 Good evening. Thank you for tuning in. This is a mayoral forum co-hosted by the Times-Argus and Orca Media. I'm Steve Pappas of the Times-Argus and I will be serving as this evening's moderator. We are grateful for this opportunity to be part of the democratic process. Times-Argus no longer provides political endorsements, a change in tradition that we imposed in 2020. Instead, we allow our focus to be getting to know the candidates and discussing the issues at play. With that in mind, we are pleased to be able to spend the next 90 minutes with you, getting to know the three candidates on the ballot to be Montpelier's next mayor. All three candidates have a long history with the city. All three candidates are active in the city and all three have a vision for Montpelier. The candidates are Dan Jones, Jack McCullough, and Richard Scheer. In a moment, we'll hear from them, but first some housekeeping. This is a forum. It is not a debate. The candidates will not be addressing one another. They are here to explain what differentiates them from their contenders and to outline their thoughts on topics facing Montpelier. To be clear, the questions posed tonight are mine, and the candidates have not seen them in advance, probably to their dismay. Hopefully not. Each candidate will get two minutes to introduce themselves. Following those opening remarks, I will pose a series of questions. The candidates will get two minutes to respond, and I will rotate the order of the responders so that each candidate gets several chances to speak first. During the answers, I will signal you with 15 seconds to go. With a few minutes left in the forum, I will let the candidates make closing remarks. Excuse me, again, two minutes each, and we are expecting a civil and respectful dialogue here tonight. I would remind viewers that this is being live-streamed, but the forum will be available at orcamedia.net, and likely will be broadcast between now and town meeting day on March 7th. So now, let's meet the candidates. As they appear on the ballot, our first candidate is Dan Jones. Two minutes, sir. Thank you, Steve, and thanks to the Times Argus and to OrcaMedia for sponsoring this needed public conversation. Now, I truly love our little city. With its scenic valley, its historic and beautiful downtown, and its kind of pervasive sense of community identity. And I'd like to help preserve as much of that as possible. My work for several years has been to create a sustainable Montpelier, capable of responding to the economic climate and social disruptions that are clearly coming our way. Today, we can see those challenges have arrived or are visible on the horizon. Work-first housing is a huge issue. Teachers, healthcare workers, and all the other people who depend, we depend on every day, need affordable places to live. We've been failing them, and I will focus on how our city can help support a rapid creation of more workforce housing. We cannot have a sustainable city without clean water. A quarter century of deferred maintenance has led to its increasing fragility of our infrastructure. We must make sure that the system starts to comply with recognized norms and the state demand for long-term safe operations. Our property taxes are moving from an annoyance to a financial threat for many of our citizens. We must focus on our budget priorities and look hard at the areas of our current expenditures. We face climate disruptions and growing recession, and I want to make sure the city is preparing for a wide range of predictable disruptions. Together, we can build a resilient and a safe future here. But we must do so in recognition of hard choices. As mayor, I hope to provide the needed leadership so that our wonderful little city can adapt and prosper in these challenging times. Thank you. Thank you very much. Jack McCullough. Thank you, Steve. Thank you to Orca and the Times Argus for hosting this debate or forum. Sorry. You may catch us disagreeing with each other once or twice, though. My wife and I moved here to Montpelier in 1983 to raise a family, and we found this to be just a great place to live. In fact, many people have heard me say that Montpelier is the best place in all of Vermont to live. I truly believe that the sense of community, the commitment of our residents and our neighbors to the well-being of the town and the natural and cultural resources that we have all make this a wonderful place to live, to raise a family, as my wife and I have raised our two sons, one of whom still lives in Montpelier with his wife and our two granddaughters. So like Dan, I love this city and I love being in it. I've spent my life in public service from 43 years as a legal aid lawyer first in Michigan and since 1983 here in Vermont to the time I've spent serving as chair of the Montpelier Housing Task Force, the serving on the board and as chair of the Montpelier Housing Authority, working as a justice of the peace and member of the Board of Civil Authority for over two decades, for serving on the City Council for the last five years. And I hope to use my knowledge, my experience and my leadership ability to continue serving the city. Thank you. Richard Shear. I am Richard Shear and instead of thanking the Times-Argus I'd like to thank you for watching and tuning into this and engaging in the process. Right now Montpelier is at an inflection point and I think all of you are somewhat familiar with Allison Wonderland and the pivotal point in that is when Alice is walking down the path and in the middle is a very large mushroom and the path veers off in many different directions and sitting atop the mushroom is a caterpillar and Alice asks the caterpillar which way should I go? And the caterpillar serenely looks at her and responds that very much depends on where you wish to go, where you wish to end up. We're at a point right now where you need to choose a path and three paths that are distinctly different are going to be offered tonight. Now they're not opposing paths, they're parallel paths and they're being presented by two different people who I've known for a long time who are very able people and civic people but you're going to have to choose a path, one of three paths. It might not be mine, it might be Dan's, it might be Jack's but standing still and doing nothing and not voting is not really an option. For the next 90 minutes you're going to find this extremely informative and I believe entertaining. Enjoy. Thank you. Gentlemen let's hop right into some discussion of some of the bigger issues going on. We're going to start with Jack on this one. How should Montpelier grow its tax base? Excellent question. Since the time I've been here, for years I've been aware of the population in Montpelier and the population in Montpelier is just about or even a little less than it was 100 years ago and during that time a lot of things have changed. Our population has not been able to grow to sustain those changes but what has grown is the number of households. The biggest challenge facing Montpelier is the lack of housing. People need housing to live here. There are large employers who can't hire people because they can't find a place to live and there are low-wage workers who can't afford to live here because the housing is too low. So that's one of our major challenges. Another major challenge is that the downtown is healthy. It's sort of making it but it needs help. One of the big things that's come up lately is the state government has to decide what it's going to do. I would like to see the state workers come back to their offices but I don't think it's going to come back the way they always were so I think we need to lean on the state to tell them well okay if you're not going to have your workers come back into town do something else productive with the land. But we have done good work in Montpelier. For instance the Caledonia spirits which I wasn't really a fan of when we had them come in has been a tremendous benefit to the city. There are other opportunities that that we can pursue. Richard how do we grow Montpelier's tax base? It's an interesting question and a question that really is not Montpelier specific. It's not Vermont specific it's communities all across the country. At the end of the day we need to recognize that we are a small town of 7,500. Some of this is well beyond in terms of growing our tax base. Some of it's beyond us. Making sure that our schools are quality is what grows our base. It helps to grow our base. I would add of course pilot which is the amount that the state pays to us for having the state office buildings but that's something that every mayor has said for years and years we'd like to see the rate increased and they go to our delegation and our delegation does what it can do but that's part of the puzzle in terms of growing Montpelier we really have to pay attention to our tax rate and we have to pay attention to our infrastructure simply because seeing our roads and disrepair does not attract people to our community or businesses for that matter. Thank you Dan your thoughts? Well growing would be a interesting prospect I've been talking with people all over town and I'm actually hearing a new attitude on our property tax demands. People a couple of years ago used to think that the taxes were a nuisance but now they're finding them financially threatening. In creating the tax plans our administration seemed to have forgotten that the same inflation that is driving up the cost of the city is also hammering our cities citizens' daily budgets. Our downtown businesses are certainly feeling a shrinking revenues okay so we need an immediate analysis of the city's growing tax burden in a ways of managing the proposed tax increases. While we wait for reappraisal findings we can only hope that a large number of our current properties can be reassessed in something approaching their actual worth. I believe that we need a hard look at the commercial buildings on State Street as they are appraised as something like a third of their real value. Now of course the business people who own those properties are hurting with the post-COVID collapse of office demand so we need to start working on ways of turning those properties into other uses like housing. Before our residents are hammered with any ever growing tax burden we need to deep dive into the various ways which are buildings and land are valued now and this is where we kind of have to get into a systems analysis looking at the multiple factors for instance how much of our single-family housing is owned by investors you know or non-residents with little commitment to our community. Personally I'd like to see such investment houses tax substantially higher than the owner occupied dwellings though that would need some provision that the taxes could not be passed on to the renters. So we need to take a look at their actual expense base of our city our government and see where savings can be created and such demands will demand a citywide discussion of our real priorities and would assume a justification for all our costs and administrative budgets. Great thank you. Richard this first question this next question is going to start with you. What needs updating in our city's master plan? I believe that what needs updating in our city city's master plan is management of the management responsibility of City Council and the oversight that City Council has in terms of the city manager and the master plan in its implementation is what's important it's not the vision itself it's how the vision is implemented that's really important and accountability and implementation is extremely important and that involves oversight which is one of the principal functions of the mayor. I mean in Mount Pilger the mayor according to Charter does very little they can't as Jack knows they can't even vote unless it's tied to be broken they set the agenda and they're the people who chair the meetings their key function is oversight over management and how management does implement things such as the master plan and things that aren't in the master plan the daily operation of our city police fire public works recreation all of those. Great thank you. Dan what needs to happen to our master plan? Well first of all we need one other than redrawing some lines on a map five years ago we're really working with a master plan that's 10 years old and doesn't take into account a lot of changes that have happened in the city so we are still operating with an idea that we have a growing economy rather than a flattening economy we're still operating on the idea that somehow we are the center of a commuter base for the region and dedicate 60-65% of our downtown to parking lots now I'm tired of parking lots we've got we've got to start thinking about other uses for our downtown land but that requires a master plan that has a broader way of looking at another one that I'm really really worried about is that our master plan doesn't take into account a lot of the things that we can see happening in the climate and the economy that is foreseeable now the same way that this winter is suddenly turning into be an extended mud season you know with into intervals of deep cold and then going back to those 52 degrees today I mean this is mid-February so we have to start accounting for what that going to mean for our infrastructure what's that going to mean for you know our environment our economy because we're no longer a winter sports economy as this opinion goes on what's it going to mean in the summertime if we have one of those heat domes that comes over us we're done from planning for floods but we've done no planning for the other kinds of disruptions we may have to see and so I think it's time for us to really as a council you know and I agree with Richard on the role of this to start demanding a new level of planning from our planning department and a master plan that better reflects the coming realities I don't know if that means Jack disagrees with you or the the Planning Commission is engaged in a process of revising the master plan and what they've been doing is you know meeting with the relevant city committees to address each element of the master plan for instance we have a housing committee and before that the housing task force and we spent a good bit of time working with the with the planning department to give our insight into the master plan I was served on the man on failure transportation infrastructure committee similarly we gave input into that and every part of the city is doing the same thing then it will come to the Planning Commission then it will come to the city council as it it's no surprise to hear that I think that one of our pressing needs is housing and figuring out how we can develop more housing for the people who need to be here is is one of the important things we have to recognize transportation is another major issue because even with the things we've done to improve our transportation system in Montpelier we will need to continue modernizing that and working on meeting the needs of of our residents I hope we'll have a growing population in coming years and we need to address those needs. Great thank you Dan this next question is going to start with you and Richard alluded to it what needs to change before the next time the city negotiates with the state over the pilot? I'm trying not to be cynical on this one but I think we need to grow some backbone for the city I think this has to be an issue that has to be confronted in more ways than just saying oh well this is traditionally what cities get for pilot payments and that's you know because I asked Anne Watson this question a couple days ago and that's what she said over we're traditionally in that frame so I think we have to start looking at what we are as a regional entity not just as a city because the state is using us as a centerpiece okay a place will come in which is like I said we have six sixty five percent of our downtown is parking a lot okay that means a commuter base that is assumed to come from a region not from just Montpelier and yet a huge portion of our actual downtown land is devoted to the state's government offices so in that respect we've got to start making a new argument with the state that there's really a lot of demands and some of it can be increased pilot payments some of it could be some of that land along the river that is not going to be reused as people continue working at home for being able to make it available for housing we can find other ways of working things but we also have to start limiting perhaps what we're offering the state you know maybe the police department has to be doesn't have to be available for every time the state wants to call you know there's there's a lot of things that we can use to sort of leverage our position great Jack what do we have to do to renegotiate before we renegotiate pilot well I think it's we have to recognize that Montpelier is not a long-ranger here we're not we're not a solar player in solo player in the payment and lieu of taxes world there are plenty of towns in the state or cities in the state that have a lot of state property and they all participate in pilot we're we don't get to set the rate we don't get to set to set the price it's the legislature that does that and we will be we have been we'll continue to be working with the other municipalities that have large amounts of state property to push in the legislature for a bigger allocation of pilot money I think that it's a very tricky thing because what we're supposed to be doing is assessing all the state property based on its fair market value we can all come up with a reasonable assessment of what the fair market value of a state office building is a little trickier to decide what the fair market value of a state house is there's only one of them and there's not that many buyers for it so there's there's a lot involved I would continue to push hard for for increased allocation in just the last couple of years the city council has formed a legislative committee to set our priorities for what we want a lot before in the state house and as I say I think it's the first time we're working closely with with our legislative legislative delegation and we'll continue to do that Richard what do you think I'm gonna go in different direction years ago I was a member of the parking committee and Governor Shumlin's aide was the chair of that Michael Clausen and we went off in very creative directions in those days we were talking about land swap and we were talking about a possible parking garage that would be next to the executive building the pavilion we were talking about at the time the wood chip plant was coming the district heat and we negotiated to be able to put that on state land the car lot which became the transit center was another one where the state in the city were being creative the state has land that we find could be of interest pilots should be thought of in a broader context maybe there's land that next to the Department of Labor where the liquor authority is that could become a new state office complex of some sort a small one so that we grow the number of workers in Mount Pylure that are in state jobs that's not pilot per se but it's the same sort of thing that is win-win we have something you want you have something we want and we can sit and make something happy because Jack is totally right on that we're not alone Waterbury is principally along with us but there are a lot of cities and towns that along with us on that one that one's largely out of our control well this next issue again something that was just brought up is not out of your control and we'll start with Jack on this one in your opinion has the district heat plant been worth it it's it's been a problematic issue for us I was a strong supporter of district heat when when it was proposed way before I was ever on the council one of the things that we were really hoping to do is has been successful and that is to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels however we know that our customers are not happy with the with the prices they're paying for for heat so the jury's still out I think we will still in the long run consider it to have been worth it but I think that the long run is the way we have to look at a lot of issues meanwhile one of the things that we put in this year's proposed budget that I hope the I hope that voters support the budget in general one of the things we put in with some financial incentives to attract more more customers to the system and that is a way of spreading the cost great thank you Richard I've supposed to district heat the numbers didn't make sense to me at the time but I was not you know I'm a citizen it didn't get my vote but I was not open saying hey we shouldn't do district heat what concerned me about district heat is I think most of you know that my wife has a downtown business that was a disaster in terms of construction the merchants were promised that that would end in August before leaf season it ended in November and that was the beginning of the key the clues that something was dearly wrong under those streets with sewer and water and let's not forget that it went down state street I down school street over to that school the same path that we worked on recently and basically it was sending red flags all over the place that we didn't understand the downtown infrastructure under the streets and we missed those flags the console at that point just did not act on it as they probably should have and had they acted on it our system would have been fully mapped right now in terms of the downtown not only the location but the condition of those pipes and this last console would have been able to take intelligent actions so that you didn't have whack-a-mole water leaks downtown so yeah that's what district heat meant to me it was the indication that something was wrong and we didn't act on it Dan what do you think was it worth it it could be okay I was a strong proponent of district heat at the time I was on the energy committee and I've been very disappointed with the city's management of it okay or lack of management I because I was then becoming an interface with the businesses that had signed up for district heat and found that they were not getting the support they needed for figuring out the problems so there was this hand-off box at the district heat plant where the steam heat for the buildings becomes all hot water for the city it was supposed to be then metered and managed and that nobody was actually assigned the job of overseeing it it should have been created in some kind of a utility function that there was actually management oversight rather than being stuck with the city engineer to say here you do it so that meant if you did something like I was with the Unitarian Church trying to say well could we use district heat to heat the church and it turned out the city wanted two hundred thousand dollars to make a pipe connection across the street and it said well wait a minute there's no bonding authority within the city that allows for this to be spread out over 20 years no it had to be paid now so it's been poorly managed poorly overseen by the city it's become something that I think could be resurrected because the energy costs in general are going to be going up for everyone we've already started seeing it they you know they go this way but they keep going up higher so the district heat plant could become the salvation of our downtown because it could become a very cost-effective way of keeping things heated in the future but that's going to require a management plan and a utility approach that is sadly lacking from the current administration. Great. You guys are nailing the time nicely done. So on a kind of on the same vein we've now set the stage Richard I'm gonna start with you what policy decisions do you think need to be made today that are going to help Montpelier a decade from now? There's two of them that that I feel one is that for years we've kicked the can down the road in terms of finding out what is going on under those streets I mean the number of water main breaks just in the last month we had behind positive pie in the parking lot we had in front of TD bank on states on Main Street we had College Avenue we had Langdon Street all in the matter of a month this is telling us that that 50 year old plan or the 50 year plan that we have is invalid and the main decision that we need to make is who is going to do this should we bring in outside sewer water experts or should we allow the city manager and public works to do that and what I'm saying is I would advise that we bring in authorities with more expertise than we have in-house to make that determination and it'd be done in six months time so that we and before that next budget have an idea of what this looks like in the short term in the medium term so that we can adjust a long-term capital budget and with the Alks Club same in six months we need a solid business plan that will tell us who's going to pay for the water and sewer underneath that and at that point council will make a decision either to continue with it or to sell the property and put it back downtown into under the streets that's what I believe needs to be done right now Dan what do you think needs to be decided now for a decade out okay I will start in agreeing with Richard on the water system I think we don't have a functioning city without clean water and I think the can has been kicked down the road for 25 years so we actually have to have a plan that is going to deal with that whether it's internally or not I think the state has yet to fully weigh in on whether what we've got is a pressure problem or a pipe problem and I'm beginning to fall on the side of a pressure problem but that's going to require 50 million dollars or so in terms of pipes and the things so the city's going to have to find a way of paying for that the other thing that we're going to have to do I think is start imagining a new tax structure that begins to look at like I suggested before other ways of valuation of properties so that we're not having our workers driven out by investor owned buildings that means a new kind of attention to zoning so that the zoning is the main lever the city has you know but how do we then use that lever to do things like get housing up here at VCFA how do we get housing going in places that it might be needed immediately because without the housing we then have a problem with about well to do people wondering where they're going to find carpenters and plumbers and teachers so we have yet to figure out that workforce housing issue and finally like I said I think we've got to really start taking a much harder look at our administrative costs and overhead and say what is it that we need to approach and control because we are not in an ever-ending growth spiral now and so we're going to have to learn how to contract and manage with it okay you have ten seconds but now you don't jack what needs to happen now well one thing you've heard from me before and what we hear from everybody in the city is what we need is housing what we don't hear as much of is how do we make sure we get it and so what I what I think we need to do one of the things we really need to do is address the issue of housing where we're going to put it how we're going to develop more housing I think and there's been economic studies have shown that that we could over time we could increase our population by a couple of thousand go up to about ten thousand and it would not appreciably change what we see of as the quality of see as the quality of life we live in month we have in Montpelier and it would be economically beneficial we're doing that right now we're involved in a public process to address how we're going to deal with the country club road property and the the voters came out and supported the purchase for housing for land conservation and for recreation we have major needs in housing and also recreation so bringing that to a successful conclusion is going to be a major major benefit another part of it is how do we get housing into downtown but one of the things that I'm gonna want to do as mayor is approach the owners of the downtown businesses we've got a lot of we still have upper floors downtown that that could support great housing the way that we did with the French block there are other areas we've seen proposals like the habitat for humanity proposal which is walkable to downtown we need to do more of that great thank you Dan some elderly friends are stopping in the town oh no I opened up you started yeah yeah no some elderly friends are stopping in the town please point them to the restroom in the 21st century why is this an issue in a progressive city like Montpelier that's either a very short or a very long answer I'll have two minutes I noticed that the legislature is taking the bull by the horn and now has a bill to study whether there should be a public restroom in town supported by the state I think it's a embarrassment for a city that there is not public restrooms available at all hours for a place that prides itself on being the center of the state and the center of the state but that is one of the problems that we keep throwing down the road that can't kick down the road now there are ways that we could do things rather rapidly but it might mean be less pretty but could be effective you know there could be porta-potties put in rather rapidly and supported but no nobody seems to mention that they want some kind of a finished thing there but there is no budget so who's going to clean it etc it becomes one of those things that there's oh we can't do this and we can't do this it's sort of like Harry Truman used to complain that he wanted a one-handed economist because each economist would say well on one hand you can do this on the other hand you can do this but nobody ever makes a decision and I fear that we're in that situation this is the city could pull the bulls by the horn try and find ways of actually constructing something using land that it's in control of downtown but it hasn't okay it's waiting for the state the state is going to study it so it's two years out before it does anything this is an embarrassment but what do I tell my early friends why I said well a city hall until four in the afternoon you know one of the restaurants that they let you in without having to buy something or the transit center until seven at night but other than that we're up Jack you've been wrestling with this one we have we need downtown restrooms there are the city has been working to address that this not as quickly as we should because we're deal we're addressing a couple of different populations people who don't have any place else to live and people who are visiting and this is a major death travel destination we should have it we should last year maybe two years ago the voters of the city approved $450,000 appropriation for services for homeless people including building to site public restrooms the siting is very difficult because a lot of the parts right down there also guess what in the flood zone so that's that's that's a real challenge we're going to continue to work on it we support the the bill that Connor Casey our former counselor and Kate McCann have sponsored in in the legislature a couple of years ago we did have porta potties and I think that as a temporary fix we we should still be doing that and but but we need to keep working on it meanwhile city hall police department transit center those are resources that are available to people great Richard well that's one that my wife faces because she sees elderly people come into the quirky pet all the time with that kind of request she sends them over to city hall she used to send them over to the Civic Center but that is no longer viable that is a real issue Jack nailed it there are two very distinctly different populations that would be using that if it were available during commercial hours and the like I think there's a broad community consensus on this when it goes 24 hours then you end up with the issue of how do we secure this facility so that's not vandalized and basically those are really tough issues before console and console really has worked hard on that but I'll add one more there should be a drinking fountain in front of city hall so you can get water for free in downtown Montpelier and it should have a little thing below for dogs great so sorry you all sat I didn't mean to cut you out you actually had more time okay you're also okay so Jack we're gonna start with you on this one given the fact that Montpelier has been struggling with the issue of public access homelessness my question is how do you think other communities see Montpelier right now I don't really know I think that one thing that other communities are thinking is that they're glad it's not us and them and it's us and not them because I think that what we've done the services we've provided for our homeless community members have been more than what most other communities have done and and more than what other communities frankly would have the capacity to do and just in the last couple of years we've we've provided funding for the Good Samaritan Haven to increase their their capacity we have added funding to to the police to for a social worker and shared with the city of Barry and and a peer advocate and we are doing I think what is in the capacity of the city of Montpelier to do we cannot end homelessness yet with the resources of the city of Montpelier however we do have an obligation to provide what assistance we can to enable people to have a reasonable live in reasonable dignity and safety we have to recognize that being homeless is not something that those members of our community are doing to us they're not doing it to the city they're victims of circumstance of whatever might have happened to them in the past and but that doesn't mean we have no obligations to them thank you Richard homelessness is a really difficult issue it's I don't like that term actually or unhomed I don't like that term either because it by it bunches together two very very separate populations one our victims of circumstance who've lost their jobs or whatever they're people who work and people who are unemployed looking for work and on the other side it bunches together people who basically conduct a lifestyle of begging of intoxication of and who don't want to work and I think that there's a core value in this town that we need to be cognizant of that we we all share and that's the dignity of work and when you subsidize and when you encourage people able-bodied adults to shirk work you're not helping these people to reach their full human potential and in a lot of ways that's insulting to those of us on the lowest part of the labor market those people who are working those jobs for low hours low pay and who are trying to sit and build their way up and when you're talking about helping those who've lost their jobs those who want to step up and join our community in a meaningful way I think that something we can agree on where we disagree is empowering people whose lifestyle is a handout and begging and that is not a shared community value for people who want to contribute to those people fine but that's not a shared responsibility of the city in my opinion. Dan how do you think Montpelier was perceived on these issues? Well thank goodness we're stuck with it not them I think is at least for central Vermont that would be probably the way it it's looked you know because you're the city and you're stuck with it. I actually think and I admire what we've been doing so far I'm friends with Dick Rick DeAngelis who runs Good Samaritan who says the city has been remarkably supportive of the homeless population and my friend Ken Russell who runs another way and is in charge of the homeless task force is the same thing there these are noble people trying their best to do what they can within a difficult circumstance and like I said I think there's a lot of the we're getting because we're the center of central Vermont where the downtown a lot of people who might be out of work from the hinterlands from the surrounding things come into town because here's where you might get services here's where you might get food so we're basically the repository for not just Montpelier but for the whole region and I think the the rest of regions quite happy that we're stuck with it now I will disagree on one thing because I think our homeless situation now is not unlike with a depression and I think we're we're going toward a worse situation where there were tons and tons of people who were called bums okay we're said they didn't want to work and they were riding the rails looking for jobs in different places they were on Margaret camps like in grapes of wrath and we're now facing another situation where a large number of people are in that thing we have a housing emergency we can't find places for the workforce to house so we have nurses living out of cars we have people who should be housed so it's a failure of the social system of the NIMBY is in town and like I said we're a you know it's also a failure of our legislature because they allow this to happen I think that's a big failure that we should have the legislature should be supporting us in this effort in all sorts of ways and they're failing at it Richard I'm going to start with you on this question as we've seen municipal budgets keep growing revenue one way or another comes out of every wallet of every voter who's going to decide who's going to be mayor for you what's the trigger that's going to signal enough that's a really Dan was visiting that earlier and saying that that's an individual household decision in terms of us I've actually gone in and studied that budget and it's a fairly tight budget it's you know there aren't that many new staff positions that have been created in the last four years in last four years we have two new people in the Department of Public Works it's it's a difficult very very difficult budget to sit and slice at because where you decide to slice you have a constituency that's going to say I'm getting gored let's not forget that the mayor is one vote out of seven and one vote that doesn't even vote unless it's tied for me in terms of the budget I think right now people are feeling it that's what I'm hearing is that the budget concerns them and what's embedded beneath the budget concerns them Jack was talking about the Recreation Center and that's a good topic to discuss what people are concerned about isn't necessarily the building of a recreation center how we gonna staff that building what is sitting as a Trojan horse in that proposal they're not so much worried about the housing and Cotton Club at the Elks Club they're worried about the streets the sewers the lights the ancillary in that what's hidden in that proposal they feel like the budget isn't really transparent that's what's concerning to people and the budget hearing was four and a half hours right now an orca hundred people have watched it so really people aren't really understanding the budget it's very very complex and it's not being explained well Dan question again if you would please municipal budgets keep growing revenue one way or another comes out of every wallet of every voter in Montpelier for you what's the trigger that is going to signal enough like I said what I'm hearing around town is that the trigger is actually the confluence of the inflation the demands in other parts of people's lives along with the tax bill the tax bill is now considered an imposition and threatening which it hasn't been in the past now I believe there's actually been a lot of additions to the city government what you know whether it's assistant city manager whether it's a communications director whether it is this task or that task and I think we have to take a hard look at what are we doing with the money what do we have to do with the money and this is something that is difficult for any city because all of these things have been added in a period of growth we're no longer in a period of growth and that means that we're going to start seeing a win away away a wearing away of what's available for this and so we're going to have to make hard decisions now what's the trigger point I think we're reaching it okay I think there's a lot of anger out there and so it's going to require us to do things with the the budget that are uncomfortable it's going to mean getting rid of staff that was going to be uncomfortable because it's going to be harder next year than it is this year because the inflation is not driven by monetary policy the inflation is driven by a lot of stuff that's a lot more expensive in resources and stuff than it was before it's going to keep going up so is the price of fuel so is the price of housing so unless we start understanding that real people are getting hurt and do not have the capacity to do this we're not going to be able to go forward and then we have the huge cost we haven't even talked about in the water system so the water system is going to be a huge drain and once people realize how expensive that's going to be to fix it's going to be through the roof with the anger Jack what's enough as we started working on our budget this past year in either December or January I think December is when I made this point my opening statement for the for the budget discussion was that our city staff really has its handful hands full with a lot of projects and initiatives that the voters of Montpelier have have approved over the recent years by the same token we're at we were asking the voters to to dig into their pockets and and pay a lot based on the projects that they've already adopted so my my starting point from anything of the budget was that I think we need to continue funding the initiatives that we're committed to but that we were not going to be adding anything new and any new projects any new initiatives of or plans of any kind and and we've stuck to that and I think it's an important thing to recognize that the city council does listen to the voters we do work to balance two important considerations one is what are the city services that that people get and need and rely on and it's it's my opinion not just from talking to people but also from looking at the election returns that people value the municipal services that they get from from a very well and professionally run city government or by the same token our tax increase this year for taking the last two years our municipal tax rate up 3.3% 1.6 to 5% for each of the last two years taken together that's not gonna gonna choke a horse well we'll see so on this next question we're gonna start with Dan tell us your thoughts on Montpelier's current demographics and what you see as the challenges within them we're old we're you know we've got too many of us in the senior category and not enough of us coming up with the the skills and energy that are going to be needed to build our future nor do we have enough of us to the young people coming up we're really going to be able to take over lots of the resources in town because right now because us old people are living so long okay we're a lot of us are sitting in houses that are way beyond what we need but the you know we would like to move to smaller places but it turns out there aren't any to move into so we have a lot of housing space that could be divided up being captured that way we're also we've been rich too long so we've assumed that we have the capacity to do things that are beginning to be painfully not possible so you know we've got a lot of well-to-do people who may be threatened as the economic challenges come off around we've got we've got a structure of the city too much for the needs of the old and while we have great recreation facilities they're underutilized in many respects because we don't have the the actual demand in the population for them so I think it's time for us to start looking at ways that we can even things out and that's going to require some hard choices for people that I don't think are ready to talk about yet Jack our demographics in Montpelier right now well as a fellow or old guy it's hard to argue with Dan on the other hand on the other hand I'm gonna take issue with that certainly we have a disproportionate number of older older people in the population but I'm seeing from from where I sit mostly because of being involved with my my grandchildren and their families I see a lot of younger people who are still moving to Montpelier establishing households in Montpelier raising children in Montpelier and I think that's going to continue that's something we really need to address I'll go back to it again housing we need more housing for young people you know it's not old people who are working in restaurants it's not old people who are working in the retail stores for the most part we need housing that younger people can afford and can move into we do need recreation resources we I'm seeing young people young adults in many of the of the city committees that I've worked on and I think that's a good thing I think we need to continue to address that and really make more of an effort than we have to attract younger community members to get involved with things that might not be that interesting to them right right they might not think they're interested in like planning commission development review board all things like that that really keep the keep the city running and I think we can do it because I think that there are people who want to make their homes there and their future here and their future here and so they will will step up and participate Richard boy that's I'm the third old guy unless you include you there's four four of us but that's an interesting challenge particularly we're in the middle of a reappraisal right now all of our houses are going to be reappraised up housing is 30% of your exposes to be 30% of your income my concern is when Jack creates housing Dan I create anybody creates housing it's going to be at a market value and that market value right now at 30% of 350 thousand or whatever the mean house is right now in this town requires a double income that's middle class I am more worried about this becoming a gated community of its own accord not not simply because we put a gate here and say that only people who are you know either old and bought in early I'm concerned about those young people being able to buy into the new homes that we would be constructing one thing about the demographic that I do am heartened by is the subcontinent population that's here now from India that's emerged in the town that I think is a great asset I think these are just absolutely great people in the civic sense and diversifies the community but we're not seeing growth in the schools right now it's totally flat as it's been and that is seriously concerning so you have a school system that's totally flat combined with not being able to afford a house unless you're selling a house and moving in from another community that does not bode well and there's nothing that the three of us can realistically do about that I didn't use before just for an interesting demographic fact do it the Census Bureau defines Montpelier as a nork and the NORK and naturally occurring retirement community wow well on that note so your positions on country club road property and infrastructure are out there there's actually a nice piece in the bridge I'll give the bridge a shout out this this time this time around one of those projects is very internal the other is very external and I want starting with Jack you all to explain why one has to be the priority I think that we need to do two things here we need to I think we're going to come up with something with a proposal that's not going to be any one of the three models that we've been shown but I think what we are going to see is something that that has a significant amount of housing possibly and probably more than what was described as the as the middle range the the hybrid between housing and recreation probably more housing than that and but I do think we also have an obligation to to do recreation the recreation center does not meet anyone's needs hasn't for some time and and we need to put it somewhere and we don't have it you know out by the swimming pool we don't have adequate parking or adequate land to to build anything that's bigger than we have now we have a building up here at the Vermont College that is basically the same footprint as our as our current rec center so neither one of those is going to work I think we have to have a recreation center right up there I think we need to have a mix of housing there are people who just are always going to want to have single-family housing that's the only thing that they're going to to move to and as I think all three of us probably live in single-family housing I think that so we're going to have to have some single-family housing up there we're going to have to have clusters and and town housing multi-unit property because there are plenty of people who also want that but we can have all three of the things we need land conservation outdoor and indoor recreation and housing it's a big piece of property and we can do it Richard I voted no on the country club acquisition I found it to be land speculation it had no rationale and it had no business plan when it was purchased and that defines land speculation it still doesn't have a rationale as of today and it still doesn't have a price tag and I would like to see both of those prepared by September so that we know the total cost of that and that includes the streets that includes the streetlights that includes the sewers that includes the water mains and that includes land subsidy to the developers if we do so that we can make an intelligent decision on console in September and not kick it down the road and say we are going to do this in our capital spending and we're going to take this projected capital spending on bridges sidewalks and the like and we're going to push it back but at the same time on the recreation department I agree with Jack it's disgraceful to have the old rec center and Barry that's leaking in the like but where we disagree is that I would have three alternative site plans by September one at the country club site the second by Montpelier High School where it could be used as ancillary gym space during school and where it has ample parking and the third over at Elm Street by the pool where we have synergy with other activities of recreation so that we're not held hostage to that one vision we can still have a recreation center without that project up at on country club road at the Elks Club Dan what do you think now did you hear was this an either or which which of your right where it's it's very it's all it's logical no I'm you know I'm just trying to be clear here the I was the original question was your that you both you all have said how you feel about the country club road property and infrastructure I'm saying that one is an internal focus which is infrastructure and one is external I my question was explain why one has to be the priority okay that's what I thought I heard yeah okay okay I'm going with the water system I think you don't have a functioning city without a safe water system and we have a really really big nut to think the country club road I I'm even further out on that one I I was not a supporter I'm not a supporter now and given the parcels rural nature and it's never been part of the master plan I think it was a bad choice of public dollars the water system we have no choice we have to start fixing and right now we have a system that is not designed for what it's being demanded to do because of the water pressure means that the old pipes are popping more often because it was designed for 90 pounds per square inch and what it's getting is 200 plus pounds per square inch that is bad municipal management to allow that happening and that's why we're having pops in the every you know there's still one out the door here every other week if not more okay but it's going to be a big number okay so we need a standard plan of how that we're going to attack that how are we going to finance it who's going to do the work and I have not seen that forthcoming and this 50 year plan on the water system is a joke okay it hasn't it's a fantasy it has it basically looks we're going to do the same thing for the next 20 years as we've been doing which is patching things and then somehow in type 2040 we're going to start finding the financing for the 83 million needed to actually rebuild the system so that's not a plan that's you know a pretend so where it's time for us to sort of bite the bullet and start saying what a realistically do we have to do with the water system it is crucial for any city to do it and I'd rather ride on bumpy roads with good water than to allow that to keep deteriorating the way it is final question gentlemen I'm going to start with you Richard there are a lot of folks in Montpelier who have a lot of different things to say about what they think is wrong how are you planning on communicating and hearing back and engaging with the community at large as mayor you have three responsibilities I keep going over this one is you represent the city at meetings and events and things like that number three you have accountability and oversight over city management but the second one is so pivotal and that's that you are the person who sets the agenda sets the rules and chairs the city council meeting there is nothing worse and demeaning than the two minute rule then to go before city council and the city councilor sit literally above you and you speak and they stare at you and and they don't respond you come to express your opinion and hear what city council has to say and bill is the person our city manager bill Fraser is the person who answers and basically you have two minutes yet what you're talking about is a lot more complex than two minutes that's simply because city council is always been really poorly run and it's been poorly run and poorly organized it doesn't have decisions made in a timely manner it rambles on and on and on what I would do is first of all it's impossible to find on the city site minutes of what was decided at the city council meeting so basically I would restructure it so that every item has pros and cons and that if you want you will get what the agenda is along with pros and cons for each item on the Friday before and you could submit comment to city council that will be answered at the meeting and basically it's a different version so that there is no reason for a two minute rule and people can new on in a nuanced way discuss with city council it's a communications breakdown jim the mayor has and doesn't really rarely uses in my failure the capacity of being of mounting the bully pulpit the place where your voice can be heard broader than just in the council chambers which is exactly right the mayor is only a vote in the case of a tie but it is he is or she is the person who can set the agenda I think the rule if I am elected I will want to take is a convener which is to bring together various interests within the city for larger discussions I would like to offer the city council that option for being able to hear people more clearly on crucial issues rather than having well we've got the bureaucratic agenda that's built prepared we've got this little thing to do here in this thing and so the city council sessions are basically taken up with the busy business of the city and it's not actually responding to the people's needs or wants or fears so I would bring people together around various interests the housing the water the schools etc and have them talk and talk have them talk in such a way that the councilors got to hear what they were saying because I think what right now the session like I said is busy business it is not actually taking care of the people's interest or hearing what's going on and I think the times that we're entering are going to require that kind of approach in a way that we haven't demanded it before so I would like to see the mayor become the engagement person the person who's going to bring the city together and start talking about the tough stuff Jack take any exception with anything that's been said well what I do yes what I would say is that the one of the things that you know we we can't say very much good about the pandemic but one of the things that we can say good is that by opening up to the hybrid meetings of in person and and zoom we've seen a significant increase in public participation in our meetings and I think that's a good thing and one thing I've noticed over the years even before I was on the council I spent many many hours year week after week year after year coming to city council members meetings to address housing and other issues and one of the things I notice is that if someone shows up to a meeting for because they're one topic they're interested in if they stick around they often find out well there's two or three other things they're also interested in and they stay and they they address us about that too and I think that's a good thing in Montpelier we do something that most other towns don't do and are not required and we're not required to do which is that we allow members of the public to address us about every single item on the agenda most people most towns they have a section like our general business and appearances they take comments from the public and that's all the public gets to do I do think that we should adjust how we do just general businesses business and appearances my proposal earlier this year was to set aside half an hour for that but allow people to go up to five minutes and assuming there's no more that wouldn't eat up the entire time but communication is vital great thank you gentlemen we covered a lot of ground so now we're gonna wrap things up we're going to once again the order you appear in the on the ballot will be how you do your closing remarks so we're going to start with Dan we're the you have two minutes two minute rule once again hi and I want to offer my compliments my fellow candidates here who are willing to give their service to Montpelier so that it can be honorably governed I think it's a big deal as you've heard from me tonight I believe we're at a crucial moment for our city where old assumptions on the ways of doing things are not sufficient to challenge the the challenges that are coming our way now such a condition is not new for a state that is famous for not accepting change but the changes are coming whether we want them or not up until now most of us have not demanded a robust response to the growing challenges well because we tend to assume that tomorrow is going to look much like yesterday yet the past few years have shown us that the climate crisis is real inflation will continue to fray our downtown economy and our infrastructure is much more fragile than we imagined along with that our assumptions of continued economic growth are preventing us from seeing how the grand plan for such parks and development are assuming tax base that may actually be shrinking the list of challenges just keeps growing I hope I can help start actively preparing for tomorrow that doesn't look like yesterday if we want to keep the key benefits of our little city then all the growing demands will require shifting our traditional assumptions of stability it is time for a new more disciplined approach to the challenges of municipal planning finance and governance my mayoral campaign is aimed at asking such difficult questions about our city's future and about the choices that we should be making this is hard stuff because it's really about the reality that we're facing rather than the suppositions we don't see what's clearly coming I believe that asking these hard questions and exploring with you the citizens is going to be a difficult public policy choices that we have to make now for building a humane and resilient future thanks Jack Thank you. Montpelier is now and continues to be a vital community full of engaged interested people and interesting people. That doesn't mean we we don't have challenges we clearly do and we've touched on a number of them in in tonight's session it takes experience and knowledge of of the situation that we're facing knowledge of the way government operates to lead us to address those challenges and to lead Montpelier into a thriving future based on my years of experience working on a wide range of issues that are facing our city and my ability to work with people in from every segment of the population every every diverse personalities who make up our city government and our city council I believe that I'm the person to lead Montpelier into the future and I appreciate the vote of everyone watching us tonight thank you for having us thank you Jack Richard I thought that Dan summation was very good about needing a vision that's Dan's particular forte and I think he expressed it well I think that Jack expressed inside understanding of what is right now I'm going to come in with an outside perspective and say not dissimilar in the sense to Dan but my particular management for it is I do understand management I do understand oversight and I do understand accountability and I do understand making hard choices and I do understand that what is needed right now is to sit and put all of those cards on the table before the next budget session arrives and let's see where they fall I have no idea what's under those streets nor does Jack nor does Dan nor do you but everyone deserves to know what's under those streets when we do construction projects they're stopped because people don't know where the pipes are they've never been mapped we need that kind of understanding and deserve that kind of understanding I promise two things as mayor water prices are really going to spike no matter which of us is elected mayor that's a promise and the second promise is that if we face this we're not going to like what the what the experts tell us but we're all adults responsible adults and we deserve to know that so that we can face the future intelligently and strengthen the core of Montpelier which will strengthen the city that we love we all love and I thank Jack and I thank Dan for running and I thank you for hosting this and I thank you for watching great thank you so much very good thank you again gentlemen that was a really good discussion and thank you for joining tonight for what I think was a very informative clear distinction between three individuals who know the city and love the city again the three candidates for mayor are Dan Jones Jack McCullough and Richard Shear a big thank you big shout out to Orca media for hosting recording and rebroadcasting and three quick reminders for the viewing audience that first these candidates are going to be meeting one more time at least one more time before town meeting day the Montpelier Rotary Club is hosting a forum Monday February 27th from 12 30 to 2 p.m. in city council chambers at Montpelier City Hall that actually will be followed by a second forum of the candidates for city council which will start at 3 orca is also will be there for those forums next Thursday February 23rd I will be back here from 6 30 to 8 talking to the candidates for the contested races from Montpelier City Council and that will also be live streamed and available for viewing at Orca media lastly you can get your absentee ballot right now be sure to get out and vote polls will be open on March 7th until 7 p.m. and I would urge you to check in with the Times Argus on that evening and certainly the next day for our extensive town meeting day coverage and thank you again for tuning in and supporting local journalism and public access and have a good night