 Thank you. Good. You need anything else? All right. Appreciate it. What? Yeah, probably I do. Hello, everybody. I hope everyone had a good time with the community dinner. We're going to get the show on the road here with the neighborhood planning assembly. It's getting so quiet now. I got this loud microphone. It feels kind of powerful. So my name is Chris. I'm going to be facilitating the meeting tonight. I'd like to point out Roxanne, table, Molly, Charlie over the corner here. They're also on the steering committee as well. I just wanted to let people know too that if you're looking for more information about the NPA, it can be found on the CEDO website or you can do what I do and just go to Google and type Burlington Mords 2 and 3 NPA and it comes right up. But yeah, I think we're going to move into the section we need to appoint a representative to the Battery Street Scoping Advisory Study. For those of you who are not aware, the city is going to be looking to make some improvements on Battery Street and they're looking for community representation from each of the wards. We've had a couple of folks express interest here. Barbie Alsop over here has expressed interest and Ali Hamidiani. Ali, are you here tonight? Okay. So unless there's objections, I think we'll just do a voice vote affirmation to put Barbie and Ali on there and you guys will, you know, primary and alternate. So does anyone have any questions about that? So do you want to make a motion to nominate Molly? Thank you. All in favor, say aye. All right. Any opposed? Those stands. All right. Congratulations, Barbie and Ali. We're out there on Zoom land. You will be. I also wanted to, before we get too far into doing here, thank the folks that put on our wonderful community dinner here. It's a lot of work to pull off and I'm very glad that I had the opportunity to participate. So make sure you say hi and thank these folks for that work. Give them a round of applause. Thank you. So moving on to the public forum. If anyone has anything to say, I will pass the mic and move along. I just want to remind you all election day is coming up. I'm running as inspector of elections for Ward three. I am currently an inspector of elections. So I'm running for a reelection. Charlie is our wonderful ward clerk and he's up for reelection this year too. We are a very good group that works together very well. Julia is one of our other inspectors of elections and we, and we're hoping that you will support both of us when you get your ballots next week. Okay. So the bouts are going to be mailed any day now. We're actually just supposed to be mailed by the 15th legally. So if you don't get a ballot, if you don't get a ballot by like the 20th of February, just call your ward clerk, your city clerk's office. So if you don't get a ballot and you live in Montpelier, call your city of Montpelier clerks office. Okay. So they'll get you. There are many reasons why you wouldn't get mailed a ballot even though you're registered to vote. So if you don't get one, there's a reason for it. Call your clerk, your city clerk's office and they'll take care of you very quickly. Thank you. Anybody, anybody else for public forum? Solve. My name is Solve Overby. I live in word two and I am on the public works commission, which is why I'm going to make a comment right now about that. The public works commission's meeting will be next week and anybody's interested in public works affairs. That is next Wednesday, 6 30. You can watch it on zoom as well. But I did want to make one point. They're upcoming will be on May 1st. You're going to have to have one of those covered toter things for your recycling where they will not pick it up. They are available at a discounted rate from the public works department. The smallest ones like $10. The middle size one is 25 or not 20, sorry, 65 gallons and the 95 is $25. So you're going to need to get one ordered and they'll drop it right off to you. So if you have any questions about that, you can come to see me. The last thing is I do have a flyer that I try to keep current for people that are interested in what public works department is all about. And also public works commission to things separate. So if anybody's interested, I have a handout to help you understand how those things work, how we pay for things that are public works related. And we're all there will be people available to if you want to run to be on the commission next June. I think you'll have an opportunity to get on the commission if you're interested. So thank you. Sophie, could you tell me again what the deadline is to change your recycling? May 1st is the day that if you don't use one of the covered toters, those blue ones you see that are starting to materialize on the street. They will not pick your recycling up. In fact, you could get a fine if it starts blowing around. I mean, the point is they don't like the guys getting injured by lifting the stuff. They don't want it blowing around. They want them covered up. So May 1st, you are on the hook to have one of those things in front of your house, not the open box like we have had. Thank you. And just to reiterate what Solve had said, all of the city commissions will be opening up. They'll have some openings coming up I think in April and the appointments are made in June with a July 1 start date for most of them. So if you're looking to get involved, that's another opportunity to be part of the civic engagement here in Burlington. We're running a little bit ahead of schedule here. We thought we'd try something a little bit different today. I'm going to pass the mic around. I would just like everyone to kind of introduce themselves. Say your name, the street you live on, and the ward. But that'll be after the question here on Zoom. Sorry about that. Lina. Thanks for coming out and sharing that important work from the dog commission. As I was saying, we're going to do introductions and since we'll start with the folks on Zoom, just say your name, the street you live on, the ward, and fun fact if you feel up to it. Yes, please. Thanks, Megan. Anybody else on Zoom want to weigh in and introduce yourselves going once? Thank you. Anybody else? All right, we'll pass the mic around. Okay, so we're going to do this side of the room first. So that camera is going to follow us right where you shaped right around the room. Okay. That's the way this stuff works. Hi. I live on Myrtle Street, which is a tiny, tiny one-way street. I'm noticing a lot of people going the wrong way on Myrtle Street. A little bit confusing to me since the arrows are pretty clear on both ends. It's kind of alarming when you are going the right way and someone else is coming at you. So I just want to alert people that I'm seeing a lot of people going wrong way on one-way streets in the old North End lately. I don't know if we have a lot of new drivers or people who don't care about arrows anymore or what's going on. But be alert. I'm having to look both ways, even though I'm turning onto a one-way street, and I've almost gotten slammed a couple times. Be careful out there. Thanks. I don't want anybody to get hurt. You already know who I am. Solvei over me, or two. Hi, Kate Logan. I live on Bright Street. Hi, I'm Chris. I'm Christopher Aaron Falker. I live on Park Street. Hi, everyone. I'm Molly. I live on the Fountain Street. Hi, Cameron. I'm Amy, and I live on Johnson Street right around the corner. And I'm in Ward 2. And Johnson Street is also very, very small in one way, but of late everybody has been driving the right way down Johnson Street. Hi, I'm Amity. I live on St. Paul in Ward 5. I'm a guest of Molly's. I'm just here because I needed to get out. And fun fact, this is my first ever NPA meeting of any ward. I've lived in Burlington for four and a half years, and I guess I'm now official. Hi, my name is Lisa Cannon, and I live on North Winooski. And I'm very excited to be supporting Mellow Grant for City Council. Hi, I'm Darcy Classon. I live on Pine Street, and I'm relatively new to Vermont. And first meeting as well. So, hozzah. Hey, Sean Classon. I moved here with Darcy. This is my first time doing this stuff too. And trying to think of fun fact, keeping the one-way theme alive. I live near Bank Street where they finally started construction on the pit. And that's the one-way now, and there's a lot of confused people there. Hi, I'm Karen. I recently moved here across country from California. I live on Converse Court, which is a two-way but dead-end small street. And I've only been here for about three and a half months. And it's my first meeting, so I'm very excited. My name is Max Licker. I live on North Avenue. I've been living in Vermont for about three years. And I manage a hops farm in Starksboro that grows hops and sells them to local breweries. I'm Avery Musicar. I live on North Ave. And I actually work with Max, who is down the street from me. Hi, I'm Roxanne. I've lived on Pitkin Street for seven years. I'm on the steering committee. Also, heads up, Chris. We got an email back from Nate. He will be making it, but via Zoom. I don't know when exactly. Hi, my name is Milo Grant. And I've lived on Crowley Street for about 22 years now on Ward 3. And fun fact, I'm running for City Council Central District. Yeah. Hi, I'm Jason Horn, and I'm in Ward 3 live on Rose Street. I'm also the new building superintendent here in the Old North End Community Center. And this is my first MPA meeting as well. I'm Jeannie Waltz. I live on Cedar Street. And there are over 10 places in the Old North End that I have also lived, but I've been on Cedar for 20, 20 years. And my fun fact is that I am up for reelection for the school board. I'm on the ballot representing the Central District, which is Ward 2 and 3. And what else is a fun fact? Oh, yeah. Jason's my sound man for the Ramble. And I'm so glad to see you here. I didn't know you were a newbie. That's amazing. But anyway, he's been in this building like thousands of times. Okay. I'm Rachel Siegel. I use she, her pronouns. I live on Pitkin Street, where I have lived for 16 years. Prior to that, I was on Manhattan Drive prior to that at Lower Maple. So all Ward 3, all Ward 3 all the time. And fun fact is I'm Mila's campaign manager and she's the best person to spend time with. I'm Barbie. I live downtown. I live on St. Paul's Street right across from City Hall Park. Very exciting. And I have lived in Vermont since 1993, except for four years when I went to DC to be an asylum officer. That's my fun fact. Hi, everyone. My name is Joe. I am the city councilor here for Ward 3. I've been in Burlington for eight years and I grew up in the River Valley. And my fun fact is that I just came from a screening of To Be Fair, the movie that was made about Sarah George's campaign for state's attorney this past summer, which was excellent. And if you get a chance to see it, I highly encourage it. Thanks. Hi, everyone. I'm Shelby Glass. I've lived in the Old North End for 10 years. And I now live on Manhattan and I'm on the steering committee as well. And I see her pronouns. Hi, I'm Jean and I live on North Winooski Avenue. Hi, everyone. I'm Julia DiPietro. I live on Drew Street and I've lived there for about 17 years. I also grew up in Burlington, um, in different neighborhoods. Um, that's it. And she's also been an inspector of elections for almost all of those 17 years, by the way. Okay, that's it. Thank you. All right. Uh, is Nate online there, Sam? All right. So we have heard that Nate Bezio, who's the chair of the Burlington Advisory Committee on Accessibility. Are you there, Nate? All right. We're going to move in to the presentation. Absolutely. I think that's a good opportunity for people with disabilities. Maybe that's something about signage. Signage is a variable in Braille for people who are blind or make sure that, you know, there's proper, you know, visual cues for, you know, things for people who are deaf and hearing, hearing impaired. So it's ready to look at the various issues. Um, we are actually kind of part of an ADA committee, which now all cities and towns with more than 50 people are required to have an ADA coordinator. And they are required to kind of like the advisory committee on people with ADA issues. But we really look at ourselves as going beyond the ADA, trying to look at various issues on, um, and maybe look at projects that might be of the ADA standards, but the ADA are quite accommodating to all people with disabilities. So that's a little bit about who we are. Some of the members of our committee, well, we have some personnel from various cities, city departments. SIDU is a big supporter of our committee. They provide administrative support and we do have a budget from the mayor's office that we use that we, that they help us administer. So that budget might go towards holding events, printing materials, or making small, um, featuring to small adjustments to make things successful. So that might mean that a lost walk doesn't have the speaker. Um, when people get it for people who are blind here, we might use some of that money towards putting through that, or maybe a sign needs to come up that has a, um, you know, that people can hold their phone over for the markers. So somebody who is, um, who is blind might be able to terrible distribution of the areas. We might help people that. This is all actually new. We are actually able to get this funding this year. That's a little something we've had in previous years. So we really want to put that funding to work for good. Um, some other places for the, um, from the city of Burlington is we have the Human Resource Department, Parks and Rec, Public Works, and we are really just really hoping to get new membership to that. Um, we also represented this from community organizations. Uh, I have from BCIL. Uh, we have somebody from the Vermont, uh, association for blind and visually impaired. Um, you know, uh, somebody from the state of Vermont. So a pleasure that we are looking for for membership. We really like to hear people from school districts. Um, it'd be great to have a member of the school board in to meet our meeting. So we are aware, especially with, uh, you know, new construction of the school going on, but just so we can kind of keep us aware of maybe accessibility that are, and we would love to hear from people from local businesses who maybe have questions or concerns. Maybe they're wondering if they're following the ADA. Maybe they're wondering, you know, how can we make our businesses more accessible, or what can I do or can't do? Um, and of course we're always looking for members, general members of the Burlington community to join and participate in this meeting. So not to be joining the committee or just coming to us. We have, um, questions. Um, what do we do? Uh, we advocate for changes in improvement for accessibility. Um, so that would be just looking at something that maybe we think, um, is not being done for accessibility and advocating for ways to improve it. One thing to note is we are an advisory committee, so we can't come down and bust open the door and say, hey, you're breaking the ADA. You're under arrest, and a lot of it, you know, is obviously for municipal projects. We can't, you know, you know, we can advise and say, hey, the private businesses, you know, this is something to do, but we obviously don't want to adhere. What we really do looking at is for municipal projects. So some things that we are doing are like looking at upcoming plans to be built. So an example of that would be parks and rec with the downtown park in Oakland. They were, um, making the park, the park out there to be accessible. So we asked to look at the plans. And part of that might be looking at even the place, the bathroom, to see if maybe they're being completely accessible. Um, another thing we started to do is provide workshops to the growing community, um, taking stands. And this is something we did a few years ago as the pandemic came, where we had to put a hold. But we might do a training to the general public for ADA 101. What is the ADA? What is the cover? And how does it relate to you? Or specifically, service dogs versus regular dogs. What does it mean? What are they? What do they cover? If some of the members of our committee does that, we contract out the other places that might do that. Um, as I mentioned, we fund minor changes, um, and new purchases of equipment to improve accessibility. And really what we're trying to do is also listen to feedback from the growing community on accessibility issues. Um, you know, I have my email desk that people can communicate, but what we're really trying to do is improve the communication through the website stuff that people have to use. They can provide direct feedback to a question to us that, you know, we might be able to answer. Um, again, what are we looking for? Um, you know, we're always looking for members to join the committee. Um, feedback on accessibility issues, but people feel to be addressed. Um, and maybe things, all these workshops on that pretty good idea. Um, you know, we have any suggestions on that. Maybe we'd like to hear this in our community and where. Um, so that's my presentation. I am certainly happy to answer any questions anybody may have. Jeannie. Well, first, thanks so much for this presentation. This is absolutely new news to me, which is concerning because I'm on the school board and we're about to build a big high school, right? Um, and just don't want to monopolize the time, but we have concerns about, um, accessibility of, of the current design and we're not sure if they're being addressed. We, so I guess my first question is when you advise, is there information out there that anybody can access? So I've been told architects have met with an advisory committee. I'm, I'm assuming that's you guys. No, maybe not. I don't know, maybe you and I'm going to take your number down, but, um, and the idea that you're looking for a school board member, this is absolutely new news to me and definitely needed. Um, but yeah, so if we think there's this thing being built, you know, like a playground is going up in our neighborhood and we want to know our things is are the right people chiming in about the design, giving input. And if who is building it, be it the city or whatever is building it. If I want to be able to fact check if they are responding appropriately. And this isn't just about the high school. So sort of like open meeting laws, right? We have to have all of our notes somewhere on board docs, which is totally unaccessible by the way. Um, so yeah, is there a way for us to find out what work you guys have done and how we can support it by the way? Yeah, yeah, certainly. We do kind of a cyber on the web page where we put up our meeting minutes. Um, to your point about, um, the school and some stuff. So we have had, one of the reasons I'm here in this committee, I've been involved in this committee in some, in some kind of form, super form since 2013. I became its chair in 2016. And what we really show was a really elegant flowing of memberships, different people coming in, and it was really hard to get started. So I am kind of behind advocating, really getting some word out there trying to get different people involved with it. So one of the big things we do want to do is exactly what we're talking about. Um, when a plan, what I have personally found is that when a plan comes, that's a municipal plan, something is being built. And again, this is where I talk about ADA and going beyond the ADA. So new projects are required to meet ADA standards. That's a given, that's a given. But sometimes if those are built or not, they're missing certain points. Uh, and a lot of times the only people you can see that are someone with a disability or their family. And so what we're really pushing for is getting people in the committee involved in the early process. So for example, with the school, and I actually attended a meeting recently about the high school on the plans as a community that I didn't find out, you know, we gave feedback and, you know, they took it, but they also said, well, it's a little late. And it's kind of like, well, why weren't we involved with the feedback earlier? And so that's really what I and the other members of the community are trying to push to try to get this committee involved early. And, you know, involved in the early trying to get in the process earlier. So that was, we are seeing small steps in the right direction with some of the Burlington parks that are being built, but we really want to build that to make sure, you know, we are architects, we're not experts, and we understand that the ADA is the guideline. But sometimes the ADA doesn't work. The ADA is the rule, kind of what I call a rule of average. It's a standard. But there are things that could be. Maybe you hear us. The last bit that you just said kind of broke up. I'm sorry, I'm not exactly sure where you started cutting out. But if you could try to repeat that last part. Yeah, I'm just trying to think where I lost. I do have to ramble. So I apologize. But yeah, I think, you know, when we get involved in, you know, we're not architects and we're not, you know, we could do is that we could say, okay, yeah, you did this. But here are some additional things you could do to, to make it more accessible or more comedy for people with disability. I think the main thing that we're looking for is that when projects are being built and people are thinking about accessibility, involve those people who need the accessibility. Because a lot of times the people who are, who need that accessibility, whether it's physical, somebody with a wheelchair, somebody who's blind, somebody who's deaf, somebody who might have, you know, sensory disabilities, they're not being the ones involved in the decision-making. And that's what we're really kind of pushing for. So in terms of the school board, you know, I am outside and really just looking for who to reach out to, somebody to join the committee. I kind of went to the, we got me some standards going to the city department and said, who do you know in the school board that people we can kind of reach out? And that's, that's kind of what the purpose of doing this is. I'm trying to find people who may be able to do that. So, so I appreciate your, I definitely appreciate your feedback. Just to let you know, the, there's a committee, the board has a bunch of committees. One of them is the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee. We're meeting, and this is for anybody, it's an open meeting. Monday the 13th, 6 p.m. at the sustainability, the sustainability academy. And there's also a Google Meet link. So I will be in touch. Thank you. Yeah. And one of our committee members are Vanessa. I think he's also on that committee. So I believe. Thank you, Nate, for your presentation. If you could kindly share your contact information again and remind folks on how they can get involved. You mentioned you're looking for some additional members on the committee. Yeah. And I, my, on the end of the slide show is my, is my contact information that anybody wants. So I can show that right here or I can also email to people. So there's my, my name and an email and phone number. All right, Charlie has a parting comment he wants to make. So Nate, so my name is Charlie and I run the award three polling place. And in the past, oftentimes when I advertise to the public about something about voting. And when I do my, my invitations for people to work at the polls. I have oftentimes offered to people in the accessibility disability community that there's almost nothing that I do that a person with various types of disabilities can't do. So I oftentimes invite people with disabilities to offer to come and work at the polls. And we can put you to work, even if you, you probably need to have a partner. So we can put you to work, you know, you can hand out ballots. You can, you can monitor the tabulator where the ballots are collected, the ballot box. So if there's anyone in your, in your world that wants to talk to me. Maybe you could, maybe this can be the start of something because working at the polls is a very rewarding and fun thing to do. And it might be a really cool thing for a person with disabilities who's having a difficult time fitting into their community. This might be a great way for someone to do that. Yeah, definitely. I've actually, I don't know if you have to live. I personally don't live in the city of Burlington, but it's a lot of information. I personally, the VCIL have a contact of a list of people with disabilities who live in the area that I often send email blasts and stuff to. So if you ever have information like that that you want to provide me with, I'm happy to send it out to my contacts to reach out to people. Thank you, Nate. We'll move into the candidate forum now. I'd like to invite candidates Milo Grant and Avery Musicar up here to the big table in the front. We did get a couple of questions from the community that were submitted in advance. So just to kind of give you all a brief overview of the format, each candidate will be given about two and a half minutes to make an opening statement. We're moving into the questions that were submitted in advance online, followed by questions on the candidates positions on the ballot items. And then we'll be opening the floor here at the community center and to the folks on zoom for any questions that they may have. Okay. You have a question Milo? I guess we'll get going. Do you want to do an introduction? Get going. Hey everyone. It's great to see everybody out. My name is Milo Grant. And I was born and raised in New York City and came up to Burlington, Vermont in the fall of 82 on the Tendent UVM where I graduated. And then like a lot of people afterwards fell in love with Burlington and decided to stay, have had the dorm experience, have had various apartment experiences with myself and with roommates, slumlord experience that was really great. And then after a few years mostly spent in either Warch two or three, I purchased a home on Crowley Street about 22 years ago. And now that I'm at a particular age, I am starting to thinking about, you know, aging in place, am I going to have to Airbnb one room to make my property taxes, things like that or a necessary drawing unit, is that possible? So these are things that I think about. And I also have been very involved in the police commission as a lot of you know, I was very shocked by the incident that involved the Millie Brothers and the fact that those lawsuits still continue to be dragged out for two incidents that happened back in 2018. So being on the police commission and doing that work and also serving on the special committee for policing policies just made me want to do more in the community. I could just see with working with the various city council committees that were working with the police commission working with the consultants to review the police department, working with the consultants who had the project of getting community engagement and the response and how the community felt about the police department. There was just a lot to be done outside of public safety as well. So I of course, public safety is still a top concern for me, drugs is number one, drugs is number one, it's a huge issue. And then I also want to work on building connections within the community. And that is so that we talk to each other more do more things together and then also accessing city resources more and getting more information from the city and then livability housing, working on zoning, getting UVM more engagement from them in terms of limiting their enrollments. We keep having record enrollments that keep driving more students. And then of course, pilot funds and the concern about youth leaving our area and people not being able to raise their families here. Thank you. All right, so I'm Avery Musicar. I live on North Ave. I've lived in Burlington for about 10 years. I also came here for UVM about 10 years ago and now I currently work at the university. I'm an assistant director in residence life. So I work in campus housing. So I'm very familiar with the struggles of over enrollment and finding room for everybody. That's something I deal with the brunt of that every day. I am an assistant director there. I serve as a local steward in our staff union and I'm also on the leadership team in the department. I'm running for council as an independent candidate. This is my first time running for public office because I've been really disappointed in my representation for the past few years. I don't feel like it's represented me and a lot of my neighbors. And I think that I've seen a lack of seriousness about actually implementing a lot of the things that I think we all believe in in terms of accessibility and safety and inclusion and affordability in the city. And these are serious problems, but they're also very fixable problems. We need serious people in government to be able to problem solve and bring people together because I think in a city like Burlington, the vast majority of us agree on the basic problems that exist. And a lot of the solutions that we want to work towards it's a question of implementation. And I think that our current really fractured city council and two party system in the city makes us feel a lot further apart than we actually are and really impedes progress in a lot of those areas. So I'm really excited for our conversation tonight and to meet many more folks over the coming weeks. Alright, thank you Milo and Avery. So we're going to move on to the questions that we were submitted online here. Pull out the iPhone, see what we got here. First question submitted by Kirsten Grant of Ward 2. What professional experience do you have that could lend itself while in governing the city? So each of you will have two minutes to respond. We'll start with you Ms. Grant and then we'll move on to Mr. Muzakar. Thank you. So I've had a lot of experience with community engagement in some of the work that I've done professionally and also a lot of people know I've worked in public radio for many, many years. And I've trained people to do shows and podcasts and public speaking. And then with my experience with the police commission, working with other counselors already, working with counselors on the public safety committee, participating in... Now that Kim Carson's been hired to run the REIB department and up and going with that, I've been participating in that because we are one of the most... Possibly the most diverse part of the city, both economically and racially. And so those issues have been really important to me. And I think I have a way of... I think I can get along with just about everyone. And I am someone who does try to have those tough conversations. Because we have some people say we're going to have the tough conversations, but when you have the tough conversations, then there's like, oh, wait a minute, we didn't really mean it. But trying to push through, especially with regards to public safety issues, the issues and racial disparities, the issues where people feel that the city has abandoned them in certain ways. So I think that my skills in terms of being able to communicate where different people are coming from and the different options that we have to work together if we really want to share these common goals are really what I think I can do best. Thank you. So as I mentioned, I work in campus housing at UVM and I'm in charge of... My title is Director of Marketing Strategies and a lot of what I run into is that folks think that that's an outward is like a pamphlet, right? It's putting a gloss on what we do. And what it actually is in practice is being able to communicate effectively about the experience on campus, but also being able to advocate for the university, being more transparent and accessible to both students and families, both those who are incoming and those who already are on campus. And what's really satisfying to me is being able to take all of the feedback that we receive from students and families about the many struggles that they have on a campus and be able to advocate for solutions and to be able to bring a really thorough set of data to our leadership and align that with solutions that can actually make a difference there. And I've seen really tangible change with that. Like this year, for instance, we're constantly getting feedback from students that they feel like there's a bait and switch, right? They sign up to go to school here and they're shown the nicest room. They're shown a double and then they end up in an old building in a triple room because we are over-enrolled and we are having to expand our housing capacity. And so this year we are showing our oldest buildings and we're showing triple rooms and we're being very upfront about the percentage of students who are going to live in different places. And I think that transparency and accountability are really important to me, especially in city government. And the thing that is most satisfying about my job is being able to bring all of the stakeholders of a massive and unwieldy institution into the same room to actually work through the problem in a productive way. And I think that translates quite well to city government. Alright, thank you for that. The second question that we have here from the folks online. Let me get this pulled up here. Submitted by Darcy Klassen in Word 3. What can we do to make public transportation more useful and appealing? We'll start with you, Mr. Muskar. Yeah, this is a personal passion of mine. I had the privilege to live in Europe for a couple of years where there is public transport everywhere and it's the default, not the exception. And I think that in Burlington, and especially when I came back here after living in England for a while and was just walking on the street one day, you realize that people think that there's a problem when you're walking around and not in a car in certain areas that aren't in the downtown core because our architecture is not designed around people, it's designed around cars. And I think with public transport too that until it becomes the most convenient and the most cost effective and the most appealing option, folks aren't going to use it. And I think the problem in Burlington is that our routes don't cover enough of the city. They don't have the frequency that you would need to be able to make that a part of your commute if you work in certain areas. I know that's a problem for me. Just geographically it would take me longer to catch a bus and make a transfer and then catch another bus to actually get to work than it would to walk, which in the middle of February is not ideal. So it's about expanding our routes, expanding our frequency, expanding the quality of the transportation, moving towards lower emission vehicles that don't cause so much smog in the city core and overall making it an option that folks would choose rather than using it as a last resort. I agree with a lot of that. I work in Essex. I could take the bus in the morning, but at the end of the day, it's a lot harder because I would have to do a transfer. And one of the buses ends earlier than the main bus coming back into Burlington. So our system doesn't have that flexibility for people who have kind of non-traditional work schedules or might have to work late. It's kind of a chicken and the egg sort of thing. You have to have more routes and extended hours in order to encourage people to use public transportation. But if they don't have people using public transportation, they don't see a justification to add more routes and hours. So we definitely have to think more out of the box and realize that if we build it, they will come and take a look at the money. I mean, I think it's great that transportation has been free for a while. I'd like to see them expand that past June because I think that's the only way we're going to continue to build ridership. But we do need to extend the routes and we definitely need to have more routes to and from the surrounding towns in and outside of Burlington. Thank you. All right. Thank you for your responses to that question. And our final question that was submitted online in advance is from Nina Sklar from Ward 2. And the question is, why is Burlington so bad at code enforcement? We'll start with you, Milo. That's a great question. That is definitely one of the things that is really needed. I mean, when I've been door knocking and just people have been very gracious sometimes about letting me in and I've really seen some of the conditions that people have to live in. And I've seen some of the, when you look at a place that they say is worth $400,000, well, that's really the tear down value, right? That's not what it's actually worth. So seeing that, I think that we have issues in our community in our city where there's different classes of people and there's a protected class, quite frankly. And I think that that is why we can't get properties owned by certain people to be looked at, quite frankly. And that's another issue that is around some of the drug activity and some of these houses that are owned by certain individuals who aren't taking the steps that they need to. In order to make sure that the property is kept up and make sure the properties are safe, make sure that the people living in the properties are safe, and so much more. Thank you. I think it's a question of willpower. And too often we expect folks who are experiencing poor living conditions to self report on those issues and to do to go through the hurdles of actually getting someone to come to their property. And to see what's going on there. And so I think we need to flesh out funding for a city office that regularly inspects on a more frequent basis and a more thorough basis with folks to actually respond when someone makes a complaint and to provide legal assistance on behalf of the city who's making a case against a very wealthy landlord who could fight an enforcement complaint in court for a really long time. In a way that most renters don't have the time, energy or money to go through. So I think if we're serious about this as a city and I think we should be if we're talking about livability and affordability, especially with a housing crisis that we need to provide the resources for the enforcement to happen and for folks to be able to make use of those resources. Thank you. We'll move on to the ballot questions now. The first item on the ballot is the school budget. I won't read the text of these questions because they're actually pretty long, but to summarize, the school board is asking for 104 million for the upcoming fiscal year, which would result in an educational spending of $21,325 and change per equalized pupil. Do you support the school budget? Why are why not? I absolutely support the school budget because the children are our future. I know some people look at that as a cliche, but it is the truth. And we are, we cannot be a vibrant city. We can't foster a good economy. If we're not educating our youth and also supporting the individuals that teach and take care of them. Thank you. Yep. Absolutely. I support it. And I think that, you know, what folks have a lot of concerns about, you know, some of the cuts that have been proposed to different different areas of local schools, but I think that these things are solvable within the existing budget. And I think we should work backwards from passing the budget and then looking at structurally any changes we might want to make afterwards. So yeah, I support it. Thank you. The second question on the ballot is the implementation of a carbon pollution impact fee for new construction and large existing commercial and industrial buildings of 50,000 square feet or larger. What do you stand on this issue? We'll go with you, Avery. I think a carbon fee system makes sense and is something that's recommended by pretty much any analysis in any circumstance. And whether it's a national project or a local project, these are things we need to be moving towards. If we, if we want to, you know, make a meaningful difference on carbon, I think we also do need to look at incentive based programs to balance it out though. I don't think punitive measures are always the best approach. I will support this for many of the same reasons. The city has net zero goals to be able to reduce the use of fossil fuels and this is just going to be one of the ways that we get there. So I definitely support it. Thank you. Thank you, Avery and Milo. And the next question is number three is the city's redistricting plan. Sam will be pulling the map up here shortly so that we can see how that'll play out. Just wondering where you guys stand on the issue of redistricting. Will you be supporting the existing map and its configuration of 12 existing city counselors? Well, I have to say that I wasn't for it before, but there's a new map now that has changed. And kind of bringing back together the part of the King Street Maple area that they were going to separate and then including Bob and Mills and that had previously been a really big concern for me. I, despite the fact I'm running for a district seat, I was hoping for all ward seats. I preferred that and that was what the community wanted when previously surveyed. So I think right now I'm leaning toward yes and I'm going to have to figure out soon because I'm gonna be posting this information on my website, but I've been going, I think we're all a little bit kind of weary of the issue with the maps, but right now I'm leaning yes. So I also can't claim to be verse enough in it to be an expert on it. I think all of us have been dealing with a very convoluted and confusing process with redistricting. I don't think that the current proposal solves a lot of the problems that we set out to solve. And I also don't support the district model. I think we should be moving towards ward based seats. And I've also heard some compelling arguments for also having floating counselors potentially, but I don't think that the district model makes sense. So I don't, I don't think that this represents a solution to the problems that were raised with redistricting. So I don't support it. Okay, thank you. Fourth question on the ballot involves all legal resident voting. This would allow all legal residents of the city of Burlington to participate in local elections. I don't think states included definitely federal not I just wonder where you guys stand on that. I think it's a great idea and we should be doing it as as often as we can. I agree 100%, especially once again, given the diversity in our district and the number of new Americans that we have in our district, this is really a fantastic way to really include them in our processes and in helping them to work toward their path to full citizenship. Thank you. All right, thank you. And coming on to question number five, the qualification of voters in polling places. This is a question about shall we allow the voting places to take place outside of the ward. So for example, you might live in Ward three, but the place you go to vote is Ward seven. How do you guys feel about that? I don't think it would affect us in that way, but there is some issues in the East District with regards to the redistricting and having a place to vote that is accessible and easy to get in and out of quickly is what they're looking at. So might be outside of the district, but not too far outside of the district, but much easier for more people to access and get in and out quickly. So I support this. Yeah, I think if there's a compelling reason why it's a more accessible polling place, then we should move towards that. I mean, at the point that we're mailing out ballots, I don't think we should be that fussy about the location if it makes the most sense for the most people. Thank you. Question six involves ranked choice voting for the election of the mayor, the school board commissioners and ward election officers. Where do you stand on the issue of ranked choice voting for Burlington? I fully support it. And I think we should be using it in all of our local elections. I agree. Moving on to number seven. This one I think you guys have been waiting for the creation of an independent police oversight board. Where do you stand on this issue and and why. So this has been this one hits home for me because I originally has a police commissioner. I didn't support this. And I was vocal about that, even though I went to all the meetings because I'd like to know what's going on like to hear what people are talking about and I wanted to talk about what the police commission was doing. Because we were trying to work our way towards accountability and oversight. So a lot has changed. The police commission has just been hitting walls, in my opinion, and we have been attacked by both the administration and the acting chief. We've been accused of being out of step with what the citizens of Burlington wanted. We've been accused of not understanding what's going on with public safety, which is ludicrous. I would reference the city council meeting of September 19 near the end and the mayor's statement where he just attacked the council. So that was that was deeply concerning to me. There used to be a time where the city cared about transformation and that is just all changed. It's all gone by the wayside. So they're preventing the commission from we're going forward and we're doing the work, but in terms of ultimately being a body that can can do this. We can at this time. So that is why I'm now supporting this independent board that can be less affected by the politics that is going on in the city. Thank you. And I would be more than happy to talk to people about that in more detail if anybody has questions afterwards or you can go to my website and there's a link to an email address. I've definitely really been talking to people about this a lot. Thank you. I've also been talking to a lot of folks about this this and housing tend to be the number one and two topics. I think we all support more transparency and accountability. I don't think that the current proposal is the way to get there. I think we should be looking at reworking our existing police commission and giving it the oversight and accountability powers that were recommended in a lot of assessments of our public safety system in the city. I think that the current the current proposal completely excludes anyone with any sort of background and experience in law enforcement. And while there's a certain logic to wanting to make sure that folks who are either previous law enforcement professionals or existing professionals don't bias that body that makes sense. But what would make sense there is a cap on the number of folks who can come from that background rather than a blanket ban. If you if you completely exclude people who have experience you are losing a wealth of expertise and you are losing the perspective of the people who are on the ground doing the work. You know if we were to propose a Department of Agriculture and I were to say to you that anyone who's even worked temporarily on a farm is not allowed to be a part of that in terms of making regulations that affect all of our agriculture in the state. That would be ludicrous. So I think that that's a major flaw of it. This is an untested model that is loosely based on things that have worked in other cities but there are important differences. And I also think that the funding is going to be very substantial when we already have a police commission that could be revised and improved. I support a police commission that is given additional authority and would also be accountable to voters much like a school board. That's the sort of model that I would move towards. Thank you. So the final question on the ballot is Question 8. This is what's more commonly known as Proposition 0 which would allow binding referendum on the ballot which means if a group of people met the petition threshold got the requisite number of signatures it would become a binding ordinance. Now currently the city charter only allows that to happen for charter changes which then must be advanced to Montpelier for approval there. But if it is a matter that falls within the jurisdiction of the city council as an advisory question the city council does have the authority to not put it on the ballot. And we have seen that happen in years past with various issues. So Proposition 0 would be a way for people to put items on the ballot that if approved would have the effect of becoming a binding city ordinance. So now that I've given you a little background I'd like to hear where you all stand on that issue. I understand the urge to have more direct input on our governing process and I think that's a very valid concern. I also don't think that plebiscites work. I don't think that this model of referendum works. I think that in the cases where it has been effective it's on sort of like a social issue like legalizing marijuana or same sex marriage something like that when it comes to actually changing legal structures and really convoluted government processes that it doesn't work. I lived in England for a few years. Brexit comes to mind as a massive plebiscite where folks voted in a referendum on something incredibly unwieldy and there is no way that an average citizen has the time or the energy that would be expected to do the research to understand all of the consequences of a massive decision like that that's going to be represented in a couple of lines on a ballot. So I think that while it sounds good in nature in practice I have never seen an example of something like this going well. So there's a reason we have representative democracy there's a reason we lean on elected officials who are going to devote the time that it takes to do this well and to have the backing of resources like city accountants and city attorneys and all of the folks who are there to make good governance work. I'm not sure I agree with the the Brexit example because top politicians including prime minister agreed with it and I just don't think that's that's a fair comparison because many politicians many people in government were for it promoted it and said yeah we can make it work. So I do support this and I think that yes we live in a representative democracy but sometimes not so much. Right we we have a very fractured council we have an administration that hasn't been able to get more than 50% of the vote for the last two elections and there's very much at a step behaving like they have a mandate when they don't actually have a mandate and they're sometimes they make it sound easy oh you can just get a city counselor to you know that is not what in fact is happening and we've had many many examples of that so I strongly support this thank you. All right that concludes the formal portion here we will take questions from the floor and via zoom. We've been pretty dominating here on the floor so we'll start with the folks on zoom tonight if you do have a question for the candidates please use the raise hand function and Sam will promote you to a panelist so that you can speak. Anybody on zoom have any questions for the candidates. All right not seeing any oh I do see a hand here Megan Humphrey. Hi, thank you both very much for running I appreciate that. I run hands which is a small nonprofit and we get food to seniors who are low income. So I would just love to hear from both of you. How you would specifically help seniors that live in our wards. As we know the cost of food is going up and fuel and everything else. So I'm just concerned about their welfare. So any comments on that would be great. Thank you. We'll start with you Mila. Thank you very much. This is something that I think a lot about because I've I've run into some individuals who have access issues right there their their homebound and what do we do to make sure that our system doesn't forget about them. So it's a matter of looking very sorry losing the mic for a moment looking at various programs supporting programs and making sure that we increase our safety net COVID really exposed a lot of how our structure to to protect. All of us was just really lacking it just fell apart really quickly we saw the demand and food we saw how the food shelves ran out of money so that is definitely something that I would think about in terms of mutual aid to supporting mutual aid organizations when the city can't step up. Thank you. Yeah I think additionally in terms of resources we can't expect we can't expect folks to seek resources when they are homebound or when they are dealing with mobility challenges or dealing with the city that is incredibly inaccessible because of poorly maintained public infrastructure and public transit. So we need to make sure that the resources go to people where they are whether that's in their home or in a facilitated living environment we need to make sure that all of our city office resources and community partners have easy access to meet people where they are in their homes. And to do that regularly and proactively rather than expecting folks to have a problem and then reach out when it it might be too late to be effective in solving it. Thank you. I think we'll turn our attention to the folks here at the community center now. Anyone else on zoom before we make the switch here. All right not seeing any hands. Anybody here have any questions that they would like to ask of the candidates Charlie's got the mic he'll pass it to you. How do you feel about. How do you feel about how the UVM president doesn't necessarily want to spark a new. MOU. What is it memorandum of understanding about the proposed training campus housing. You get to go first. Yes. Just to preface this by saying this is as a private citizen. I have opinions about this and professionally I work in campus housing and so I just need to make that clear. Personally I think that we should be engaging into a formal agreement with the city as the city and the university should formalize an understanding as far as any new development but also in terms of if enrollment is going to continue to climb then the university should be. Signing up to build housing off campus for the juniors and seniors that will be created by that you know building campus housing is great but we house first years and second year students we don't house juniors and seniors so. Personally I think that the city and the university should formalize an agreement where if enrollment continues to climb and even at the current level we don't provide the housing that we need to. So that the university should be responsible for either building or partnering with a developer to build requisite housing for for that level of student enrollment. I agree with that but I. I would like to see. Us. Push this conversation with the university. Yes they're an important part of our community. Yes they're a major employer. Yes they contribute a lot to the economy but they also use a lot of resources. And I don't believe they really understand the depth of the housing crisis in Burlington. I don't think he gets it because he seems at times to be very callous. In the way that he talks about these things and and the mayor I really. I don't believe that there's just not anything we can do. I think we really need to pull them more into the conversation they have to be. More responsible and understanding that they have to limit the enrollment. They have had record enrollments a number of times. They even if being forthright with students people still think they can get housing and then they get here and they can't. And it I wonder if he talks to students who have been homeless. I wonder if he talks to students who couch surf. I wonder if he talks to students that find themselves in hotel rooms while they're trying to sort some things out. So if they keep saying OK well how's the freshman and sophomores but they keep adding more well then they down the line become juniors and seniors and continue to put stress. So I just don't think he understands what's going on and I think it's it's very callous. Thank you. Thank you for that. And do we have any other questions here. Rachel think Charlie is coming your way. So this we did not plan this at all but I would love to hear each of you share a little bit about what you love about Burlington and what brings you joy here. I love the natural beauty of Burlington. I think we can all agree on that. I feel blessed to live as close as I do to the waterfront except for when they did my property tax reevaluation. So I walk through there a lot down there a lot. I walk through the cemetery a lot go to Red Rocks a lot. I just love the natural beauty of Burlington. I love the communities of Burlington. I love the diversity of Burlington. We're very different from the rest of the state. I think a lot of people are very surprised when they walk through our neighborhoods in World 2 and 3 and see the diversity that's present. See all the different BIPOC businesses all the different foods we can eat. I love that. I love the art scene. I love all my fellow DJs and musicians. Shout out to Fatty B and the Gumbo event at the Essex experience this weekend. I've always had really great friends here who despite the fact that there is a fair amount of racism here I've been able to create a safe space for myself until I joined the police commission. But I love you all so much. Thank you. The first thing that comes to my mind is food because I came here from work and haven't had dinner yet. But I love living next to Taco Gordo. That's my home away from home. Like I said, I work with Max doing some marketing stuff for a hop farm. So breweries is a big part of Burlington for me living next to the lake. I don't own property but my rent is astronomical because of that. But I will take it because I like being able to just walk down Deepo Street and be at the lake and walk up the bike path. And I think that for the size that we are we have a really incredible art scene. And our performance venues get folks who you wouldn't see in a city of this size in other areas because we have that history here. I used to volunteer at the Sustainability Academy after school and one of the best things about that was seeing so many kids from New American families who have brought their own culture to the North End and I think the North End is the most vibrant part of the city because of that. Because there's so much diversity of language and backgrounds and it's just wonderful that we really lean into that. And that's one of the reasons that I really care about gentrification so much because we need to maintain that. And as we're building housing and things like that to be able to maintain that spirit because that's the thing that when I graduated from UVM I lived on North Manuski Ave and that was what I loved was just walking around in the morning and seeing people from all different places and backgrounds. And it's really wonderful to be around. Do we have any other questions from the floor? All right, seeing none I'm going to ask a question as one of the few people here from downtown. One of the things that we've kind of noticed as a downtown resident downtown being part of Ward 3 is that we've noticed a market change in our quality of life in the past couple of years. We've seen an increase in things like graffiti. We've seen an increase with different types of property crimes, package thefts, assaults, shootings, stabbings, that type of issue. And when we talk to certain folks, we ask them how we're going to deal with this. And a lot of times folks will simply pivot and start talking about the underlying causes. And while I think it's important to understand that and address those systemic issues on a longer term, we have some very acute immediate needs here in the downtown that I think a lot of folks are feeling are going unaddressed. City Hall Park is a good example of that. So I guess the question I would have for the two of you is what can we do in the short term to address some of the acute behavioral issues that we're seeing in the downtown core on a fairly regular basis? I think that they're not mutually exclusive. We can deal with structural causes and systemic issues without compromising safety in our community. And I think that that's something that's really bothered me about our approach to policing and public safety over the last few years is I think we've worked backwards. That we need to properly fund social services. We need to fund all of the organizations that can be preventive and reducing both folks experiencing harm and folks causing harm. And that's really important and that's something we should be moving towards with a huge amount of funding and support from the city. And over time, I think we all agree that doing so will reduce a lot of the things that we're seeing, but the problem is we didn't start with that. We started with cutting a police force and then we didn't follow through on funding the social services. And a lot of these things are, you know, systemic issues are cyclical. These are generational issues and people are trapped in cycles of harm that take a long time to work through. So it's going to take time for funding social services and funding those preventive models to cycle through and to see that reduce in the community. And in the meantime, we all need to be safe. So we also need a law enforcement body that is more transparent and is more accountable and is, you know, engaging with the community that it belongs to. I mean, we all pay for it. It's not the police departments are police department. We all pay an astronomical amount of taxes to fund it and we should have ownership over it. But that's it. We don't have to sacrifice one or the other. It's about doing the things that over the long term will reduce all the things that we're seeing downtown while maintaining basic standards of safety for all of us. Oh God, I'm triggered. Okay. So one, we have to vote. We have to vote. We have to vote. The fact that our district does not vote in the same percentages as other areas of the city is a big reason why we don't get the attention that we deserve. Number one, officers left. They left and they have been leaving. This is a long term issue with this department back in 2019 when the force reboot article came out in seven days. I encourage you all to read it or reread it. It's very interesting. The data came directly from members of the BPOA. At the time that article is written, they had lost five officers that previous month. They have had retention and turnover issues for years. And then when we had the reckoning in 2020, they just saw it just like they did the rest of the country. People just started jumping ship. We have had a long term drug problem in our district. We all know where these houses are, right? Everybody knows where the houses are that are doing the dealing where a lot of people are going to use. They have been told the mayor has been told the chief of police have been told I've been there when they've been told I have advocated for people in our community who own homes who just want that little piece of the earth and or get responses when they call for help. Well, that's what you get for living next to section eight housing. And the mayor has admitted that he's heard this from people. So now because they didn't help us, it's all over the city exacerbated by COVID. So we need to have the same level of respect and care that all the other areas of the city are getting and we need to. We need need need a safe injection site because we've got to pull people off the street opening or using and get them out of the parks, etc. And we need to address the root causes in addition to building back up the police department. Thank you. Thank you folks for your response there. We'll move into the final portion when you give each two and a half minutes to make a final closing statement and then we're going to pivot to our folks from up here to give the legislative update. You want to start? Sure. I'm happy to start. I for me running for this office. I keep joking. This is the grassroots of grassroots. I've never run for anything. I just feel it's the next step in order to help my community. I think the experience that I've gained working on the police commission, working with other city council committees, working with other city council members. Seeing what's going on behind the scenes, participating in executive sessions. I think I have a real, I've had a real education these past two and a half years. And I think with that I can hit the ground running to help our community. And just to also kind of bring us together because I feel, you know, with, we were already starting to splinter before COVID and after COVID. It's worse. And then just helping people get access to little things. I was, you know, a couple of months ago, they were here talking about the whoops program. Does everybody remember that? Where you can get an amnesty on a parking ticket. Well, I tried to take advantage of that. And it took forever. And the average person, I don't think would have done what I did and done the emails. I'm like, well, you say you offer this, but it's not on your website. Well, when you go here where you told me to go, it's not there. Oh, you have to appeal. Okay. When you appeal, I can't appeal. It doesn't show up. Oh, because you have to appeal within 30 days. So we're going to have this great little program, but people have to jump through hoops and they can't take advantage of it. And you don't have any information on your website. What does that do for us? And there's so many things like that and that are far more important and the city's communication and the city's website. It's very difficult to maneuver. And we can all do definitely do a lot better with that. Thank you very much. And I appreciate your support. And let me know if you need a launch sign, please. Thanks. So I mentioned before, through my work at UVM, I think one of the most satisfying things is being able to advocate for student-led initiatives and student resources. You know, when I attended school there, the Living and Learning Center was completely student run. And that was something that was a really meaningful experience for me in terms of having resources available to make something happen myself and feel a sense of ownership over that. And so when I'm able to do that on campus, that's the most valuable work that I do and also making sure that student voices are heard in spaces where they usually aren't. And when administrators are making decisions on behalf of students, telling them what they need and want and the students aren't at the table, I can bring them in and I've had really great experiences with that. And so for me with city government, I think the problem with the police department is we refer to it as the city. It's just the city and they're over here and we're over here and we don't have ownership over that. And I think that that's really unfortunate that many folks feel that way and they feel left out or left behind by their own leadership in their own city. And so that's that spirit of bringing all stakeholders to the table and making sure folks feel included and heard and represented is something that's really important to me. So I really appreciate the time and the conversation here tonight and I hope folks will reach out with any questions or find me on my website. It's AveryMusicCar.com and looking forward to the rest of the campaign here. All right, we'll give a hand for the candidates for coming out tonight. Thank you for your time and taking the questions from the audience here and on Zoom. I wish you best of luck in the upcoming election. Without further ado, we're going to bring our legislators up here. We have a couple that have appeared in person and we have a few that are on Zoom. So once they get situated, we'll do the introductions here. So we have Kate Logan here in person and I do apologize if you want to chime in with your district. Yeah, and if we could have Emma go first and then Brian, long day. Yeah, but yes, representative Kate Logan for the new Chittenden 16 district that is most of Ward two and a bunch of Ward three. Yeah. Hi, my name is Troy Hedrick. I am one of two. I share Chittenden 15 with Brian. I live up on off of East Avenue on Zoom. And I'm represented Emma Mulvaney Sanic. I represent Chittenden 17, which is west, the west side of Park Street and over to the lake and then up into the new North end. Brian, she and I represent Chittenden 15, which is most of the East district and part of the old North end, which is my part. And my colleagues have been very generous. I'm going to go quickly first and then Brian is going to go second. Thank you. The two in the room for this and I am going to hop off. So if there's questions, I'm happy for folks to reach out to me afterward. But I'm going to do a very quick drive by a few things. First, so it's been about four, maybe five weeks at this point into the legislative session. One of the first things we do is move a budget adjustment act because it's about halfway through the state fiscal year. And I just want to highlight because we've talked about it in the wards to three MPA quite a bit. We moved a sizable amount of money of one time general funds to support housing and specifically the VHIP program to finish the gap that was going that people probably read about or experienced personally we I talked a lot about this in the fall. So we finished the funding gap between that gets us to July 1 so that hopefully we can really think about a permanent solution for really supporting folks who need that housing assistance. We also moved money for the general assistance temporary housing assistance program, which was helping folks who are houseless so they had continued funding with with their housing needs as well as wraparound services overall I think was about $80 million or so just for housing alone. Another small part that came through house commerce where I serve was moving $350,000 to support new Americans and refugees including folks who are coming into the country on all sorts of other kinds of human humanitarian visas to help their economic security here with state dollars because federal funds run out after a year of resettlement. And so there's some new money there and we really made the language inclusive to be really reflective of all folks despite how long they've been here to really make sure we're keeping their economic security in mind. Just a couple other things before I pass the mic today was a historic day we passed on second reading the shield law for Vermont on this is incredibly important. So the shield law in Vermont I see my colleagues clapping I mean this is this was a big moment. Where we passed protections for health care providers and patients who are seeking abortion care as well as gender affirming care here in the state of Vermont. I can go into a lot more details but just know that we passed second reading it will pass tomorrow. This will likely be challenged in the courts later on, but some of this will be applied immediately once once passed by the Senate and signed by the governor, and it's a big fricking deal. We need to protect folks and their access and as long as they're in Vermont essentially they will be protected, including telemedicine. I mentioned I'm on I serve on commerce again and I'm excited that one of my unemployment bills h92 is actively being considered that would expand eligibility of unemployment for family for life circumstances sorry that include the when you are ill or family member is ill or you've had unexpected loss of childcare, or experiencing domestic violence or abuse. It will allow folks to access unemployment when they're ready to return to work which is also a significant part of supporting folks, and making sure they have the economic means they need to return to the workforce. More there but the other two quick things I want to mention is the firearms bill I've also talked about here at the mk quite a bit is numbered h98. We haven't seen fire arm legislation start to pick up yet in the center house but there's a number of provisions including a couple of items that the Burlington City Council asked the legislature to address around firearm safety so you can look for that there. And finally, my colleagues and I are putting the just cause eviction charter change item back on the table, using the voters language and so that's not numbered yet either but please stay tuned will try again to move that forward. And hopefully with the super majority with between progressives and Democrats we can finally deliver for Burlington and get that fundamental human rights of housing justice for folks. If people want to talk more on the last Sunday of the month I am having an in person constituent meetup at the bagel. It's every last Sunday of the month for during the session. So the next one is February 26 from 11 to two so come visit. Thank you. Thank you representative Malviny Stan I can Mr representative branch you know. Yeah, I'm going to set a timer for three minutes. I'm here in Montpelier I have to work tonight here at one of my four jobs DJing so I'm sorry I couldn't be there in person but the logistics weren't going to work out. I've people want more detail I posted a front porch forum with my leg is my legislative vision and priorities for the biennium that you can look up on from porch form but I'll cover a few points tonight. The gist of it is that at this moment in history, we can create a just transition to a new way of life on earth and Vermont can work towards guaranteeing all people in the Green Mountains equitable and universal access to the needs of food housing health care education and social and economic opportunity. And I'll give you a few examples of ways that I would like for us to work towards that this biennium in the category of food. I would like to work with my colleagues to create pilot projects in each region of Vermont, so that we can explore year round agriculture and build capacity to eventually feed Vermonters year round from local food, as well as support universal school meals and continuing to support food justice programs and mutual aid. I would like for us to pass a bill that gives tenants the right of first refusal to purchase their buildings when they go up for sale to prevent the speculation that occurs driving prices of homes out of the range of middle and low income people. The state should use loan should offer loans from our state reserves to help people purchase those homes so that over the course of 15 to 30 years the state is getting the interest off those loans and reinvesting that into the reserve so that we can loan more money to people so that they can buy their homes. If we do this the right way we can help lift generations of people out of poverty. Through the equity they will have when their rent becomes an investment in their own property and in their own home and in their own family. Along the topic of housing, we should replace prisons with housing that instead of creating institutions in which to warehouse people, we should have secure residential housing for people whose freedom is needed to be restricted due to the danger to self or others and build a diverse housing continuum that people can move along as they transition to let less restrictive housing and I'll let my district may talk more about corrections since he's on that committee. Right now there is, we would also like to propose a moratorium on the construction of building new prisons and lifting the moratorium on aiding construction of schools, ending the school to prison pipeline. Then in terms of health care which is the committee I'm on. We need to work towards universal health care in every possible way one of those ways is interstate compacts allowed allowing providers to have a licensure across state lines. Working towards universal primary care. And one of the major problems we're seeing in Vermont right now is is suicide and tomorrow we're going to be hearing testimony from family members who lost their loved ones to suicide. It's, it's going to be an emotional day but it's important that we hear the voices the people who've been most impacted as we make policy changes that will prevent suicide. So it's that's three minutes and two seconds. I have a lot more to say but I can talk with you all later and feel free to check out that from porch forum post, and I can hang around for a little longer so I'll be on my phone off camera, but if I missed the question and answers I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you representative China representative head Rick sounds like you're up. Thank you so much. I just want I'm going to start just by expressing some joy. I was a bit of a hesitant politician. I never anticipated stepping into this Selena Coburn did a really good job of keeping me on the phone. And here I am. And it's been an absolute, absolute honor and privilege and to join this party. So Emma Mulvaney Stanek and Brian Sheena and Taylor Small and Kate. And I have the pleasure of sitting on the floor right next to Taylor and and she did such an amazing job of pushing that shield legislation through and giving it just it is just airtight and to see her stand and speak on the floor today was I'm getting a little emotional but it absolutely the highlight of my session so far it was it was wonderful and powerful and reminds me that I'm just really, really glad to be there thankful to be there for those of you who sent us there. I serve on the House Committee for Corrections and Institutions. So we have a lot of conversation about the the carceral system and the abhorrent conditions that are there right now. Really, it's going to be really fun for me to see Brian's bill land in our committee seeking to and we have another one coming in that forbids Vermont from sending any of our incarcerated folks out of state. So that's going to show up. I will be in the room making sure that it stays front and center. As that's happening. Please keep a lookout because the capital bill is moving and there is so much money in there that is intended to build new prisons. The capital bill is the bill that structures how we're going to take out bonds and where we're going to spend them. And there is money being spent on new planning of building new prisons, including youth juvenile facility, right on the temporary facility right on the grounds of the St. Albans prison facility so placing youth in the shadow of the prison. We've heard testimony from VSEA, the folks who represent our corrections workers, and it is an incredibly dire situation. And when they're burnt out and stressed and unable to handle their job, it doesn't take a brain certain to figure out where they place that negative energy on the people who are currently incarcerated. I'm going to mention two bills. The second one you probably have a lot of questions about and I'm happy to stay after to talk about them. First bill is H106. It is designed as in Montpelier lingo. It's called belts and suspenders to kind of sit alongside its Act 1 from 2019 is currently their recommendations on how the state is going to craft. It's called the ethnic and social equity curriculum. It's going to be how we just, you know, instruct our teachers to teach. This bill H106 intends to prohibit the state from prohibiting our teachers from talking about matters of race, racism, race as a social construct, gender as a social construct, and allow teachers to teach from a gender affirming perspective. It's a short form bill, so there's not a lot of detail to it right now. So if you, if education and teaching our kids in an authentic and honest way about the history of this country is important to you, you can contact anybody on the educational committee and say we want H106 to move. I know the Senate is ready for it. Martine, one of our senators is excited to help and she's on the education committee in the Senate. My next bill, I don't have a number for it yet. I anticipate I will have a number for it next week. I'm also a long time staff member at UVM. I started in 1996 in the Department of Residential Life. I've worked for the Center for Student Conduct since 2008. Full disclosure, I am a very better UVM staff employee. And I don't, I think it's broken and I don't think it's working well and I am about to bite the hand that feeds me in a very big way. And I will bite as hard as you want me to. So my next bill does two things. It places a cap on UVM enrollment until the rental vacancy market in Burlington reaches 5%. It also requires UVM, sorry, it requires UVM to guarantee a minimum square footage for each student living on campus. Right now we are masquerading tuition freeze by just admitting more and more students and shoving them into triples. That has never been a thing. I worked in ResLife since 1996. That's when I started. Triples were not a thing then. So it would state that any new buildings would first have to apply that release valve. That's also going to free up more singles for students who need them for medical reasons. So I can talk more about that for anybody who wants to hear about it. When that shows up as a number, you're going to see me blast front porch forum with it. You can go to my website trihedral.com. I blog about this stuff. This is going to take an incredibly big communal push. UVM is a very strong lobby. They contacted me within two hours of announcing this bill, saying, hey, what's going on? So it's going to take a lot of people bugging the legislation to push that bill through, because there's going to be a lot of people who don't want to see it happen. Okay. I'll try to, I'm going to time myself too. That was smart. I'm going to do that. Okay. So this is my, what's that? Oh, yeah. Representative Kate Logan. Represent the old North End in downtown Burlington. This is my first term in office. Really thrilled to be down there. Really thrilled about to have an awesome public transit system where I walk half a block to catch a bus downtown to catch a bus to Mount Belier. So came here on the bus tonight. Straight back from Mount Belier. I'm going to talk about a few bills, a couple bills that will be moving this year. They're going to get passed. So I think it's important for you to know about them, pay attention to the details on them. I'll talk about some of the work that I'm doing and then my committee work. I was assigned to the committee on environment and energy. We spent a lot of time in that committee talking about things 25 years out, less than urgent things, really. There are thankfully no big toxins issues so far this year, just old ones that we're still dealing with. One of the big bills that we expect to pass out of the house this year is paid family and medical leave insurance. This is a payroll tax funded program. 0.58% payroll tax, half is paid by the employer. That would offer up to 12 weeks of paid medical leave or leave to care for a loved one or, you know, bonding leave after a new child comes into the family, leave if you've suffered from domestic violence and a 100% replacement of your wages. The governor will veto this bill and we're going to overturn the veto. That's why I ran for office. I put in a bill this year to raise the minimum wage to the average livable wage for a household of one. That would be 1945 an hour in 2023. It also includes a tax credit for low to moderate revenue small businesses. That doesn't have a number yet. That one's going to come out next week. As a representative for Burlington, I learned about a week and a half ago that bars in Burlington are having a hard time getting liquor liability insurance. Now I've been running around the building finding the committees that need to fix this issue. It's going to take some changes in our state laws that make Vermont a more favorable place to ensure bars. So I'm trying to save our bars. W126 is currently closed. Can't get insurance. They're going to be closed until this gets fixed along with the Rlandos. Archives just got an enormous increase to their liability insurance bill. They may have to close. Anyway, we're going to try to save the bars. That's going to be in our commerce and judiciary committees on both sides of the house. They do what's called a committee bill in those cases where it's not like a filed piece of legislation. They just write it in the committee and then pass it through. That is one of the things I'm spending a lot of time working on. Then a bunch of environmental and climate stuff in my committee. So we're going to expand the deposit system for drinking containers. We are creating more regulations around hazardous waste. We're working on conservation legislation that would conserve 30% of Vermont's land by 2030 and 50% of Vermont's land by 2050. And we are going to be doing some stuff in there that impacts Burlington more immediately, revisions to zoning laws that would make it easier to build high-density housing in Burlington, make it faster to get zoning approval. And then we're also going to be passing a bill called the Affordable Heat Act that would put a lot of money into helping low- and moderate-income households transition from fossil fuel-based heating sources to sustainable heating sources. And there's, yeah, so much more we could talk about. But yeah, happy to talk with you about any of that anytime. You can also contact me at my email address, which is klogan at ledgeleg.state.bt.us. And find me on social media. All right, now that we've got the updates, we'll be opening the floor for some questions here. Carol has a question. Carol Zena, Myrtle Street. I work for DCF, and I'm really aware of the issues placing mentally ill and violent youth in the state. We are really, really struggling. There's no place to put these kids, no help to help them out. They're sitting in emergency rooms for weeks on end. Sometimes it's very sad. It's not good treatment for the kiddos. I understand that maybe the youth prison attached to the adult prison in St. Albans is, I picked up that you were not keen on that idea. Any ideas of alternative placements? I mean, maybe that isn't the right idea. We are just struggling at DCF to place kids and get help that they need, and we need programming, massive programming. Where are we going to find that, and how quickly can we get it? I've been here for three years now, I think, without Woodside. It's a major, major problem. So I'm going to put a caveat out there that I'm very new to this discussion, unfortunately. We've been taking a lot of testimony. Yeah, you want to hear it, Brian? Yeah, I wanted to speak to the issue a little bit. In the House Healthcare Committee, we are hearing from the Department of Mental Health a lot of testimony about their plans for addressing the issue of our emergency rooms being clogged, because there's no beds for people, and it's especially bad for our youth. I think many of you know that I work with youth and that I'm a part-time crisis clinician, so I see it firsthand when I work in the emergency room, and it's incredibly sad when you see children waiting for days or weeks, because there's not an appropriate place for them to go and get treatment. So we are hearing from the state that there are plans to explore secure residential options for DCF kids, but we're also hearing that there's going to be a feasibility study that was funded in the budget adjustment to look at adding a unit in Bennington at the hospital for youth, and the reason being they're the only hospital who stepped up and said they could do it. UVM says they can't afford to do it, that they won't make enough money. I'm having a unit for youth, but they're interested in the long term in looking at that. So in the short term, we may see some beds added for youth with mental health needs who need to be specifically youth who have medical needs that complicate the mental health needs, because one of the issues is that the Brattleboro retreat can't take certain youth because their medical needs exceed their capability to take care of them. So hopefully this feasibility study will show us if Bennington can do it, and if not, we still need those beds. But we are also hearing from the Department of Mental Health that we need more micro residential peer-based options. So we're really looking at extending and expanding community-based places for all people, including youth, where they can go and get treatment based in the community and not have to sit in an emergency room waiting for a hospital. So we've been hearing this for years, to be honest, and it is frustrating that the pace has been so slow, but the Department of Mental Health is telling us that there's plans to take significant steps forward. And it is encouraging because the things that they are coming to us and proposing are things that we were not hearing six years ago and they're things we were fighting for six years ago, and now they're proposing it at the start of the biennium instead of us having to fight for it. So I'm going to just try to stay focused on the positive and be hopeful there. So I hope that answers the question because I think the issue is that there were kids at Woodside who shouldn't be at Woodside, but they were at Woodside because there was nowhere better. And what we're hearing from the state is they're looking at creating more options so that people can get the care they need and not just be warehoused in an institution, but they are also looking at creating an option for the youth who need those most secure beds. Because right now, as you know, Carol, we're shipping kids out of state to horrible facilities or they're sitting in emergency rooms and people are not getting help. And I'm going to start with some things that encouraged me from the testimony that I have been hearing. And let me be clear to you, the testimony I hear is, again, capital fund related. So this is how are we going to spend money? How are we going to spend the bonds that we're taking out over the next 20 years? So anything, any state building that is about to be built or rehabbed or anything kind of comes to our committee, so that includes our prisons. So we spend a lot of time talking to buildings and general services, BGS. What encourages me is the attention that they are paying to these buildings that are being planned. So a women's reentry facility as well as a temporary shelter or temporary high security for youth who are incarcerated. They are paying wonderful attention to the aesthetics of that and to softening that and to changing how we view what a prison looks like and feels like. They are doing that work. They have a wonderful partnership with the correctional facility in Southern Maine and we have seen pictures and right if we have to have prisons, I guess that's, it feels more like kind of like a college dormitory setting more than it's secure, you know, you can't leave. But another example, a wonderful example is the building that replaced Woodside. So this is a secure residential for folks who are no longer in need of hospitalization for mental health reasons and they're stepping down into this facility. It's a 16 bed facility. I think it's going to open in April, end of April. We toured it. It's beautiful. What I have a problem with and this is more philosophical is placing those. So let's talk very specifically about the, they're called pods. It's like 10, like FEMA trailers kind of connected and then created into this secure facility for youth or incarcerated. And again, they are paying attention to the aesthetics and to the layout and to natural lighting views of the outside access to the outside. And what I have a problem is putting it directly in line with the prison, right. The message there is if you don't shape up, that's where you're going next, right. That's, I guess, and we have so many sites within the state that I think would be a better fit. And yeah, so that's, that's, that's my pessimism. That's my cynicism. That's what I worry about. But there are glimmers there that were optimism is due, I think. I know. Yeah, we've heard that testimony to believe me. Yeah, yeah. And the people who are making those decisions know that they know that we need that. Yeah, the crisis is real and it's every single day in my office. And it's costing the state a ton of money to pay social workers to sit in police stations with kids for days on end. And it's not safe for anybody. It's not safe for the kid. It's not safe for the worker union is all over it is a very bad situation. All right. Do we have any additional questions for the legislators either from anyone here or online? All right. Well, seeing none, I'll speak up. One of our fundamental rights here in the United States is trial by jury and I got one of those letters this fall. And while I did not end up getting selected to be on the jury, I was shocked and astounded to find out that jury pay in Vermont is a measly $30 a day. Think about that $30 a day. It's not even a livable wage barely. Yeah, we expect people to take time off from work and participate in this process to weigh in on the matters and it's not there. And other states also have legislation that if you get called for jury duty, your employer has to cover your wages for a period of time too. And when I inquired with my employer about that, they said Vermont is not one of those states. So I just want to throw that out there as kind of an issue that's probably not at the top of everyone's list, but I think an important issue nonetheless. So I just wanted to put that on the radar. I'm looking this up because I thought I saw that on somebody's bill and now I can't. It's I could talk all night about things I've learned beyond schoolhouse rock since I've been there to do a podcast. What I learned in Montpelier. My blog is where that is right now. Let me let me do a quick look because I thought I saw it somewhere. But yeah, but noted. Barbara Rachel sin who also represents part of Burlington is on the judiciary committee. So that'd be a good thing to talk about with Barbara. But I'd say that's that's just par for the course and Vermont, how public servants are compensated. Just talk to your city counselors about that. Yeah, speaking of city counselors, since unless there's any last burning questions here, we will pivot to the city council and school were commissioner updates. We do have counselor McGee here in person as well as school commissioner Walt. So we'll get started with them and then reach out to counselor Bergman who is online and zoom and if any of the other commissioners are there or counselors will pivot to them as well. Gene, I guess I'll start and kick it over to you. Sure. Great. All right. Hi everyone. I have a few brief updates. I know we're running a little over time here. So I'll keep it short. I want to start by talking about the crisis response team at our January 23rd meeting. The council got an update from the mayor's office that we received a grant from the state. To help us bridge the funding gap that we've had since we passed our city budget. Last summer, we received. 600 over $600,000 to support that program over the next two years. And that will allow us to do the work to actually get that program off the ground because we all know that that support is sorely needed right now. The budget resolution called for that to be started by October 31st. We missed that deadline spectacularly. The city did bring in someone to help facilitate getting that program off the ground and they've been doing amazing work and now they're working with the Howard Center who is the sole bidder for that program to get that across the finish line. Hopefully we'll have more updates on that in the next couple of weeks. We. I also want everyone to know if you haven't seen in the news that the Elmwood community emergency shelter opened this past week, folks are moving in. Over the next few weeks, it will be full all 30 pods will be full and CHT is managing a waiting list of an additional 30 or more people who are, you know, still looking for a place to live. The idea is that folks will be there for six to eight months and at the end they will have financial support to be able to get their own place. So I'm really encouraged to see this model get started to have the community partners involved. I've got the Turning Point Center helping provide recovery coaching. We've got folks providing housing navigation support. So this is really a model that I think will be very successful here in Burlington and hopefully can be replicated elsewhere. Also, last week got a chance to spend time with the CGC staff, the Community Justice Center folks that are embedded at the courthouse. We have folks that work in pretrial services court diversion and youth services that are doing some really amazing work to support folks that are justice involved or help folks avoid having to go through a trial and having a criminal record. That is really incredible work that they're doing and I was glad to be able to visit them last week. I could go on but I'll take it over to Gene and I'm happy to answer questions that folks have. Thank you, Joe. Thanks, Joe. First, let me give a big hooray yay to Troy for his bills on UVM. I just want to let folks know that I will not support the rezoning of the Trinity campus without a meaningful housing agreement with UVM. So, I just will not support them doing anything on there without that. The council passed a resolution calling on the city to be lobbying the legislature and the governor around mass transit funding. You heard that conversation a little bit in the debate with the council and the funding plan is out there. The commission put forward a plan, but it's sitting on a shelf just like many plans, unless we, we push for it so the council has done something, but to be quite honest, folks in the ward two and three NPA would be, it would be very helpful for you to call the speaker and say push some funding and get off your duff on it and make it happen. She told me when I told her that that, oh yeah, there's lots of support for it, but you know, like words are cheap. So that would be really helpful. Speaking of transportation on the 15th of February, which is next week, the public works commission is going to be having a hearing on the traffic changes that the parking space and the various traffic regulatory changes that will go with the the new bike path on North Winooski Avenue, and I just want to let folks know I've been working to push DPW and the city's business support people to work very closely with all the businesses that are going to be impacted by what I think is a good thing to create the bike lanes, but it's not a good thing if we don't support the businesses that are going to be impacted. And there has been some work and more work will be done, but if anybody is interested in weighing in on that down at the DPW commission and I believe they'll do it by zoom as well. That is where the next step in that process is going to be next week on the 15th. Just want to let people know that I've been working with DPW with BED and with the parks department to explore the possibility of a solar array project at the on the on the top of the dump. The dump used to is capped and it used to have enough methane being pulled out to run a generator and put electricity back into the grid. Now all we do is collect it and burn it. The BED tells me that a project that would be maybe a megawatt, a megawatt and a half could also be done consistently with all the uses that are happening down there right now. The bike path, the dog walking, you know you see sheep grazing underneath solar arrays and cars driving under there. I think it is well worth the exploration and I'm committed to doing a good community engagement process so that there are no mistakes this administration has made with the rollout of the Dewey Park sculpture are not repeated in a project that I am interested in doing. I look forward to sort of engaging but I've had some conversation people are kind of excited about the idea of doing that and with the controversy around burning a biomass for electricity this becomes even more essential. And the last thing I just want to let folks know is that my property taxes is something that Joe and I and others in our Progressive Council caucus are interested in finding alternatives to. We are continuing to work on progressive alternative to the municipal property tax in a way that, you know, may mirror may do something a little bit different than what's on the state education tax, because you know the state education tax is income and our city property taxes are not, and that is a failure. And in my mind, it's not just a policy failure but it is a failure of imagination and will and we are working with people like public assets Institute to try to come up with some ideas to be floating out there. I will resist going into the community control of police and a comprehensive approach to public safety and just say that I wholeheartedly support the independent community control board and I'm willing to chat with anybody about the particular details I am exceedingly disappointed at the dishonesty in the the opposition and that's not to say that there cannot be honest disagreements and there are policy choices that are, you know, being posed. And so there can be but I am absolutely appalled at the, at the way that they've, they've spun their opposition and so I'd be happy to chat with people about the bloody details we started talking about them last NPA, and will continue, if anybody wants to to engage. That's more than enough blather for me so genie take it away. I believe, like, don't you guys still take questions. I know it's late. Sure, you can question if you want. Yeah, if you guys want had any questions for the counselors. Anybody got any questions. I'm going to pass on this one. Genie. Well, Jean, I just want to say I hope there's some from porch forum posts about the, the ed tax and whatever it was you were referring to our income sensitive. What did you call it? What is this summary of that. And alternative property tax. Yeah, progressive alternative to the tax property tax based on a, an ability to pay. Okay. Hope to hear more about that. I We were here, Polly, who is the word to word three. I don't even know. Sorry, it's late. Word three school board member and I were here to present stuff about the budget last meeting. So I'm going to try not to be too repetitive. Of course, I hope you support this. Avery, I'm sorry for being so informal. I'm saying your first name because I'm afraid to mess up your last name. But you did point out that we are voting on a number if there are details that need to be worked out. That is true. But I want to say because part of the process was so transparent. People knew what changes might be coming down the pike and there were a ton of conversations, resolutions were made. Yes, of course, things are going to, we don't know exactly who's going to retire just yet that kind of stuff, you know, what might be a lateral change for a teacher to go from this position, which is being dissolved to a different position, all of that stuff. I feel really confident that people are not looking out for number one, that this is a team effort or, you know, our entire school community. All of the schools are working together for a fiscally responsible budget. We know that we are bracing ourselves for borrowing from the bond. And just to remind folks, this budget does include that first portion. And also to remind folks, it is we are not borrowing it all at once. We're not going to get slammed with taxes. But of course, we're bracing ourselves for what that impact is going to mean. With that said, you know, part of a good update is all of the unions are everything that's being spoken about as multi-year contracts like negotiating, whether it's been ratified or it's in the process. People are being really mindful about long term goals, especially financially. And speaking of unions and taking care of our staff, one of the big budget items, one of the big ones is a health care expense. And there's just no wiggle room there. We know what it's going to be. It is a lot more than it has been in the past. And it should be. And the people who are doing the work with our kids deserve all of that. So a big update is we're suing Monsanto. It's like such a coffee clash. Kind of like, yeah, we're suing Monsanto. But they didn't want us to start demolition because they were like, oh, you're destroying evidence. Doesn't this all sound so, I don't know, kind of exciting? Well, a judge finally said, let's come up with a date and demolition is starting on the 17th of this month. I mean, I'm saying that we're allowed to start that day. I'm not exactly sure if it's going to start, although I will drive past it in the morning and look. And that's about it. If anybody has any questions, you know where to find me? At the Ramble. Yes. All right. So we're going to wrap it up here. We're going to wrap up with our door prize. But before we do the door prize drawings, I'd like to give a shout out to Sam over here from CEDAW who's helping to facilitate our meeting, the burning the Zoom meeting, making sure the slides are up so that we can see them. He's here pretty much every meeting. Without him, we wouldn't be able to function. So that's off to Sam. I'd also like to recognize Travis and Naomi from CCTV, without whom we would not have our meetings on the television. So thanks to those folks as well. And without further ado, I guess I get to have the honor of pulling the number here. And rule of thumb, if you're not here, you don't win. So, okay. Avery Muzakar wins the door prize. I'd like to thank all the candidates for coming out and our current elected officials as well. I'm sharing their perspective with us. We'll be back here next month, second Thursday of the month. And because February only has 28 days, I believe it'll be March the 9th, 6.30 for the meeting, 5.30 for the community dinner. Thank you and have a good night.