 Well you guys got quiet perfectly on time so I really appreciate it. This introduction is going to be a little bit longer due to the reality of we don't have a sound system for tonight. So first I want to thank Josh from Orca Media. Orca Media is going to post the, or put online, the recording. So if you know people that didn't get to come, then I believe probably Jim's going to put that in the article, that he thinks about this. So thank you Orca Media. Tim Glegro is really the person that's doing all the logistics with the candidates and the questions. So we thank the Herald and then this event is being sponsored in part with the Herald, with the Brookfield Community Partnership. And two things I want to say about the Herald and the Brookfield Community Partnership is basically they exist because they get community support. So in order to pay for the double A batteries that we don't have tonight, we need to do that. We also need you to buy a Herald on your way home next week. Get one for your neighbor, get one for your friend. That's what we literally do. Brookfield Community Partnership's donation box is in the back. The other thing I would say, given there's no sound system, please be respectful. We've all forgotten how to be polite, it seems, during the last couple of years. Let's try to remember tonight. No talking to your neighbor. Let's not cheer for a particular answer that we may or may not like or this isn't a rally. So let's just hold everything till the end. And then they, I think what they decided they're going to try to stand for each individual answer to try to project. Hopefully I'm projected. Tim's going to do the questions. Linda's our wonderful timekeeper. And I think Tim has the goal of we'll be done with the formal questions by 8.15. And then we'll have time for cookies, which we didn't put out before you guys all got set up. Strategy and then at some point we'll kick you out because we have to clean up. All right, well, thank you very much for coming and I'll turn it over to Tim. Cover most of the basics. As you said, there's a lack of a sound system tonight. So if people cannot hear something, please let us know about that earlier so we can adjust our voices. We're going to try to cover as many questions as we can, given the number of candidates we have here. So we're going to limit each response to about a minute. And then we'll have some time at the end of that for a longer closing remarks so we can pick up on anything that we couldn't get to later. And then there's going to be plenty of time afterwards for people to mingle and expound on whatever topics didn't come up in this. So we're going to jump right into this then. Oh, yes, that's a good, good logistical point. 45 seconds, 60 seconds. Well, that makes sense to everyone. Linda's got the time. Thank you. So you'll have a queue to figure out how to wrap things up. So the very first thing I'm going to have everyone do is just go down the line and introduce yourselves and say anything that's relevant to, you know, why you want to run for office and why we start on the end of the day. Sure. Thank you, Brookfielders and neighbors near and far for showing out tonight. I want to first thank the hero of the Randolph and the Old Town Hall of Brookfield and its surrogates for again facilitating tradition of democratic expression. I do hope indeed tonight's conversation is robust and also civil. I am Jay Hooper. I represent the five towns of Brookfield, Braintree, Randolph, Grandville and Roxbury. I'm currently seeking my fourth term, if you can believe that. And I still look 19. But there's a French expression that goes, petit à petit, loser fait son need, which basically translates loosely to little by little the bird makes its nest. And I'm hoping you'll support me to continue building. I'm Wayne Townsend. I was born right here in Randolph at Gifford and I want to thank all of you folks for coming. I'm running for state representative to give all of you the voice that some of you may not have had for a while and to bring some balance to Montpelier so we're not so lopsided in our legislature up there. So I'll be looking to gain your support tonight and be happy to answer all the questions and hope that I pick up your support by the end of that. Thank you. Tonight is extra time. I'm John Clark. I'm from Brookfield. I'm running for Senate against Martinville. I'm a little concerned about suggestions we wouldn't be civil. I've never had anything but civil relationships with these gentlemen including Mark. And we disagree on some issues but I think most of us agree on many of the problems we want to solve if we don't always agree on how to solve them. So as some of you have seen my credentials are I am a former attorney. I have farmed for many years. Those I think are relevant skills. And I remarked to Jackie on the way down that perhaps I should just run as a Democrat but she actually wanted me to do it because if you took the three issues that I'm most focused on which is farming, pensions and reducing regressive practice I could have done so equally as a Democrat. Which I was for my entire life and when I ran for governor I was attacked because I admitted that I had voted for Obama twice. Now I'm being called Mac which I don't have the hat. I've never had the slogan and I don't really fully know why people are trying to label me that way instead of just talking about the issues. So I'm really glad that we talked about the issues tonight. Thank you. Hi I'm Jacqueline Clark. I want to thank you all for having us here and for giving us an opportunity to speak about why we're here and what we want to do. I'm not a politician. I'm a mother, a farmer, a harsh trader and a nurse and I'm here basically to speak out for a lot of my patients who are elderly people and do not feel that they have a voice. And last winter they were coming to me and while I was working at Gifford and telling me that they didn't know how they were going to pay for their heating oil, their food and their prescriptions. So I was working around trying to get coupons for them and trying to do whatever I could to make things affordable. I don't know what I'm going to do this year. So this time I'm not working as a nurse and I feel like I have this opportunity to speak up for them and other people that can't and that's why I'm here. Thank you. I'd also like to thank Conrad Clotilde for her community partnership and for joining this forum again. I'm sorry about that. I will try to speak louder. My name is Lyra Sapkowitz and I'm one of your representatives along with Jay. I'm running for my second term in the house. My wife Jenny and I have been living in Randolph for 20 years. In a few weeks we'll celebrate 20 years in our house here in Randolph. The longer we're here the more we appreciate being here and the more we appreciate all the fine people that we get to be with in this wonderful community. My name is Mark McDonald. I lived a couple miles up the road. My first one to that house in 1947 was a youngster. This has been my community for since then. I served in the Senate. I've served quite a while. I've learned in the Senate that we get things done by working with other people, not by grandstanding or being a loud and vocal dissenter. Sometimes loud and vocal dissenters help the rest of us get to the middle. We go to Montpelier to solve problems and to work with others. Come up there to pick fights. I was very pleased in the last two years that the State of Vermont and the Senate floated a budget out from the Vermont Senate, 30 to nothing. I also have a pension bill that resolves pension issues, 30 to nothing. That's what we do here, not what they do down in Washington. Thank you. Thank you all. Before we get going, I want to say thank you all for running for office because that's really what makes democracy work in this country, is to have people who are willing to sacrifice their time to come to these things and spread ideas. Let me start off with the questions here. Since Jay started this time, we'll just keep rotating down through so Wayne will get the first shot at this one. A lot of people have declined lack of affordable housing in the state. I'd like to know how would you propose the legislature help create more housing, particularly in rural areas like this district? Well, with relatively high housing costs, comes with high taxes and over taxation that we've endured year after year. But on the matter of creating more housing, we'd probably be working with our landowners instead of taxing them out of the state. They've loosened up some of the rules to make it more affordable for the build houses and to be able to run at an affordable rate by not putting more burden on said developers and landowners. Some people may have the option of putting a second apartment in their house or something for a rental unit, but they have to go through all these rules and regulations to be able to do it, so lighten up some of the rules. What Wayne said? I probably can't get up that easily. Actually, he has said it. Our affordable housing programs are actually, as some of you know, very, very expensive. Actually, constructing housing is something like $300 a square foot in many cases. And it is because of the intense regulation. And as much as we want to conserve against unreasonable development, Act 250 has been a little out of control. I think Governor Scott and others agreed with that. I don't want to get rid of it, but I suggest that we reform it. It also very much favors development in existing urban areas and really puts a hindrance on people who want to develop in more rural areas. And a lot of people want to live in rural areas. But in truth, we have kind of a crisis with this booming real estate market that is pushing a lot of people as far as home ownership, which is immediately related to the cost of rentals and other things. So with the rising interest rates, I think that will correct. But I'm not sure how much government could do for that. But we can make it more affordable in the form of reducing electric rates and taxes and fees that are burdening all people. And that would help landlords and tenants as well. Thank you. Well, basically, I think a lot of people that I've talked to about the difficulty with the rental situation in these areas have told me that it's not worth it for them to keep the houses to rent because the taxes are so high. And the way that things are so pro-rentor and not the owner of the house that a lot of these rules make it so that it makes more sense for them to sell, than to sometimes have the property destroyed and then have no recourse and not be able to get the people out of there. So that's one thing that's legislatively, I think, that we could help that a little bit. Also, I already, you know, taxes, but decreasing the electric rates as well and reformat 250. Right now, the state has been putting many programs into place over the last seven years and has been spent already or it's going to spend on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars into housing. So we're really doing a lot. So how does the state do much more? We're going to start to run into problems where who do we actually get to do the work? We're kind of maxed out on our capacity. We're kind of moving, we're pretty much moving full skin ahead as we speak. So those are the, in terms of bringing resources from the state to bear on the housing crisis, that is well underway. And we really ran out of the week for a few more years to see how this all pans out in terms of the regulatory environment who did recently pass Act 250 legislation that will make it easier to develop in downtowns, where people can live in walkable communities and live in places where we really walked about and not in the middle of our forests, which needs to be protected. We spent 90 million dollars this year for housing. We did it in three major areas. First, we changed Act 250 in downtowns. The town that has zoning ordinance that encourages housing or housing development area, Act 250 does not apply. It's gone. We put money into taking second and third floors of villages like towns like Randolph, which don't meet code and following the example set by Randolph with the red lion and bringing them up to code so that people can live downtown and have to drive out five miles to put in mobile homes because that's the only place they can afford. We also have a program that we put in for granting apartments for houses, families that have grandparent, excuse me, mother-in-law apartments to bring them up to code and help them have a separate entrance so they can rent them out to young people. We'll probably discuss later the same old houses being gobbled up by out-of-state folks. And Jay, what's running out? Vermont has very old housing stock. There's quite a lot of houses in Vermont. And if your house has not been weatherized to date, it needs to be. I believe that we need to couple climate mitigation with restoring those houses that local governments would condemn or consider derelict and invest aggressively in fixing that, solving that issue. If you drive through Randolph or Vermont, there are corridors along the downtown. You look left and right and you think, why are these houses in the same condition they were when I, 28-year-old Jay Hooper, was in kindergarten? Affordable housing is a fleeting concept. And I don't know that government itself will solve that problem. But we have to figure out ways to solve other problems at the same time if we're going to make enormous investments in fixing affordable housing in Vermont. Thank you. All right. Next question, John gets to start this one. So Vermont has goals of getting to using 90% renewable energy by 2050, I believe it is. What policies can state government put in place to reach that goal and should it? Well, I think we have to stay within what's feasible. And as a lot of my writing is about, and I'm actually authoring the book that's coming out to address this issue, one of the best programs is weatherization. And it is based on income. So you get more weatherization benefits if you're low income. Whatever we do to improve the environment, one of my big complaints is that what we've been doing is extraordinarily regressive. We talk about helping people with housing, but Vermonters pay $37 million a plus a year according to the DPUC in extra electric rates to find solar panels and EV cars for those who can afford them. If you get solar panels, then you don't have to pay those rates anymore. It's extraordinarily regressive. My background is in tax policy. This is without regard to the effectiveness of such things. Rooftops are raised about twice as expensive as other methods. I ask people to look at my policies because we really need to at least be affordable. And that's the first issue. And the second issue is, do they work? Is it feasible to go to all electric vehicles? It really is not as more people are seeing. And manufacturing solar panels in China has not helped the planet. It accelerates its deterioration. When we're talking about renewable energy, we also have to consider the population here and what they can afford to do. And if we're talking about not allowing people to burn any oil, putting any more oil furnaces in new homes, I think that's going to be kind of regressive with people who are older. I think we kind of have to phase in gradually. And I think that this is going to be difficult to do with the current goals that they have. Also, as far as the L-Car legislation that will administrative rules, only 15% of our monitors support this. This is getting rid of all gas powered vehicles by 2033. And this is going to be really difficult to implement firstly. But if only 15% of our monitors are for this, 65% are against, and 20% are undecided, why are we pushing forward? Why is our government pushing with scores at this time? I think personal responsibility is the answer. 2050 is a quite a long way from now still. It's 2022, so we have another 28 years to get there. That's as long as Jay's been alive. So we really do have time to make these goals in an incremental way. But we do also need to start now and make it important now. One of the things that we should be doing, which we didn't do this past legislative session, was to pass the clean heat standard, which would have really helped us along towards those goals. Instead, we're going to have to go back and do it again next year. So we've lost time. The clean heat standard would allow us to slowly increment so we're going to the next seven years, move towards helping out a thermal sector building alternative energy. And at the same time, it would benefit the lowest income for monitors in most. We could have a debate on this issue in a discussion for three hours on any night. Solar. Solar has allowed us to not have to spend a lot of money on air conditioning in the afternoon. It's a money saver. Clean heat for monitors cannot afford to continue using fossil fuels. And we need to have a system that helps low income for monitors when every 20 or 25 years they've got to put in a new furnace or a new propane furnace. That's the time to help them switch to renewable fuels because if they buy a new oil furnace, they are trapped for the next 20 or 25 years in a diversity of oil prices. We've got to crack that nut and we've got to do it now because for monitors, you use more oil than any other heating source and it's unaffordable. Okay, Jane, go for it. We have to crack that nut whether we like it or not. Vermont, we're a small state, we're a small population. We don't have the economic clout that surrounding states have. And the farther you go, the more you see them. This is one of those topics. Vermont, we do not have a wealth that we get patrolled. We do not produce our own petroleum. We are energy dependent on our neighbors. And what the clean heat standard does, this policy, the idea is to position Vermont ahead of a transitioning marketplace so that we are not tied. Our hands are not tied when the time comes to be able to figure out how to solve that transitional problem. It's going to be uncomfortable for Vermonters' wallets, maybe, but here's the thing, the wholesaler is not actually losing capital. They're transitioning credits and they're able to use that in ways that give Vermonters the opportunity to invest in renewable energy. I'm all for protecting our environment for ourselves and our future generations, but I'm not for pushing already struggling Vermonters into paying for something that they can't afford or taxing them to pay for somebody else's to protect our environment. It's steps that we need to take gradually when we can in what we can afford and there's lots that we can do as individuals to protect our environment as we can, but taxing people and pushing rules and regulations, forcing them to... We've got people that are making the decision, do I buy my food today, do I buy my heat today, or do I buy my medication? We've got some people struggling so bad, I don't even think they can afford another blanket for Christ's sake. Okay, next on the docket here, Jackie gets this one first. What, if anything, should the legislature do to support businesses and job creation in the state? There are a lot of jobs right now that are open and it seems like every store that I go by says, help London, so I think part of it might be that we get some of the people that are not working, working and also in farming. This is a big issue that I've been a proponent of. We need to bring small farms into Vermont. People who want to farm make it easier for them. John and I worked really hard to start a farming business in the Northeast Kingdom to have all kinds of hoops to jump through. We started a cheese processing facility. We built the milk tank room, the milking parlor. We milked goats and cows in the same room, eight and four. And we had to jump through all kinds of hoops and some of them were really not necessary. Also, it makes it very difficult for young farmers to start a business, say, making butter or raw milk cheeses. You can jump over the river and you can sell your cheeses over there, but you can't sell them over here because of the way that our laws are in this state. So, I just think nobody's dying over there, so maybe we should start thinking about that and make it easier for young farmers. Larry? Vermont's unemployment is one of the lowest in the nation has been for quite some time. It really doesn't seem like job creation is really where we need to go. What we really need is to get people to fill the jobs that are currently going on the field. And the best way that we can do that is really just to continue to make Vermont an even more wonderful place to live so that people who have the skills to fill these jobs want to be here, especially younger people, people with families who need child care, who need, you know, good health services, things that we are starting to invest more in and hopefully will continue to do so in the future so that folks want to be here to fill those jobs. Clean heat, weather ice, both for big job creators, put Vermonters to work. And when you get people off fossil fuels and oil, Vermonters spent $700 million a year out of state paying for oil. We didn't have to buy that much oil, that $700 million that gets spent in the state. You spend $700 million in the state, you're creating jobs. Weatherization is jobs. Installing heat pumps is jobs. And getting off fossil fuel is jobs. You're not going to find, you're not going to generate jobs doing the same thing that we've been doing right along. You can't ship $700 million out of the state every year just to heat people's homes. That does need to get into transportation where a similar amount of money is being shipped out of state for automobiles to use gasoline. Tim, would you repeat the question just so I know for sure how I'm going to answer it? Absolutely. What, if anything, should the legislature do to support businesses and job creation in the state? So I think as a member of the House Education Committee, it's been a privilege for me to go door to door and learn that one of the most common sentiments amongst our neighbors is that workforce development is the most important thing for our education, public education system, to consider early on. There are nations like Germany, for instance, I've heard, cited constantly. For the programs about eighth graders, getting familiarized with plumbing or what it would be to pursue an education to become an electrician. It's the technical skills that we're going to need more students in Vermont to grow up understanding. And I believe that if it's a question of how do we develop our workforce, it's going to be earlier than later. And education, the education committee is going to do that. Great. As a legislature, I think that lightening up some of the rules and regulations that keep businesses from coming here would be a good start. And some of the rules and regulations that come along with the younger generation being able to farm where we can grow the food from our land creates a lot of opportunity. Right now, there seems to be plenty of jobs out there. I work at Herman Hartman Homes, which was the former Vermont Castings. I now iron down there 12 hours a night. I actually got tonight off so I could do this debate. I had to get two people to cover my shift, but I pulled it off. So what we do is we make wood stoves that produce heat with renewable energy so that it creates more jobs in the workforce with loggers, woodcutters, along most lines. And it's a renewable energy source, so it's a pretty good thing. We're heat source. Thank you. Well, there's actually a lot we can do. The fundamental foundation of any economy is production. And we need to grow an economy that's now become increasingly dependent on tourism as the national economy declines, and the first thing that goes is tourism. Vermont once had a vibrant agricultural economy. We can again. The very things we see right now in inflation and oil and other things, fertilizers are tripled, or double, I beg your pardon, no tripled in the last two years, all three basic fertilizers. They're going to stay high. Everything that destroyed family farms is going to bring them back to be more productive and more cost-competitive. We have out-of-state markets that we don't need the demand of for Vermont-produced meats. And Mr. Sackwich mentions, you know, more child care and health services. One care of Vermont is costing us millions. It's not including health care. These are bureaucratic policies, and if we're spending $700 million a year for oil, instead we're spending it for solar panels. Instead of buying cars around here, we're buying electric cars around the country, and out-of-state. We need to produce things here because that's the foundation, not services. And the people installing things don't bring the long-term work to us any more than the people that build JP. It's short-term for our people. Long-term, it's making profits for other states and other countries. We need to farm is what we need to do. It's a big business there. All right. Larry gets his first crack at this one. On the ballot this November, Vermont voters are going to be seeing Prop 5, Constitutional Amendment that guarantees abortion rights. How do you feel about that amendment, and if it fails to pass, how should the legislature follow up in that eventuality? Well, I support the amendment. I think it's an important thing for Vermont to have, especially given the recent Supreme Court decision. If it doesn't pass, Vermont already has very strong laws that protect the rights of people to have abortion. And so, I don't think there really would be much fuss to do if the governor signed a bill to not too long ago that helped make that the case. So, this amendment is really about making sure that we have this in place for many years to come. But in the short term, if it doesn't pass, we won't, you know, we won't see any difference in the legislature. All right. The government shouldn't be telling you what to do on healthcare issues. That's not our job. I hope that the amendment passes. If it doesn't, we will be subject, possibly subject to national laws. We've seen Lindsey Gray on the last couple. Women could be in charge of healthcare decisions. They want to speak to their religious counselors. They want to speak to their family. They want to speak, most of all, to their doctors. They should be free to do that and make decisions for themselves. And the government shouldn't be telling them what to do. I fully support a woman's right to consult with her practitioner as to the health of her and her child based on the circumstances of that prospective birth. No doctor, excuse me, most doctors have a moral compass. No hospital does not have an ethics committee. No mother does not have, and that's a maternal intuition as to their offspring. If it comes to a certain threshold that we're going to debate in government as to when said abortion could take place, those institutions would consider that reality accordingly. And as I said, unrestricted access to reproductive rights is something that I supported and would continue to support. Before you go in, I think you missed the very last section. If Prop 5 does not pass, should the legislature take it up again? If Prop 5 doesn't pass, that would be the will of the voters. And I think that that would be a message that the legislature ought to receive loud and clear. Do I think that that's possible? No. I think with this piece of legislation going through the proper channels, it's going to leave it up to all of you to make that conscious decision on how you want to vote, whether you are for it or whether you are against it. I personally think that this piece of legislation was poorly written and wasn't wrote with much consideration due to some of the un-clarities of what can happen and the terms of how long abortion can be performed up until birth, which I personally do not agree with, but I personally think that women should have the say between her and her doctor not to be regulated or controlled by her government. Same question. If it doesn't pass this time, I don't know that we have more concerning things to do in the state to bring affordability and stuff than to try to take another can down the road. Thanks. I'll answer the last first. It's a non-issue. Vermont already has the strongest support laws in the country for abortion after the big battle we had some years ago. Proposal five is an abomination. There are only two countries in the world that have more lax laws than ours, and that's North Korea and China. The role of Roe vs. Wade does not impact for Monts' ability to provide women with abortions. The late-term abortions that we're talking about, abortions that are performed at anybody's choice, Roe vs. Wade did not approve of it. Roe vs. Wade specifically recognized fetal viability at a certain point, and we don't recognize fetal personhood in this state if a pregnant woman is assaulted by a man, a domestic partner, or a drunk person who loses their child. That to me would be putting women's rights first. The government has no business telling people what to do. 90% of Americans oppose late-time abortions, and here in Vermont I think it's about 80%. So I really don't know why this is even necessary. There's no question, there's no legislature with, hey, 30 to zero on a budget that puts on more taxes on us. There's nobody that's going to take away the abortion rights of women late-term abortions. There's no reason to defend them, either they're not performed or they shouldn't. The studies show that, Hi, I'm an ex-OBGIN nurse, and I have special certification in neonatal resuscitation, and maybe I have a little different perspective. But I think first we need to answer the second part first. No one in Vermont is going to lose their rights to have an abortion. Article 22 is very misleading because it's much more radical than Roe vs. Wade, which was trying to strike a balance between the rights of the mother and the rights of the developing life. And I believe that if we're going to push late-term abortions we have to think about what we're doing firstly. But secondly, we have to think about why we're pushing it with 89 to 90% of Vermonters from a Harris-Harvard poll in June of 22 published in Vermont Digger showed that 80 to 90% oppose abortion after six months. Only 10% of the population think abortion should be legal after six months. So why are we pushing the legislation that people already don't agree with? But we have to think about those babies, because we have three choices. This is a fully viable baby. My children were born at 7.5 and 8 months. I'm sorry, is that the first one? Yeah. And I think as Mark pointed out earlier all of these questions could be their own debate if we had that. Let's do it again. Let's start earlier. Cookies first. Okay. Larry started that one. Mark gets the first crack at this one. Vermont has taken steps to address the opioid drug problem including expanded access to treatment services and expanded enforcement. What do you think the state should focus on going forward in the coming session? This is why I wish Ben Jickling were here. Yeah. Ben spent more time on this issue than any one of us. We haven't opened a crisis that came about when the pharmaceutical companies convinced our doctors to prescribe medication for pain. And it's addicted to a lot of folks. One of the things that was shocking about the beginning of the opioid crisis was that it wasn't kids or 20-year-olds. It was 50-year-olds, 40-year-olds, 30-year-olds. I don't have the answer to it. Treatment gets people back into mainstream that you can get them into a program and get them treated before they get sent and all or before something catches up with them and kills them. Chasing down the street level. The street level folks can fill our prisons and not be replaced with more street level sellers. I don't know the answer. I too do not know the answer to that question. Governor Shumlin dedicated, I think almost the entirety, Patsy French could probably Mark was there about solving this issue. And people have complained to me and my colleagues since that the issue has not been solved. And we lawmakers are complicit, I guess, in that failure. For that, I suppose I can say collectively we should apologize. What I would hope to see is an exploration as to the data about the folks who are dealing with addiction that every day you wouldn't think are dealing with addiction. It's more common than you would know. But the way I think that we need to solve addiction is to change the conversation and go in directly not walk but run in the direction of harm reduction. And basically destigmatize the conversation so that ordinary people can have a comfort zone that is expansive enough to discuss this thing. I think we could handle this two different ways. We could keep handling it the way our current legislatures have been doing by coddling a deadly epidemic, by enabling them through these different programs we have giving them drugs to try to get them off of drugs. Or we can take a new approach by electing new representatives and sending them a message and make a stand and stand up for our law enforcement and stop with these catch and release policies and let them know that Vermont is not going to tolerate it and to hopefully distract some of these people from coming to Vermont with these narcotics. I was a special public defender for a number of years in Connecticut during the crack cocaine epidemic there and this fed mill is tens of thousands of times worse. The first wave started with the pharmaceutical industry. Now on the fourth wave or third wave which is the pharmaceutical industry. We're putting more and more people into dependency on suboxone and methadone at taxpayer expense without sufficient counseling so I've actually addressed the Governor's Opioid Coordination Council. I'm a certified recovery coach and I became one. When I learned it was six dollars a dose for heroin. Cheaper than a good six pack of beer. Probably cheaper than perhaps Blue Ribbon. We have to increase police enforcement. Yes, we destigmatize but does anybody see what's happening to these young children and how much this is a crisis grandparents raising their children. We need to bring back enforcement. We're inviting south of the border people to come here and deal drugs and that's why it's so cheap. If we start to incarcerate people who are bringing the drugs here then it will drive up the price and then we can also stop giving people in prison suboxone immediately whenever they want to because it's a prison currency. If you're in prison you would take it. You trade it for drugs or money. South of Vermont's border thank you to clarify. Yes, I mean the cities of New York City and Boston and Springfield, Mass. You can see in the news where the drugs come from. Thank you for being clarified. But they do ultimately come from Mexico by the way. That's where you can follow the Fed bill in the mailbox. I worked with a doctor recently who is a part of the medically assisted treatment program and what all of us found was most of these people aren't they're getting the medically assisted treatment to get them off of the opioids but they're not getting the support and the counseling that they need. If you do one without the other I'm talking about doing the medically assisted treatment without the support and counseling they have a very high rate of recidivism. Starting up we also talked about maybe doing a place where people could get out of their communities so they could be away from the drugs but if they keep the drugs out of Vermont that would be the biggest help for them because they said it's way too easy they said it's easier for them to get heroin than it is for them to get marijuana. So, you know, A, keep the drugs out of Vermont, B, support services and more counseling and more help from families, friends and community members. Larry? Drug use and abuse I think in some cases since tiny memorial part of human condition Education goes a long way towards helping the healthy environments for people to live in goes a long way towards that why do people turn to these substances to begin with? I think it is a really complicated problem and I again don't like some of my other folks up here don't pretend to have an answer which I think is going to make huge improvements into this so we've been fighting these sorts of battles for many many decades we know that prohibition doesn't work we know that standardizing it doesn't work we just have to keep looking for those solutions that work we need to do the science do the experiments and follow the data Okay, thank you guys just to do a quick time check you know what the time is? 7.45 Okay, so we've got a little bit more time Okay, so next question it looks like we're back around to Jay to start this one off so we don't have a lightning round they already are they aren't kind of fast that birdie on that's just getting big so Act 250 requires plans for land development they're first reviewed by the by the board for a number of different items what are your thoughts on Act 250 if you don't feel that it's perfect the way it is how would you propose adjustments to it Sure, good question I think Act 250 for anybody who's not aware Act 250 is the landmark land use policy that Vermont one of the policies Vermont is known for it's I think the 53rd or 54th anniversary of that policy being enacted and at the 50 year mark there was a general consensus in the General Assembly that we ought to review what ways what tweaks we should change to that policy to make it more efficient so that it's not so arduous I'm sure you all have heard one of the most common complaints about the Act 250 process is that it is expensive for the little guy it takes too long to realize the reality of a project the ones that are large and would be economically beneficial to the state of Vermont so yes indeed we should change the policy but so far and I've only got 15 seconds here we've made be latest we've made two attempts two major heavy lift attempts to fix this thing and it failed both times the complexities of the changes that we're making are so climate oriented that we can't agree on there's more work to be done and I support making it easier I think Act 250 was another poorly written piece of legislation I think it could be revamped it does have a few good things in it as far as protecting our environment but I think that if we had some common sense we'd have to go down and do some round tables and come up with a plan that's not going to cost anybody that's looking to build here in Vermont so many hoops to go through and costs associated with it so it would be more encouraged in that way and also having some of the same safeguards to be able to protect their environment because we all want clean water and we know the needs for those overall it could be revamped or redone with some consideration John? I think we all are agreeing that there could always be room for reform one thing I know in tax law we have tax causes that's big as soon as you create a law others squirt out the edges Act 250 has squirted out to just become so big along with our bureaucracy in general but it's imposing a huge tax burden on Vermonters in its implementation it really stifles new investors a lot of businesses don't even want to go through the process and when they do it costs them millions it's also expanded to apply to farms and small farms and as we've heard here it's designed to inhibit any kind of role development and force people into urban developments it's also and I do want to mention that it's part of the problem of affordability it's part of the problem of having jobs and the suboxone and the drug prices are all connected and it is not since we've had drugs like car fentanyl drugs that are so much more potent even than heroin there are whole new forms of drugs out there so it's about economics and the number one cause of addiction is adverse childhood experiences which these children are now having occur so Act 250 relates to building the economy and all the questions we've been talking about it needs to be paired back to be more balanced and more sensitive to the real economic cost that it imposes on businesses I'll speak a little bit from our own experiences Act 250 I've heard loggers also talk about how if you're not a humongous logging operation sorry that you're not always doing exactly what's best for the reforestation by adhering to their laws strictly it's cross prohibitive and the way that they had it before where you could only take off the 10 acre pieces made it so that you had a mega farm and you had all these small places a homestead farm say 30 or 50 acres didn't fall in there Act 250 wasn't helping you or making it feasible so I think that we need to be revamped so it's more realistic for people who want to farm and at the same time hoping to preserve our rural communities very honest like any piece of really complex legislation Act 250 does you know some things really well and some things not as well but on the whole you look around at our landscape and you see how it's different from other places you can thank Act 250 Vermont looks the way it does largely because of Act 250 our landscape would be very different today and I think most of us would agree not in good ways if it wasn't for Act 250 I would probably remember that time well before I did it in my details I spent a lot of time working on Act 250 in my rural natural resources fish and wildlife community there are things that we can absolutely do to make it better but our government is getting in the way we vetoed one of the big bills that we would have loved to have gotten through this past spring it would have made Act 250 much better a much more effective tool to continue in our landscape someone mentioned that Act 250 was poorly written actually it was written pretty well it had a review process based on statewide zoning and the legislature voted for the review process but they voted against the statewide zoning which put the whole thing into pretty much of a pickle but last year for housing recognized that any town that had zoning doesn't have to go through Act 250 zoning if you complete your zoning in any town by town by town you're out of Act 250 agriculture is exempt from Act 250 forestry is exempt from Act 250 agriculture has to follow standard constitutional rules and so it is forestry RAPs thank you recommended agricultural practices be my seven seconds back and the governor has vetoed several Act 250 reforms and I think we'll continue to work with him until we get it worked out alright and Wayne gets to start this one Wayne so in July UVM Medical Center Network requested a nearly 20% increase in the rates for commercial insurance charges and that's just kind of the most recent example very quickly increasing healthcare costs what should the state do to address increasing costs in healthcare what can the state do to stop the increase in healthcare stop interfering with their healthcare system I don't I really don't have an answer for that for the 20% increase in UVM yeah that's just an example yeah I would probably look to the professionals that would be more qualified to answer that question to somebody that's working in healthcare what the money might be I don't have a good answer for that but I'm not going to claim your answer I have a lot to say about it in 30 seconds what care of Vermont is the big problem that's increased many of our costs it is a bureaucratic entity that has cost millions of dollars Doug Hoffer did it on and on two years ago and showed that the salaries of those people were double but they received nationally many of the members also received high salaries to be in hospitals and we have to be patient care by requiring more hoops to jump through with no demonstrable improvement in healthcare for anybody they're pushing nurses and doctors out then we have to hire more out of state nurses at much higher rates we hear about buying out of state oil and doctors and they don't want to stay here it is making it is choking us more bureaucracy Vermont has nearly twice as many state and municipal employees as New Hampshire we don't have their income the number one thing we can do rates for Blue Cross and Blue Shield is set in January for everybody so not just UVM and I've written articles about it and I'm told all of my articles are so horrible read my articles on True North reports which also prints left-wing articles and read my articles they go back about 4 years, 3 years about why one care of Vermont is making patient care worse and it's extraordinarily expensive and it's enriching bureaucrats and it's not doing anything to improve healthcare that's the number one thing we do and hire more nurses at BTC that's true, we need more nurses I'm going to quote some figures from Doug Poffers who is our state auditor he said that it cost us $25.6 million more than it would have paid under the fee for service for Medicaid model and 12 points since its inception in 2017 and 12.7 million by the state in unaccountable expenditures found that one care of Vermont lacked the proper financial oversight to ensure that it spent the money appropriately and I had to jump through their groups and fill out hours of paperwork so instead of spending my time talking to my patients or doing regular nursing jobs and the doctor that I worked with we had to fill out paperwork and go through charts because they don't just want they want, say you're going to prescribe a certain drug and then one care of Vermont says that they need to patient has to be on these other drugs first so that I have to go through the chart and find out when they were on the drugs how long they were on for and if they weren't then they have to put them on those drugs even though that may not be in the patient's best interest and I could talk to you later about some examples of where that's happened very well yours one care of Vermont was an experiment it's a continuing experiment I don't think any other state in the country has a program quite like it and it does not seem to be living up to its promise we have to think about why we have one care of Vermont and it really comes out of the fact that we can twirl at the edges of these problems here at the statewide level but this is really a nationwide problem we're not really going to solve this at the federal level we need some sort of version of Medicare for All that will take on this across state borders because we're not going to solve this as our own little state Mark the way to solve the cost of health care is to kick people off health care systems if you take a look at the states that haven't done Medicaid they simply drop people off and don't cover them in Vermont we are fortunate that we have many many local hospitals you don't have to drive far in Vermont to be served in other states North Carolina for example they did extraordinary consolidation so people that have their own vehicles can get the hospitals 50 miles away and folks that don't are stuck it's not an easy solution the Europeans have figured out how to do it they're not perfect Canada's not perfect but we're still wrestling with this and we live in a rural state pretty darn good health care is that the last one well I'll give the next person 10 seconds well this is yet another question that we really just wish Ben Jickling were here to tell us stop and Wayne I too could not shake a stick at the answer I don't know but I will say that I fundamentally believe that it is wrong for corporations corporate interests to benefit to profit off of ordinary people and their illnesses my understanding is a certain political regime pursued single payer a single payer model and it became evident that that wasn't going to work and in my understanding that was sort of a costly experiment turns out maybe all payer is the prudent alternative I think wiser heads will offer an answer to this question and like I said I don't have one okay this one's this one's sort of a philosophy of governance question so whoever is elected to either of these seats will have to represent people and work with people who vehemently disagree with them so as the elected official what duty do you have to constituents who disagree with you and how would you work with other legislators that disagree with you go for it well as Mark said sometimes it's good to have a critical voice in the room and I think there could have been more critical voices in the rooms over the last couple of years I've heard several people suggest that the clean heat standard needs to be pushed because it's going to help low income homeowners clean heat standard will put a tax on oil I don't see that how that helps low income homeowners I'll be that voice that I'm a conservative so-called actually I just think I do math and I welcome fiscal democrats to join me because everything I will if you look at my policies I'm trying to force everybody to come to the middle we have extremes on both sides frankly we have an extreme progressivism that has increased these costs the only thing I'm designing is to find consensus what can we all agree on we can come together on the pensions which I've been writing about for years are underfunded now the true number is about ten billion dollars on the red that's going to require both sides either you're getting a state pension or you're going to pay the state pension and now when you've got pensioners pitted against taxpayers both sides are going to have to come together our whole nation needs to come together and this is a state where we have civility Jackie I would say that as a nurse I was a patient advocate and as a legislator I would be your advocates because I work for you I don't feel like I'm supposed to go up there and just put my agenda forward I want to know what my constituents think what their feelings are on issues and it's my responsibility to go into that legislature and represent them also I think this country has gotten so divided and so nasty I'm more of a centrist I think the democrats and republicans need to work together to solve our problems stop calling names and being nasty and uncivil to each other and work together in the legislature to solve the problems in Vermont because we're spending so much time trying to call people names that we're not addressing the issues thank you Eric the diversity of voices is critical one of the amazing things about being in the legislature and this I was so impressed with me every day that I was there if you're in a committee room the vast majority of the time 95 plus percent of the time you can't tell by the conversation who's a republican who's a democrat in that room people are there because they want to solve problems the conversations are almost always respectful people's voices are heard and respected and I was super proud to be a part of that process in my committee republicans were in the minority but consistently contributed to legislation and made it better their voices were always heard and taken seriously and I really value having them be a part of the process we need the diversity of voices to make good laws Mark I spend my time going door to door election time in that over 2,500 doors now and most of it involves listening and if you listen to people and get to the second layer of conversations you know what they're worried about same thing in the legislature Harry's way committee rooms, we take witnesses we listen to people they're in Washington DC they don't do that they're on both sides we lost two young republicans this year with families they can't come back to the legislature they came back to the senate they've got to support their families they listened we lost them aggressive we had several older folks we're going to have 10 new people in the senate and helping them learn how to listen and get along work together with our top prime ministers this year I think if you went to state capitol in the session and asked anybody who's been around for a while they would confirm that I'm probably easily described as a recalcitrant democrat I go against the grain at times when I think it's very much a priority for my constituents there are certain constituencies voting blocks that really prefer a different preference to the one of my party which is the majority my two best friends in Montpelier are Casey Tooth a republican from St. Albans and Chris Matos a republican from Milton we're similar in age these two gents are in their early 30s one has kids and the other not we go out to lunch regularly when I first showed up democrats thought that was weird now it's normal I'm trying to prove that ok well you get the final word well it's going to be up to all of you folks on which combination that you send to Montpelier to represent you if you send me to represent you I'll be working with cross party lines and try to bring your voice to them and at these campaigns sometimes they get a little bit heated and sometimes there might be a possibility towards the other one but at the end of the day we all live here together we need to work together and I think we need to sit down do some round table talks and bring more to the table than a thicker battle of the sides of democrat republican so like my friend Jay at the end of the day we're friends whether we disagreed on it or not and like with Jackie she's just a real likeable person so I would work well with her I don't know him long enough to know much about him but at the end of the day I would work with anybody that I'm there to work with all right how are we doing on time 8.07 ok only an hour left yeah I know that's for another question let's take some time and do some closing remarks and that way you all can bring up anything that we that we lost over or that we missed entirely although there's obviously going to be a ton of that but one thing I would ask before you wrap up is make sure to tell people how they can get in touch with you and find out more about your campaigns so I think I think Jackie gets to start this one why don't you suggest 90 seconds yeah that's a great idea Jackie Clark for her that's my facebook page I've never been on facebook before but felt I had to be most incognito now and be more accessible so if you'd like to contact me there I just hope that if you have concerns or things that are important to you that you'd like me to bring to the legislature if I do get elected that you would please contact me like I say we're all neighbors we need to work together we need to do the best of our state and I just wanted to clarify a little something about when we were talking about healthcare and funding how does one care of Vermont translate to higher rates with medicaid and a few cross and blue shield and that's because you're taking a lot of the time from nurses and doctors doing paperwork and becoming paper pushers and so you're having to pay more to do they're spending more time to do their job plus this so it all trickles down and people end up paying more to their healthcare and it may not be as good as it is also I'm an advocate for like I said for people who are elderly and can't speak for themselves and I started out talking about being able to pay for their bills and I think that goes into that clean heat standard but it's going to cost more people money in field participation I also have a Facebook page pretty easy to find I also have a website mostly though I like to talk to people so if you would like to know more about how I feel about me and these topics or anything else please do me a call at 802-249-2280 and I'll be really happy to talk I'd like to respond I'm sensitive you don't want to change the constitution very often so I'd like to come back to our constitutional amendment question that we had and just really emphasize that the language in the amendment is very clear it's really very clear what it says is that nothing will change we'll keep the practice around abortion and reproductive rights in Vermont exactly as it is right now late term abortion is rare in Vermont it is highly regulated in Vermont and it will continue to be so it will not change at all when this new amendment I hope expect passes this November Thank you My opponent has mentioned several times about progressive regressivity in heating in transportation we have regressivity in electricity we try to overcome that the tax on heating all today is appended it hasn't changed excuse me 1% it hasn't changed the tax on propane is 1% it hasn't changed natural gas is 3 cents but natural gas is regulated and there are programs to help people use less natural gas through insulation etc and finally electricity we've done best in electricity let me in the taxes 8% on your electric bill 20 years ago there was no tax on your electric bill 20 years ago Vermont had the highest electric rates in New England and they've been the highest for 20 years the 8% today we start out with a small tax each year it's gone up a little bit that money has been spent to put in better refrigerators better sealing fans better air conditioners etc etc we use 15% less electricity today we did 20 years ago and we have the next most electric rates in New England thank you Jay Hooper 299-6371 that's my cell phone number 728-6659 those are the best it's a telephone call that will best get you in touch with me my house is in Randolph center if I were to not pick up you come slam on my door it's like everybody else I'm seeking my fourth term again I will ask you for your support tonight the reason is because I enjoy this job so thoroughly I think the reason I enjoy it so thoroughly is because I really care to learn about what it is that makes people different from each other what makes you distinctly yourself as to your neighbor what variables really define your perspective on the issues relative to the people around you I'll leave you with this my job understand is not to change your opinions your minds it's to understand them I listen to that and that I hope you will respect and support me I forgot to have Mark say where to track him down Senator Mark at AOL.com awesome go for it Wayne Townsend 53 at yahoo.com or 802-855-1617 if you send me to Montclair we got some key issues that we need to focus on it's going to be affordability safety in our communities and what's being taught to our children in our schools those are some key issues with the struggling of my elders we're now with the costs of everything from over taxation and our 401ks and our stock portfolios have been dwindling I looked at my stock portfolio last night and it was down 20.5% and we steadily dropped today as well so I've been worried about our people at retirement age that had planned and saved and are counting on this and they're not having that money now they're counting on our social security when our seniors have already paid on that money through taxation all the way to that point and now they're on a fixed income and by taxing them on it it's kind of absurd and there's a lot of states that don't tax social security so I think that might be a good start if we could do away with the tax on social security to help our seniors out that are struggling to pay their E their groceries I'm going to be there I'll work with whoever you send me with and I want to hear from you on the issues that you care about because it's you that I'm working for I'm not going up there to work for the government I'm going there to work for the representative the community and my constituents that sent me there Thank you I think what Vermonters want and why so many people are here is not so much controversy but so many are declining and they want to know that people are authentic and that they can trust us and that we can actually give them hope and do something I have spent almost my entire life working for other people I have 30 years on the bar in Connecticut without any ethical one which is I not only worked as a special public defender which is a volunteer position and I should lose money to do that but in juvenile court in probate court where I dealt with people with Alzheimer's where people were flows into our practices because I always felt it was my job to do pro bono to give back and some have criticized me for leaving my law practice early I should clarify I was destroyed with Lyme disease and it manifested this fibromyalgia syndrome and I have struggled with it for years that's why I don't have a 401k I don't have a savings account I live paycheck to paycheck or whatever money we could script buy and that's why I relate to people on low income it says we've only got a 1% tax here he wants to raise it they want to raise the heat standard put a tax on it we can't afford it and it's hurting those this is regressive taxation not progressive, unable to party but regressive my top three issues are farming but also the pensions I've been writing about it for years it's much worse than they're saying because even in this manage now we're in a crisis and the regressive tax structures and the pensions to do and I can give you hope and I'm actually going to repeal that net metering part that hurts low income that's immediate money in people's pockets and that's what will build the true economy now's my chance to go over because those people have more money to spend in our businesses and spend in our remote businesses thank you all right last thing John Clark22.com or Clark4Senate.com and my e-mail is really easy and very grateful thank you all right thank you everyone that was incredibly productive I think obviously like we said earlier this is just a very small sampling of the issues that our representatives are going to face in Montpelier so people in the audience who have questions please track them down and everyone let's go enjoy some cookies