 All right. Hello, everyone. I'm over here looking at the camera. Hi. Okay. Here we go. My name's Andrew Champagne. This is Democratic show. Burlington Democrats live at 525 on town meeting television, which sometimes can be accessed in Burlington by Channel 17, which it was formerly known by. But we are the only station in the country, or I believe, no joking aside, in the world with town meeting television, which I think is an outstanding title. Town meeting is something that is very much New England based. Now, I think there's a little of it done in upstate New York, but New Hampshire, and of course, and I believe maybe a little bit of Maine, I have to check all that, is when the town or city elections or in the rural areas of New England, where the folks came and met and town meeting occurred when actually, for example, in Burlington, it would have been probably like Memorial Auditorium and they gathered. Now, it works. The original premises of it works very, very well when you have a small town. When it turns into a bigger town, you have to have regular elections. And so, town meeting, even though town meeting in Burlington is done with eight polling places and we're going to have lots of early voting and everyone will get a ballot by mail. At heart, at premise, it is the town meeting dates back to the rural days where the townsfolk would gather to talk about the issues and then have usually, it was kind of like a potluck and people would bring food and stuff. Now, the weather in the first Tuesday of March can be very inclement. And so, it's got quite a history. I've done town meeting day where I think it was close to 50, 55 degrees. I've done town meeting day. I remember one year about 15 years ago, I believe that there was at least 16 inches of snow on the ground, but it goes, it continues in Burlington. In my 25 years of working town meeting or being involved with town meeting, it's never canceled. So, we have a lot to talk about today. I'm trying to figure out which way I should sit here. It's a long broadcast. Where am I looking here? Okay, that's what I need. I'm sorry. I wasn't sure. Now good. I have my monitor. I first of all would like to thank everyone at Town Meeting Television, Channel 17, Town Meeting Television. I've got, by special request, my cameraman, Daniel. Thank you, Daniel. I appreciate you. I also have Kevin, who's executive producing tonight. Also like to thank Jordan and Lauren and, of course, Megan, all the kind people, all the people that help do shows, do the production. We have a beautiful, beautiful studio here on 294 North Winooski Avenue. So, I'm broadcasting from you, to you, right in the heart of the Old North End. I'd like to say to my production, I like this, I like this one camera. I think this maybe might be the best view. If you want to just stick to this one, that's fine. It's a little tough. We have a monitor to the side and sometimes it's hard with the three cameras to figure out where you're looking. So, I apologize to anyone watching. I'm not a professional, but I'm doing the best I can. Okay, so I've started every broadcast here since we started up three months ago. There's only one thing that I have to start with, and one thing I have to close with, is the virus. Right downstairs, there's testing. There's booster shots. There's COVID testing going on. I'd like to thank Hinsdale Properties, and that's probably Jacob Hinsdale, for allowing that space to be used. So, we are on the, we are at 294 North Winooski Avenue, which is the corner of Archibald and North Winooski. You'd probably know it. It's, it's, it's now kind of well known. It's the place right across, right down below us, where they throw axes, hurly burly axe. So, you can come and get a test, or get a booster, or get the COVID vaccination, and then go throw some axes. I'd like to thank to all the people at Hinsdale Properties helping with that, and this is where I got my booster shot. And they were incredibly professional, nice. You can also call community health. Now, one thing that I learned from Speaker Jill Kroinski, we have a number for all that kind of stuff, and it's statewide. So, I know people are watching here all over the county, the 13 towns of the county. So, I thank you for watching. But you can call 211 if you have questions about COVID, questions about boosters, questions about testing, questions about vaccines, questions about perhaps renters rebate, Dr. Dinosaur, three squares, which is the old food stamps program. It's now called three squares. We don't want anyone to be hungry or cold or unhoused in the winter or any time. But I can speak of someone who's lived, I've lived in the old North End for 26 years, and I knew several gentlemen that slept outside for 20 plus years. And so, they survived, but it must have been brutal and terrible. And please try to think of your fellow neighbor these times. I mean, we see the poor people collecting the cans or having to go to the food shelf or, you know, just going without. And the most wealthy, prosperous society of all world history, and especially with the stimulus and with the wonderful work President Biden has done, we want to feed, clothe, house, and educate all. The one big thing that is holding this up, besides the Republicans, of course, because they want to take credit for everything, but vote no on everything too. They're the party of big business. They don't care about the old North End. But we must thank, we must thank, Congressman Welch, who is, while getting into his campaign in a minute, of course, Senator Leahy, head of the Judiciary Committee, President Pro Tem of the Senate, the longest-serving Senator, an amazing man who announces retirement. He will be Senator for about 11 and three quarters a week, a month's left. So Senator Leahy has a lot of work left, and he will leave leaving an unbelievable legacy to Vermont as the greatest Vermont Senator ever, and probably the greatest Vermont political leader ever, obviously the greatest Democrat in Vermont history. So I never know if some of his staff, Carolyn or John, or John G., or Mrs. Leahy, or Senator Leahy are watching, but we want to say hello. Your announcement that you weren't going to run in Montpelier was amazingly poignant, historical, fantastic. I want to thank you personally for all the kindness you've extended to me, Senator Leahy, as well as when I worked for the party helping supplement my salary, when I did a lot of voter registration. So I'd like to thank you so much. Now Senator Leahy would say, look, we got a year here, we've got to get through the midterms, and that is certainly something we have to work on. Now I also have to talk, obviously, boy, we're lucky with these senators and our congressman, Senator Bernie Sanders, who, the stimulus, all these packages that got through, they would not have gotten through without him as chair of the budget committee. And I think that he's doing some of the best work of his career. Now, what a career it's been, 1981 elected mayor of this very city. This neighborhood is what put him over the top and has always been his strength and his neighborhood. But now he's been in the Senate and he'll be up for re-election in 2024. And I'd like to say right now, hey, what the hell? It's a winter's night. I hope you run again, Senator Sanders, and I endorse you. I think you're doing great work for Burlington, Vermont, the Old North End, America, the world. You truly are a world citizen. So with Congressman Peter Welch, Senator Patrick Leahy, and Senator Bernie Sanders, I mean, that's hard-hitting. That's Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, and George Foreman. Those are the tops. That's Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, and Ty Cobb. That's as good as it gets. So I am here to help them, to work with them all through the year. We, you can't talk about this year without talking about the elections. Obviously, we are not in the off year anymore. We are in the on year. We are here at the midterms. Forgive me if I'm getting excited here, but it's a long campaigns or cycles and sometimes it's long with very little going on. I do always do a lot of voter registration and that continues always because we need to fight for that right. I think because of voting, I think it's so important. I think that we will have to amend the filibuster. And I think I'm not sure, as Vice President Biden said 10 years ago, how does democracy move forward when you have to get 60 votes out of 100? It's not always possible. So I believe in what the Republicans have done in terms of the Supreme Court, not giving hearings, giving hearings right before the election that the rules have changed, and we have to take advantage of our majorities both in the House and Senate. Everyone knows our House majority is in peril. The way that the gerrymandering has been done all through the country, especially out west in the south, is partial to Republican candidates. Now, I can't sit here and say that gerrymandering hasn't been done by all parties or every party, but that's how the Republicans are able to keep control in a lot of districts in the west and south. And we also, unfortunately, have a lot of Congress people that are retiring, that they're in their 70s or 80s. And for example, Congressman Bobby Rush from Chicago, the only man to beat Barack Obama in an election. 16-term Chicago congressman, founding member of the Illinois Black Panthers. Bobby Rush made it happen. Now, he's not watching this, but if any of his friends are, they hear about this. He's quite a man. I'd like to thank him. And I love what President Obama writes about him in his books, that Bobby's the man. But for someone like Bobby that commute home every weekend's too much, he's tired. He's in his 80s. We have a lot of other House retirements. So what I ask people is try to look at some other congressional races. Now, I'll tell you a race right across the lake. 12 miles here, 13 miles from here. Elise Stefanik represents all of the North Country. She is number three in the House Republican leadership. She's not really sure that President Biden was legally elected. She's not sure that the events of January 6th were not a terrorist event. She believes Donald Trump is a good man. So just 13 miles from here, you know, we are in this old North End, Burlington, liberal, progressive, Prague, as it's called, in clave. But 13 miles from here, as the crow flies, of course, across the water, we have extremely conservative congresswoman who does not believe the events of January 6th were treasonous. Now, I have to get to the events of January 6th because I applaud President Biden for his fantastic speech at the Capitol on the one-year anniversary of the insurrection. Now, that treasonous episode was one of the worst episodes in American history. Our democracy was breached by people vandalizing, destroying, urinating, breaking stuff, carrying Confederate flags through the Capitol, assaulting, trying to gouge the eyes out of Capitol Hill police. And I need to thank those people. I've seen them many times when I go down to Washington or at the Democratic National Convention. They are fantastic, and they are heroes. And so the Capitol was breached. It was a treasonous act. Now, there has been hundreds of demonstrations on the Mall over the years, from left to right. But to go, to be whipped into a frenzy, by the Internet, by Facebook, by President Trump, and to breach the Capitol was treason. And to realize that the election was not stolen. Voter fraud was virtually nonexistent. So we are moving on from these untruths. I have a—I very much doubt former President Trump will run again, because I think he's going to be indicted in the jurisdiction of Southern New York, New York City, Manhattan. I think for high crimes and misdemeanors, a lot of tax stuff. The attorney general of New York State, Letitia James. Tish James. Let's give her a shout-out. She's outstanding. She believes the facts are there for her conviction, also for his children. No one in American history has operated a business while they were president and encouraged treasonous activities, like when he called the Secretary of State in Georgia, a Republican, a conservative Republican, and said, we need 13,000 or 11,000 votes. Find them. So I believe President Biden has been so unbelievably tolerant of this, and he's such a good man. He's trying to move things forward. And we see by the work that he and VP Kamala Harris are doing, they care about people. I again need to give another shout-out to Capitol Hill Police and all the police all around the world, all in America, New York City, Hartford, Connecticut, where I grew up, Burlington, Vermont, because I think a lot of groups, sure there's been some excesses of police problems, but I just think about today them cruising around. It's, as we speak, it's below zero, or them having to go to a fire or someone's hurt or an accident or an overdose or a suicide or a fight. And I have a lot of respect for Burlington PD, and I'd like to thank them on this cold night. I'd like to thank all the service workers, people up at the hospital tonight. The hospital is flooded with people that are in intensive care because they have not gotten their vaccine. So I'm begging you, asking you, I've stressed this over and over. You've got to wear your mask, okay? Please wear your mask. We have a mass mandate in Burlington. I'm hoping that Governor Scott will extend that statewide. I know I travel around the state, and I know a lot of rural parts of the state. It's a bit different, but in Burlington, please wear your mask. And if you haven't been vaccinated, let's get you that first Pfizer dose, okay? When I got it, I'm sorry, I'm repeating myself here. When I got it, I didn't even feel the pinprick, and there was no side effects. That is at least 75% effective. So let's get you there. Come on down to 294 North Manuski Avenue. Call the community health or email or please call 2-1-1 if you don't have a phone. If anyone would like myself to go with them when they get vaccinated, I'd be glad to do that. Again, my name is Andrew Champagne. I work better off phones, so I'm going to give you my phone number. You can give me a call anytime. 802-540-0717. Again, my name is Andrew Champagne, and I'm a member of the Vermont Democratic Party. I'm on the State Committee. And to anyone who's just tuning in, we're recapping, we're talking about Democratic politics. We're going over a lot of things. We're talking about that we must, in order to move forward with a society, in order to have President Biden re-elected, we must, it will never be everyone, but we need just as close to everyone, minus one, to get vaccinated because we cannot move forward as a society. Again, you can call 2-1-1. 294 North Manuski Avenue. Community health. There's a lot of places that are giving out one flu shots, booster shots, Johnson J&J, one Pfizer one and two, and then the booster. I'm asking anyone who's watching this shot, I have a great friend of mine, I don't want to say his name, but he's not vaccinated. And I hope that he listens to the facts. And the vaccine has not, and I don't want to get into a scientific, this is not a scientific show, but the vaccine has not killed anyone. And something like 200 million people have gotten it. So let's work with Dr. Fauci, President Biden. And, you know, I have to say Governor Scott. Now, I wish there was a mask mandate in Vermont statewide, but his press conference is, his health commissioner, Haida Bentruman, the health commissioner, Spokesman does a great job. I believe it's Dr. Mark Levine. And I got to give some praise where praise is due to Governor Scott. Okay. Changing to some topics. We are going to do a full show, our next show, which will be the second Tuesday in February on Town Meeting. Okay. And that's going to be the eight city council races that we have in Burlington. Now, the city council has gone through some very contentious stuff the last couple years. And it has been dominated by progressives. Now, in my ward, city council president Max Tracy has announced that he's not going to run again. I believe he's been on the council either for eight years or 10 years. Max was a neighbor of mine for 12 years right across the street from me on Green Street. He's done an excellent job as a counselor. And his constituent service is A-plus. He cares about Burlington. It's very difficult to be city council president. I saw on a note that Chip Mason is also not running. And he blames some of the discord. He talked about sometimes the counselors, people, you know, call obscenities, screaming at them, saying the worst possible words. So let's keep everything civil when we're at city council. And it seems like these meetings going past midnight one o'clock in the morning are futile. You know, I had a professor once at college and told me that he thought lecturing or any kind of serious work after nine o'clock was superfluous. And I think these meetings are going to have to start earlier or we're going to have to just do something. But after midnight, I think tempers get frayed, people get hungry, dehydrated, and it's just too much. So I'd like to thank all the counselors. I've also heard rumors that James Stromberg, counselor James Stromberg from Ward 8 and Zariah Hightower from Ward 1 are not running. I don't know if that's true. I don't really know them. And again, I'd like to thank them for their hard work. It's several nights a week doing council. It's calls. It's emails. And they literally debate, you know, the hottest topic issues. And you know, whatever side you're on, it's not easy. And at heart, Burlington is a small town. So if I can ask some of the Burlingtonians to stop complaining and start doing a little bit, I think we do be doing better. So again, if they're not running, Zariah and Jane, thank you. And we know counselor Chip Mason, my friend. Great. Thank you, man. I think 10 years on the council are 12. And my buddy, Max, who's a good guy, old North Ender, always there to help people working for the unions right now. So let's talk about what we do have on the Democratic. We have eight seats that are open. The wards 1 through 8. In Ward 1, I believe the Democrats will have a very, very strong candidate and that will be announced soon. And again, I don't know if Zariah is running. If she is, it's going to be a great contest. If she isn't, I wish her well. In Ward 2, old progressive, former Burlington City attorney, assistant attorney, former city counselor, former city constable, very good guy, friend of mine. He and his wife and family. Gene Bergman is running for city council. Now, I shouldn't be too up in the air about that because Gene is part of the old way to the progressives. He's been part of the progressive party since the early 70s. He was one of the people that helped get Senator Sanders elected mayor of Burlington. He really does know the flow of Ward 2 well. He'll be tough to beat. I'm going to be honest. So Gene, hello. You're probably watching this, I hope, and hi to Wendy, who is the ward clerk in Ward 2. Gene will be a tough candidate. He'll be out there campaigning hard. He's always issues-based, so good luck, Gene. Ward 3, I haven't heard of a candidate. I was told a Republican is running. Don't have his last name Christopher or something. I'm so sorry, Christopher. I've met you a couple times. But also, I'm sure Joe McGee was running. First-term city counselor, member of the city, board of city, board of tax appeal. Joe will be running a good campaign. It's probably the favorite there. Ward 3 is really the progressive's Waterloo. They have not lost there since 1979, and that's a district which is their bread and butter. Okay, let's get into wards 4 and 7 here. Let's take our talents up to the new North End. We have first-term counselors doing a great job, counselor Sarah Carpenter. She's running. I think she will be re-elected. She's a great Democrat. Also, over to 7. I believe Ali Dang, hello Ali, my friend, will be running for re-election. You got your new North End library up there. That was an issue that was very close to his heart. I'd like to thank him for his help on that. So, we've done wards 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7. Now, let's move over to 5 and 6. Karen Paul, hello Karen, my friend Karen Paul, who has been a counselor for a few terms, represents the Hill section and represents up by UVM, parts of wards 1 and 8. Okay, thank you, Daniel. I'm just getting a message. I have 10 minutes. And then, okay, let's move down to 6. We have a new candidate because Chip Mason is not running. Friend of mine, Ben Travers, a lawyer, husband, father of three, including a newborn. I hope you're doing well, Ben. Happy New Year. He's going to be a great counselor. I'm endorsing him now. I'm endorsing all the Democrats right now. I will be helping several of them. And then, let's see, oh my goodness, I almost forgot. My great friend Hannah King is running in 8. She will be an outstanding candidate. Student activist at UVM, senior at UVM, Bradley Street resident. Ward 8 is a lot of students, a lot of downtown residents. She will represent them well. I will be helping Hannah, and I'd like to say hi to Hannah. Good luck. I think you're off to a good start. And to be all fair, I made a campaign contribution to her already, and I would encourage any Democrats listening to do so. Also, I'd better thank Adam Roof, our chair. Boy, he's doing a good job, our Burlington chair. It's about half a full-time job. It really is. And I'd be remiss if I didn't thank Ann Lezak, who's a Burlington resident, who is now chair of the, not Burlington, excuse me, Vermont Democratic Party, David Glidden, who's the assistant. He's the vice chair. And also, my pal, Claire Cummings, who is the executive director of the Vermont Democratic Party, whose office is down in Montpelier, but is traveling all 14 counties to help Democratic candidates. Now, who here can do all 14 counties? I'm going to do them for you, because it's that kind of show. Addison, Bennington, Caldonia, Chittenden, Essex, Franklin, Grand Isle, LaMoyle, Orange, Orleans, Rutland, Windsor, Wyndham, and Washington. Those are the 14 counties of Vermont. And all these candidates and Claire Cummings and Ann Lezak will be traveling around those counties, helping to try to elect Democratic candidates. Let's talk about the session. The Vermont House and Senate, I believe, for the first two weeks is going to be virtual, because the COVID, the virus is just raging too hard. And a lot of the reps and senators live far from Montpelier and have to board. They either live in apartments or hotels, and it's just thought to be too dangerous. So we don't know how the session will go. I hope they're in person. I absolutely adore the State House, and I think that's representative government at its best. Now, we have, okay, we talked about Congress and Welch running. Now, obviously, I am endorsing Peter. I hopefully will be working on his campaign, registering voters for him. I'd like to say hello to a couple of people on his campaign campaign. Chair Ryan McLaren, my great friend from the Democratic Party. Thanks, Ryan, for all your good work, man. Thanks for your great time. You ran in the, he was in the wheelchair part of the Boston Marathon and did a great, great time. So congratulations to you on that. I wanted to thank you. And also Theo Worsberg, who works for Congress and Welch, who's now on the campaign side. And also my friend Natalie Silver, Nat Silver from the Old North End, who's working on the campaign. Thanks to Congress and Welch, and hello to Congress and Welch. I will be also donating to his campaign, too. And hello to his wife Margaret High, Margaret Cheney, fantastic person, former state legislator from Norwich. So we have that race. Congress and Welch has been endorsed by Senator Leahy and Senator Sanders. He has a clear path, but he'll need help. And I will be helping him. Any Democrat watching this show, hope you can help him. Okay. We have one big race here. We have two big races here. I have about seven minutes left. I'll do a couple of minutes on each. One is a Lieutenant Governor's race, quite something. It is open because Lieutenant Governor Mollie Gray is running for Congress in a seat that Peter is vacating. So Mollie, good luck to you. Also, two other extraordinary candidates are running, too. Three great candidates. State Senator Becca Ballant, who is the president and pro tem of the Senate from Brattleboro, all the way down to Brat. She is running. And then also Longtime Burlington, my friend, State Senator Keisha Rom, Keisha Rom-Hemstale. And she is a state senator from Chittenden County. Longtime Hill resident, UVM alum, former state rep from Ward 1 in Burlington and Ward 8. And now state senator representing all of Chittenden, living out in Shelburne. So she is going to announce just in a couple days. So we have quite a race here. We have Lieutenant Governor Mollie Gray. We have Senator Becca Ballant, President pro tem. And then we have State Senator Keisha Rom-Hemstale, all three fantastic candidates. I worry because only one person can win that race. I do not see a very, very strong candidate out there for Lieutenant Governor. And I would encourage, because unfortunately it's a three-woman race and only one candidate can win. That leaves two wonderful candidates behind. So I hope that we get some great candidates for Lieutenant Governor. You know, we've seen with Vice President Kamala Harris that she's broken tie votes. And that's with a hundred members in the Senate. The Vermont Senate only has 30. So a 15-15 tie could be very easy. So we've seen the work that Mollie has done as Lieutenant Governor. We've seen the long-term work Becca has done as State Senator. And also Keisha as a activist, state rep and state senator. That race will be very issued-based. And those three candidates are extraordinary. I know a little bit about the infrastructure. I'd like to thank a couple people on Mollie's campaign. Samantha Sheehan, my friend from Hancock has been named and also used to work for the Murrow-Weinberger, has been named campaign manager. And also my buddy Spencer Dahl, who worked for the Vermont Democratic Party on the legislative side. Fantastic jog, Spencer. And who lives in downtown Burlington will be working with Mollie, too. I don't know. And next show I will announce who the campaign people are for Becca and for Keisha, but they will be outstanding. And I just think we're lucky to have this quality of candidates for Congress. So it looks like it's been shameful, but we have never had a woman congressman or senator. And we've only had one woman governor and only two women lieutenant governors. So things are going to change because the next congressperson will either be Mollie, Becca, or Keisha. And I will tell you, they're all strong. I know them all. And I think I'm proud that they're going to be running a campaign based on the issues and they're going to be all around the state. So we're going to-hopefully we can get them on town meeting television. Okay, I'm down to three minutes. So I better do my thank yous. I better finish with the vaccine. We cannot move forward until everyone is vaxed. Please wear your mask. 294 North Manuski Avenue, right downstairs. Thanks to Hinsdale Properties. They have some rooms there where people are being vaccinated. Community health. You can call the hospital. Okay, I'm down to one minute. I need to thank my crack production crew. I'd like to thank Megan. I'd like to thank Lauren Jordan, who helped prep this show with me. Thank you. My favorite cameraman, Daniel. My line producer, Kevin. And we're down to one minute. So the next show in February will all be about city council. If anyone needs to get registered to vote or needs a question about vaccine, call me please. 802-540-0717. I'm getting ready to finish this show. I'd like to thank town meeting television, formerly known as Channel 17, going on all through the Chittenden County. Thank you for watching. If you have any input, let me know. Appreciate you watching the channel. We had a great day today. Very cold. Stay safe. Be kind. Watch out for everybody. Watch out for your fellow man. Boy, is it cold tonight. Thank you.