 Thank you all for being here. Of course, I'm sure most people know me. I'm Christine Holakwis. I was the Democratic candidate for governor this last session, this last election period. And I'm here today really to talk about some disappointment I have. And I'm going to say, first I'm going to frame that with the fact that I think the legislature is doing as good a job as possible within the parameters that they're stuck with. But this is really a message to Vermont. And it really starts with the issue of the minimum wage. I spoke to a building conference this morning, and I showed a bunch of charts. The charts show that median family income hasn't gone up since the early 80s, yet the cost of housing has gone up dramatically. So we're in this situation where we're continuing to see this massive transfer of wealth, which, of course, for construction folks and building folks, that means their market for big homes goes down. And they got to think about, how are we going to, our next generation that has no money because they're getting paid so poorly, they're so saddled with college debt. And this is a reflection on our values as a state. And I'm highly disappointed because the idea that we're going to lose jobs when we've got the lowest unemployment rate in history, 2.2%, and we're still arguing about what it's going to do to jobs, I'm highly disappointed. And if you look at the legislature, they've got to make those tough decisions. And I know I don't have to make those tough decisions. Where the money's going to be spent. But certainly when it comes to minimum wage, this is a case of where we're putting our values. So I call on Vermonters to think about rural Vermont, where I spend all my time, and where 50% of the people are just struggling to make ends meet. And creating a living wage should be our goal. It should be a long-term goal. And that's where I'm going to get to my criticism of the government, about we need leadership here. We need a long-term vision that's going to help get Vermont out of where we are today. Of course, the legislature every year has to fight and battle for every nickel and dime and where it has to go. And they do a good job with what they've got. But I expect a leader to build a long-term plan to get us out of here. And I call on the governor to get your butt out of Montpelier, get down to Washington, and get $200 million of that $20 billion in broadband funding that's made available. And of course, the governor is going to say to me, I'm sure, is that, oh, that's for 5G networks. Now, you're not at the table. Go down there and fight our case. 5G isn't going to work in Vermont. We've got to get fibered every home. We rightfully should get $200 million of that $2 billion money. You've got to be at the table in order to be able to get some of the benefits. And oh, by the way, governor, go speak with Ron DeSantis in Arkansas, the governor of Arkansas. He's a Republican, and no buts. And Arkansas is doing an absolutely phenomenal job better than any other state in the nation in order to get broadband out. So please go down and talk to Rob DeSantis and do a good study of what they're doing. You don't need to be a rocket scientist. You have rocket scientists working for you. But you, as a leader, speak with your feet. And your feet aren't speaking right now in terms of long-term economic development. And then I'm going to move to climate change. We are in a serious situation. I tell people that if you don't believe in climate change, I promise you will in the next 10 years. Misery is the greatest predictor of change. And I recognize that the governor's accord, 19 governors have signed on to solve climate change and their majority Democrats. But go meet with that governor's accord and sign up Vermont. I know we're 2-tenths of 1% of the national population. At the same time, we're a small state. As a governor, you've got 626,000 people. You don't have the millions of people in the other state. So you've got time. You've got time to get out there. You've got time to speak with these other states that are working on climate change. We can pull together and solve this issue. We're at, you know, it's clear to me I'll talk about our infrastructure costs. Two weeks ago, I was down. I met with Gene Diderot. He's the US comptroller. The GAO, the government accountability office, they're top concern. And they're the people that run the numbers. This isn't a political office. Their top concern is what the cost of climate change is doing to us today already. FEMA's going to rat out of money. Our storm costs have increased five-fold since 2007. And let me tell you something else. We've got a $22 trillion deficit. And that works out to $450,000 for every man, woman, and children. So I'm a little ashamed of my generation. You know, we've lived off the great work of our parents. We spent half the money our parents did in terms of gross domestic dollar on infrastructure. And we kick our problems down the road, whether it's financial or whether it's climate change. And we need a leader. And I call on Governor Scott to be that leader, to get out of Montpelier. Go talk about what the best practices are and bring them back to Vermont. Please become a leader. Don't be spending your time fighting with these smart folks of the legislature who know how to manage every dollar. That's not your job. Your job is to provide a future for us. And I'm asking you to do that. Thank you. I'd like to introduce Jubilee. Hi, I'm Jubilee McGill. I'm a member leader of the Rights and Democracy Vermont. And I'm on their statewide leadership committee. I'm also the senior property manager for the Addison County Community Trust, the nonprofit affordable housing trust in my county. Fueled by my own experience living in poverty and bearing witness to the experiences of my tenants, I have committed much of my free time over the past two years to rights and democracies raise up Vermont campaign. To ensure that our state's most vulnerable citizens are on a solid path to making a fair, livable wage and that they have access to a paid family and medical leave insurance program that would benefit every working Vermonter during their lifetime. Far too often, workers across the state are forced to choose between keeping their jobs and taking care of themselves or providing care to a loved one. I see this frequently in my work as a housing manager and it is a huge barrier that only works to keep people in poverty. I am disappointed that medical leave was cut out of this bill and I implore our legislators to restore at least a few weeks of medical time to the bill so that we can more easily build on that in future sessions. I also call upon our legislators to come together to pass a strong minimum wage bill. Working so hard to barely meet your basic needs causes an extreme amount of stress. There are no good outcomes when one endures this type of stress long term. It can cause complete mental anguish. Some are tempted to commit crimes to survive, others seek solace or refuge, even if only fleeting, in life-destroying substances. The effects ricochet throughout our community and have lasting effects on all of our lives. We need to look past the short-term costs of these types of bills and recognize all the long-term games that will make possible for our citizens and our futures. Last summer and fall, Democrats, progressives, and independents across the entire state united. We came together and we made phone calls. We knocked on doors. We donated money all because we were sold a vision of a veto-proof majority, and that this veto-proof majority would allow us to finally get these and many other great bills passed. And I know many of these same people joined me in feeling disillusioned at the end of this legislative session. We loud ourselves on being a citizen's legislator, a representative government, and I'm sure there are a few groups in Vermont feeling very represented right now. But for me and many like me, this session has highlighted the crucial need for all citizens to be represented and reflected in our government. You'll hear more about this later, but this is why Brenda Siegel and I have co-founded All of Us, an organization to really examine how we define leadership in this state and how to help low-income Vermonters run for office. This legislative session has made it quite clear that we need more diverse voices at the table, and our hope is to create a government that is reflected of all of our people. Now, it is my pleasure to introduce Tanya Vihovsky, former candidate for state rep in Chittenden 81, and she is also a wonderful rights and democracy leader. Thank you, Jubilee. I'm Tanya Vihovsky. And as Jubilee said, I did run for office. I'm also the vice president of the Vermont Board of the National Association of Social Workers, and I see these struggles in my office every day. I ran for office because of that, because too many Vermonters have been struggling for far too long with low wages and an astronomically high cost of living. When I ran, I met people faced with this struggle every day who were wondering what to do. Too many people here cannot afford to live. I grew up in a working class single parent household, and we struggled. My mother did her best to hide those struggles and I still knew. I knew she couldn't always afford the things that we needed, not because she wasn't working hard, but because the system was rigged against her. She worked all of the time, leaving us kids to fend for ourselves, and I too have struggled in low wage jobs, even in the jobs where I've earned a reasonable living wage. I've not always been able to make ends meet. Christine spoke of tough choices. I've had to make difficult choices, like choosing between rent and needed health care, because I couldn't possibly afford both. We cannot keep asking people to choose between needed medical care and homelessness. We cannot keep asking people to choose between caring for their families and holding down a job. This is unacceptable. Low wages hurt the majority of people, and we have to stop letting our economy operate at the expense of the people and climate. I know for many of the legislators that are discussing minimum wage and other economic justice bills like paid family leave and universal health care that these conversations have become purely intellectual. They are voting to raise wages more slowly and seem not to realize that while they ask us to wait yet again, people are suffering and dying. We see you caving to the pressures of the voices backed by money and lobbyists. It's time for regular people to have the same representation as those with the money. If we have to get loud, we will, because we don't have a lobbyist. We can't afford one. People are struggling with the stress of not knowing if they can afford their daily expenses where their next meal will come from or whether our climate will support life in the next 10 years. Those struggles are overwhelming, and they damage our mental and physical health. We should all know of the long-term damages of this kind of toxic stress. This is what I work with every day. When we talk about raising the wage, we need to think about every child who is being raised in poverty, every mother who is stressed about whether she can feed her baby, every pregnant person who is delivering toxic doses of stress to their unborn child, every college student wondering if they can make it through the semester or if they need to work more to afford housing and food. I agree, the issue is complicated. That child in poverty is the same child we spend huge amounts of money on in our school systems because they're too hungry and stressed to learn or be attentive in the classroom. That pregnant person is the same person showing up in our emergency department with high blood pressure, little prenatal care and astronomical health care expenses because she can't afford or access preventive care. And these families are suffering and dying young and have been waiting too long for a much needed cost of living adjustment. Nobody in the wealthiest nation in America should live in poverty being thrown nickels and dimes as our gatekeepers fight to protect those people's employers. Exploitation is never a valid business model. And if you cannot afford to pay a living wage, then you cannot afford to be in business. It is time that the people had real champions that will stand up for them. Thank you to the champions in this building who are standing up, we see you. I want to see more champions ready to fight, more regular people who understand these struggles under in these halls, sitting in these seats and fighting for people. So don't leave Vermont, stand up, fight back. No matter whether you're fighting for climate inaction or whether you're fighting because we've stalled to clean up our waterways or whether you're fighting for the people dying without access to the opiate supports that they need, like decriminalized buprenorphine, or whether you're fighting the flawed inequitable funding system in our schools, we have a lot to fight for. Run for those seats, bring your voice to the table. We need all of our voices to be heard and we need you. It is my pleasure to next introduce Teddy, who is a Barry City counselor. He ran for one of those seats so he could fight for all of us. Thank you very much. My name is Teddy Wozzecz. I am a city counselor in Barry and a board member and state leadership committee member for rights and democracy. I am also a proud and staunch member of the Democratic Party. I am a Democrat because I am the grandson of a Navy veteran who worked in a freezer for 30 years. I am a Democrat because I am the son of a construction worker. I am a Democrat because the Democratic Party is, or at least should be, the party of the working people, the low income people, the middle class, and of Main Street. I am here to call on the Democratic majority of this legislature to, as Teddy Kennedy called in 1980, renew the commitment of the Democratic Party to the cause of economic justice, the cause for which the Democratic Party has stood for in its finest hours. I am here to call on the Democratic majority of the Vermont legislature to pass $15 an hour by no later than 2024. I also would like to point out that this, I'd like to point out the fact that this is not a Democratic Party issue. Unions, faith communities, advocacy groups, the Vermont Progressive Party, small business groups, all agree that in the United States and especially in Vermont, folks need and deserve a living wage. And the facts on this are very clear. $15 an hour goes no further than restoring the purchasing power to the minimum wage that has been lost since the 1970s. Had minimum wage kept track with the rate of inflation, we'd be looking at over $20 an hour today. Tens of thousands of people, including over 2,000 of which live in my home community of Barrie, are living in poverty. People are starving and they need a raise. Additionally, the average minimum wage worker is not a teenager, they are not a student. They are a woman, a mother in her late 30s who is struggling to make ends meet. And in Massachusetts where they have already implemented their path to 15 an hour, they were recently rated for the highest small business growth in the country. These facts are at the core of who I am as a member of the Democratic Party. The party of the people must stand with and for the people. Not businesses, not special interests and not the wealthy few. 80 years ago, in 1938 under the leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the United States instituted the first minimum wage. For 80 years, we have been working towards a living wage and we will not wait any longer. If there are Democrats who do not believe that people deserve a living wage, then let them vote that way and then let them face their constituencies in the next election. But I will not excuse Democrats, especially Democratic leadership who abandoned the base of the party, the working class and low income people of the United States and the state of Vermont. They are with whom our priorities and obligations must lie. Thank you. And I would like to introduce Brenda Siegel former Democratic candidates for governor. Last year I ran for governor in the Democratic primary and I ran because I knew that unless and until we have all of the voices at the table, we are not going to see the changes that we want and need to see across this state and across this country. The promises that I made folks as I made my way around the state were not conditional on me winning. They were all things that I had already been fighting for for years and years and would continue to fight for no matter what the outcome was. Which is why I spent this year doing just that, writing op-eds, being a presence on many issues but this year primarily opioid policy, in the state house, talking to legislators and going out into the community and participating in actions and forums and that create change like I am here today. The issues that we're talking about today are intersectional. The fact that we did not do enough on climate justice, broadband, economic justice, racial justice, opioid policy and beyond is an understatement. Barely anything on most of these issues this session. It wasn't just not enough, it was almost nothing. And each of them impacts the other. So to use the governor's new favorite word in the aggregate, it amounts to crumbs. Throughout the legislative session, I have watched as the needs of the most marginalized people were compromised away time and time again. I watched sometimes patiently and sometimes less so. In hopes that the session, when the session went out, our legislators would fix the places where the legislation that was being created was weak. As we know, that did not happen. It just got worse. I was excited at the number of opioid policies proposed in legislation. I was in awe as I watched climate activists rally, protest, walk, lobby and protest some more. Then, like many of you, I am disappointed. As I see the legislative session come to an end in an uninspiring business as usual way that does not even come close to adequately addressing the needs of those who need it most and our earth. As many of you know, I am a low-income single mom. I had more health than some and less than others in my position. And still my child has not always had all that he should have. What upsets me the most is knowing that across from Mont, there are new moms and dads right now who are facing lives where they will struggle as I have or more so in the raising of their children. There is a single mom living in West Brattleboro as I did when my son was a baby who will not have enough money for gas. So she will, like I did, pull her child on a sled three miles downtown at 4.30 in the morning in order to get to work on time. Her child will have fun, but she will be cold and tired and there will be tears in her eyes. There are parents who will skip meals in order to feed their children. And many of them will come home more than once in their lifetime to the power of being shut off. What is worse, their children will reach an age where they are aware of the struggle, where they offer their moms their food, where they don't ask for what they need because they know that their parents can't afford it. We can and must do better. What do we do when those with the least have no voice? When we elect people to represent us, we expect them to represent all of us and to put people at the center of the conversation. What happens when the structure of the system means that those who most need strong policy have no power? As we have heard today, last week, the House approved an extremely watered-down minimum wage bill. This bill is not a compromise, it's a cop-out. Best case scenario, we get to $15 by 2026, never getting to a livable wage equivalent. And more likely, 2028 or 2030, but worst case scenario, 2040. One legislator I know voted no even on that and I asked her why. She said, I can't stand to see these businesses close and she gave a few examples. To her, I ask, can you stand to see a mom who can't feed her family? Is it okay with you to see a family who can't heat their house in the winter? Why is it harder for you to see a business close than a person who has no home because they simply can't afford to survive because of the rate of pay that we have dealt them? Where are your priorities? It is not and has never been us versus them. When we have money, we will spend it in those stores around us. When families can survive, our businesses will thrive. Let me tell you a story. This weekend, my son asked for some cash. I didn't have much on me. I gave him the $3 I could easily find and then was scrounging my bag for more. Ironically, I pulled out 11 cents, the amount that one of the anticipated raises in the schedule of the house passed. I held out my hand to give it to him and he said, no thanks, that doesn't really help. He didn't even know that this was one of the raises. I thought, my sentiments exactly, point made. First, we need to remember the $15 was not a random number. It was a livable wage equivalent in that timeframe for a single person, not even a single person with children. Earlier this session, the Senate passed minimum wage by 2024. This is what we expected the house to do as well. Please don't tell us this is a compromise. This is how legislation is made. We have been compromising on this for years. When it went from 2020 to 2022, I said, come on friends, this is still good. When it went from 2022 to 2024, I said, let's not let perfect be the enemy of good friends. It's the best they could do. It's a good bill. We have to have a line in which we would walk away from a bad deal. This is mine. The house minimum wage bill itself is crumbs. It is nothing. It is raises that are so small that most people wouldn't bend over to pick up the change if they saw it on the ground. It will also eliminate the motivation to go back and do better. I would prefer that the legislature enact a two-year, slightly higher raise that forces us to come back in two years and do more. We're past nothing this year and spend the summer fixing it. Paid family and medical leave as it passed the house had people with the least money, those making under $11,000 a year paying the tax on the benefit, but not giving access to the benefit. So those with the least are paying in and getting nothing. I don't understand how that seemed like an okay piece of legislation. I said nothing at the time. I hope the Senate would fix it. I hope that all the policies together would equal more than crumbs. I still had hope at that time for meaningful change. But it didn't happen. It just got worse. The Senate took out medical leave. So now it's just paid family leave and no medical leave insurance. I listened to Senator Kitchell explain to my friends, Kate and Jubilee who you've seen here today on why she voted no on paid family leave. Basically, she said, the bill did not help those with the least and gave more to people who already have more while we are underfunding our social service programs. It was hard to argue with that. Last this year, I've spent most of the time in the state house advocating for opioid policy. That has the potential to actually save lives. H162 to decriminalize misdemeanor amounts of buprenorphine. And I watched it get testimony and more testimony and more testimony. I knew that the votes were there because I counted and counted. Not only did I watch them choose not to vote out that policy, but they did exactly nothing to try to save the lives of people suffering from opioid use disorder in our state this session. The house passed two bills that are nothing more than admitted the house and Senate passed two bills that are nothing more than administrative tweaks. One that could do something very small for people was removing prior authorizations for a life-saving medication, but they cut people on Medicaid out of that bill and opted for a study. The majority of people with opioid use disorder are on Medicaid. I don't know if it was the chair of that committee or leadership that decided not to move on H162, but what I do know is that the votes were there and the bill did not move. I can't excuse that. People are dying. When Andrew Black tragically died earlier this year, our legislature acted immediately in an attempt to save lives. They passed a 24-hour waiting period, as they should have. They heard the cries of Andrew Black's parents. I have to ask why the same was not done when Kaya Siegel died or the ones that came before him. How come Kaya's life being lost does not inspire us to do more? Is his life not worth the same value? I would argue that it's stigma. I would ask Mitzi Johnson, Tim Ash, Becca Ballin and Governor Scott and all the legislators in this building to ask themselves why his life mattered less because there will be at least another 100 parents who will bury their children this year due to the overdose crisis as my family did ours. And it is safe to say that some of those lives would have been saved if we had tried to save them. People with the least continue to not have enough by design of the powerless stay powerless and those with power gain more. Thank you to the 21 legislators in the House who stood up for the Chestnut Tangerment Amendment to give money to Medicaid funding and restore a faster timeline that reaches the livable wage equivalent in 2024. Thank you to Jubilee McGill who's not here right now for helping me start all of us to help low income people run for office. I suggest you all run. That's the only way we're gonna change this. I am saddened by those who did not stand up for the Chestnut Tangerment Amendment. It mattered. It wasn't going to pass but for families like mine it mattered to see you stand up for us. I am no longer interested in the political game. I want meaningful change. If not now then when? If not here then where? If not these legislators then who? We know that we have many allies in the legislature who have been under pressure to compromise. We ask our representatives and senators to center people and the environment in all of your policies. We ask the political courage be taken to make real meaningful change. It is time. We send you to Montpelier to do better. Don't tell us why you couldn't. Just do better. Thank you very much and we'll take questions if anybody has any. Okay so Christine and Christine Hall-Quest and myself called this press conference and we're doing it in conjunction with rights and democracy. It just happened to work with the timing and we happen to agree with the cause. And also I'm a member leader also of rights and democracy. The other option that I laid out is that we could do a slightly steeper increase than is in the House bill over the next two years so that we can come back in two years and actually be motivated to continue this process of getting to 15. So it's not that we're not willing to compromise, it's that there's gotta be a compromise that's better than throwing us crumbs and asking us to be grateful.