes is eliminated and their supporter's votes will count toward their second choice. This process continues until one candidate reaches over 50% of the vote. Ranked choice voting gives voters more voice, more choice, and makes for a stronger democracy. Learn more about ranked choice or try it out for yourself at betterballotvermont.org slash BTV 2023. Welcome to ongoing Town Meant Day election coverage by Town Meant Day television. This is one of a series of forums we are bringing you in advance of Town Meant Day on Tuesday, March 7th, 2023. Town Meant TV hosts forums with candidates and covers all ballot items you'll see on your ballot. Town Meant TV election forums introduce you to community decision makers and connect you with issues that shape your local community. If you are turning in live, we welcome your questions at 802-862-3966 and you can watch Town Meant TV on Comcast Channel 1087, Burlington Telecom Channel 17 and 217, and on YouTube at youtube.com slash Town Meant TV. Thank you all for being here. Welcome to Joan and Will and Fareed. I'd love to give you guys a minute to give us an opening statement. Joan, if you could go first. Well, thank you, Sinead, and thank you to Town Meant TV for hosting us and giving us the opportunity to engage with the public. I'm Joan Shannon. I am the South District City Councilor currently. I live in Lakeside and it's been a privilege to serve on the City Council for 20 years now, and I know a lot of people think that may be too long, but I think that I have learned a lot in that time on the City Council and I think that that history is valuable. And I think like everybody else, I am running because I love Burlington. I have a vision for what Burlington can be and I'd like to continue to work on that at the City Council. Great. Thank you. Will. Thank you also, Sinead, for having me on Town Meant TV. Thank you for Fareed and Councillor Shannon for being here as well. I'm also running because I have a vision for Burlington and although I have not been on the City Council like Councillor Shannon, I also live in the South District in Ward 6 on South Union Street. My vision for Burlington is one in which people can afford it easier to live here. So I have ideas that I'll bring to the table and I will listen constantly on how we can do this. And I think that where we need to start is with housing. We need to stabilize rents so that our rampant housing market, our rampant investment is not going to be putting an adverse risk on tenants. We need to reform property taxes so as the values of our properties keep rising, those of us with lower fixed incomes aren't going to face an excess burden. We need to reform our police department so that people are not living in fear. And of course what comes with that is addressing the root problems of crime, advancing our social services, our mental health care system, our educational opportunities so that law-abiding citizenship is too good of an offer to refuse. This is the vision that I have for our city. I think that we're almost there and with a progressive vision we can really get there. Of course, the environmental issues go hand in hand with this too so that we can have a sustaining future. I've got ideas for this sort of thing. I'm a problem solver and that's why I think I'd be a great representative on the City Council for the South District. Great. Thank you, Will. Farid? My name is Farid and I've been in the South End on Five Sisters neighborhood for 25 years. I love Burlington. I think it's a great city with great values. I am running because I feel like we are on the wrong path. Most of the decisions being made are not reflective of those values that we hold dear as a city. Burlington is a leader in terms of innovation. In the past we have done really great things when our public services are really oriented towards serving the public and I am concerned that in the last decade or so we have gone down the wrong path. I'm concerned about the privatization of not just the economy although that is also a very big issue but also of our public processes in general where decisions are being made with less and less participation from the public. So I am running to promote public participation and also to bring up some of the issues that are important such as public participation in decision making and in public safety. I think we all share the same concerns and as far as how do we address that I do believe that public safety is different from public order for everybody to be safe. We all have to be safe. Nobody is going to be truly safe unless we meet everybody's need for food housing and care. So that is the reason I'm running. Thank you. Thank you. So the first question is about the budget and will you be supporting the Burlington School budget's 4.9% increase over last year? Are you concerned about proposed teacher cuts? Why are we not? We'll start with Will. I will be supporting the Burlington School budget's 4.9% increase. Admittedly I am concerned about proposed teacher cuts but at the end of the day I've got to yield to the expertise of the people that have developed this budget. I've got to yield to the expertise of the parents, of students, the parents that I have students in the school that have had input on this. This is something where I'm not going to be able to come in with an idea to contradict this. I support the budget and I think that would probably be a good idea to go ahead and approve it. Thank you. Fareed? I support the teachers and I would like to learn more about this issue. I mean in general would be supportive of the school budget but it does concern me that the teachers are going to are looking at these proposed cuts in terms of like teachers and also programs and I want to make sure that the students get the priority here and I think the teachers are the best people we need to be talking to around this issue. I'm generally supportive of the budget. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. Yes, I wholeheartedly support the budget and like Will said far be it from me to interject my opinions over the school board who I have great admiration for this school board and the work that they do. I think that they are really an excellent group of folks, bring a lot of expertise to the table and I appreciate everything that they have to wrestle with to make the budget so you know who supports teacher cuts really at the same time we're forced to make hard choices and I will say that I think Vermont needs to really restructure education funding and not just the funding but the whole structure of education where we have you know each municipality or small groups of municipalities forming school districts doesn't really make sense because the truth is the taxpayers are paying far too much for education in Vermont and the kids aren't getting enough the teachers aren't getting enough and in order to remedy that we need to find some efficiency in this system and I would advocate for a statewide school district with statewide standards where every child gets what they need. We tried to do that with with Act 60 which is really opaque. I don't think there are more than five people in the state that fully understand exactly how education is funded in Vermont and this conversation really needs to begin in earnest about I know that there's a desire for local control but when the local control is all about what do we cut what do we cut what do we cut it doesn't feel very good. Great thank you. As far as more ballot items ballot has six items before the voter on the ballot these are proposition zero instant runoff voting all resident voting redistricting citizen police oversight body and a polling place change of these if you could tell us how you will vote and which you feel the most strongly about and why we'll begin with Farid. I feel most strongly about proposition zero because that is a project that I've been involved in for the last few years and I think it is very consequential to the way decisions are made in this city. I support the citizen police oversight body although I don't think it goes far enough in holding the police accountable. I also will be supporting the instant runoff voting. I'm not a big fan of instant runoff but because this will restore the threshold of winning to 50 percent which is democratic standard I will be voting for it. As far as the redistricting I will be voting no because not really because of the map itself but because of the concept of the district counselor. I think we need to go back to the two counselors per district setup and that would be more representative and that is more democratic. As far as the polling place I believe that it's worth supporting. It will make it it makes it easier for the administrators of the election and as far as the all resident voting I will be voting yes I was involved in the initial in the first time around when we in 2015 brought this to the ballot and unfortunately was defeated closely and seven years later I think Burlington is ready for it so which is that that's what tends to happen with ballot items that are you know like we consider progress that's what happened so I will be voting yes on that as well. I think I got him all. Awesome great Joan. Thank you I'll I guess I'll just make it brief and say I support ballot items one through six there was some confusion about whether or not I supported all those ballot items because I did a North Avenue news article that said I was voting no on four and five but the numbers changed and actually I don't support questions seven and eight but I do support questions one through six so I'll just focus on and I do think seven and eight are the most important so number seven is the control board for police oversight and the issues that I have with that I mean I think that there are a lot of things that we could do with regards to police oversight this just is not it and we have we have done a number of things but I think that people should understand what's actually in this number seven would create a new city department to oversee the police within the city department there would be an investigative office we would hire a director for that department as well as employees and consultants and legal expertise we would also have a paid board of nine people to oversee that and mind you we only have 29 police officers on patrol so this seems like an exorbitantly expensive endeavor to deal with very very few problems so like I said there's a lot of different ways you could deal with it but this is not it and nobody can tell us within a hundred thousand dollars or five hundred thousand dollars what this is going to cost in addition I don't think that anybody no matter your profession you should be supervised by people who understand your profession you don't get a group of people who have been victims of malpractice to supervise doctors yes that voice is important but the doctors should be supervised by doctors social workers should be supervised by social workers and this also eliminates anybody within the profession of having any role over police discipline it takes away the ability of the police chief to discipline officers in that the chief can discipline an officer but then this board can come in and vacate that discipline so then that officer isn't disciplined or and there's a period of time they may get different discipline or they may not get disciplined I think we need to have professionalism in oversight and I can't imagine anybody working for a department that did not get that also ballot question eight which is proposition zero allows the public to put referendums on the ballot one of the problems with that is exactly what we're seeing in number seven number seven is a six page charter change but on the ballot you only get about a paragraph these are actually two questions you'll see on the ballot this question is maybe a two or three page charter change and this question is six pages so people actually making policy the public would be making policy under question eight but the vast majority of the public will never actually read the legislation that they're voting on legislation is an iterative process it shouldn't be binary yes or no there's a lot that happens when we sit down and we wrestle with policy as an ordinance committee as a city council there's a lot of give and take there's a lot of taking into account issues raised by the public and and working that legislation so that it will work for everybody that opportunity is lost when something is put on the ballot and based on a paragraph people decide whether or not they they want this policy thank you thank you well so with regard to proposition zero i am in support like for read of the ballot initiative because i am not afraid of democracy in the city of berlington that's why i'm running for city council and as i'm going door to door i'm finding that the people i talked to are extraordinarily informed the idea that you know this would be making decisions out of the scope of the city council is not one that i think is onerous in fact i think that it would be a victory for democracy in the city of berlington a city that has won great victories for democracy in the scope of american history so i think this is a good idea and you know should about initiative be passed for example by some moneyed interest uh you know and this would enable us to to later on go and fix that as well it's a more direct democracy i don't have a problem with it i'm in support of it instant runoff voting i'm in support of that as well don't see a problem with it seems to again uh you know uh streamline the democratic process i'm in support of that as well all resident voting uh i don't see an issue with this you know it doesn't mean that any that it would violate any federal rules you know for citizenship i think if someone's living here they ought to have a say uh in a local election everyone's you know life and and vote is worth the same in my view so i'll be voting yes for that with regard to redistricting i will not be voting yes although at an earlier event and to a couple of people i've kind of flip flopped on this just because i wasn't convinced i've now decided that i don't see a good reason to vote yes for this i'm not seeing the reasoning behind the new maps and uh you know if i can't see the the reasoning why behind a policy is good then i can't get behind it so i won't be i won't be voting in support of the redistricting and i look forward to see what the result of the vote is as for the polling place change to be honest you know i'm not not fully convinced either way on this but as of right now i'm voting yes because i'm heard from a lot of people in ward six that it would be convenient for them to have the polling place change but i hope that like you we will all read more about this this concern before we submit our ballot or before we go to the polling place on town meeting day as for the citizen police oversight board uh this is the one that i that i feel most strongly about and like for me and in contrast to councillor shannon i am in support i think that it is absolutely critical for us to establish a community control of police i think that it is far more dangerous to have the police be overseen by a very small minority a mayor and a police chief who you know in theory could be part themselves of a very small established moneyed authority then for the then for the community to be put in trust of the force that has a deadly ability to keep them safe or to cause them harm i have great trust in the community organizations and city council here in burlington to appoint members to this board i have great trust in this board and in the city council to be fiscally responsible and i think this would be a great stride for public safety in terms of keeping our our citizens safe uh and being free from fear great i'm in support great so as far as the legislative session we are well underway coming up on town meeting what are some important initiatives to the community of burlington that you'll be tracking and supporting as part of your work on the city council go jones first um thank you i just wanted to briefly say something i forgot to to mention about question seven which is um that actually that really is not a community board it's not accountable to the community the community doesn't appoint the board the elected officials don't appoint the board the organizations chosen by the election of elected officials don't appoint the board the organizations um um the the board that is chosen by the organizations chosen by the city council that's who appoints this board it is so far removed from any kind of public accountability and there's no way to remove anybody from this board so i really think that that's a misnomer as far as legislative issues that that i will be following i think that the issues that are hard for us to get at at the city really mental health care would be at the top of my list um we need uh mental health care and you can't get it you can't go to the hospital and get mental health care people are staying in our emergency room for weeks on end and this needs to be addressed regionally as do our transportation needs and reforms to housing policy great thank you and just will and for you i'd like to allow you 30 seconds to just respond and if you want to on the previous question but um the vermont session if you'd like to answer well sure to respond uh on on the question about question seven uh from my point of view the fact that community organizations will be selecting members for this board does mean that it is a community board uh you know i have a greater trust in those organizations and in the people that are really involved in this community than the police chief for example and i think that you know the fact that it's difficult to remove board members is important to avoid you know the potential for retaliation with regard to the legislative session like counsel shannon i'd be acutely interested in in additional mental health resources i mean everywhere i'm hearing you know that this is a really vital gap that we need to fill but i'd also be interested in other more broad economic measures uh that we can't really affect the city council for example expansion of public transit uh measures for housing policy that i would be very interested in would be uh programs that help tenants purchase their homes cooper or their buildings cooperatively uh with but which have been implemented in other states and not here in vermont which i see is you know really critical for the housing crisis and then in general uh you know environmental policy i think really needs to take place on on a big scale we may be able to enact some changes as a city council uh and definitely as a city councilor i would do my best to find ways to implement you know climate environmental solutions uh but i really think it has to happen on a statewide scale so i'm very interested in bills potentially uh geared towards promoting a regenerative economy uh bills uh geared towards promoting renewable energy produced here in vermont uh the transportation and storage of that energy uh are all things that i think would really help us lead into a brighter future i'd like to see that happen on a statewide level thank you ferried um i would like to respond to uh some of the points that councillor shannon uh raised about the question of eight uh as in being uh possibly enabling more of question seven um i mean we if you look at the history of question seven that language actually was generated in the charter change commission uh a committee on the city council that councillor shannon said on uh and it was then passed through by the whole council so the suggestion that this was unvetted language somehow and or that proposition zero would allow this kind of things to happen as misleading i think as far as the length of the proposed legislation that we see on the ballot council generated ballot ballot questions also have the same issues especially if we compare the d i d which which we voted on the down tonic movement district question which we voted on in 2019 also appointing like a board that wasn't really directly accountable uh mostly dominated by business interest um so and there is legitimate criticism about the ballot question process but uh that question uh those criticisms mostly also apply to council generated ones uh not just petition backed ones if anything the petition backed ballot questions have been vetted with more people uh by more people than council generated one because we have had to gather almost over 2000 signatures just to put this on the ballot as far as like the money in politics questions that's already happening the just look at the political action committees that's been established to oppose this petition backed ballot measures that we have out of town business interest already uh donating to candidates who can then if they get on the city council they can put the any legislation on the ballot so actually prep zero would be a great way for people to counter that as far as the legislative session i would be interested in making sure that we if should proposition zero and the community control of the police pass this would be passed by the legislature some of the concerns that have been raised can also be addressed at that time and and also on housing i would be paying close attention to because i do think that needs to happen at the state level uh housing and police oversight should ideally be dealt with at the state level and burlington passing community control of the police would put more pressure on the state to come up with statewide standard great thank you um so does burlington have a housing crisis what do you see as the nature of housing in burlington and how to meet the need for safe and affordable housing for residents students and visitors alike and if we could keep our responses nice and brief so we can get to all the questions because there are some good ones um but we'll start with will well you really you really should not ask me about housing crisis and ask me to keep it brief shana as as many people in the south district now know because i'm very interested in this subject um and i think that there's you know real solutions that we can be working to implement uh i think that we need to develop more housing i think we need to build more uh but i think that our approach doesn't necessarily need to be about focusing on making sure that each building as for full of affordable units let anyone build who wants to build let them charge whatever rent they want uh you know let's have a free housing market but what we should do to ensure affordability is stabilize rents and then increase property taxes on multifamily buildings if a landlord has a lot of properties make them pay a progressive rate on that and use that to subsidize rents for people who have difficulty affording it uh if housing is a human right we should try to equitably distribute it by looking at how it's really financed and then we should take a social housing approach the city should encourage the champlain housing trust other affordable housing organizations to purchase all kinds of buildings and rent them out at all kinds of rates using higher rents to subsidize lower ones uh this is a solution that's worked in canadian cities uh it's worked in midwestern cities it's worked in european cities and i really think that it can work here so again my strategy is not just to build affordable housing it's to build whatever developers want to build uh build it in the south end enterprise zoning district innovation district build it in the pit build it where the church is we need more housing and we need more affordable housing so let's purchase older buildings uh let's help tenants purchase their own buildings cooperatively social housing that's the way to go uh but at the end of the day housing is a human right you can't afford it we gotta find a way to get someone in a home solution to homelessness put someone in a home yes mental health is good but you gotta give them a place to live shelter it's the silver bullet thank you parade uh i agree with bill about the housing first approach to homelessness um and i think that is very important in dealing with all the other social problems that we've been having if somebody can't go back to a place where they feel safe and stable there's no way they're going to be able to hold down a stable job to deal with their addiction and to um to to live a better life i do think we need to make sure that housing is a human right it's something that we hear often but i think we also informant both at the state and a local level have legislative bodies that are dominated by the interest of developers and real estate speculators um you can't square this two concept of housing is a human right or housing is something that should be done um uh to to make a profit just like you can't do it with healthcare either whether it's a human right or it's a commodity and i firmly think it's a human right and it's the job of government to actually find uh to uphold this right for everybody and that includes more social housing more cooperative housing building housing for uh working class people using its power of eminent domain to actually uh take over some of the unproductive use of buildings and land and provide housing for all right thank you um thank you uh i really liked some of will's ideas as far as housing i am a realtor by trade and i really believe in home ownership and i think it's uh it's concerning that burlington is probably getting somewhere towards 30 home ownership and 70 rental and there's there's a number of problems with that one is that people's uh housing payments should be stable from year to year um and if you own your own home you've done a lot to stabilize that taxes continue to go up it's not completely stable it's much more stable than than being a renter um so we do need to get more people into home ownership in burlington and i liked will's idea of of tenants buying buying their units unfortunately in burlington we actually have an ordinance against um i don't know that it's exactly against what you're saying because i think will is saying having um tenants buy their buildings as a co-op um but you cannot you can't condominiumize a building so where tenants might be able to get into housing by by buying their unit um they can't and i'm not sure whether or not that applies to co-ops but there's been a an effort to actually prevent that in burlington and i don't think that that's right um so will whichever way this goes that's something i'd be really interested to to work with you on um uh and i and i don't i think it's problematic that housing is becoming concentrated with with too few people owning it part of that is how construction is financed um it's much easier for a developer to build a rental building than it is for a developer to build a condominium building so that's also really problematic um and not something easily dealt with at the city council level but i i think we do need to work on it great so a sweet question if you could tell us a little bit about why you care about and want to work as a city counselor for the community of burlington why are your favorite spots and why do you love to live here we'll go for read first um i know i'm running for a south district council city council but i actually love the old north end this is one of my favorite spots um i uh but i also love the the neighborhood of south meadows in in the south end i serve there every week distributing free food to families and i i think the best thing about burlington is its people and the values of its people um and i uh i i keep remembering when uh in 2012 like as a city we were asked like what is our priority like do we support economic policies that should benefit the 99 percent and 80 percent of the voters that's the four to one uh affirm that uh value uh which makes me proud to be in burlington um but as far as do our governments actually do that uh well that's the reason why i'm running for city council because i don't think our city government really reflects the values yet great thank you john um i first came to burlington as a high school student looking at uvm and this is really going to date me but it was back when people's express was you could fly from new work to burlington for 29 dollars and so i came by myself i was the fourth child my parents just kind of sent me and i was independently in burlington for the day and it was a beautiful day and i was at the top of the hill after leaving the admissions office and looking out at the lake and it absolutely took my breath away and i thought i'm just gonna walk down the hill get a sandwich and you know find a rock by the lake and eat my sandwich and so i got my sandwich and i walked down and the closer i got the less i could see because at that time the whole waterfront was lined with um oil tanks and i found a rock that looked out between these oil tanks looking at the adirondacks in the lake and i thought i wonder if people in this town realize what's on the other side of their oil tanks but it is um definitely the lake that that i find so compelling and um the parks of burlington the walkability of burlington i have actually lived in um so many places in burlington i have i first lived on hunger for terrorist i lived on north willard street i lived in the old north end on north street um now i live in lakeside but it's all of these little neighborhoods that really make burlington special um and the accessibility accessibility to the lake not everybody not all communities have the kind of accessibility that that we have um so that's uh in church street i love everything about burlington okay thanks will uh well i've certainly lived here the shortest uh between the three uh candidates here uh but i lived in vermont a little bit longer and i'm you know was first drawn here because of progressivism i mean seeing senator sanders being elected from here and you know growing up nearby and bearing witness to the culture here uh really has always drawn me in along with the nature and uh since i've moved here i've realized you know never really going back uh because of the people uh because people here really seem to value freedom in their lives which is what i value the most i have never been to an american city where people seem to be able to do what they want to the same extent that they can in burlington uh which is something that i really loved about living in montreal uh and it's what i love the most about living here and as your city counselor uh you know that's what i'd like to continue to promote is the ability of people to live their lives however they want while feeling safe while while while being healthy uh which is what i see as you know life liberty and pursuit of happiness uh as for how i pursue happiness uh my my number one spot in burlington is the optimal location from the bike path uh at oak ledge park where the sand is minimally hot under the shaded trees uh to get to the beach uh at oak ledge uh and i know where that spot is uh and go there really quite frequently when the weather is warm great so your city council race is one of the first in burlington using rank choice voting we know that this gives voters the chance to rank candidates in order of preference please tell us whether and how this has affected how you're campaigning and communicating with voters we'll go Joan first um i cannot say that i i support rank choice voting i can't say that it has impacted how i campaign or how i interact with voters i have always felt that you know i will do the best that i can to represent the interest of voters i will be forthright and tell you what my positions are i will tell you when i'm undecided and um seek input uh in the decision making process and if at some point i am not adequately representing your interests you know you need to know where i am so that you can make an informed decision um i don't tend to to sit on the fence and i also appreciate you know i think that these are also characteristics i see in will and for read they're very forthcoming about about their positions um personally i i i appreciate that because i i would rather disagree with somebody than like not really know where where people stand so um no it hasn't affected my campaign but uh i'm glad that we do have ranked choice voting i think that it is a better reflection of the um public will and without it we run the risk of the spoiler effect which would be electing the person who's actually least popular um in in some ways uh no system is perfect um but i do think ranked choice voting is is a better system to reflect the will of the voters great thank you well uh on on this one i i agree with counsel shannon i think ranked choice voting is a good idea uh again i've yet to see a problem with it uh but it's not really affecting the way i'm communicating with the voters in berlington i tell everyone to vote for me all three times uh and if i can't give them you know one reason to vote for me once uh then i'll keep giving them reasons uh until they've got three uh or more uh to put me down uh so that's my strategy that's what i'm telling folks and that's uh that's what i'm going to continue to do until town meeting day read um i can't say it's uh really affected my campaigning because i don't this is really my second time only like campaigning for elected office and um i just tell uh voters uh what i think and uh my positions are so um i'm not a big fan of ranked choice uh from my experience actually managing a campaign uh that was a third party campaign or an independent candidate campaign i do value like the conversations that happens during elections um i have a problem with the 40 threshold that is uh that's currently in place for the mayor election and was in place for a long time i don't think that is democratic uh anywhere else you look at democracy is at least 50 plus one um i do uh and i i believe this because uh my experience during the infinite for mayor campaign when we for the first time we have ended up with a mayor that most of us did not vote for uh had had the threshold been the democratic 50 plus one uh we would have forced a runoff election while it would have taken more time uh but that's a great time to be discussing the issues it would have put more public attention uh on the issues that are important i don't think three extra weeks four extra weeks of talking about what's important to us and our neighbors bad thing great um so as a community with a diversity of languages spoken and a language access policy adopted in 2020 what ways do you see that the city government can expand access and accessibility to more community members who want to participate in local democracy and we will go well first uh sure so you know with regard to the diversity of languages spoken in burlington i think that we should as a city council uh be quite aggressive uh in making sure that you know everyone is uh involved who wants to be uh in local democracy uh and you know even be reaching out to people who might not even know that they can be involved uh and to use uh you know uh in a fiscally fiscally responsible fashion uh the resources available to us to do that uh and one way i think would be to work with the the committee on refugees and immigrants who have a really strong translation program uh and maybe look at creative ways we can work with them uh in order to get people more involved um but something that i would like to mention uh a you know with regard to language access um not necessarily folks that live in burlington but i think that we should really be working to expand our connections to kebek uh in the city of montreal because it's really the biggest city close to us but you know the national border uh you know might prevent some of the interaction that can occur uh so as a city council i'd work to create programs to link us uh better with montreal uh culturally economically uh and see what can happen i think that we could get a lot more benefits if we're if we're a little bit more active about our relationship with our friends to the north uh and that might mean uh advancing some french language uh programming uh in burlington education um and i would look forward to exploring that as your city council thank you fridt i think the neighborhood planning assembly is very important to burlington it is an institution of direct democracy where we actually get to have a direct influence on uh how the city uh proceeds in terms of its decision making uh unfortunately in the last 10 or 15 years the neighborhood planning assembly in burlington which used to be very powerful very strong community institution have been neglected and have been defunded uh it used to have a budget of about 15 000 per ward that was allocated towards what the neighbors would like to see uh change in their neighborhood but over over the years it has been defunded to a lot less than that i believe it was only like two thousand dollars and it has to go through the city council even though initially the npa was envisioned as a people's alternative to the council of alderman uh who at that time were sabotaging all the initiatives the best things that burlington have achieved happened when the npa was strong when the public can meaningfully participate in democratic decision making uh the language access is important we gotta make sure that there is a translation service but as important as to revive the npa and make sure that people can actually attend it that means you know you feed people there you provide childcare you provide transportation so that more of us can participate and not just the few who can afford to i think that's very important thank you um thank you yeah with the regards to the npa i actually was on a um large committee that was gathered by peter clevelle prior to becoming a city councilor because i was active in the npa um at that time and uh also very active in my neighborhood and so the committee was charged with looking at you know should the npas continue are they relevant um currently and the conclusion was yes they are and they needed more city support than what they were getting so prior to that the npas really didn't get any city support um and some of the things that we did from that point was we started doing trainings and coordination and and getting more city staff to npas um than than they previously had which i do think has been helpful to the npa but unfortunately a lot of people aren't uh able to participate in npas it's just difficult for a lot of people who are working multiple jobs raising their family finding the time to do that is is challenging i still think it's a great thing to get everybody together in the room but it's also a place where language challenges are particularly difficult and i think probably the best way that the city can address those language challenges um and we've been doing a much better job in recent years but it's um probably reliant on technology is the best way to deliver the most languages and the most information to to the most residents about the things that they need to know i'll also um acknowledge will's point about french in the schools um we used to teach french in the schools and they changed to spanish so awesome well thank you um i'd like to give you all about 30 seconds to make a closing comment before we wrap up um feride you can go first um thank you for having me here and uh thank you for having this conversation uh i i think we as a city are dealing with the consequences of some policy failures and we can't use the police to fix some of these policy failures these are the result of systemic inequities and the only way we can fix systemic inequities is by systemic reforms of our priorities and of our decision-making processes please vote for uh yes on question seven and question eight we need to start holding public officials accountable that includes the police and we also need to put the public back in public policies thank you thank you john um thank you i i just want to say that i think that um we've had we've had a lot of negative dialogue in recent years i think coming out of covet has been difficult for people we have had severe social challenges in our city but i know the burlingtonians really want to um rebuild our city and it's a caring city and we see the suffering that people are going through we want to find remedies we want our city to be safe we want it to be affordable and we want it to be vital and i'm grateful for all of the burlingtonians that put in so much effort to uh to create that vision for our city and to make it real thank you well uh we we have some problems in the city of burlington uh although this is you know like i said my favorite city and i think the best city in the united states uh people are struggling uh it's difficult to afford housing it's difficult to find housing difficult to find a doctor it's difficult to to find uh support for mental health issues uh and i see these as questions of priorities uh if we as a people uh change our priorities uh even municipal policy i see solutions uh that can make big changes and big strides in this as your city counselor i'll use my problem solving abilities and work tirelessly uh to use municipal policy to address these issues uh if you're on board with you know increasing the standard of human rights uh in this way get in touch with me w a for btv dot org find my email find my phone number i'll be coming around to your door if you haven't met me already uh looking forward to it and i hope that you'll vote for me on town meeting day thanks for having me really appreciate it thank you to the three of you and thank you for tuning into town meeting tv's ongoing coverage of local candidates local budgets and ballot items you can find this and more forums at w w dot c h seventeen dot tv please do not forget to vote on or before mark seventh ballots are mailed automatically but if you haven't gotten one please check with the city clerk to request a ballot or make sure to go to the polls on march seventh thank you for watching and sharing town meeting tv if you are not already please subscribe to our youtube channel town meeting tv thank you