 Hi friends, Janae would be procure with some exciting news. Town meeting day elections for Mayor, City Council, and more will be using Ranked Choice Voting and all Burlington voters get to participate. Unfamiliar with Ranked Choice Voting? Keep watching or visit the link below. Ranked Choice Voting is a simple way to let voters rank candidates in order of preference. First, second, third, and so on. If your vote can't help your first choice win, it counts to your second choice instead. Here's how it works. If one candidate gets over 50% of everyone's first choice votes, they win and the election is over. However, if no candidate reaches a majority, the candidate with the fewest first choice votes is eliminated, and their supporters' votes will count towards their second choice. This process continues until one candidate reaches over 50% of the vote. Ranked Choice Voting is an easy way to give voters more voice, more choice, and makes for a stronger democracy. Learn more about Ranked Choice or try it out for yourself at betterballotvermont.org slash BTV 2024. Hi there, and welcome to Town Meeting TV's coverage of Town Meeting Day 2024. This program is part of a series of forums we are bringing you in advance of this Town Meeting Day, which is on March 5th. Town Meeting TV hosts forums with all candidates and covers the questions you'll see on your ballot, introducing you to community decision makers, and connecting you with the issues that shape your local community. You can find all of our forums at cctv.org slash 2024 or on our Town Meeting TV YouTube channel, where auto-generated captions are also available. On tonight's program, we'll hear from two candidates running for the Ward 4 City Council position. These candidates are Councillor Sarah Carpenter and Dan Castragano. Thank you both for joining us. We have prepared a list of questions for each of you, and you'll have 90 seconds to answer each one. If you're tuning in live, we also welcome your questions at 802-862-3966. If you call in, we'll do our best to answer your question, though we will be screening calls to ensure that questions aren't repeated. We ask that when we take your call, you share your name, the town you live in, and the question to be directed at both candidates, not just one candidate in particular. Let's get started with one minute opening statements. We'll start with Sarah. Thanks. Thanks a lot. The question is, why do you live Burlington? And it will be different about the community if you're elected. Burlington is my home. It's my family's home. I've always lived here. So I really do love this city, and I want it to succeed. It needs to be a place that everyone can live comfortably and safely. And we're all aware of all of the issues we have to face, public safety, and housing being the most daunting. And I think I can bring expertise to that and really want to continue my work in having that be my top priority. In particular, I know that staffing of our departments, particularly our emergency services, has been difficult. And as the chair of the human resource community, I think I can bring my management skills to assist with that. The list is long, and I really feel like I can bring those skills to the city and bring my ability to work collaboratively with all of us. Great. Thanks so much, Dan. Thanks, Sinead. Thanks for having us. My name is Dan Castrigano. I'm a husband and father and teacher and community organizer working mostly on climate justice issues. Love Burlington decided to raise, to have a family, to raise our son here in Burlington and care about the city and want to make it better. And I think describing why I'm stepping into the race, why I'd like to serve on city council, I think just looking at what's happening today and what has happened in the last few weeks in the city and decisions made by the city council is why I'm stepping up to run. So it's really hot outside. They were just at the waterfront on my bike. They were high school and college students, college-aged adults running in t-shirts and shorts. We are experiencing the climate emergency in real time. Our climate and ecological systems are collapsing. And that's what I care about the most, especially as a father of a two-year-old. The F-35s ripped overhead again today. They were flying again this weekend terrorizing my two-year-old as we stepped inside and made it really difficult for teaching this week. So I care a lot about a lot of things and want to serve on city council and make Burlington better. Great. Thanks so much. It also looks like we have a caller. So let's see if we can successfully. Hi there. Could you state your name, where you're calling from, and your question? Yes, hi. My name is Bridget Bozek. I'm calling from Burlington, Vermont, Ward 4. My question is from Mr. Casagano, actually. Your campaign page lists a number of issues, including climate action. You state that one path towards reducing emissions is to reduce air traffic at the Burlington Airport that is, quote, not essential for human and planetary well-being. I'd like him to be very specific in his answer in describing how and who will decide what's essential for human and planetary well-being. It seems that this effort to me is going to end up by just closing the airport by reducing flights. And for Sarah, what is her approach to climate action? Great. Thank you. OK, Dan, we'll start with you. Great. Thank you for the question, Bridget. This is what I've focused a lot of my organizing around, organizing with a lot of groups, focused on aviation and reducing air traffic that is not necessary for planetary and human well-being, including the state grounded network, which is based in Europe. So that includes flights like private jets. It is unconscionable that the 0.1%, the global elites, are allowed to fly in private jets, spewing carbon into the atmosphere, fossil fuel toys, basically. It's not necessary, as we experienced, like I said before, just increasing levels of climate and ecological collapse. Burlington's winters are almost eight degrees hotter than they were just in 1970. So things like private jets, things like short haul flights, things like the F-35s, these are things that are not necessary for the well-being of our species, the 8 billion of us on this planet, and our more than human siblings on this planet. The city of Burlington owns and operates the airport. We can be the first airport in the country to ban private jets. It's happened at Schiffel International Airport in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and that is a concrete step of climate justice. Every gram of carbon dioxide that we can save from going into the atmosphere to fry the planet is good. And this is the intersection of wealth inequality and luxury emissions. That's not necessary for the well-being of our species and for the planet. Thank you, Sarah. Thanks. For me, I think Dan may overestimate the control that the city of Burlington has over the airport. Like many things, we are highly regulated by the FAA, the US Air Force. Our ability to control aviation, I believe, is much beyond us. It also serves as an economic engine for the whole of northern Vermont. And I think we need to do this in a very well-planned way, work with partners like the FAA and experimental fuels and aircraft that go in here, but to reduce and cap it with no overview, no strategic plan, no regional plan, I think, is really misguided. We need to understand the import of the airport and what should be coming to us, what we can control. And much of it, we can't. These are national problems that need a strategic plan from the FAA and the US Air Force. Great. Thank you. Looks like we have another caller. Hi there. If you could state your name, where you're calling from, and your question for both of the candidates, please. Sure. My name is Ollie. I live in Burlington. And my question is about educating about topics that come up before council. Great. Thank you, Ollie. All right, we'll start with Sarah. I'm not quite clear. Educating. It sounded like educating on maybe educating voters on topics that come through to city council. Well, I certainly think we need to do that and probably more of it. I think one area maybe that we are weak in is not being as transparent as we can when issues come before us. They come fast, and they're very detailed. There's not often a yes or no answer. So I would welcome more forums to do that. Certainly, CCTV does that. We try to do that in our NPAs. So I think anything that the council can do to provide educational opportunities, maybe more work sessions, would be useful. Because I think it is very difficult for citizens to understand all of the back and forth. And we get lots of documents that support our decisions. And while they're all public, not everybody really gets to read them. So I concur that we could do a better job in that area. Great. Dan? Thanks, yeah. Thanks for the question. Agreed that we need to, as city councilors have selected, have to educate ourselves about all the issues, have to educate the public, have to do it through all the proper communication channels, have to strike the fine balance of engaging in public, doing public engagement, but doing things in such a way that's quick enough to actually address the crises that we have. I'm the first, you know, I make a lot of mistakes. And there's a lot to learn, even the questions that might come. Like, there's a lot of stuff that I don't know. I'm happy to admit that. And I'm continuing to educate myself. Yeah, and I think specifically appreciate councilors educating themselves on the issues. Great, thanks so much. All right, so the second question we have from CCTV is about city finances. Do you support the proposed tax increase for the city budget, yes or no? And what experience do you bring to the overall financial management of the city? So we'll start with Dan. Thank you. In my last job, I had some decision-making power over hiring and pay for my department. So I've got some expertise there and have taught financial literacy to middle and high school students, but still need to learn more about the city's finances. I know that the ballooning municipal costs affect residents, affect us in Ward 4, and it's unsustainable. And I think looking at it from a holistic perspective and it's basically from a housing and land use and zoning perspective to legalize more housing to have more residents live here in Burlington, such that we can share the tax load better. This is why cities go bankrupt is because of suburban sprawl. And there aren't enough people to pay for things like sewer and water and road infrastructure. I think the city should pass a charter change for a land value tax and should hold property owners accountable and enforce code violations, especially for blighted properties, to make sure that we are using all of the land in Burlington appropriately. And the recent reassessment also of property values also undervalued commercial properties and so putting an unfair share of paying taxes on residents. And yeah, I mean I understand all the issues with inflation and it's basically a yes and for the city budget. There are a lot of other things that I'd like to see happen as well. Great, thank you. Sarah, same question to you. Thanks. I do support the tax increase. It's modest, and we've not had an increase for several years. Unfortunately, we're finding ourselves this year with a gap of about $9 million, which was very difficult to close. One of the ways we're doing that is really an efficiency study that we hope will get about $3 million out of it. We have increased a local option tax for hotels and we've scrimped and scraped. I don't disagree that we need to look at other varieties of taxes. We need to make sure our appraisal standards are kept up to date so that nobody is disproportionately taxed and keep on the state, because 70% of our taxes, which is a different question, are schools. And I just want to add that as executive director of the Housing Finance Agency, I was involved in a lot of budgeting, big budgets, millions of dollars. So I feel like I do know how to read a balance sheet. I do know, understand our financials. And that's critical for a city of this size that we have experience in financial management. Great. Thank you. You guys are quite popular. We have another caller. Hi there. If you could state your name, where you're calling from, and your question for both of our candidates, please. Sure. This is Jim Court. I live in the north end of Burlington. And my question will be about housing. Great. Go ahead. Oh, they're ready for my question. Yes. That's OK. Sure. So my question for both candidates is that, in April, the Motel Housing Program is set to expire, and more people may be without housing in the Burlington area. I'd like to know what the candidate's understanding is of the impending end of that program, and how can the city better support people without homes. Great. Thank you. Sarah, we'll start with you. Sure. Actually, we have not good news as of this minute. There was a proposal in the works in the legislature to extend the Motel Program possibly through June. And it's seeming to go awry. And I think that is hugely problematic. So we need to let the state know about that. We need the time to find the solutions through our Continuum of Care, which is our casework program, working with the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance to find permanent housing. Burlington is the only community in the county that's stepped up with shelters. And it's very frustrating that we're not seeing other shelter opportunities from our neighbors. This is a regional problem that we've really got to tackle together with other communities and with the support of state. We have put in resources, our own resources. We have a special assistant for homelessness. We have park rangers, community service liaisons, community service officers. So we are actually doing a lot, but it is clearly not enough. And we can't just be moving people onto the street without those backup supports. Great. Thank you. Dan? Thanks, yes. I'm aware of the Motel Program ending and firmly believe that housing is a human right. Everybody should have housing, period. The Democratic leadership in Montpelier failed, Phil Scott has failed, and think the Democratic leadership in the city has failed. In the immediate term, we have to stop destroying people's homes. So in 2021, Sears Lane was raised, and there's no alternative. We're displacing the displaced. And it is inhumane and cruel. It was a few weeks ago. It was the coldest weekend of the year. Basically the only time it dipped into single digits. And Battery Park was raised, displacing the displaced. And there are no beds. There are no beds. And it is inhumane and cruel to do that, and basically to just shut people out. So we have to figure it out. It's really complex. This is the biggest city in the state. A lot of folks throughout Vermont come to Burlington if they are experiencing houselessness. We need more low barrier shelters. But we need to act with urgency and a sense of compassion that children should not be sleeping outside in the middle of winter. And we have to act. And the city and the state are not acting. And would take that on at a personal level to act with immediacy and urgency to make sure everybody has a roof over their heads every night. Great. Thank you. Do we have a rubuddle? You may. I just want to disagree. The city is acting. Those folks on battery did find placements. We have done more than any municipality in this state. And in just so far, I will concur that Montpelier hasn't. But I think if you look at the city's track record, it's not enough. And Dan is right. Housing is a human right. But we are peddling as fast as we can. And we need help. Thank you. It does look like we have another caller. Hi there. If you could state your name, where you're calling from, and your question for both of our candidates, please. My name's Chris Gish. I'm calling from Burlington. I'm in Ward 4 right now. I am calling to ask the candidates. Well, I've noticed that Sarah hasn't been the lead sponsor on a lot of resolutions or introduced a lot of resolutions. Maybe you've been the most active member of the City Council conversation. So I want to hear from both candidates about how active they plan to be on the council, how much they would want to push issues, especially given that we have so many things that I think residents understand need to have changes made really rapidly, like housing, climate, public safety, et cetera. So how can voters trust you to push the issues and be a really active member on the council? Great, thank you. We're going to start with Dan, let's go around. Thank you, Chris. Yeah, on the first day, I would figure out what I would want to do. And it would be related to what's on my platform, so climate, transportation justice, safe streets, community safety, and housing. You know, top of my list, as somebody who moves through the city on foot and on bike on the bus almost exclusively would be to basically immediately implement the 2017 plan BTV walk bike plan with quick build infrastructure and with volunteer coordination. That means things like doing traffic calming, especially adjacent to our schools. So I would champion that from the start as champion pedestrian bicycle infrastructure and infrastructure for public transit, especially where I live close to Star Farm in North Ave. If roads are wide straight and flat, people go way too fast and don't want to see any children get killed or injured. So it's really easy traffic calming as you put things like big planters in the road to slow down motorists. That section of North Avenue is really, really fast. The intersection at Woodbury by Hunt Middle School is really dangerous. And so implementing that infrastructure and using my contacts and my friends and my organizing capacity to basically find volunteers and say, if the city does not have the capacity to do this, we'll figure it out. We'll work with the city and we'll do it immediately. There's tons of other climate stuff I would do and housing stuff I would do and would be active at the start. Great, thank you. Sarah? Thanks. Well, I would say I feel I have been active, but it's a city council of 12 people who may not always agree on how do we get to a solution. My style has been both on the council and working professionally is to get things done. It serves none of us to sit and argue points of view and never get to yes. And I think one of the strengths I bring to the council is the ability to have those discussions in a collaborative way, figure out what you want, what you want, and get us together on the same page. I don't feel the need to be the lead sponsor on tons of resolutions. I work with my colleagues on, and my committee members, lots of resolutions come out of committee, so that's really important to understand. We've already vetted them, we've already agreed to them, and that's the process that I think works the best to get things done. We all have pet projects, but we want to get motion going and do it without dividing the council without getting anything done. So again, I think my strength is working collaboratively with any of the councils, whatever party or persuasion they may be. Great, thank you. Another caller. Hi there, if you could state your name, where you're calling from, and your question, please. Yeah, thanks. My name is Annie, I'm calling from Ward 4. I have a question about the climate. Here in Burlington, we had record high temperatures just last month in December, and overall, Burlington has increased by seven degrees in average winter temperatures over the last 50 years, and that's the highest increase of any city in the country. So our situation with the climate here is really urgent, and I'm curious how both candidates plan to urgently address the McNeil plant as the highest non-mobile source of emissions in the entire state. Thanks. Great, thank you. Sarah, we're gonna start with you. Sure, I've spent a lot of time learning about the McNeil plant and what it brings to the community and what it doesn't. The bottom line is it's an asset that we need in the short term to produce electricity. We all want to electrify, and it provides about 30% of our electricity. If McNeil is taken offline, that would potentially raise our rates by 20% or more. There's a plan in place to keep that plant as efficient as possible, things like trip dryers, a sustainability plan, and we do need to learn to phase it out, but at the same time, we've gotta work on other options, reducing fossil fuels, reducing the use of natural gas, which we will be doing, and I think the sustainability of McNeil, when you dig into the way they use scrap wood and the renewability of that as an asset in the short term, it's something we've gotta look at, and then in the long term, as we work at other sources like wind, which the state of Vermont has a terrible wind policy, we could certainly use assistance in getting other options, but for the short term, I see McNeil as a positive contributor, and then in the long term, we've really just gotta focus on how we convert to other greener sources. Great, thank you. Dan? Thanks, yeah. So the 2019 Net Zero Energy Roadmap is flawed. It was written by BED and then farmed out to a consulting agency, but doesn't count wood at all, and it doesn't count the two biggest sources of pollution that the city of Burlington owns and operates, and that's the McNeil Power Plant and the airport, so we need to scrap that and come up with a new plan, a zero emissions plan, basically. I was among the organizers who rallied and advocated for and essentially created the symposium on McNeil, so we brought the two scientists in, Dr. Bill Muma and Juliet Rune Vargas, who clearly showed that burning wood makes climate change worse. Since 2014, the city of Burlington has claimed that we've been renewable. I think that's greenwashing. I think we need to actually tell the truth to the city of Burlington, and we need to phase it out as fast as we can. I think just, for me, a lot of it's just like telling the truth from Burlington Electric Department and just owning up to what comes out of the stack. It's 450,000 tons of carbon dioxide every year. There was a job posting on the city of Burlington website that said a shift supervisor for McNeil Generating Station had said you're in charge of burning wood, oil, and gas in the plant, and that we need a plan to shut it down as quickly as we can. Great, thank you. All right, let's jump back to the CCTV questions. We'll do a final question, and then we all have time for closing comments. So the Burlington School District administrators have proposed a $119.6 million school budget resulting in a tax rate increase of 13.97%. Do you support this budget? Why or why not? And we'll start with Dan. Thank you, Sinead. Yes, I support this budget. It's a lot of money. I was talking to one of my teacher friends who worked at Burlington High School yesterday and got more details about this, but basically I support it. I support public schools. I've been a teacher for 15 years. Now I work in an alternative education setting in the city of Burlington. I know there's a lot more we can do in advocacy and Montpelier and that we have a disproportionate burden in Chittenden County for funding our schools. But basically, strongly support teachers, strongly support the Burlington Teachers Union, strongly support our schools, and support this increase. Great, thank you. Sarah? I mean, I would agree. I don't think we have any other choice to support it. If you look at the entire increase, only less than 4% of it's really operations. There's a chunk of it for the new high school which we also had no choice in, but much of this is driven by the state aid formula and something called the common level of appraisal which is hard to articulate. As we speak today, there's a huge discussion about re-looking at the formula, perhaps postponing these votes, because part of the problem is we don't know how much state aid we're gonna get today or March 5th, but we have to vote on a budget. And it's a sort of backwards system, but I am confident that our school has actually looked at what options they have for reducing budgetary things. So it's really being driven by the state aid formula, which is not working for Burlington, and is, of course, almost 70% of our property taxes. And sort of combined with that, we need to be looking at things like is the homestead credit really working? Is it really income sensitized to where it should be? And I am gonna strongly encourage the state legislature to look at that as well. Great, thank you. Let's move on to closing comments. We're coming up on time. If folks could just take 30 seconds, that'd be great, and Sarah will start with you. Well, thanks. I really, I've been a counselor for four years, something I didn't expect to do when I retired, but I am doing it and I really, really love it and would love to continue. I'm enjoying connecting with all of my constituents. And to be honest, the complexity of what we have to deal with, if it were easier and simpler, maybe it wouldn't be as interesting, but I wanna keep working on the issues we've got, and we've got a lot of them. And I hope to do that with actually many more new counselors to get us on the same page about solving the problems we need to solve. Great, thank you, Dan. Thanks, Shnade. Yeah, my name is Dan Castragano. I hope to earn your vote on or before March 5th. Like I said before, I'm a dad, I'm an organizer, I'm a teacher, and just care deeply about our city and have been organizing and advocating for things that I think will make the city better, will make Vermont better, will make our country better, and I promise to prioritize people and plan it over profit and would be glad to earn your vote and would be glad to serve on City Council. Great, thank you, and thanks to the both of you for making the time to be here this evening. And thanks for tuning into Town Meeting TV's ongoing coverage of local candidates, local budgets, and ballot items. You can find this and many more forums at cctv.org slash 2024, or on our Town Meeting TV YouTube channel, and you can tune into our live election results show after you cast your ballot on March 5th. Please contact your local clerk to find out how to obtain a ballot and to register to vote. In Vermont, you can register to vote on election day. Thank you so much for watching and sharing Town Meeting TV.