 Recording in progress. Allie, we'll start with you for opening statements. Can you please tell us why you are running and what will be different for Burlington if you are elected? Hello, yeah, thank you, Emily. My name is Allie House. I use she, her pronouns, and I'm running to bring compassion and pragmatic leadership to Burlington's eighth ward of city council. I bring experience from the front lines of the pandemic as a social worker and a public school educator. And, you know, I see every day the impact that local policy has on people's lives. And I fully believe that my experience working in the community will bring a unique lens to city council. You know, I'm passionate about a variety of local issues, including climate solutions, housing justice, mental health, and also transforming public safety. I'm a systems level thinker and I have firsthand experience finding solutions to tangible problems within the context of greater system and systemic issues at play. And yeah, now more than ever, we need bold and experienced leaders who are optimistic about our future and are committed to tackling the most difficult issues in our community with integrity, transparency, and a compassionate lens. Thank you very much, Allie. Hannah, can you please tell us why you're running and what will be different for Burlington if you are elected? Hi, everyone. My name is Hannah King, and I use she, her pronouns, and I'm proud to be running for the Ward 8 city council seat. I'm a renter, student, and daughter of a single mother. My father was a construction worker, and my mother is a healthcare worker and proud union member. The lived experiences of my family have served as the foundation to my commitment to pushing actionable progressive policy forward. I truly understand the struggles so many of my Ward 8 neighbors face because I've lived them myself. I'm running for city council to be a representative leader that listens and is responsive, is thoughtful in their approach to solving complex problems, and frankly just puts real progress before politics is usual. I have taken action to ensure every neighbor is taken care of and given the chance to participate in their community. Ward 8 deserves a counselor who has proven themselves as a dedicated public servant who understands the intricacies of our local government and will be able to produce results from the moment that they are elected. I'm confident that I am that person. Thank you. Thank you very much, Hannah. All right, we will move on to, I'll jump off of that and just kind of more specifically ask what, and we'll continue with you, Hannah, what experience do you, what specific experience do you think you bring to bear that makes you qualified to be a Burlington city council member? Absolutely. I believe we can solve our deepest challenges through working together and listening to each other. I've worked tirelessly on behalf of our Ward 8 neighborhood serving as a steering committee member on the Ward's 108 neighborhood planning assembly and as the Ward 8 representative on the city of Burlington's community development block grant advisory board. Through these roles, I've had the opportunity to help expand language access in some of our community's most important events, such as assisting and organizing Vermont's first live translated mayoral forum, as well as working to strengthen relationships between student and long-term Burlington residents by creating a pen pal program to ensure and to ensure and encourage productive dialogue within Ward 8. I've also worked closely with my neighbors and university leaders through community coalition to de-escalate problematic situations in our student dense neighborhood. I recognize being a good city councilor goes beyond just traditional ways of community engagement. I'm proud of the time I have spent as a substitute teacher working in public schools, as well as organizing work I have done with immigrant and refugees farmers in relation to fighting for increased and fair land access. I'm also very proud to have the support of policy leaders such as state treasurer, Beth Pierce, Speaker, Jill Korinsky, state representative, Barbara Rachelson and former state rep, Mary Sullivan. My experience working with communities of all types ensure I will be a compassionate, well-versed and prepared city councilor for Ward 8. Thank you, Hannah. All right, Allie, I would like to hear about your specific experience that you think makes you qualified to be Burlington City Council member. Sure, absolutely. You know, I'm a renter and a student and also as I mentioned, I have experience on the front lines both as a social worker, a support group co-founder and co-facilitator and also as a full-time educator in Vermont public schools. You know, I also have experience in politics, getting involved in turning at the State House, speaking with our Garverner, Phil Scott, about issues such as the PFOAs that have contaminated our neighbor in Bennington's water. And yeah, I've developed a really strong network and relationships with people in our community who are compassionate about bringing just change about and I'm also, I'm personally trained in like several different areas. I hold several different certifications. I've also completed trainings on de-escalation and violence prevention myself. And I'm certainly interested in hearing what the voters of Ward 8 are most passionate about and I'm excited to work arm in arm. Great, thank you, Allie. So we are actually going to take a caller on air instead of just asking the question for you. So we will do that now. Hi, caller, you are live on the air. There was a little bit of a lag, so speak confidently and please ask your question now. So my question is, sorry, my question is, you both have a lot of involvement in the political atmosphere. So beyond that, how does your professional experience and engagement in the community speak to the kind of person that you are and the kind of city counselor that you'll be? Great, we'll start with you, Hannah. Thank you. Yes, thank you for that question. I think that's incredibly important. As I just mentioned, I think being a good city counselor goes beyond just using traditional avenues of community engagement on city boards. I'm incredibly lucky for the leadership that I've had and had the opportunity to serve Ward 8 in a traditional sense, but also the work that I've done within my neighborhoods as a student leader, as a neighborhood leader have also given me the opportunity to connect hand-in-hand with my neighbors throughout Ward 8 over the last four years. With that, I feel like it's given me a well-versed role and viewpoint on what my neighbors experience and are looking for on a council level, which will give me the chance to serve them well on council. Thank you. Thank you, Allie. Sure, yeah, thank you. Thank you for that question. Yeah, that's a great one. So as I've mentioned several times, I do bring experience from working on the front lines throughout the pandemic. And I have also co-founded and co-facilitated a couple of support groups that work to engage with folks in our community about issues that are impacting them. And even beyond that, just myself, I've had experiences. I've been employed in Burlington in food services and in retail on UVM's campus in multiple positions, including in the mailroom as a resident advisor. And I've also founded a group on campus during the climate walkouts called Call Your Reps, which helped to bridge the gap sort of between like the student community and also other communities and marginalized folks and also between politics. So it was a peer education movement that helps people explore strategies for engaging with their political representatives. And so I really bring this experience of bridging the gap between everyday working people and my experience from the political sphere. And I'm really passionate about their intersection and hope to bring that to city council if elected. Thank you, Allie. All right, I will move on to one of our prepared questions and then we'll go back to taking a caller. Just as a reminder, we're welcoming questions from the community. Please call us at 802-862-3966 if you'd like to ask a question. So, Allie, what do you think are the biggest challenges facing the city right now as a result of COVID and how can the city council address them? Sure, yeah, you know, that's definitely a big one. I think certainly pandemic fatigue and mental health and balancing that and knowing that people are certainly struggling and also that this pandemic phase is not over. I feel like we have to learn how to balance people's internal struggles with the fact that the virus is still spreading widely across our community. And even though there's been progress made on different fronts, just knowing that this is not over has been really tough on people's mental health. And I think if we've learned anything from history, we've learned that systemic issues cannot be solved solely by individual actions. There's certainly a degree of personal accountability, but we as a city do need an equitable and data-driven response to this unprecedented crisis. And we need to bounce back and create lasting change to uplift those who've been hit hardest throughout the pandemic, including many of the folks that I work with myself. And also, I too have struggled throughout this pandemic, have had to access various resources, including Vermont's Emergency Rental Assistance Program. And it's interesting to me that so many of our current conversations are centered around things like rent stabilization when, as we speak, the Vermont Emergency Rental Assistance Plan is still in place and is being widely accessed by folks, including myself, who've had their jobs, their careers and their income impacted by the pandemic. We also need opportunities for collective care and healing to learn from and to heal from this very painful time in world history and in the history of our city. Thank you very much, Allie. Hannah, what do you believe are the biggest challenges facing the city as a result of COVID and how can the city council address them? There's no doubt that COVID has put an emphasis on the day-to-day inequalities facing Braille and Tonians, whether that's access to vaccines for our community members facing houselessness, access to information related to social distancing and health guidelines, which are often changing and therefore incredibly difficult for folks to access when considering the boundaries imposed by language barriers or that just don't have access to traditional modes of technology. At the start of the pandemic, I was able to witness this firsthand through my work at the Burlington, the BTV Low Barrier Homeless Shelter. I was thankful to be able to play a small part in the effort to ensure those members of our community had access to necessary resources by organizing a donation drive for the shelter. Additionally, our community is in a mental health crisis, which was exacerbated by COVID. On campus, student resources are underfunded, inadequate and difficult to navigate. I know that in 2009, I lost my father when he took his own life due to mental health challenges. So I hold this near and dear. Access to therapy is expensive and often inaccessible to our neighbors. As mediums of treatment have gone digital, it's also difficult for members without regular access to technology to be able to receive the treatment many of us have needed throughout this difficult time. Lastly, supporting small business and frontline workers have become more crucial than ever during COVID. We need to ensure that as a Vermont community, we are providing fair compensation, as well as resources to our most vulnerable small businesses and their workers. Thank you very much, Hannah. All right. We're gonna go back to questions from callers. We'll take one now. Greg? So, caller, you're on the air. There is a little bit of a lag. So just speak confidently and please ask your question now. Okay. Activism is very important to awardee voters. What, if any, is your history and activism? Thank you very much. Allie, we'll start with you on that question. Sure, yeah. So, as I mentioned, on campus, I did found an initiative called Call Your Reps, which is a peer education climate action initiative during the student lockouts. And it provided effective strategies for bridging the student community and other marginalized communities with local, state and national representatives. I've also interned at the Vermont State House. I've met with our governor to discuss, you know, the PFOAs that are contaminating the water system in our neighbors' communities. And also, you know, I am a social worker and activism and changing policy and changing systems is really the core of what we do in our work. And so that is something that I deal with on a daily basis, advocating both on an individual micro level and on a greater systems macro level for whether it's as simple as making sure that somebody has access to decolonized mental health resources all the way up to fighting larger systemic issues such as inaccessibility of those mental health services. So really, this is something that I do feel I have experience in and also that I've surrounded myself with people in the community who do have experience in that and lean on each other and that networking that is involved and sort of bridging the gap between activism and action. Thank you very much, Allie. Hannah, can you tell me a little bit about your experience with activism in the community? Yes, thank you for this question. Activists really have served as the backbone for many of the incredible policy that the city of Burlington has been able to pass in recent years. When I think about activism, something that comes to mind for me that's incredibly important is the work that I've done with immigrant and refugee communities. I really got my start in local government working with my hometown's agricultural commission. Folks that don't speak English or aren't able to just walk into a space where it's the same old 60-year-old white men serving on a board, it's not always comfortable for folks. And so during my time working with the immigrant and refugee communities, I was able to not only learn from them but also create strategies and ways for us to effectively go into policy discussions with decision-makers to ensure that they were being supportive and had the tools necessary for them to be successful in either gaining more access to land if they had gotten materials or taxes which were unfair or were a burden to them, making sure that we were going into conversations and finding adequate solutions to those issues. Thank you. Thank you very much. So we have four calls in line. So we're gonna go ahead and take another call from a community member and we'll go ahead with that. Hi, Collar, you are on the air. There was a little bit of a lag, so please speak confidently but please ask your question now. Hi, Collar, you're live on the air. I really value the idea of young people getting involved in local politics but I am concerned about each of your commitments to the neighborhood. How long have you lived in Ward 8 and how has your experience living in the neighborhood really helped you, helped guide you in your campaigns and how you will do work on campus? I'm sorry, I'm having a little bit of trouble hearing. So the gist of what the caller said was they're really, they're excited about young people getting involved in local government but they're concerned about your commitment to the area of Ward 8. So they're wondering how long you have lived in the area and sort of what your plans are going forward and we'll start with Hannah on this one. Yes, thank you for the question. I know that as I've gone door to door and called neighbors, this has been a real concern. I think in Ward 8 specifically, we see that we have a very transient population of folks moving in and out of the ward really due to the nature of Burlington's rental market. I know that this will be my fourth year living in Ward 8. My first two years at UVM, I lived on Athletic Campus, which is in Ward 8 and then I'm been a proud member of the Bradley Street neighborhood and next year I'll be moving up to College Street. I know that I have been a committed member to Ward 8 every year that I've lived here. I mentioned it earlier, but I am incredibly proud of the work that I've done with my Wards 1 & 8 Neighborhood Planning Assembly. I know that it has not been easy for us the last couple of years through the transition of going primarily online. Beyond that, serving on the City of Burlington's Community Development Block Grant Advisory Board, I've stepped up a countless number of times to serve the Ward 8 community when truly no one else wanted to. And so I know that regardless of what happens in March, I will still be here, I will still be a dedicated member of the Ward 8 community. I think I've really proven that over the last couple of years. And so I'm excited for this moment, but also I really look forward to the work that we can do along with my neighbors in Ward 8 moving forward. Thank you very much, Hannah. All right, Allie, your turn. Yeah, thank you for that question. This will be my fourth year living in Ward 8 as an active member of the community. And Ward 8 and Burlington are my home. I remained in Burlington and in Ward 8 while many of my peers returned home at the start of the pandemic. And really, I chose to work on the front lines in Vermont public schools and also as a support group co-facilitator at Lund, which brings crucial mental health services to Vermont families and brought those services to them during that unprecedented time. And I believe that my work in the community really highlights my level of commitment to Ward 8 and I'm excited to support long-term residents and students alike. Thank you very much. I think we'll take a question from the list and then hopefully we'll take another call from a caller and we'll see where we're at. So Allie, where do you see opportunities for addressing racial justice in the city and how will you use the city council seat to meet this challenge? Sure, yeah, that's a great question and definitely a very, very important issue impacting our community. I think first and foremost, we need to be building trusting relationships with local organizers and activists who are doing the important work of addressing these issues. We need to be working with organizations, RAIB, Racial Justice Alliance. We really need to go beyond performative activism and hollow words and actually decolonize our spaces, especially in government, and really shedding that white savior narrative of like, oh, let's allow space for people like, no, let's work arm in arm with folks. Let's be empowered together. And I think that, especially in our government, we do need to be taking a look at how our spaces function. And so that individuals who are members of the BIPOC community can be heard and have their perspectives centered. And I think we also can't talk about racial justice without talking about the fact that our mayor just appointed a police chief who's stated that he doesn't believe racial bias exists in our city's police force. And so as a city counselor, I'll never support the appointment of leaders who get complacent in their efforts of self-reflection and stop examining bias within themselves and within their department. Thank you, Allie. Hannah. As a white cisgender person, I first wanna acknowledge my privilege when discussing racial justice and equity. I've experienced Burlington in ways my BIPOC neighbors, unfortunately, if not. When we look at our current crisis of justice, it's important we recognize the systemic realities which are holding us back from creating practical, progressive change for our communities of color. One policy point I am proud to put forward is the creation of a guaranteed minimum income program. This will be an important avenue in relation to the matter of economic justice. The reality is traditional welfare programs impose a number of work and educational conditions that require able-bodied adults to work at least 20 hours a week and participate in mandatory training programs that just doesn't work for everyone. Guaranteed minimum income programs should be far more straightforward and work directly to tackle systemic realities of economic injustice faced by our BIPOC community members. Our communities of color currently have the lowest rate of home ownership in the city and experience overwhelming health and economic discrepancies in comparison to our white neighbors. It's important that we look at new forward-thinking policies such as guaranteed minimum income to tackle the systemic issues we are facing for decades. I am proud to also have had the opportunity to work alongside Karen Durfee, who is now the city of Burlington's first black HR department head. Karen is doing incredible work in diversifying our city department hires. This is work that the city council needs to encourage and support regularly. Also, as a city counselor, I will work to ensure our racial equity inclusion and belonging committee are provided adequate funding to do the critical work that they have already been working tirelessly on. We also need to support REIB in their efforts to carry out the city's strategic plan for racial equity. Thank you. Great, thank you very much. So we're getting close to time here, but I'd love to take another caller if we can do that. Shortly. Hi, caller, you are on the air. There was a bit of a lag, so please speak confidently and please ask your question now. As the cost of living in Burlington continues to rise, I'm wondering how you plan on helping the people of Burlington afford to get by. Thank you very much for that question. Hannah, we'll start with you. Yes, thank you for that question. I've spoken very openly about my background coming from a single mother family where I've always needed to pay for my own personal and educational expenses. These struggles have impacted the way I view affordability in the city of Burlington. My struggles are not unique to what so many of my ward eight neighbors face day to day. It's far too expensive to live in Burlington. We need to work to create good paying jobs where we pair workers a fair and livable wage. We also need to supply more housing options and implement a rent stabilization programs so folks don't continue to be gouged for rent. Lastly, we need to be creative about policy solutions moving forward, such as, as I just mentioned, creating a guaranteed minimum income program. I'm confident that we can make Burlington a more affordable and fair place to live for all Burlingtonians together. Great, thank you, Hannah. All right, Allie. Yeah, yeah, that's a really important question and certainly one that's been raised to me by a lot of folks. So you're certainly not alone in wondering that. Yeah, I mean, I think simply put, we need to completely revamp our housing system and really begin to hold landlords accountable to their tenants. We've got a city that has 62% of the population renting and so we need real housing justice that names and resists the inflated and horrifically high prices that folks are paying for rent. I think quite frankly, rent stabilization efforts are going to be hollow when prices are as high as they are. And we also cannot overlook the role that UVM plays in this housing crisis. And so as renegotiations begin in the memorandum of understanding between the city council and UVM, I would really like to see UVM be held accountable for the role that they play. And I would really like to see them list all of their on-campus housing below market value. So that will make access to housing on campus much more affordable for folks. Thank you very much, Allie. So really quickly, if you'd each like to do a 30-second closing statement, we'll start with Hannah and then wrap up. Yes, I first want to just start by making a comment that I think that in order to make real policy changes, we need to make the first step. When we're talking about holding UVM in the city accountable is creating avenues for dialogue. And so with that, I know I've already reached out to UVM president, Garamella, to have an honest conversation regarding UVM's intentions for building more housing stock. But with that, I would also like to thank Town Meeting Day TV for organizing this event today and to everyone who has been watching along. My name is Hannah King and I'm proud of the work I have done with my Ward 8 community. From my time spent at NPAs to the mornings we've spent together counting early ballots at City Hall. Ward 8 deserves a counselor who has proven themselves as a dedicated public servant who understands the intricacies of our local government and will be able to produce results from the moment they are elected. I'm confident I am that person. Learn more about our campaign at hannahforberlington.com. Thank you. Thank you, Hannah. Ali, your closing statement. Yeah, I wanna take a minute to talk about something that I don't think that we talk about enough, which is this concept of hope. And I think now more than ever, the hope of humanity and our community is being tested. Many people that I've spoken with have been brave enough to express their fears related to many issues, including the climate crisis, housing justice, public health and a lot of other issues impacting our world. Now is a pivotal time in our community's history. And we as a state and as a municipality on the brink of some really amazing change. And now more than ever, we need leaders who are optimistic about our future and who are gonna fight to ensure that these changes actually happen and that they're decisive, rapid and equitable. I believe in our city and I believe that we, the people of Burlington have the power to create lasting and impactful change. So thank you everybody for turning out tonight for making this event happen. Yeah, and together we can do this. Thank you very much to both Ally House and Hannah King for participating in tonight's Ward 8 City Council election forum. And thank you to all our viewers for tuning in to town meeting TV's ongoing coverage of local community candidates, budget and ballot items. You can find this forum and more at www.ch17.tv. And don't forget to vote on the first Tuesday of March on town meeting day, March 1st, 2022. Burlington will be mailing absentee ballots to all active registered voters. If you don't receive those ballots by February 16th, please contact your clerk's and treasurer's office and polls will also be open all day on March 1st from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thank you very much for watching.