 Good evening and welcome to ongoing election coverage from town meeting television tonight we're covering the Burlington Central District will be joined by candidates Tiki Arshambo independent also Perry Freeman the incumbent progressive and Peggy Lures also an independent buying for city council seat in Burlington. This is one of many of the forms we're doing advance of local town elections on town meeting day which of course is the first Tuesday in March that's March the 2nd from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. if you're voting in person you should be hopefully reaching out to your town clerk now and coming up with a plan to vote and be engaged for town meeting day. Town meeting day television is your opportunity to learn about the candidates and issues that you'll see on the ballot when you get there in March. If you're watching this live we welcome your questions at 802-862-3966 again that's 802-862-3966 please note that when you do ask questions that will frame those questions to each of the candidates each candidate is a chance to respond to it and remember that throughout the election season and in lead up to town meeting day you can watch town meeting TV on Comcast via channel 1087 Burlington Telecom channel 17 and 217 and also town meeting TV's YouTube page. So for tonight's forum candidates will be allowed one minute to provide an opening statement where the general question will be please tell us why you're running and what would be different from Burlington if you are elected. As we go through questions and it looks like we have a large list of calling questions and we'll go to those mostly first but candidates will have two minutes to respond to each question and we'll rotate who answers first starting first with the incumbent in terms of who will answer first. Each candidate will also be given an opportunity to ask a question of other candidates if our time allows. If a candidate's addressed during a answer they'll have 30 seconds for rebuttal and candidates will also hopefully have 30 seconds available for closing comments. And tonight's we'll use two time cards one to indicate that there's 15 seconds left in the answer period and one to indicate that time is up and please stop and we'll try to give everybody equal air time. So with that I'm going to turn it back towards the candidates and we're going to start with opening statements and we'll start with you and come at Perry Freeman. Thank you Seth. Yep. So my name is Perry Freeman. I'm the city counselor for the Central District. You know one of my main goals as a city counselor and getting involved in local politics was to really make city governance and and our you know local spaces as inclusive and equitable as possible. It's important that people who have been historically marginalized and vulnerable in our community are at the center of policymaking. That's something I've really strived for. You know largely I've passed policy around the climate emergency was something I worked on. It also was helpful in crafting the reparations task force which is now underway and it was also very much involved in the work towards building a new oversight for police discipline and have also focused sort of on general policing issues as well. And you know going forward issues around livable wages will be something that I want to focus on you know continuing to mitigate the climate crisis as well as thinking about solutions for you know how to make Burlington truly affordable. So I really appreciate your time tonight and yeah thank you. Great. Next up we'll welcome an opening statement from Tiki. Thank you very much. So my name is Tiki Arshambo. I live on Cromby Street in the Old North End. I have been here 20 years. It landed here after traveling in search of the best place to live right and just found Burlington really felt like home to me and when all the events lined up after we got here just made a lot of sense that you know we knew we made the right decision. Really contented and active throughout all those years doing a lot of neighborhood things started the Cromby Street Fest which turned into the Old North End Ramble been on CDBG grant boards you know I'm currently on the Public Works Commission been on it for nine years three of which I chaired. So you know try to stay active. I think rather contented all these years except now of just feeling like I have enough concerns that it's worth throwing my hat and just want to give people another choice in this race here and try to try to strive towards a Burlington that just feels like a Burlington that you know our neighborhoods have come to enjoy. So thank you for the introduction. Thank you Tiki. Now we'll move to Peggy Lures. I'm Peggy Lures and I my will work for my neighbors not for a party and I will work for a sustainable community as and truly low income housing and I also am extremely concerned about our city being prepared for the future and the built environment. I've been a builder. I have graduate studies and ecological design and ecological economics and I don't see enough attention being paid to that because this is our future and we're not meeting it. We're you know the current mayor is kind of repeating you know it's gotten us into developments that are all about developers which is and I think we need to serve the community more. I spent 10 years in City Hall being the director of the Burlington Women's Council. We were named as one of the reasons for the Livable City Award for the city and I helped get do a lot of work for women in the trades and get that started. It was step up for women. It's now Vermont Works for Women but that was all started with the Women's Council in conjunction with the Community Economic Development Office and I know some of the poorest people in our city are women particularly single moms so I would still like to see programming that helps out women in those situations. I support racial justice and I support demilitarizing our police. Okay. Thank you Peggy. Thanks to candidates for staying on time. As I said we have a very active phone line today. Lots of folks interested in this race so we'll turn right to the phone lines in Aiden Studio. Do we have our first question? Okay. Hi I'm Betsy Allen-Pottenbaker. Are you ready to hear me? Yes we can. Okay. I am calling with a question for the candidates. Perry you have a prominent video on your campaign Facebook page that shows you chanting all police have got to go while you're marching down the street and for all the candidates I'm wondering if you support disarming police and or abolishing police altogether or do you support a more reform-minded approach that combines considerations for both racial justice and public safety and can you share your distinctions also between activism and policy making? Thanks. Great so Perry since you were evoked in the caller's comments and also the incumbent give you an opportunity to answer first. Sure thank you. I'm going to set my own timer too so I don't go over time. Yeah thank you for calling in and asking this question. There is a long history of folks being in elected office who have taken place in social social movements in the course of in our history. Some that come to mind that I really admire. Cory Bush for example was just elected to the House of Representatives has stood with Black Lives Matter activist Kamala Harris who's our vice president has stood with Black Lives Matter protests. That chant in particular is not one that I particularly recall. Do I stand in solidarity with that movement? Absolutely and I feel like marching in the streets with folks is an example of that solidarity and just because I'm an elected official doesn't mean I'm going to renounce my solidarity with social movements which also come which often come from a place of disenfranchised power and looking to address those those issues. Sorry that's a there are many facets so let me get to the other ones. In terms of reform versus abolition this is a question that's come up a lot lately because there are ways in which reform measures have come under criticism. I think at this point we're taking a multifaceted approach. The oversight policy on police discipline is a reform measure. I work very very hard on that. There is no one who is in an abolition movement that would say that that was an abolitionist policy. I think if you're talking about reducing firearms, this is such a long question so I feel like I'm going to go over reducing firearms or reducing the size of the department. I think those are more in the vein of abolition and I think do speak to a history and a tradition of looking at ways in which we can move beyond a community where public safety moves beyond the need for police. I think we are we are having conversations about the need for a multifaceted approach. I'm out of time so thank you for the question. We'll try to circle back to this issue a bit later. Peggy Lewis would you like to pick up the caller's question next? Sure I did work with the police one for the 10 years that I was in the city hall and we managed to do some amazing things like get a woman into the police department who would check over all of the domestic violence responses from the Burlington police department and upgraded them. I will call for demilitarizing the police. I think the federal government sending all kinds of military equipment to the police is something we don't need and I would call for diversifying the police budget so that when we so that there's part of the budget would go to more like social workers and other people who could handle people with mental mental illness problems and things like that where there's been some really violent response from the police because they don't know this is not the situation they know how to handle. I think the police need to be trained better so they don't take a militarized response and I think it would be fine to diversify the budget so that other so that part of it could go to a different kind of response team that's worked really well in some other cities and I certainly think it could work in Burlington and I would I would say that my experience with the Burlington police is you know there's a mixed bag there were good police officer and I think one of our main main police problems is that when there is a bad apple there the police tend to surround them rather than make them accountable so I would I would look for some community response on accountability in our police department. Great thank you Peggy. Sikyarishinbo we'll go to you next. We will actually ask if candidates could mute themselves as Parade brought up earlier that would be great we are getting a little bit of feedback a lot. Thank you. Yo good Seth okay uh yeah so you know this is getting all the the energy in the room right what I think is really important is that recognizing first and foremost we have a lot of common ground in Burlington right now I don't know that I've heard from anyone who does not agree with reform or accountability or racial justice uh Burlington's unique in that sense we don't face the same struggles that so many other cities are right now and here we are divided and kind of it's confounding to me in a way that we could be so divided right now when we're all we all have such common ground so I suppose the devil is in the details right I look at the timeline for example of this council including representative I'm sorry counselor Freeman in in cutting the police budget last summer 30 without a plan that was concerning to me I want to note that if we follow that timeline along that only now just now an RFP went out to develop that plan and then Monday night the the council dug in its heels and said well we know that the cap should be 74 for example we can't tinker with that there's not even a plan on the table so I have to question what's going on you know in some way there's basic governance that has to be covered and again we're all open-minded like great let's get this plan together you know let's get the consultants I'm eager to hear what they have to say you know outside opinions are important but you don't you don't slash and burn before you have that plan in place what happens when you do that well you create fear in a community that's exactly what we have right now we talk about unintended consequences you have the fire department submitted a memo to the council saying they will be unable to provide overnight services if the police do the same because they will not report to a lot of the calls without police makes sense so we're starting to see a domino effect already and and I get it you know there's going to be data cited that oh well our overnight calls are low and there's nothing going on well yeah because we're in a pandemic right everything's really pretty chill right now but we're a town where we have festivals we have a growing city population every fall with the university just in summary again i'm not a verse to reform our ideas i think even the police are into that we got to set realistic expectations for the officers before we move forward here so that that's my vision thank you thank you all front of information yes what's the what's the process for rebuttals is it just as requested or we can provide up to 30 seconds for a rebuttal yes for any unlimited yes yeah that's fine well we would stop each of you after doing one but yes you can you can each take an additional 30 seconds if there's an issue with the other candidate's response if you like but we can only have one rebuttal or we can you can evoke it on each issue if you oh wow that's a lot um can i quickly just respond sure thank you um yeah i just i i there are issues in the language around the fact that like what the council did in june created fear or what is happening now has divided us when black and brown people in the city have been living in fear for a very long time because of data and statistics that show that the police department does not fairly and equitably treat those members of our community the same as white folks so it it's frustrating that now that we're moving to me now that we're moving forward with changing things people are saying well i don't feel safe and this is fearful and this is dividing us when that was already the case and we need public safety for everyone not just folks who have the power to feel safe in the system that we already have thank you any further rebuttals yes tiki yeah please i'll try to make it short so yeah you know no doubt i understand our bipod community is negatively impacted and so what we've done is we've traded their safety for the safety of women for example who are afraid to go out at night especially when there's talk of cutting that third shift so who's safety exactly is more important at this point is it are we going to choose one community over another i get it that i mean i mean i think we can do both i think we can protect both populations they're both worth it let's just have a plan it's all i'm saying i'll stop there thank you great thank you all very much we'll now turn back towards the call and aim i believe we have another caller and hold go ahead caller yes hi um i would like to know how your background will inform your judgment on the council and if you could please explain paying rent child care supporting family members and struggling to obtain financial stability in that background thank you thank you caller peggy lures we'll start with you this time oh peggy i'm sorry you're you're muted i did not catch that question completely what was he asking i served family jobs but i nearest i think the general sense was how is it how would your lived experience influence your role as a policy maker including your personal history okay okay when i lived in experiences that i have lived here since 1977 in the old north end that um i have been low income through most of that even when i was the director of the council in city fall uh and um i really feel like i know what people struggle with here my other experience is 10 years in city hall working on programs focused on women um you know vermont's to this day right now i just learned that we are eighth in the nation in terms of the amount of women in the state who are killed by their partner so that's that's not a statistic we want to be proud of and it seems like to some people the whole issue of of you know what goes on for women is off the chart so i'm always concerned for that i'm concerned for i also have um graduate studies in ecological design i'm very concerned about you know that there's a lot we can do in building to prepare for the future there are things that could be done to that city palace place whatever um you know it could it could be we could be doing like the city of chicago does insisting that every new buildings of size has a green roof so those are the so i have experience as a carpenter so i feel like i'm a practical person a problem solver and an innovator and the women's council did a lot of innovative programs we helped out got housing for single moms we got the whole women and the trades thing rolling um we did forums every year we we way back then had a diversity film series to to educate the community about some of the racial justice issues here and i guess that's enough thank you peggy perry freeman we'll go to you next great thank you so much um yeah this is a um an important question you know i i felt like i've really been thinking about this a lot um lately this last year you know for a while um i was you know probably the lowest earner on the council which was something that i knew um you know still a renter um but also this year um have been frontline worker um which has been um pretty considerably impacting my life um and those um that i worked with so um i think in terms of you know speaking towards economic issues around you know being a renter or making ends meet i think things like low wages um you know renting um you know the rent being so high those are things that um i think i think about a lot and i try to bring that into um the policy that i'm making um you know on city council um it directly influences that i think you know going forward with the impact of covet um on frontline workers but not just on frontline workers on families um on older folks um you know on people of color i think we really need to center folks who have been um most as you know disproportionately impacted and i mean ultimately all of us have been impacted but also thinking you know about folks who've been really severely impacted by this and how we're going to recover going forward and how we are going to be able to partner with state and federal agencies um to make sure that that belief and recovery is equitable um and get so the people who've been hit the hardest um you know uh i could speak more towards um you know some other things i i was pretty i went over time on the on the last one so maybe i'll keep this one a little bit brief um but uh absolutely i think that that's a really important thing and i think it's important um in this district to to bring those um those experiences into policy making because it impacts so many people um in this district thank you peri and now tiki we'll move to you yeah thank you gosh what a good question right because we're all sort of an accumulation of our experiences through life and i look back on my life uh originally born in michigan grew up in a rural area and then my parents divorced and the classic story you know the kid the mom gets stuck with the kids and finds herself in poverty right and peggy kind of spoke to that earlier uh yeah so that was my childhood is bouncing around from apartment to apartment finding a new school each year of facing my share of bullies and try you know the school of life i suppose you could say in coming up i did you know i recognize i'm not in a in the same situation as those who are disadvantaged in the community especially minorities right so i recognize my white male miss uh gave me a leg up over others at the same time i did learn the value of work and and a work ethic and that i consider myself a hard worker today and i think that's important because there's so many lessons in that that come with i guess growing up in that in that lifestyle uh that that we i really hold on to today so working hard is just key right work earn your dollars and also live below your means right easier said than done i get it there are situations like high rents you know people paying 50 percent of their incomes but it's still possible honoring your word know your neighbor and and honoring the neighbor you know getting to know folks like that so just lessons that like that have brought me to a place where i was able to scrape through you know menial jobs like dishwashing and cooking as a kid to now i'm overseeing a team of folks around the world you know building intelligence reports so i consider myself blessed in that regard and i'm just i feel so fortunate in life to be where i am and recognize all that had to happen to bring me to this point so it's an important lesson i learned through growing up poor good timing great um let's move back towards there will be your election on the ballot what other ballot items um will voter see this year what are some of the other six initiatives um on the city ballot and what stands out to you and why and can you quickly discuss i know it's six items but can you quickly discuss your positions on those ballot questions who's that force up sorry about that we'll start with you this time to get to your turn to start first yeah sure okay wow go through them all uh so i know ahead of time just everyone knows you know you would kind of run this idea by us you know like is there one most important tough choice because a lot of consequential ballot items i'm going to say my number one pick is the school budget uh that is our future the schools without that we don't have a solid foundation in our community we don't have a future in burlington people will not move here without strong schools and i just look at the burlington high school situation and just feel like we as a community fail the students at burlington high school i feel awful that uh both the teachers and the staff who work in the high school had to put up with the uh you know the pcb's perhaps unknowingly and that they're effectively out of a place now i'm so glad to see the macy's temporary situation working out but so i'm putting schools at the top i know there's a lot of issues but i have to mention that uh i'm going to say a close number two for me would be the just cause issue i again with this theme of this current council if your unintended consequences here rents will increase apartment conditions will deteriorate these are the two leading items in this town that we don't want it's already high rents and poor conditions and apartments this is going to exacerbate that how's it going to do it because it's going to force property owners to honor leases in perpetuity so the renters who have a bad neighbor for example and when i say bad neighbor what do i mean the drug dealers living in the apartment next door the sexual predators as testified even in a subcommittee where councillor freeman was on uh these folks now are being protected by the just cause and and it's curious to me that this is never mentioned all we hear is about unfair evictions where in fact we have leases in place we have courts in place so i'm going to leave that aside for now the other ballot items my gosh loaded question i don't know i suspect we're going to talk about those in time so let me just i'll just stop there and say yeah thank you okay councillor freeman you're up next thank you um okay so i think um the um the most important one for me at least that jumps out the most is the is the just cause eviction uh item which is item number oh you're gonna miss say it's item number five um and i think it's misleading to say that rents will go up that apartments will become a destitute that's incorrect it's not supported by evidence just cause eviction it is essential protection for renters there was a bipartisan support from the sun council at past nine to three that um you know created exemptions around some of the initial concerns which were around you know what if i own a duplex you know triplex you know what what does that mean for me in terms of um you know sexual predation and you know violent neighbors um you know no one supports those things it doesn't mean um that we also don't protect renters through a policy like just cause eviction i think it's absolutely essential for this community um i think a second um you know pretty pretty feels pretty strongly about is a ring choice voting um that i think will just bring um sort of essential well-being to our governance um it's it's just a better voting practice um it's one that i've supported and advocated for a long time um and um i will just go through the other ones um as well just to give a a summary the first one of course yes um on the school school budget um two on the airport commissioners i will also be voting yes um three on the regulating of thermal energy systems i will be voting yes um four as i said i'll be supporting yes i'm actually yes for i think all of them six is um just cause evictions um sorry five is just chosen six is rent retail cannabis which is a yes and then um on the advisory question around decarbonization i'm also a yes so thank you quickly time pay you lures ballot questions yes um i'm gonna say that the third one interests me a lot the idea of that the city would do more to regulate um thermal heating in the in the city because as i've said i'm quite concerned about what we can do with our built environment to prepare for what's coming that we seem to be pretending isn't coming so i'm very in favor of that i'm also um i think it would be only fair to for there to be someone from winooski on the the airport commission given the fact that winooski is incredibly impacted by these f-35s um i was one of in one of the earliest groups opposing the f-35s i still do even though they're here i think they have you know destroyed a lot of livability for a lot of people and um i guess i support most of the ballot items i'm trying to see here uh i support the um i wish our school budget um went more to this went a little bit less than and then it does to administrative salaries i keep seeing really high administrative salaries at the university and at the schools and i'd like to see teachers rewarded more and uh other programs but um so what are the problems and on the cannabis one yes i support it although i would like to see i would like i don't think there's any reason to do advertising for cannabis we don't need to push it um but um since it's legal you know um and the right choice i support the right choice i think we did that for a little while and some people objected to but i think it is a good system and uh the charter change i'm not sure about the just cause because i think you know there i've i've seen both sides of it and it can be difficult so i i'm not really totally sure i stand on that i i it doesn't it seems like it's a little bit um and we already have some pretty good okay thank you Peggy next up we're going to turn back to the caller line and uh we welcome you caller go ahead call you're online with the candidates thanks very much for the opportunity to ask this question uh council of freemen started change voting proposal to create a police oversight review panel and bias and a bias police control panel failed this past january the joint committee of the public safety committee and police commission that perry serves on was created last summer and charged with making recommendation on how to build a safe and healthy community i asked perry what are some of the recommendations this joint committee has offered to the city council to build a safe and healthy community since the committee was created seven and a half months ago i'll ask tiki and Peggy what are your visions for safe and healthy community thanks very much and caller if you don't mind sharing your name and the town that you're from i'm sorry my name is bob hernan i'm in ward three what was the other part of your question you got it perfect okay now we'll carry you up first so you can go ahead and answer that question since it was also directed at you thank you um yeah i i thought it was unfortunate but the um oversight policy um charter change was vetoed it did have um seven votes at the council but not enough to um to stand against a veto um and that was unfortunate i think that that was uh the right move in terms of accountability it was something that um i had hoped to work on um there was a lot of public support around it um and i was really dismayed because i think that would have been a considerable um uh effort towards progress on this issue regarding the joint committee i do serve on the joint committee um there are 10 of us it's the seven police commissioners and the three members of the public safety committee um that has been meeting um we have um now one uh a consultant that has been contracted through um you know took you know this considerable amount of time for the rfps and these sort of things um and they are now um contracted with the city to do a community engagement project that was um intentionally prioritized um sort of a little bit um you know not you know much time in between them but at least slightly before the um audit um which is now we are working towards um finalizing the contract with that consultant and that audit the first um some of the first results should be coming back um by april so um the community engagement is meant to um contract is meant to with that consultant is meant to also inform um and help sort of um do some of the work that the audit will also be doing um i i've heard you know this the caller's not the first person to be frustrated about the timeline um unfortunately these things just um they just take time um we are working on them um and um i anticipate uh that um that there will be traction um and you know recommendations uh within the next several months so thank you councillor freeman peggy lures we'll go to you next okay so the question was to the rest of us in general about the community um well the issue of childcare is an interesting one because that has been a tremendous problem in this city forever and in this country forever and it really is um really makes life difficult for um particularly single moms but for all kinds of parents um and you know single dads uh we there needs to be there needs to be there was a proposal back when i was in city hall for a small uh tax to go to that and it i don't think i guess they didn't actually propose it but they never actually ran it i think that would not be a bad idea because there needs to be a lot more support from what i have read almost most of the jobs that have been lost during the lockdown have been women's jobs because though we claim that you know there's some equality there really isn't it really tends to fall to women to do the childcare and there has never been enough in every other developed country in the world has childcare and you know and and and lead parental leave for both parents and we need to be catching up with that and that's always been a really tough issue in this neighborhood. Thank you Peggy and Tiki going back maybe to the caller's initial question as well. Yeah yeah thank you um want to just express my amazement and really why i'm here right a big motivator at consular freeman's response to that which is that there is no plan that cuts were made without a plan we're just now are paying this imagine what that is like to be in the community and to hear this which is basically trust me uh you know again i don't think consular freeman is evil or anything like that you know i'm sure there is a lot of good intentions there but trust me doesn't work when you're cutting the police this is a community that we've had for ages uh you know my neighbors who i talked to all the time now i've been around for 20 years i got to know a lot of people and yeah that's not okay with this community this community that is the old north end and downtown a lot of people have reflected on the old times the the way the old north end used to be and say we don't want to go back to that we've seen so many improvements over the years and i remember you know things have improved over the years too i get it there are people who've been marginalized just say let's fix it so let's let's offer the more hopeful path here what am i looking at let's revisit use of force we as a community get to determine what that means do we how do we how do we visit this so we need to set proper expectations for the officers because even they are saying well what do you expect of us and it's unclear uh we also need to review interdiction which is honoring requests from other agencies so a lot of times you know maybe it's another police agency says hey we had a lead that there's an arrest warrant out for someone in your town can you go arrest them you know so we need to take a look at that because that will reflect on our own statistics about you know racial disparities we need if anyone who's been in this town for a long time might remember a guy named Justin Varrette big teddy bear of a guy who was amazing at working with mental health care issues he started with spectrum and my wife worked there for a time and then went on to the police and helped divert a lot of the mental health calls from the police and he was just a natural at it we need a lot of Justin Varrette's in the police department so I think this the step you know the the mirad proposal you know was a step in that direction but we do need to raise that cap uh lastly and I know I'm right up against it but we need to honor the police commission and give them a direct role in department or mental oversight I think what we had was a reinvention of something that already exists and we can empower this current commission who has a full of intelligent people to do this I'm sorry to go over thank you very fruit is like a rebuttal thank you I think it's inaccurate to say that there wasn't a plan the plan was to reinvest resources into services that would better suit the community in terms of safety that's what we want is safety and reduction of violence unfortunately I think there's been a lot of fear mongering around this issue that has gotten us away from what actually keeps us safe I also you know use of force is great to talk about but when you don't have accountability measures like oversight and like reevaluating the union contract which are not things that I've heard um you know anyone else um you know running for the seat talk about um those things are necessary and so we need real policy changes um and that's what I that's what I would like to do thank you thank you any other candidates rebuttals for 30 seconds so seeing and hearing none we'll move back to the callers we have online and I believe we have one or two more calls in about 10 minutes probably to go so caller we welcome you to the studio and by the studio I mean our homes taking my call if you can just be sure to state your name and what town you're from we appreciate that yes my name is matt I'm from ward 2 this question is for councillor freeman in april of last year uh one of the first covid release packages the cares act brought 8.7 million dollars to the burlington airport in free money that guaranteed the operations of our airport and prevented about 50 families from being thrown into poverty yet you voted against that 8.7 million dollar grant can you explain your vote and to our other two candidates can you share how you would have voted on that uh grant vote councillor freeman since your name was a vote you can start and then we'll move to tiki arshambo and then peggy lures sure yeah thank you for bringing up this question um I have spoken before about my concerns about the airport expansion um it's not something that's very popular or discussed in burlington in vermont or even really in the us um we have um really a pretty much a culture of hyperdependence around it I don't fly I I have made a choice not to fly because it is unfortunately at this point it just creates so much pollution I understand that there might be at times essential reasons to fly but the majority of of air you know airflight is is for luxury and it's also mostly done by people of higher means it's not it's not something that you know is really accessible even to lower our working class folks so I have you know stated publicly you know I don't I don't have the appetite to expand the airport at this time my vote on that particular issue was around around that and having consistency on that I think that you know when I've talked about it with other counselors I think you know ultimately it would be it would be great to have a report about this it was not included in the net zero energy analysis of our of our sort of greenhouse gas emissions and impact but it is certainly something that impacts the amount of pollution that we have I know these are difficult conversations but when we're talking about moving towards a six mass extinction so actually becoming extinct you know on a mass level of species those are really hard conversations that we actually have to have because it's not worth exception of you know that just seems actually pretty obvious to me so thank you for the question I know it's a really difficult topic thank you thank you TKR Shumbo yeah thank you so I would that's a layup to me that's it's easy you take that money right free money to address our airport yeah so that's my short answer you heard it here I guess none of us should fly because counselor Freeman doesn't fly so I will I will contend that it may be an image in some people's minds that that flying is for the wealthy I recall vividly working for a Norwich University my alma mater earning $10,000 a year not a lot of salary and they would send me to fly to recruit because I was in admissions at the time and they would send me down to you know other states to to go recruiting so yeah I can't say I was sitting in first class on that one right there's many reasons that people fly we're a global economy we rely on airplanes they're just a part of what makes this the world go around so to speak economically if no doubt climate change is an issue so so I get that at the same time if if we're going to be serious about it then let's go all radical right let's ban all cars from Burlington let's ban the planes let's ban all fossil fuels let's just go all in right I mean to me I just I think there should be more honesty in this than what we're seeing at this point the airport serves a vital function for us in terms of travelers coming to and from Vermont tourism industry drives it's a multi-billion-dollar revenue generator for the state and yeah you know airplanes are not ideal I also know that there's a startup here in Vermont of looking to electrify airplanes so you know there are strides being made it's not like it's right around the corner where we'll have electric airplanes for example but you know we live in such an innovative community and with an entrepreneurial spirit it's that Vermont independence you know that smallness of us of just striving out and making a go of it and using our our intellectual resources for the betterment of everything so we're doing the right things I don't think it's the right thing to ban planes and I think we should have taken that money thank you Peggy Lewis okay well I I wish I knew more exactly what the money was for and who the 50 families that are losing jobs were it would it might have an effect on my answer in general I am not for expanding airports I'm not for closing them down or saying no flying yet but I do I also agree that we are facing a tremendous climate change and flying is one of the most carbon-heavy things you can do so I don't and I've watched the airport keep expanding and I watched the amount of cars sitting there keep expanding and we don't we have to go to less cars we have to go to less flying we have to go to less of a lot of things that we've gotten very very used to and that depend on carbon fuels and electricity doesn't solve that either it helps but it isn't you know we don't really have a solution we really have to live on another on a different scale and we're very unwilling to do that or maybe we're not so unwilling we don't know because we're I feel like we're you know we're constantly propagandized by media that wants to sell us stuff and so I would the the thing that would give me hesitation was a lot of people losing jobs but I'm not really you know I would not be pro-expanding our airports expanded quite a bit since I've lived here and seen it and it just brings more more carbon and more cars in there too and you know I think you know when we've destroyed housing with the f-35s which was a horrible decision on the part of our congressional delegation every one of them stuck together to little Patrick Leahy's ego project thank you Peggy we've got one more caller on the line so I'd like to shift to that caller give it each candidate about a minute maybe 45 seconds to respond to the caller and then we'll try to give everybody a couple seconds to wrap up tonight so caller we'll turn to you and welcome your question and this question will start with you Peggy okay this is my wrap-up question or no we're hoping for a caller is going to pop on we've got somebody on hold Kevin from word three I just wonder if we could talk a little bit more about how you would fight climate change and the touching on some other aspects of life like you know eating in home bike lane policy and I think you cover the airport pretty well but the other two be interested to hear your thoughts on how you'd want to tackle climate change no it's tough but if you could each keep your answers to one minute we'll start with Peggy go to Tiki and then finish with Perry okay well my experience and my emphasis is on the built environment because I have been building passive solar since I got to Vermont and so I feel like we can do a lot with that we can do there's a lot we can do to mitigate the water the cleanliness of the lake that we're not doing and I think we really need to be focusing on these things I know about eating at home it might you know there were there were some innovative ideas by actually feminists like Charlotte Perkins Gil and where there would be a community cafeteria and that and I saw some of that go on in Holland and that's kind of nice it's a social thing and it feeds people and feeding people in that way is more economical than each little house so so the built environment's a lot of it get cutting back on fossil fuels you know that in the city those are the things you can deal with you can't deal with taking away the oil company subsidies that's on the federal level but um okay we'll jump to Tiki yeah thanks great question right it's all climate change a few minutes so uh this is one of those issues that it underlies the theme of my whole campaign which is teamwork I know that sounds a little cliche but what does that mean because climate change will not be tackled like we're living alone we have to adapt and grow partners in this relationship here and make that happen it's not to be understated right because we have to sell our ideas to the rest of the surrounding communities and perhaps beyond uh you know we're known as a progressive community and I think we can generate those great ideas I mentioned you know the startup looking at electrification of airplanes as an example so uh number one you know again part of that teamwork example is oh geez we're at one minute it is uh you break down a problem you identify it let's look at the biggest contributors to uh to global warming and then try to look at a carrot versus the stick approach right like there was an initial penalty offer on homeowners who had efficient furnaces that's a stick and I don't think that's the way to go to sell it thank you we'll jump to Perry thank you yeah this is why I love the the green new deal structure I think it's it's good to think of because of the last question regarding the airport we talked about loss of jobs and we can't pit loss of jobs around a sustainable economy and so you know moving towards jobs that are going to be good for workers and well-paying but also are not jobs in sectors that produce a lot of greenhouse gas emissions I think will be essential I think that also means expanding you know walking and biking infrastructure you know it also means expanding public transit making that as affordable as possible you know we've had free transit during COVID you know that that's something that I've supported how can we continue to see that so that it's not an economic issue these climate solutions you know there's the weatherization policies I think are very good we're looking at district energy from McNeil so you know what I have some questions about the biomass aspect but you know how can that mitigate in terms of the built environment I think those are some of the ways that we can move forward and I understand that there's a desire around entrepreneurial spirit but I think we really need to be bold going forward great so unfortunately we've got to wrap up tonight's um tonight's forum on a quick note and we really appreciate you all joining us obviously brilliant joining us have a difficult decision to make and are grateful for your willingness to serve so thank you candidates and thanks for abiding by our rules today sorry we didn't get the closing statements but no you'll have opportunities to commute with the the the public outside of this and again this is brought to you today by town meeting television we encourage you to continue to tune in for forums stay engaged and remember march 2nd to get out and vote or come up with a voting plan early and make sure you engage with your town clerk and make sure get that ballot in as soon as you can in a safe way thank you for joining us this evening this has been and brought to you by town meeting tv thank you candidates