 of the year 1987 that we'll be recording. And what I wanted to do on this program, which we think will probably be an hour program, is do something a little bit different than what we've done in the past. And that is to maybe reflect on some of the activities of the past year, do a little bit of traveling about the city and see what's going on, talk a little bit about what we expect to see happening in the future. And with me today is my special guest. This is Levi Sanders, who is my son, who is just spending the Christmas holidays back from college in Springfield, Massachusetts. And behind the camera is Nat Air. And before we go any further, I do want to thank the people at CCTV, Nat Air and Lauren Glendavidian and the others for the tremendous help which they provided me and many of us on cable access. Not only for this program, but for the Board of Aldermen programs, the School Board programs, the City Attorneys programs, the Youth Office programs, the Arts Council programs, and other programs. One of the thoughts that I feel very strongly about, one of the things that I feel very strongly about is that in a democracy, people have got to know what's going on in their own communities. And to a large degree, the mass media does not do that. And I think in terms of cable access, we're making some real progress in allowing the people of Burlington and of our region to know what is happening in their own community. And we're excited about that, and we in fact intend to do everything that we can to expand the concept of cable access to get more people from the community, not only those associated with government, but people in general on television so that they can better communicate with their neighbors. All right, before we move on to a new location, let me reflect a few things about what's been happening in this building this last year and what will happen during the next year. And that is while we look at the various problems that the city has, it's important to understand how the city is able to raise the revenue that it needs in order to address the problems. Sometimes I think people think that if they identify a problem, they say, well, we have a problem in Burlington, or we have a problem in the state of Vermont, that that's enough. Well, it's not enough, because what one also has to think about is how do we raise the revenue that we need in order to address the problem. One of the phenomenon that has been going on in this country in the last year, and in fact the last number of years, is that the wealthiest people in our country are becoming wealthier. And in fact, recent figures, recent statistics that came out from the federal government, show us that one half of one percent of the population of the United States owns, let me get out and tell you what it owns, that in fact, the one half of one percent of the population owns 35 percent of the wealth in this country, and the wealthiest 10 percent of the population own over 70 percent of the wealth. And the gap between the richest people and the poorer people are growing. It's growing, it's getting worse. And what that means to me is that as I look at the social problems facing our society, and I say, okay, how do we get the money to address those problems? From what part of society should we ask people to pay taxes to address the problems? It seems clear to me that we've got to ask those people who can best afford to pay to contribute to solving the problems rather than going to working people and poor people. To a large degree, the tax system in this country is extremely unfair and that it asks working people and elderly people and poor people to pay too much while large corporations and wealthy people do not pay their fair share. So when we have debates up here on the Board of Aldermen, one of the issues that are always, there's always right out there in the fore, is how do you raise the money? And one of the reasons we have had a lot of controversy over the last six to seven years since I've been mayor is that I have attempted to raise taxes in other than the property tax in more progressive ways. The property tax is a regressive form of taxation. And to a large degree here in Vermont, all of the cities and towns are dependent upon the property tax. There's now a major battle taking place throughout the state in order to have the cities and towns break their dependency on the property tax. In the last four or five years, we have made some success here in Burlington and we'll talk about that as we travel around the city. When the streets are now dug up, it is not the property tax that pays who have to repair them, but in fact the utilities who do the digging. We're now beginning to get a little bit of money from UVM, not enough money. We have a gross receipts tax, which means that when visitors come and eat in our restaurants or stay in the hotel, they are now contributing toward the tax base of the city to helping us provide the services that they need. And we also have a classification system of taxation, which is asking industrial and commercial property to be paying at a higher assessment than just residential property. So we think we're making some progress. We clearly have a long way to go. But as we look at the problems that we face, it is absolutely imperative that we understand how can you raise the revenue in a fair and progressive manner rather than taking the money from working people or poor people and elderly people. And that's an issue that we debate here all the time and that we'll continue to discuss. Okay, we're on our way. The next stop will be, in fact, just the block away from City Hall. And that is the Burlington Free Press, which plays a very, very important role in having, in how the people of this region, not only the city, but the entire region, Northern Vermont, understand what's going on in their community. So we'll have a few words to say about the Free Press. We're on our way. Thank you. Oh, the dollar and a quarter. They raised the rates recently? They raised the rates. They did? Yeah. What was that? I don't know. I didn't even know what to go. I couldn't have made the dollar and a quarter. All right, here we go. There's one in the fall. One. Now a dollar and a quarter. Two. Okay, we're standing in front of the Burlington Free Press building. And when we talk about Burlington and when we talk about the state of Vermont, you have to talk about institutions like the Burlington Free Press, because they play an extremely important role. And when you're a politician, as I am, or when you're in public life, you're very sensitive to that role. Because to a large degree, how people perceive what's happening and what they feel is important is very much influenced by the Burlington Free Press. And an issue that is being examined increasingly around this country is the very, very serious issue of how the media is covering public life. Whether the media is responsive to the people who buy the publications or who watch the television, or rather the people who own the institution, such as the Gannett Company, which owns the Free Press as well as 92 other dailies in USA today. And that issue is true, of course, not only for newspapers and magazines, it's true for television increasingly. And in fact, as we stand here in front of the Free Press today, I think one of the issues that we will be examining, perhaps through a task force, I'm not sure yet, during the course of the year is the role of the media in American society. And the real strong concern that we have, that the media is becoming increasingly gobbled up by multinational corporations, so that there are some media experts who estimate that within the next five or six years, you're going to have maybe a half a dozen gigantic communications corporations that will basically determine what we watch on television here on the radio, read in books, see on television, and so forth. Very, very important issue. The Free Press, the role of a daily newspaper in a community is, as I indicated earlier, they will determine what is the important news. If they decide to run stories and concentrate on an issue, by and large, it becomes the issue that the community is going to be talking about. And I think what we have to look at and analyze is how good a job does the Free Press do. Well, I think in some sense, it does a reasonably good job. It is certainly infinitely better than some of the tabloid publications that exist around this country. Papers that are sensationalists that are concentrating on murders and rapes and fires and violence. The Free Press doesn't emphasize that, and that's good. I have been impressed, I think, by some of the editorial changes that have taken place in the last year. I think the new publisher, Donna Donovan, are some of the new people on their editorial staff are doing a better job in giving a more balanced editorial reporting than I think was formerly the case. I have some concerns about what I perceive to be changes in the format in the paper, in that it is beginning to emulate, it seems to me, a little bit of what USA Today is, which is the National Genet publication, which essentially gives you more color pictures, perhaps shorter stories, easier to understand stories. And I happen to think that if we're living in a democracy in a very complex world, sometimes the stories are not all that easy, and they're gonna be long, and they're gonna be complicated, and that's what a newspaper is gonna have to get out if people are gonna understand what's happening. Does the Free Press report all the news? What is the relationship, in fact, between the advertisers? When you look at a newspaper like the Free Press and you analyze the content, what you find is that much of the content, of course, has nothing to do with news, but it is advertising, it is commercials. It takes advertising from the business community. Does that have any impact on the news reporting? I think the answer is obvious that it does. There are some stories that the Free Press will not be enthusiastic about covering. And that's the case with all media, which is owned by wealthy institutions. But once again, I think during the course of this year, we will be examining the role of media, not just the newspaper, but television, in our community, and perhaps have some suggestions as to how they could be more responsive to the people so that we can, in fact, get a better understanding of what's really happening in our local society. Okay, as I think observers can note, we are now on the Church Street Marketplace in the heart of downtown Burlington. And as mayor of the city and as an elected official, obviously, one of the issues that we deal with all the time, we have in the past and will during the next year, of course, is the vitality of our downtown, and in fact, the whole economic condition of our community. Fortunately, during the last few years, Burlington, and in fact, the entire region, has been doing relatively well economically. In fact, Burlington's unemployment rate for the last many, many months has been one of the lowest in the country. And I think we hovered between two and 3%, and that's good. We have created many, many thousands of new jobs in the city in the last five years. I think a walk and a look at downtown Burlington, this is a Sunday, would show that the business climate here is well, Pine Street is doing very well, the old North End, and North Street is doing well. And that's important. We have a very active economic development office, one of whose functions is to stimulate economic development. And when we talk about economic development and the vitality of downtown, in fact, look at the state. One of the issues clearly that we're going to be dealing with in the next few months is the whole question of pure and mid-mall. And to me, the issue is important, not from a competitive point of view between Williston and Burlington, that is not the issue. The issue that the state of Vermont is going to have to deal with, is from an environmental point of view, whether we want major malls popping up throughout the state of Vermont, which will bring traffic, air pollution, possibly water pollution, and will have negative impacts, not just on Burlington, but other major downtowns. I see it as perhaps the most important environmental issue that the state is going to have to deal with. And it's interesting that it comes about right in the midst of this whole discussion of growth. And that's also an issue that we're going to have to deal with internally here in Burlington. Because on one hand, while we want to make sure that we maintain our economic vitality, on the other hand, we want to be absolutely certain that we maintain the beauty and the quality of life in the city that the people enjoy. We're not going to tear down the entire city, and we're not going to tear down housing, and we're not going to build parking lots all over the place, because it's simply good for business. What we have to do is, on one hand, maintain a strong economic vitality, and on the other hand, maintain a city that people love and are happy to live in. And that's a tough balance. And sometimes, there's a lot of debate as to whether we go too far this way, too far that way. A few years ago, people remember that there were full-page ads being run in the newspaper that we're driving business out of the city of Burlington, full-page ads. And now, we are having a lot of comments, well, we're too pro-development as a city. Well, how do you draw that line? That's an issue that we'll be looking at very strongly in the next few months. What role should the city take in making sure that the development that we have is tasteful development, that there's not too much development, that there's enough to maintain our vitality while maintaining the quality of our life? Very important issue, delicate issue, there'll be differences of opinion. That's an issue you're gonna see a lot of discussion on during the course of this year. Okay. Hi. Okay, we are up on the hill now, and I think people can see that behind us is the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont, and over there on the left is the University of Vermont. And during the course of this last year, there has been a whole lot of discussion, as I think many viewers know, regarding the relationship of the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont to the city of Burlington. I wanna capsulize some of the issues there. They fall basically into two separate categories. The issue that we dwelt on most this year was the relationship from a taxation point of view of the Medical Center to the city of Burlington. The history of that is that during the last five or six years, the city has on repeated occasions asked the Medical Center to provide some financial help in one way or another to the city. The Medical Center is a very, very large institution owning substantial amount of property, having a budget of approximately $120 million a year. In terms of its financial contribution to the city, for the services that it receives, the city receives $0, not one cent. And over the last five or six years, there's been a lot of discussion. And essentially the city has gotten no place. As a result of a recent Supreme Court decision dealing with a medical facility in central Vermont, the city attorney's office in Burlington felt that it was appropriate and right. That the city in fact do away with the tax exempt status of the Medical Center, and in fact send them a full tax bill. And the tax bill amounted to some $2.8 million. The Medical Center opposed that, felt that what we were doing was illegal, or took us to Superior Court. There was a very interesting trial that lasted for about one week. Superior Court Judge Meeker made a decision in which he essentially bought the entire line from the hospital ruled in favor of the hospital, and we are now going to the Supreme Court. This issue of tax exempt hospitals, nonprofit hospitals, is an issue not only of active debate here in the state of Vermont. It is an issue that's being discussed all over the United States now, and in fact in the United States Congress. It is very possible, not yet certain, but very possible that the arguments before the Supreme Court of the state of Vermont in this coming year will be of absolute national significance. In fact, that based on the decision of the Supreme Court, decisions will be made all over the United States of America as to how municipalities deal with tax exempt hospitals. In a nutshell, what are the issues? To my mind, the heart of the issue is, is this institution really a charitable institution which deserves the subsidization, which deserves subsidization from the taxpayers of the city of Burlington? And my answer is from the bottom of my heart is that it is not a charitable institution. You have an institution which is headed by executives who make very high salaries, no different than salaries being made by other corporate executives. You have physicians who work here, who are earning in some instances, I suspect hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in income. You have an institution in terms of its relationship to poor people, which in fact provides very little help to poor people. About one and a half percent of the total budget of the medical center goes to helping poor people in terms of free care. That in fact is not a lot. When Mary Fletcher originally founded the Mary Fletcher Hospital a hundred years ago, she was very clear that she believed that that hospital should be providing to as great a degree as possible free care to the poor and those people didn't have a lot of money. And for many years in the early part of this hospital's history, 50%, 60% of the care that was being provided at the hospital was free, free. Doctors work for free. That has radically changed now. And I think what you're looking at is in fact an institution which in my view is a very good institution. It's a very good hospital. And we're delighted and proud to have an institution of that quality here. But if we look at it from the point of view of whether or not it is a charitable institution which deserves the subsidy that it is presently receiving from the people of the city, the answer to my mind is absolutely not. Now another issue that concerns me and concerns many people in the state of Vermont is that what you're looking at here is clearly not a Burlington institution. No argument about that. What you have is a statewide facility. It's a facility being used by people from New York state. In fact, more people, I believe we're an equal amount of people from New York state use this institution as from the city of Burlington. Why should one community alone be asked to subsidize it in not the general region? And that's an issue that the legislature will be dealing with. Furthermore, in terms of this particular institution, I have two other additional concerns which have been raised during the course of the year in which I expect will also be discussed by the legislature. Number one is that the decisions, the basic decisions as to the priorities of this hospital, how are they going to be spending their money? Should more of their money go to the visiting nurses association which is now affiliated with the medical center or should more of the money go into other types of programs? Who makes those decisions in terms of expenditures? Well, the Board of Trustees makes those decisions. Well, then the next obvious question is who are the Board of Trustees? Well, the Board of Trustees are basically some of the wealthiest, the most powerful people in our community. Do they necessarily reflect the interest of elderly people, working people, poor people who are having an increasingly difficult time paying their healthcare bills? The answer is I don't think so. What you'd have now is a self-protectuating body where they keep appointing people of their own like. And I think that that's a real problem. There will be a bill in the legislature which will ask that the governor of the state of Vermont sit on that Board of Trustees and I think that that's appropriate, that we have representation from senior citizen groups, that we have representation from the host community. And I think that's the concept that should go on all over the state of Vermont. It is not enough for just a small group of people to be sitting on the Board of Trustees making those decisions. Second of all, right now, if you, a member of the public, wanted to sit in on a Board of Trustees meeting and hear what the discussion was about and maybe add your two cents as to what you thought the priorities are of this hospital. And the reason that that issue is important is that most of the money that we spend in terms of healthcare, and we're conscious of the cost of healthcare because it's zooming upward. Most of the money is spent in hospitals. This is the largest hospital in the state of Vermont, approximately 40% of the revenue spent in healthcare in the state of Vermont is spent right here. They make decisions which affect us all. It seems to me clearly that their Board meetings have got to be open to the public. Right now, they are not. They can shut the door, the media can't come in, the newspapers, television can't come in, the general public can't come in. There will be a bill in the legislature now authorizing that any tax-exempt hospital now have an open door policy where people can observe other discussions that are taking place. So the whole issue of taxation and how the hospital is being run is very, very important. It's been an issue of significant debate and discussion. This last year will be next year as the case goes to the Supreme Court. The other issue of course relevant to this hospital and to all the hospitals and all the physicians in the state of Vermont is the whole issue of affordable healthcare. In my view, the whole issue of healthcare in America is perhaps the single most important domestic issue that we've got to deal with. We have a crisis situation. We are one of two nations in the industrialized world that does not have a national healthcare system which says to all of its people that because you're an American or because you're a citizen of this country, you are entitled to quality healthcare because you're a citizen. To a large degree in our country, healthcare is still being run as a business. If you got the money, you're gonna have the best healthcare perhaps available in the world. If you don't have the money, if you're one of the 15% of the population now that cannot afford any healthcare insurance whatsoever, you're up the creek. Because if you get sick and you end up there, you're gonna be paying off that bill for years and years and years to come. And if you're one of the many people who do have health insurance, you have Blue Cross Blue Shield, you're noticing that the cost of your health insurance is zooming upward. Ultimately, in the next couple of years, there is going to be a debate in this country as to whether healthcare is a right of all of its people because of citizenship or whether in fact it's a privilege that it can primarily be enjoyed by the wealthiest people. That will be an enormous debate. I intend to play a role in it because I believe that we need a national healthcare system to be financed not from Blue Cross Blue Shield revenues, not from Connecticut General, not from Medicaid, not from Medicare, not from out-of-pocket expenses. But ultimately to say that in this country, we've got to join the rest of the world, say that healthcare is a right, that it's gonna be paid for out of progressive national tax sources. We're a wealthy country. And I think if we have a nationally funded healthcare system, ultimately, we will be spending less money than we are right now. For example, in Canada, which has a national healthcare system, their healthcare inflation rate is much less than it is here in the United States. And that's because they have one source of funding where the government can sit down with a medical establishment and say, hey, you can't be raising your rate significantly higher than the cost of inflation. That is not the case here in the United States. Doctors' bills are going up, hospital bills are going up. It's an issue that's gonna need a lot of discussion. We don't have to do it the way Canada does. We should do it our own unique way to deal with our own unique circumstances. But we've got to deal with that issue. So those are the two issues that we'll, I think, continuously discuss during the next couple of years. Number one, tax exempt hospitals in terms of their relationships to local communities. Should the local community be obliged to subsidize it? And number two, the more general question in terms of affordable healthcare in the United States of America and in Vermont. How do we have a healthcare system that all people can participate in without worrying about bankrupting their families in the event of a serious illness? Those are the two issues. We've made a good start this year. I think a lot of people are thinking about those issues. There'll be a lot more discussion during the coming years. Okay, now we've just moved about 50 feet here and behind us is some of the campus of the University of Vermont. And the city's relationship to UVM has also been an issue over the last couple of years. And in some ways, it's a parallel issue to the medical center. There is no question that the University of Vermont has an enormous impact on our community. Both, in many instances, a positive impact in terms of the cultural and intellectual activities which they provide, in some cases, a negative impact. Most noteworthy the fact that the city is obliged to provide many, many hundreds of thousands of dollars of services to the university in terms of police protection, fire protection, and other city services. And like the medical center of Vermont, there is no real payment to the city. Last year, we did negotiate with UVM some payment which will be approximately $50,000, I believe, this year for fire fees. It's a spot. Clearly, we have a long way to go. So I think the issue with UVM, once again, is similar to the medical center in that with University of Vermont, what you clearly have is a statewide and a regional facility. It is not a Burlington facility. Should the people of Burlington be obliged to subsidize the University of Vermont, or is that a responsibility for all of the people in the region, all of the people in the state? It is not a Burlington college. That's the first issue. The second issue, which is a little bit different, and one, excuse me, which interests me, is if you look at the state of Vermont, from an intellectual point of view, and you say, okay, where is the intellectual leadership? Where is the institution that provides that leadership? It should be the University of Vermont. And I think it's a fair discussion to say what role is the university playing in that regard? Is it providing that intellectual leadership? Are they asking the hard questions that they should be asking, or really are they, rather than asking those questions, are they part of the establishment themselves? Who sits on the Board of Trustees of the University of Vermont? And I think if you begin to think about that issue in those ways, you'll find like the Medical Center, by the way, and there seems to be almost the revolving door policy that the people who sit on the Medical Center Board of Trustees end up at the University of Vermont, and very often, they are some of the wealthiest, the most powerful people in the community itself. And I think at a time when tuition is going up, at a time when the state people of the State of Vermont put approximately $25 million a year into the university, I think it's timely to examine what we're getting out of that investment, what role the University of Vermont, the University of Vermont Medical School plays in terms of our state. So I think that's an ongoing discussion, and those are the two separate issues there. And I'm one from a financial and tax point, the view of the relationship, the view of the M to the city, should the city of Burlington alone be subsidizing that institution through tax exempt policy forced on us by the state, and second of all, the intellectual role that the University of Vermont is playing in our community. And I should point out maybe as we leave this area that the viewers will recall that several years ago in Burlington, we placed the question on the ballot, and we said to the people of Burlington, how do you feel about U of the M and the medical center paying 25% in taxes of what they would pay if they were not tax exempt? The people of Burlington voted 60-40 for that policy, but the state legislature refused to allow us to carry it out. Okay, I think you know where we are right now. We're on downtown Burlington's waterfront. We're in fact at the foot of College Street right now. And during the last several years, and during the next several years, there's going to be a lot of discussion and a lot of activity taking place down here. The city's goal is to create a waterfront that can be enjoyed by all of its people. We think we have made some real progress during the last year. Let me just briefly summarize some of the activities that have taken place for a start. The entire waterfront area after a lot of debate over the last several years was finally rezoned and rezoned in such a way that I think it will protect the interests of the people of the city of Burlington indefinitely. Essentially, we are trying to make sure that there will be no development down here, which will basically not allow all of our people to enjoy the waterfront. And that was a major landmark. In the southern part of the city, we have acquired from Mobile Oil Beach some seven acres of beachfront. They were very generous and gave it to us as a gift. Those of you who have been to Perkins Pier lately will note that several oil tanks are down there and the park space hasn't significantly expanded. We have new playground facilities there and that's looking better than it's ever looked before. We've got significant new beachfront property in front of Northgate on the northern end of the city as a result of a swap with North Shore developers. And we're outstanding right now, which is at the foot of College Street. Next year, my next year, you're gonna see a very different area. Right here out there in front of us there, we're gonna be having the community boat house. And as I think many viewers will recall last March, the people of Burlington voted overwhelmingly for a $2.8 million bond issue, which enabled us to make significant improvements to Burlington's waterfront. For a start, it enabled us to do work to complete the bicycle path. And that in fact will be done by next summer so that we will have a bicycle path running from the mouth of the Winooskeet all the way to South Burlington. And that's something we're proud of. A lot of people are enjoying that. And also we're gonna be able to build the community boat house that I think many of us are very anxious to see. And that's gonna be located right here at the foot of College Street. That is going to be built on a barge. So in fact, at some point in the future, if we wanna move it, we can move it to another location. The barge was purchased in Galveston, Texas. We came here about a month ago. In fact, this week, the Board of Finance will be looking at five or six different designs for the boat house, which will be built right on top of that barge. They'll be making a selection, I believe, this coming Monday. Work will begin immediately after that. And we hope and expect that that community boat house will be ready for public use in the summertime. The goal of all of this activity, obviously, is to change the situation which we have here right now. We have much of the year. We have an extraordinary resource down here in Burlington's Waterfront. Look across the lake, you see sunsets here that are spectacular. We have the potential to do something extraordinary. We haven't yet done it. We are making progress. More and more people are coming down to the bicycle path, coming down and using the bicycle path along the waterfront using Perkins Pier. So we're making real progress and I think the community boat house will be a significant step forward. While we're on the waterfront, obviously, while we're down here, it's necessary to talk about the pollution of the lake and the work that we're doing on that. The people who have lived in Burlington or lived in this region, for any length of time, they know that there has been a problem here which has existed for decades. And that is that when we have heavy rainfalls, when we have real downpours, our wastewater plants are unable to deal with the problem. And what we have is a combined sewer overflow problem in which the stormwater mixes with our sanitary waste and it goes directly with no treatment whatsoever right into the lake. And last summer, as many people recall, it was necessary for health reasons to close down our city beaches on a number of occasions. We have spent a considerable amount of time and energy negotiating with the state of Vermont to work out a financial arrangement by which once and for all this problem will be dealt with. What we have come up with is a $52 million plan which in fact makes it the single largest, single most expensive and significant environmental protection program in the history of the state of Vermont. We are, as the legislature convenes in the next couple of weeks, we will be working as hard as we can to make certain that we have, that the legislature approves this program. We see it as enormously significant, not just the Burlington, but everybody who enjoys the lake. And my hope is that it will be passed. We have already lined up next year, approximately $10 million worth of work in the old North End and the new North End in terms of sewer separation. And the rest of the work will proceed as quickly as we can and we would hope that within three or four years basically the problem of the lake pollution will be over with once and for all. And that's something that we'll all be very proud of. So I think in terms of the issues that are facing the state, that's probably the most important. And it affects obviously how we enjoy this lake. So to conclude the issue down here, we are making progress next year at this particular location. You'll see this area very, very different. And we hope that next summer we'll be having hundreds, if not thousands of people coming down, renting inexpensive row boats and canoes and paddle boats, a sailboat right down here. There is no place right now. If you're a family and you wanna spend a Saturday or a Sunday down on the waterfront, there is no place down here that you can rent boats inexpensively and that will be the purpose. Also during the winter time is people perhaps do cross country skiing along the bicycle path. This will be a place that people will be able to get some hot chocolate, warm up. And we look forward to that. So we think that in the last year we have made some significant progress. Next year I think you'll see some tangible results in terms of the completion of the bicycle path and the construction of the community boat house. We are now standing in front of the way station here in Brilinkan, which is an emergency shelter which on any given night might have 30 or 40 residents staying here. People who basically cannot afford permanent housing. And standing here brings two things to mind. Number one, of course the housing crisis which exists throughout the country, throughout our state and in our own city in terms of affordable housing. And what is going on is that we are seeing all over America expensive housing being built because there are certain people who have enough money to buy expensive housing and yet we're not seeing affordable housing being built. The immediate reason, the most significant reason as to why we have approximately 3 million homeless people in the United States right now and shelters like this all over the country is essentially the Reagan administration which has cut back on federal aid to housing, to low income housing by about 60 or 70%. And the simple fact is that you need a subsidization to build low income housing and affordable housing. You can't go through the market economy and build that because it will simply be too expensive and people aren't gonna have the income to pay for it. Under the Reagan administration we've seen the cuts and the immediate results are that 3 million people are now sleeping out on the streets. And the second issue, well in terms of housing we have a very serious housing problem here in Brilinkan and throughout the county. Again in terms of affordable housing. I am proud of what we have attempted to do here in Brilinkan, not only doing our best in putting significant sums of money into emergency housing but have tried very hard and with good success in getting the limited amount for federal grants that are available. We have secured not one but two housing development grants. One of them has gone to build the South Meadows Project. Another one will go into building, I believe 80 units of affordable housing off Riverside Avenue. We've also received the federal grant which will significantly upgrade the low income housing projects at Franklin Square and Riverside that we have in the city of Brilink. And also we have created what we think is almost a unique program nationally being the Burlington Community Land Trust program by which we will be able to maintain dozens and dozens eventually of housing units at affordable level. Housing essentially will be taken off to the speculative market and kept affordable to working families and low income families. I think we are attempting to do our best. We have passed some good tenant legislation protecting tenants in Brilinkan. We've got a long way to go. The federal government has a long way to go and the state of Vermont has a long way to go. But even getting off of the issue of housing for a moment, I think standing here in front of the emergency shelter makes us think a little bit about national priorities and why it is that in a nation which has the resources that we have, we have to have emergency shelters while we have to have people sleeping out on the street. At a time in fact during the last year when the number of billionaires has doubled, okay? So when we think about emergency shelters and we think about sleeping out on the street, we should also remember that the wealthiest people in this country are becoming richer that we have doubled the number of billionaires which exist during the last year. Something is quite wrong about the sense of priorities in this country, about whether or not we're really creating two nations, one for the very rich and one for the very poor or whether we're going to get our act together and try to create a society and a nation in which every man and every woman and every child has the right to live decently and we're not doing that right now. As we conclude the show, I think there's perhaps the last thought that I have is that in some ways, I think we are making progress as a nation and I think last month in seeing the Soviet Union and the United States beginning to come together to sit down and talk as rational institutions, rational dialogue in trying to do something about doing away with the one trillion dollars a year which this world is presently spending on weaponry, on ways to kill each other through nuclear weapons or chemical warfare and the superpowers are at least now beginning to sit down, beginning to get rid of some of the nuclear weapons in Europe, that is a major step forward and I think as the year comes to a close, maybe that's the point that we can look back on the last year with perhaps the most joy and the most gratitude is that maybe just maybe a world which seemed to be heading toward nuclear destruction, toward more and more expenditures for weapons of destruction is now beginning to gain an element of sanity and understanding that we can do a lot better. We have a lot better ways to spend money in this country, okay? As we stand here in front of an emergency shelter for homeless people, we can do a lot better with our money than spending more of it on nuclear weaponry and chemical gas, chemical warfare and of course, so can the Soviet Union whose economy is also in horrendous condition. The year is coming to a close, I think it's been a good year for Berlin and it's certainly been an exciting year. A lot of things on the agenda for next year we'll be looking at the issue of daycare, affirmative action for women in city employment, a dozen other important issues. My hope is that more and more people will participate in local government, we need as much help as we can get, we need the diversity of ideas that are out there. So let me simply conclude this program and this is the last program of the year 1987 by wishing all of our viewers a very happy holiday season and a very happy new year to come and we look forward to being with you on many occasions next year. Thank you.