 Hi, welcome to General Election Coverage by Town Meeting TV. This is one of a series of forums we are bringing to you in advance of the November General Election. All candidates on the ballot are invited to participate in these forums and all ballot issues will be covered. Town Meeting TV election forums introduce you to community decision makers and the issues that matter to you locally. If you're watching this, we welcome your questions at 802-862-3966. You can watch Town Meeting TV on Comcast Channel 1087, Burlington Telecom Channel 17 and 217, as well as online at youtube.com-town-meeting-tv. I'm Mayor Christine Lott. Here with me tonight are three of five candidates running for the Senate Chittenden Southeast District. I'm joined tonight by Tom Chittenden, Ginny Lyons, and Keisha Rom-Hinsdale. Welcome everybody. Thanks for having us. Thank you. I'm going to ask you a series of questions. We'll have about a minute and a half to answer, and I'll take turns with who we have go first. So why don't we start with opening statements. Tell us why you're running and what experiences you bring to the position. And can I start with you, Ginny? All right. Thank you, Kristin, and thanks, Channel 17. It's always a pleasure to be here and talk with folks. It's so critical to let people know how critical it is that we maintain some consistency and continuity in the Senate at this time. We've got about a third of the Senate leaving completely. And so bringing back some tried and true folks is very important. And that's one of the reasons that I'd like to go back to the Senate. But beyond that, there are some really, there are issues that affect all of us, affect our local community. And we see them across the state, including the health care reform, of course, increasing affordability and access. And then mental health issues that are just front and center and have been front and center for us. Substance use, this order, and substance use issues. We're very much concerned about those things. And then affordable housing, climate change. We could go on and on with some very critical issues at a really difficult time. My own perspective is one that's quite scientific. I am a professor of biology. And so I do bring that data informed process to decision making and policies. And I look forward to continuing work on the budget. So one of the things that I do in the Senate is to help formulate the health care and health and welfare budget. So for all of our folks who are in the Howard Center or other support services. So I work with the Appropriations Committee on that. My committee does. And I look forward to going back and continuing that. Excellent. Thank you. Keisha, why don't you tell us what experience you're bringing while you're running again? Thank you, Mayor Law. And I imagine we don't have to treat this too much like a debate. I really enjoy working with my colleagues, Tom and Ginny. So folks know in Chittenden Southeast now we've done a number on voters. Really redistricting, cutting the Chittenden County District in half. Lots of seats open. It's a big change for folks. But I'd be honored to return to my second term in the Senate. And I served eight years before that in the House. So I finished up a decade in the legislature. And as Ginny so eloquently said, we have a third turnover in the House and the Senate. And it's a really helpful time to have people who have both the experience and also the energy and passion to continue to meet the moment but have that experience to have been through some of these battles before. You know, similar to what Ginny said, my work really sits at the intersection of our housing crisis, our workforce crisis, and our climate crisis. And I think our solutions really have to address all three to meet the needs of Vermonters and address the critical times that we're in. And I look forward to going back to the legislature to do that work. Thank you. And Tom, your opening statement. Why would you like to return and what experience are you bringing? Thank you, Mayor Lottis, for hosting this forum and also for Channel 17. These are really important forums for the voters to hear directly from people that want to represent them in decisions that are made in Montpelier. I'm running for reelection and I also want to say from the outset I am definitely voting for Senator Lyons and Senator Rom Hinsdale and I hope everybody votes to as well. So I think that they are a bit of a phenomenal job that you can vote for three candidates. So I hope that one of your third votes will also be for me. But I'm running for reelection and this is a statement that I made at the last Channel 17 debate during the primary. So I hope that that doesn't give anybody flashbacks but it seemed to work then. So I thought I'd use it another time. I'm running because I see more work to do in the state house that's safer, more affordable and more socially just. I'm running for reelection because I want to serve the state I grew up in, in the community I love, the transparency, commitment, optimism, civility and determination. I've always been a volunteer. In high school I was the president of our key club. In college I was a resident assistant. After college I worked on political campaigns like Howard Dean's Presidential Run and as a volunteer firefighter at Wilston. I've served on more community committees than I can count and I'm now in the final year of my third term on the South Georgia City Council. I was raised to be engaged in my community and to offer my service in any way that fits. The state senate called my attention two years ago because we could get more, I saw, that we could get more done in better ways through regional approaches and I ran because I didn't hear enough of my elected leaders advocating for Vermont to grow. So I want to see a state house about policies that allow current and future Vermonters more opportunities to stay here, live here, work here and thrive here and if the voters give me another term they can count on me to advance policies that do just that, making our state more welcoming to people, opportunity and investment. Thank you. Our next question is about redistricting and I'll start with you. You brought this up already. How has the redistricting impacted your election, the constituents in your district and connecting with voters? So yeah, I mean I served on senate government operations although in the senate the entire body kind of gets a hand in the redistricting process. I think for a lot, this is my second redistricting I was there when we redistricted in 2010 as was Senator Lyons and for the majority of Vermonters this doesn't have a huge impact for them. For people really paying attention I think there's some concern about splitting your community in half or changing boundaries but over the course of 10 years people really tend to get used to what we come up with and the basic principle of redistricting is to try and ensure that we have one person one vote so often is the case that Chittin County grows before it was Burlington this time it was actually more south Burlington, Williston, Essex so you have to reconfigure things so that people feel fully represented. This was a very historic redistricting or we're still in the middle of it breaking a county in half and also taking a few more pieces off of it so we have essentially eight people who represent Chittin County three in one district, three in another and then two in separate districts that spill over into the islands into Franklin County no other county is broken up but before this as people may know we had six senators representing all of Chittin County a little bit daunting if you don't have the financial means if you really want to get your name out there but you're worried about running in the largest district in the state that represents about a quarter of the Democratic voters it made it a little more friendly for people to see different districts I think what's nice about our district we have the south end of Burlington south Burlington, Shelburne Charlott-Hinesburg all the way up to Jericho so we kind of have all the little towns and I think what's nice about that is there's not necessarily an outsized player there every town has a voice they did before but now I think anyone could run from those little towns and have an equal opportunity to win thanks for all that detail sorry to go into too much detail Tom is there anything that you would add about how it's impacting your second time around running it's very great and a lot of technical specifics on how it's broken up I'd just add that this redistricting process was really complicated and there was no easier obvious configuration the new configuration I think what Senator Ron Hinsdale just said effectively just split our previous district in half so I really see this as if I'm given another term I will have twice as much time to focus on half as many constituents so I think that'll make me a better senator the previous district with the six seats I pride myself on getting back to people when they reach out and I'm just looking forward to having half as many people that I feel like I have to drop everything and do what I can when they need some perspective from their representative thanks and Ginny would you like to add anything well I think that both Senator Chittenden and Senator Ron Hinsdale have said quite a bit I agree with everything that they've said for me it's going to be kind of exciting not to be representing 128,000 135,000 but rather looking at 68,000 people it's always been I've always enjoyed the constituents my constituents in the town so I represent and you know when redistricting took place I just add one thing perspective from outside of Chittenden County was we have to break up Chittenden County the reality is we still have representatives for each voter so we haven't broken anything up if anything we've increased representation and made it more accessible to folks so I look forward to the new district that's a great point and a positive way to look about change our next question is about criminal justice reform Senator Chittenden I'd like to start with you how does Chittenden County address crime is there a problem with policing that needs reform or how would you address community safety so I'd say Chittenden County like all of our counties needs more mental health supports to respond to community crisis issues and to triage those issues to shield our highly trained uniform police officers from services that can be rendered by unarmed community support professionals our police officers need to be able to focus on crime prevention and we need enough mental health professionals to help our community members live safe and productive lives as for how I'd address community safety I'd continue to support regional approaches or more county coordinated cross municipal services including regionalizing our dispatch services which is an effort that is still ongoing and still alive and working towards regional solution I'd like to see and Senator Ron Hinsdale who's the leader of a legislation on this front on regionalized reporting of data and how we report crime so that we can get better metrics you can't improve what you don't measure and so having consistency across how crime is measured across our population centers rather than within municipal districts is of value and also I'm really proud of what South Burlington and other communities have been doing over the last six years with inter municipal funding for community outreach programs to the Howard Center finding ways to get the needed services that can serve the population area of the greater Burlington area without having to draw those lines along municipal boundaries I think we can achieve even better more consistent outcomes at lower costs with economies of scale organizing our population centers rather than along imaginary boundaries drawn before the automobile age when it comes to managing public safety and community services on some of those thoughts Thank you, Senator Ron Hinsdale why don't you respond? This is an area where we probably have nuanced disagreement but I don't necessarily disagree with anything Senator Chittenden just said when you look at the raw numbers that we see in Chittenden County and Vermont it's clear there's an issue and we can't necessarily just blame policing for our overlapping community crises so for example young black men make up about 2.5% of the youth population in Chittenden County but 25% of those charged as youthful offenders that's 10 times their representation of the population and that kind of statistic keeps me up at night and makes me wonder what we can all be doing better to make our community safer while also making sure we're being as welcoming as we can to the diversity of our communities and not over criminalizing kids at a young age so I think that has a lot to do with a broader cultural reform education system and I'll often say to people it's one thing what police do is get to the scene of an event not necessarily a crime but it's a whole nother when people call the police on somebody simply because of what they look like and not because of a behavior they're engaged in so we have to be looking at all of the data and understanding from a very young age where we're failing our kids and over criminalizing them and we need police at the table for that but we need a lot of other systems to recognize their part in it as well including the Department of Children and Families and who has children taken away from their parents who gets a second chance who gets extra supports and services and who is just told they're simply doing a bad job all of it matters and it's one interconnected system that we have to improve Thank you and Senator Lyons Thank you One of the honors that I have is to be able to work on our Justice Oversight Committee it's a joint committee with House and Senate folks and we look at the issues related to criminal justice reform and how we can help both with public safety as well as with community response so all of the things that Senator Chittenden has talked about and Senator Raum-Hinsdale has talked about these are all very critical the issue I think for the courts because again I'm really honored to have been asked by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to serve on one of his task forces, his counsel on community justice but the key is specifically for mental health to keep these folks out of the criminal system and to provide for them a place in our community so having the mental health support that we see with Howard Center ensuring that programs that we have through our Restorative Justice programs are there when people need them and then Senator Hinsdale mentioned kids, critically important so we have what's known as the Barge Program, the Balanced and Restorative Justice Program for kids to ensure that if it looks like they're going to get involved with the criminal system that there's a program to help them avoid that or if once they are engaged that we can keep them from going further and there are other programs like that for adults, a Tamrac program in particular is a great one Washington County is known for that so there are a lot of programs in our counties in our towns that work very well and I think they work collaboratively with public safety I think blaming public safety for all the problems is probably inappropriate that we have community groups and we have restorative justice groups that are and pre-trial assessment programs, we have all these programs that we're putting in place to ensure prevention and to ensure that we don't see some of the catastrophic concerns that have come out in the past. Thank you so much. I'm turning now to education, I'd like to start with you Senator Ram Hinsdale. The legislature can make impacts on how education is funded statewide and has started to. Do you see the need for additional changes to how we fund education and how would you try to steer that? Yeah, I think it's a conversation that can again take us down a lot of rabbit holes I would say and all of us are passionate about education both from the perspective of how do we ensure great outcomes for our kids and to me that involves how you spend the money, you know compensating teachers well, making sure we have the right programs making sure that we have the right we've right sized our schools and school environments so that young people get college preparedness and things they need in high school particularly. I think on the other side of that we have a lot of conversations about how we fund our statewide education system and while it's very equitable in terms of making sure that the wealth of your town does not determine the wealth of your school I think we could be doing a lot better. I relate this back to housing which is a passion of mine and I serve on the housing committee but right now there's not a lot of difference in how we treat commercial property and non homestead residential property and without going into too much detail Vermont has one of, along with Maine the highest vacancy rates of our houses in the state. It's about a quarter of our property in the state is vacant. This is housing and I don't mind if people have second homes but they should pay a different rate for their second home than Vermonters who pay for their first home and their primary home and so I'd really like us to be looking at how to get deeper into our tax rates, our property tax rates to make sure people are paying their fair share and we're incentivizing them to make their housing available over half the year if they're not going to be using it in their snow birds. Thank you. Senator Lyons, thank you for the question. Of course I think we will be looking at an income based payment system and I think that is very important to do and as we know because you have a lot of property doesn't mean you also have the funds to support the taxation that comes at you when you see your education tax bill. People are concerned about that and with the pressures of inflation there could be greater concern so I think looking at an income based program is a good thing to do and then to look at comparative analysis how will it benefit or harm either commercial or others and then getting to the question about seasonal homeowners that's always that's always been something that I thought about and I know that there are folks who live in this state who have second homes in this state and they would be very concerned if they had to pay more than they are paying for their if they pay more for their small camp than they do so it's complex but I agree with Senator Hinsdale that we probably need to look at these things and to see what we can do one last comment I think is what do we do for our fixed income folks so I know there's a star program in New York state I think it's worth looking at that for when someone reaches an age of a fixed income and you can assess what that is how can we help them stay where they are and not feel they have to sell off everything to live thank you and Senator Chittenden Senator really I'd agree with everything just previously said I think I'd add two small things one the current funding education funding formula in Vermont is arguably the most convoluted in the country but I also argue based on everything I've spent on this is one of the fairest so we have made it I think even more fair with the adjustments we've made this last session and I think it's moving in the right direction to study we also passed this last session which has a public hearing I think at the end of this month about looking at income tax funding solution is well worth our time and should take up I hope is part of our larger agenda for this coming session but that needs to we can't do everything by income tax because of the reasons that were just articulated second homes and commercial properties those two we still need to collect from property fees the other piece that wasn't mentioned by Senator Ron Hinsdale or Senator Lyons that I personally want to look at capital projects in schools we have a lot of deferred maintenance in school buildings that are falling apart and I I'm hearing from the presentation from the treasurer the previous treasurer that we've had a moratorium on school finance funding and I look at when you see how expensive that high school is and I'm so excited that's happening and I see Burlington in the high school project we need there that's all over the state and so I want to see how restarting the capital funding bill through the state can help prioritize and have the state use a systematic and prioritize to the schools based on consistent scientific analysis of the condition of our of our buildings and not to Senator Ron Hinsdale's point the wealthiest communities with the political will to take out and on to improve their schools so I'd like to see the state take an active hand and prioritize in dollars to make it cheaper to borrow their capital improvements some really really creative ideas here for something that's very important to our voting base I want to turn next to healthcare another key issue and I'll start with you Senator Lyons the increasing cost of healthcare is putting pressure on Vermonters as well and on the state's economy COVID has sharpened our focus on inequities in healthcare also so what do you think is next for healthcare changes in Vermont thank you for this huge question as we know it's it always feels unsolvable but just to step back to what we did last session and to begin looking at that we did pass legislation signed into law that allows for the Green Mountain Care Board and the Agency of Human Services to begin to look at short term financial sustainability for hospitals and providers as well as longer term financial sustainability and that process will include a very comprehensive community engagement process which means that the Agency of Human Services and the Green Mountain Care Board working collaboratively will work within local communities work within Burlington Williston, South Burlington Shelburne, Charlotte all the communities, Bolton what are the needs in those communities and how can we determine that those needs are being met this is a huge process it'll take more than one or two years but we'll know then what services we need to improve what services might be ancillary at this point and how can we make recommendations to ensure that when someone has acute care in the hospital that as they leave the hospital they're met with the home based services that they need that's just one aspect of what we're looking at we're also looking at prescription drugs pharmacological issues the cost of drugs is sky high and trying to restrict those costs at a state level is quite difficult we did pass some legislation last year that improves transparency for costs I'm looking forward to seeing the results of that legislation there are just a number of things that we can do and that we will do that sounds incremental and unfortunately at the state level we may have to be incremental just as a closure there are a lot of other very specific issues we could talk about but most recently the federal government has decided that in order for a state to expand its Medicaid or improve its Medicare program out to more people that they're looking for regional cooperation with other states then that's something that's another whole step and we'll take a lot of work on the part of both the legislature and the administration so I'm interested in listening to what the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services has to say about that as we go forward and I'll just end there but there's so much more concern that I have is that our healthcare system is accessible and affordable to the citizens of my district we are quite fortunate in this district let's say that we have some great healthcare facilities with the Burlington Center with the medical center with our clinics in our surrounding towns so I'll end there Thank you and Senator Chittenden what would you add about what's next for healthcare I'm really glad Senator Lyons went first I am not a healthcare expert I always call her when there's questions on this so I'll just say this I don't have specific solutions to addressing the cost of healthcare but what I understand about the all payer model I fully support initiatives to continue to move us towards that to prioritize making people healthy and not necessarily prioritizing the funding of healthcare specific policies that do address this question that I'd advocate for increased population health would be to use economic incentive and tax policy for example I support a sugary beverage tax which would collect revenues to fund more healthy consumption initiatives while also affecting consumer purchasing decisions similarly I support banning flavored tobacco products increased tobacco taxes and I also support taxing guns and ammo all for the same reasons to drive population health trends while generating revenues to support programs around health choices related to these lifestyle products Thank you for that and Senator Rum Hinsdale I mean I would just say a few things knowing that Senator Lyons is sitting next to me number one she's been an incredible champion on mental health parity as well which is just so critical and I think thankfully so much more recognized in this state and across the country coming out of a pandemic that's caused a lot of isolation particularly for our young people that you know people have to be able to receive mental healthcare substance abuse treatment when they need it and that has not been part of our healthcare regime but we are vastly improving that thanks to Senator Lyons and others two I would say that I understand our hospitals and healthcare providers asking for big increases in the short term because of carrying a lot of the community burden around COVID trying to make sure people had everything they needed without question we cannot sustain these huge increases in healthcare premiums over time and I think a lot of us are looking to the Green Mountain Care Board to really keep budgets down and you know keep in place our agreement to have them there to you know make sure that we're containing costs which is more so our job at the state level and to Senator Lyons point when the federal government decides to do something to subsidize Vermonters that benefit is so much more impactful so much more felt right away than anything we can do and I wonder if Senator Lyons has more information to do about there are efforts from our healthcare advocates to try and spread the word about healthcare subsidies that have been extended and you may be able to speak to it better I thought it was for other things now there's sort of middle income subsidies available they're moving toward that so people should just pay attention to tax credits that are available to them and I will put it in from please do you're right I thought you were talking about direct subsidies but no indirect tax credits are absolutely right let's move on next to our ballot issues we have constitutional propositions on this fall Prop 2 and Prop 5 I'll start with you Senator Chittenden would you like to make a comment about your supporter opposition sure I support both of these amendments Prop 2 because words matter and the words in our constitution are outdated they represent our values constitutions are meant to be amended for just this very reason I support Prop 5 because I believe in personal autonomy and self-determination a women's right to choose is her right and nobody else's thank you Senator Lyons well I think Senator Chittenden said it very well Prop 2 is an excellent comprehensive protection against any type of slavery in our state and we all need to vote for that and Prop 5 similarly the continuation of the values that we have had in the state for nearly 50 years with Roe v. Wade and it puts it into our constitution and embedded within the articles of our constitution I will say one thing I've heard that there are some strong criticisms against the language and that it doesn't pass muster that proposal is comprehensive it protects both men and women reproductive autonomy contraception is included there's a whole history of how important that language is and that the legal expertise that we had weighing in on that proposition is very clear we all need to support it otherwise we will be going the way so many other states are in terms of reproductive autonomy and in particular women's rights thank you I would just add I hope both propositions get a very high margin of support from Vermonters and I believe that Vermonters have a history of letting people enjoy their freedoms and these are no exception I think what we've seen from I think very misleading attacks on Prop 5 that relate to what we're seeing around the country is that no medical provider is going to kill a viable baby in a womb that can survive outside of the womb but people are using that argument to cast doubt on Prop 5 that this would have doctors letting people have abortions until the end of the pregnancy any abortion that happens, particularly in the last trimester 24 weeks is an abortion that's related to the health and safety of the mother and essentially the child if the mother dies, that baby is generally going to die along with the mother or they're trying to save the mother's life or that baby just simply isn't going to survive and so those are some of the hardest decisions parents have to make and some of the most private and it's really sickening that we're hearing arguments that clearly people are hearing stories around the country about how hard it is when you have to carry it can really cause a lot of health issues if you're carrying a non-viable pregnancy to term so really putting people's lives in danger is not pro-life and those arguments really have no place in a truthful public discourse can I just thank Senator Rom Hinsdale for saying all the things that she said I've been working on this since 2018 when I wrote the original bill and the after a while you forget all of the information and you forget to say it to educate others this is the time when everything that you said should be shared with the voters and so thank you for doing that It's really important clarification and also to your point that the language selected is very thoroughly vetted as the legal team that our state legislature has access to thank you Senator Lyons was a huge champion of this we all are I think I'm hearing Senator Chitnam here, Senator Rom Hinsdale I've heard a number of folks including many of our folks in other parties who are very much supportive of this because it is part of Vermont's heritage at this point let's move on now to the topic of language access and I'm going to start with you Senator Rom Hinsdale talk to us about the value to Vermonters in supporting language access to information about health, local government education, etc Very few people know better than you do mayor lot representing the most multi-cultural city in the state how critical language access is and knowing that places like Burlington and Winooski districts have over 70 languages and dialects spoken and we want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to learn to participate in the community hopefully to seek a pathway to citizenship as well and language access facilitates all of that language access is even more critical in moments like a pandemic or a natural disaster when we have to make sure that everyone gets critical life-saving information in their own language unfortunately it was not the case in enough time over the course of the pandemic the state recognizes that I introduced a bill to make sure we have a statewide language access plan and you know sometimes when state administrators come forward and say we don't need the bill we're going to do it anyway we get suspicious but I have already seen that in action under the leadership of Susana Davis our director of our office of racial equity who herself speaks Spanish as her first language and it has been a real champion in making sure that all agencies and departments have a language access plan that per civil rights standards begins with life-saving information first because sometimes we want to put you know information that's nice to have in other languages and we miss opportunities with public safety and disaster recovery to make sure we have video you know language interpretation and translation people on hand contracts ready when people need a lot of information interpreted and that it's you know we're really thinking about the agencies who don't do a lot of public outreach but need to think about their critical roles in in danger and disasters. Thank you Senator Tittenden I don't know if I can say it any better than what Senator Ron Hinsdale just said but I'd say that we're a nation of immigrants so my mother was the oldest daughter of eight kids from Sherbrooke, Quebec that moved to Vermont without being able to speak any English. Her mother grandmother never learned English but lived here for about 40 years and she was able to do so because her kids learned the language and translated for her but not everybody has kids to translate for them so in my America everybody is welcome we're a better country when we have diverse backgrounds including national origins, ethnicities cultural habits and languages we need to be multilingual. I'd also argue that language access is essential to raise our kids to be successful in the global economy. The internet transportation advancements have made the world smaller than it ever has been before and I want all of our kids to learn multiple languages with rich cultural experiences to prepare our Vermont kids for the global landscape. Thank you and Senator Lyons Thank you and I won't reiterate everything that's been said the first year of the pandemic when we received federal dollars my committee evaluated along with the House Human Services Committee to invest I think it was four million dollars initially into our language programs and into our refugee resettlement and our African American programs in the state and most specifically Chinden County did benefit quite a bit and a result of your community, Winooski where there's such a high population we did that again last year we also asked the Department of Health data about our African American and other ethnic groups related to COVID that's not directly language but it is very much important to people to understand what their health outcomes might be. Finally, you know when you provide linguistic support, language support with brochures and others to folks it makes their feel welcome and then the next step is to provide support for them to learn a new language in English and that is also a way to bring folks into the culture maybe a mixed culture which as it was in my family but it's terrific that this has happened and I look forward to continuing that dialogue. Thank you all it's very exciting to hear this from you because it's not just important to Winooski in Burlington this is really a statewide issue Absolutely. Related I want to ask about community access I'll start back with you Senator Lyons what we have right now with public access television is primarily funded through cable which as we know people are cutting the cord and those revenues are drying up so curious what you see the legislature doing to support community access like town-meeting TV. I am a strong supporter of community access television I was on the board for this channel for many years and I have seen the funds dry up from the negotiated contracts and it's been very difficult I also am very alert to what our local communities provide so it would be I think a regional conversation to understand how much and how can our local towns municipalities support community access especially at a time when we're all voting to get that last mile of Wi-Fi out so it's time I think for all of us to appreciate what community access does and so at the local level at the state level I know that we've had a lot of testimony on this and to allow for community access to be to get a grant or to have money provided resources provided so that you can survive we can survive this is us this is local government and nothing is more important than having this grassroots information be exchanged in our community so I'm a strong supporter I will listen if there are suggestions to be made from the channel I always listen as to how we can improve the stability of the for capital investment and ongoing operations thank you Senator Chittenden so content brokers like Netflix, Hulu Prime and other internet based streaming services need to directly fund local community access programs for the same reason cable companies have done so for decades they're using our wires to deliver content we need to support local access sadly I think this needs to be done at the federal level but the recent financial viability peg study done for the public education and government access television and Vermont study identified some possible revenue sources and organizational efficiencies the possible horizontal integration and service consolidation in Vermont I support a streaming video charge and pull some dollars collected in Silicon Valley down into Vermont but recognizing that has federal implications the multi part option at some specifics it seems to strike the right balance which gives some actionable items for the Vermont legislature to work on which is creating a Vermont telecommunications public benefit fund funding with pole attachments estimated $10 per year for attachment retitling and repurposing the BUSF fund I don't know what the acronym stands for it's not in my notes but you can refer to this study which also talks about repealing the telephone personal property tax my point is we need to modernize how we fund local access in high school public access show Tom's time it was a political talk show with my friend Tom and I know the value of the local public access and keeping communities connected so this is something I'm passionate about and I hope to be a voice for channel 17 and other public access channels thank you and Senator Rumpinsdale so I'm still recovering from here about Tom's time I feel like we should we should find that and pull it out and maybe we will in the Senate to embarrass him but I don't think I could add to the funding piece I'm passionate about making sure that local access television has funding I think the other piece is making continuing to recognize it as a treasure in our communities and people having access to be able to view it and continue to enjoy it and have a relationship with public access television and so you know not only should the streaming services help fund what is happening here but make sure that it's available on their platforms I had to remind a room full of state administrators and advocates that more young people use tiktok as their search engine than Google so as we figure out where younger viewers are and where their eyes are going we need to make sure that they have access to understanding that they too public access television is for them so that they can continue to demand it otherwise you know we're going to die off and there won't be the same demand for public access television and the access the accessibility well this brings us to the end of our questions for this evening I want to thank you all so much for coming and sharing really informative for for voters and thank you for tuning into town meeting TV's ongoing coverage of statewide and regional candidates and ballot items you can find this and more forums at www.ch17.tv don't forget to vote on or before November 8th this year ballots will be mailed out to all registered voters in the state and to confirm you are registered and will receive that ballot please visit the secretary of state's online portal mvp.vermont.gov thank you for watching and sharing town meeting TV if you are not already please subscribe to our town meeting TV YouTube channel thank you