 We have our annual report, we also have our FY19 budget book. So people at home want to see some of these numbers in greater detail, please encourage them to go onto the website, check out those resources. Hopefully we get that slide up so you can see that website and the email address so they can get in touch with you individually to ask questions and give you comments and such. It looks like their phone number if you want that, that must be City Hall, yes? 802-655-6410. So hopefully we'll put that slide up so folks can see it. All right, I think we're just about wound up. Thank you both so much for joining me tonight. That was a lot of information in a short period of time so you can always watch us again online too. It'll be available online. So thanks again, I appreciate it. Thank you, Diane. Good evening and welcome. I'm Diane Meyerhoff, host for tonight's discussion with Winooski Mayor Seth Leonard, who's running unopposed for another three-year term as mayor. Tonight's show is being aired live on Channel 17 and streamed live on the Channel 17 website. We welcome your comments and questions. Please join the conversation at 862-3966. Thank you, Seth, for joining me tonight. Good evening. Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to have you. Tell us, so you're running unopposed. You've been in for two terms, three terms. Nope, nope. This is the first three-year, I'm wrapping up the first three-year term in Winooski's history. Well, that's right, because you were two before and they switched. That's right. Okay, good. So tell us, you know, why you're running, what your accomplishments have been in the last three years. Yeah. So I think it's only fitting, because really the first time I ran, I got a lot of eyebrow raises, because one of the main platforms was really the fact that our community was at a tremendous place, and we had built this wonderful foundation, but it was really time for us to make a plan for what the future was going to look like in Winooski. It's a little bit of a weird thing to run on making a plan, all right? Unless you're a planner, I suppose. That's right, exactly. But I felt like there was a point, we were at a point three years ago where we had cleaned a lot of things up. We had kind of gotten Winooski at this place where the kinetic energy and the potential energy were such that we had leaps and bounds to grow and an opportunity to really run as a community. But we, at that point in time, I felt strongly needed really a clear vision and somebody who was not scared to define the community by taking feedback from everybody's synthesizing it and really starting to craft it into a vision that's both coherent and actionable. So to me, the last three years have been an amazing experience of really creating that narrative and that identity for the community. And where you get to see it play out and where you get to measure success is when you go into a meeting like our down street, or excuse me, our Main Street Revitalization Project meeting. We're having this huge conversation about really transforming the city in a way that will change the entire course of our history and the entire course of what's development along that really important critical corridor will look like. And will change the way that every person who passes through our community perceives the city. It's a huge project that we're talking about, transformational, not just transactional. And when you sat in the room and looked around at the 70 or so residents who showed up to give their feedback and opinions, we weren't arguing or having discussions about whether the project was a good idea, or whether the things that were gonna be caused by the projects were gonna be good for the community. We had already had those conversations in our planning process for the last three years. We were talking about where the bike path should be. And that's a really, to me, inspiring moment of understanding that the community has sort of coalesced around that vision and coalesced around an identity and has embraced that and is moving towards that. You get it too in situations like the poll last year where we walked away with, I believe, about a 72% approval of the budget, which I think from a municipal standpoint, not in my memory, has there been a better one. So we've worked really hard on that vision. And to me, really, the next three years are about action. We've tried to talk about our vision in the Winooski around housing, infrastructure, safe, healthy, connected people, and ensuring that we have the vibrancy both from a community standpoint and an economic standpoint. We've tried to sort of been where our focuses have been, put them in, I should say, silo them, but also keep them really interconnected towards a joint vision. And those conversations have led not just to sort of fluffy ideas, but they've led to real action on behalf of staff in terms of initiatives. And they've led to a council that's really, I think, laser focused on, we know what we're working towards, we know what we're going towards. And now it's really about putting those projects together that creates the community that Winooski residents have given us feedback they want to say. And give me some concrete examples, because I think you have some, certainly, that maybe the ones you're most proud of. Yeah. That came out of that process and then people working toward making that a reality. Yeah, absolutely. So for example, when we talk about economic vitality and vibrancy, we had been a community that went through the state's largest redevelopment project in history, totally transformative project, right? And it struggled. And we struggled. And places set vacant. And we had, and not just on one side of the main street, right? On both sides. And there was a lot of whispers of, is this going to fail? Is this going to make it? Is this going to happen? And some people point to the economy turning around. I can tell you, I work in economic development around the state. There are a lot of communities that have that potential, that have not turned around as a result of the sort of the economy changing, right? We took really concrete action. We invested in economic development, hired economic development director. We've hired communications. We've invested in that again. And we're seeing the support from the businesses pay huge dividends. We've brought hundreds of thousands of dollars, not just towards planning initiatives, but towards supporting businesses and getting things like tax credit utilizing really critical programs like that. We've designed a small business loan fund that's up and functioning. So from an economic development standpoint, I think we're seeing the outcome from that type of investment. From the housing perspective, first year in my term, we underwent the city's first housing needs assessment. And that's led to more actual items that we can keep up with. But primarily, the first focus has been creating a housing commission to help us really digest and then come back with policy recommendations and goals towards housing. You know, there's a lot of development taking place in Winooski. The city can't be a passive bystander in that development. We have to have an understanding of what it looks like or we can wake up in 10 or 20 years and this could be a completely different looking community. And most assuredly it will, but it should be a community that the people who live here have an opportunity to give feedback into where it's headed and how we're going towards that vision. And the housing commission to me is a huge piece of that because it's helping us determine do we need to tweak anything. You know, we rewrote zoning, this huge project. The zoning was older than I was when I came into office. That's the truth. It was 1981. I'm 1982. So we rewrote that zoning, which is a huge undertaking and a giant accomplishment. But to step away then and think that we're not going to have to make improvements and adjustments to it to ensure that it's serving the community the way it should. Housing commission is going to play a huge role in analyzing that. And going through what should our goals be, right? We're the exact opposite of the rest of the state of Vermont from a renter to owner ratio, for example. We're, you know, 70% of homeownership in the state of Vermont were about, you know, a little over 30% in the city of Winooski. So we look a lot different. Should it always look like that? Should that mix always be like that? So in addition to that, they've got some really long-term projects to talk about, like, potentially inclusionary zoning and how we use our city's housing loan fund, which is basically a housing trust fund. From a safe, happy, healthy, connected people standpoint, that's the one that people love the most, right? Because it sounds the happiest. Who would say no? What I'm really excited about, I think we logged about 4,200 volunteer hours through the city last year. The engagement has been through the roof. The commission system that we set out for about four years ago has worked and we've focused on it. And it's developing future leaders in the community. It's increasing the platform that people have for feedback and to be involved. And it's given us better ideas. And then from an infrastructure standpoint, you're seeing these conversations about Main Street, but you're also seeing us really take a long-term view about what our neighborhoods are gonna look like too and investment in those areas as well. So we're supporting the growth and the economic development, the financial sustainability through the corridor projects, especially on Main Street, on Mallets Bay Avenue, and on Allen Street, East Allen Street. But beyond that, I think you're seeing a really large coalescence around this idea that we need to build a sustainable future through a really sustainable infrastructure. And we're making plans for that. So those kind of big pillars, those four that we focus on, I think we've taken actionable steps on it. Each of them made some real progress. And the big thing that we're also doing is measuring ourselves against that. If you watch a city council meeting, rarely does one go by that we're not having a report brought to us to say what progress have we made on this vision step this year or this month. And having an update on that item and what concrete actions have been taken towards helping develop a better in the community and city. And I was particularly impressed when Jesse was, the city manager was talking about the budget, talking about how the vision comes into the budget. And we don't hear that often. I do a lot of these with folks all the time. And it's really interesting to have that brought in to help you make some of those decisions that are hard. They're always hard decisions, right? I mean, for any town, any city. And it was great to hear that, well, we really put it up against our vision and our pillars and said, okay, well, what do we want to do? That was, I thought that was really awesome to hear. Yeah, and when we approached the visioning process where, you know, we were left in the situation a lot of communities are, and this is what I talked a lot about three years ago. We were a community that had a municipal plan, a book, right? Right. That's supposed to serve. That's exactly right. And that's the way we have treated it over the years is this is something that from a regulatory statutory standpoint, we have to do. What we've done this time will be said, no, let's make something that tells us not just where the communities, you know, focuses are gonna be from a, how do we get state funding perspective? What are these really high level chargers? We're talking about how an investment guide for ourselves, really an investment playbook where it's not a mystery to staff. It's not a mystery to the taxpayers in our community how we're investing and what ends we're investing towards. And again, that goes back to that understanding of who we are, that understanding of our identity as a community. And to me, in this position, that's the most important part of this job is ensuring that you're taking all the feedback, you're taking all of the ideas in the community and coalescing it into a vision that people can really grab hold of, understand, believe in, and hopefully support and follow. It doesn't mean that everybody across the board is gonna believe in every investment you made or every tax increase that comes across their table, but at least they should be able to follow that there's a coherent steps into how we got here and what our vision is and what we're trying to accomplish. If you wanna get involved in the conversation to change the way that that looks, great. But from a governmental standpoint, our highest priority is to make sure that we're achieving that for people, giving them the vision, giving them an opportunity to feed into the vision, and then showing them how we're executing and the budget is the way we carry that forward. And you mentioned Jesse. Let me tell you the most important part of this job that I've done over the last three years is hire a new city manager, because that's the person who's gonna lead the boots on the ground. And leading that conversation was a tremendous pleasure. And I think we did really well there in terms of what we brought, in terms of professional skills and ability into the city, too, we're very excited about where that's headed. And we should say that the Winooski mayor is a job that's not a full-time job. You have a full-time job, too. It's not. Well, maybe it's two full-time jobs you have. That's correct, yes. We should just remind folks about that, too. Yes, no, but I'll tell you what, it's you work with counselors, you work with people across the community who are so passionate and give so freely of themselves. And like I said, right now in Winooski, we just have this unbelievable level of engagement and interest in what's going on. People are excited about it, and we're getting really good feedback on the things that are happening. So it fills you with energy. And that's why you come back and do this again in front of you. It's great to know what you're gonna be doing with the evenings and weekends for the next three years. Because you always wondered about that before you were mayor, right? That's right. Now tell me, so you talked about your vision process that happened three years ago. When does it have to be done again? I mean, are you already making plans for thinking about what the next one looks like? Yeah, sure. Number one, every budget conversation is an especially an opportunity to recalibrate with the community about how we're investing and what that looks like. However, we're at a stage right now. Folks can watch the budget presentation. They did a great job of explaining where we're acknowledging we have some pretty significant asks coming up from an infrastructure standpoint. It was a little mysterious what all those things were. I'm not sure I got the whole... When we see a main street project, for example. And actually doing the construction, getting the shovel in the ground. You got it, you got it. We're looking at all of our streets right now. We're doing a capital needs assessment and planning for the future where like many communities, we've chronically underfunded our capital improvement funds. And that's something that we're gonna have to catch up on. You know, one of the conversations we have is like what's Whenoski look like in 20 years, right? Well, what we wanna look like in the community. Big potholes. Exactly. We wanna be a community that's well positioned for the future. Well positioned to capitalize on, yes, the fact that we're doing really well and vibrant now. But that we're always gonna be well positioned from a geographic standpoint. We're always gonna be a really unique history with a unique city with a beautiful history. So maintaining that diversity, ensuring that we're continuing to create that vibrancy. And it's really supported primarily by that infrastructure, right? We provide the campus, the community makes the painting. That's a really key part of government. And the thing that you have to understand first is it's about doing that. Infrastructure's a big part about how we do that. It's very expensive. It's extremely expensive. And you know, when we have conversations with state and federal funders, that's a big critical piece that having those relationships. You know, one thing that we talked a lot about coming into the last election too was that Winooski was gonna take its regional place. And I'm confident that we've done that over the last three years. A great example of that for folks at home is engagement around the airport. We're closer to a formal standing with decision-making processes in the airport than at any point in Winooski's history. And I can promise that within the next three years we will have some sort of formal standing in the way decisions are made there. And that's not something I think we could have said a few years ago. And that's really important to city's history. But that's looking at us as being really central to the entire region's economy and transportation infrastructure. So we talked a lot about three years ago. And we've gotta embrace that and not be scared of our voice. We've got something really strong to bring to the table. It's really cool now when you go to Montpelier and people don't have conversations like how can we help Winooski? The question is, what have you guys been doing to make that successful? How has that, how has what you've done there, what's that resulted in? What have you seen? And those are great conversations to have. And ones that we shouldn't shy away from and ones that we should be proud of. So you brought up the regionalism discussion. So I'll just ask you, we have a few minutes left to talk about the budget and the ballot items. And I assume you're supporting them, but you know, tell us about that. Yeah, absolutely. Well again, we have tried very hard. Last year we had a 0.9% increase here before I believe about 1.7% increase. This year we're proposing a 2% increase essentially for the budget. Spending raised only 1.81%. So we've stayed below cost of living adjustment on the spending side of things. We've done that very mindfully that again, we feel like there are some larger ass coming forward for folks. So I think I'm very confident that folks in the community, if they dive into the decisions we made around that budget, I'm gonna find we try to be very prudent. So hopefully folks will support that. We're asking for your support on that on town meeting day. There are also two other budget initiatives that go into regionalization and infrastructure concepts. Number one, the Head of Works Project, which is a budget neutral, won't touch the wastewater repair. Yes, and won't touch your taxes. We're retiring expiring data at our wastewater plant. We're gonna replace using that debt for what it was being used for, for a new improvement that's gonna help with the system's longevity. And I've got an extensive presentation actually on CCTV, you can watch back in the world of Winooski on that. So I'll leave out the details, but it's safe to say we're investing in long-term infrastructure there with those funds and it's budget neutral. And similarly, we've reached out with other communities and this is another place where I'm proud to say we've played I think a really leading role around regional dispatch. In Chittenden County especially, we have a real opportunity from an economy's scale standpoint to work together as communities and to look to each other for joint mutual aid. Great story, not a great story from an overall standpoint, but we've got the situation where there's a fire at UVM and we're a smaller community in the scale of our surrounding neighbors. Large fire trucks and apparatuses from other communities showed up. It was the little Winooski truck that could get into specific parts of the fire that were being in relationship. That's right, but that's what mutual aid's about. And we've had a great relationship with those partners and joint dispatch is the next step in that. It's gonna improve the call time for our folks on the ground. So hopefully we'll go to support that. So you are supporting the ballot items and the budget, absolutely. All right, we're gonna have to wrap it up. So thanks so much for joining me, you appreciate it. Good luck. Thank you, appreciate it, Diane, good to see ya. Good night. I feel like we had all this time and then they were... Good evening and welcome. I'm Diane Meyerhoff, host for tonight's Winooski City Council Candidate Forum. Tonight's show is being aired live on channel 17 and streamed live on the channel 17 website. We welcome your comments and questions. Please join the conversation at 862-3966. Tonight's ground rules for our forum are that the candidates will make opening statements of up to two minutes each and they will answer prepared questions also for two minutes with a possible one minute rebuttal. Tonight I'm joined by two candidates, Ebony Neyoni and Hal Colston. Following the forum we'll have a pre-taped interview with the third candidate, Christine Lott, who was unable to come tonight. There are two open seats on the Winooski City Council and three candidates. Hal Colston is the writing candidate. So thank you both so much for joining me tonight. We appreciate it. Thank you. Great to have you here. We're gonna start with opening statements and Ebony, you're gonna start. Okay. For two minutes. Thank you, where should I look? So my name is Ebony Neyoni and I am a Winooskian. I've had a small business. And Winooski for going on three years now and I'm very excited to be running as a Winooski City Council member. I want to express that the people should share in the development of the vision. I also want to join because of you safe spaces. I think that there should be more places for you to go and to be able to have fun and to be able to study and get help in their studies. Affordable housing and small house construction. I also would love safe and accessible public transportation, fresh and affordable food markets, non-traditional loans for Winooskians who want to start small, environmentally friendly businesses, more opportunity to mesh together as a diverse community. I'm looking forward to your vote. Hal, two minutes. Great. I'm running because I want to support a budget that makes Winooski the best place to live. I also want to advocate and engage so that all of our citizens are involved in our democratic process to strengthen our community. And I want to promote diversity and inclusivity because Winooski is a very diverse place and I want to see this as an asset so that we can have positive growth and development. Why am I qualified? I'm a servant leader. I have volunteered thousands of hours for boards and commissions over the years since 1989. I lived in Winooski for the last eight years. I'm a social entrepreneur and I started the Good News Garage in 1996 and Neighborkeepers in 2006 to improve the common good. I serve on the Winooski Community Service Commission and the Winooski Reparative Board and I want to make this a better place to live for all and I want to take it to another level and I want to be the representative for all people on the city council. My political philosophy is not about us without us. Diversity is a business imperative and we will be our best community when we can hear all of the voices and have them at the table. We need to make sure that all of our community members who are experiencing disparities and need to be at the table to help us figure out the solutions. Great, thank you very much, thank both of you. So let's go on to some of the hot issues in Winooski and talk, we just had a presentation about the budget and about a 2% increase this year for voters. And tell us, do you support the city budget? Do you share in the priorities that this budget puts forward? Hal, we'll start with you, two minutes. Yes, I approve of the budget and I support it. I believe it's a lean, modest increase and I really like the lens that the budget is developed through in terms of the strategic vision of the city. There's a lot of work that goes into the budget. There's a lot of behind the scenes work through the commissions that make the budget happen and I really applaud and support all the work that has gone into it. Okay, great, Ebony, do you support the budget this year? I do support the budget. I've seen Winooski flourish in the past few years under great leadership and I'm hoping to see more of the transformations unfold. Great, thank you. And we also had a discussion about the municipal ballot items so we have an item for the headworks project for wastewater and also the regional public safety dispatch. So tell us, Hal, do you support those as well? I support both of those measures. It's really an investment in our future and when you really understand the need for those initiatives, it only makes sense to support them. We're working in an old fashioned way in terms of our processing of our wastewater stream and to modernize it and make it more efficient makes total sense to me. Okay, and public safety? Public safety is clearly an important priority and if we can economize how we process our incoming calls to the 911 system, it makes it more efficient for our city and our budget to process that. So to be in that collaborative process with other communities makes total sense. Okay, Ebony, the two ballot items, headworks project and public dispatch. Yes, we've seen in Michigan that our city's waters is very important. It has to do with children being safe, pregnant mothers and just overall families in the community drink safe water and so I support that. I also support public safety but my thing is while we're thinking about these initiatives we also need to think about including people of color and to the mix as we're hiring more people to as we're contracting with more people to do construction or to be a part of these initiatives we need to constantly be considering the diverse group of people that are in Winooski. Okay, thank you both. Let's talk about community engagement, something that you've touched upon, you've both touched upon. Tell us, do you feel there's enough intersection between the diverse communities and the people of Winooski? Are you satisfied with the public participation, the community decision making that's been on so far? Do you think democracy in Winooski is healthy and Ebony, we'll start with you. I definitely think democracy in Winooski is healthy when I first started, when I first moved to Winooski as a small business owner I was pleasantly surprised, we made a community happen between myself and other small business owners, the business owners at NADA and at the Somalian organization and the flowers, Sally's flower shop so I think we had a lot of good opportunity to connect in a way that we probably wouldn't have if we weren't small business owners in the same area and I would like to see more of that. There's so many people in Winooski who are students, doctors, lawyers, new Americans coming from all over the place and I think that we have a good opportunity to really create a model city for the rest of Vermont. Okay, thanks, and Hal, community engagement. Well, I think the intersection of our diverse communities and the people of Winooski is improving but I think we can do better. I really think we need to have better public participation in the decision process that takes place. I think people of color are historically underrepresented in commissions and boards in our state as well as our community and I want to inspire people to get involved and to be willing to step up and to participate in our democratic process. You know, in Winooski, people of color are now about 17% of our population so we need to do better by including more people into the process. I believe our democracy is healthy and I think it's moving in the right direction and I think we have leaders that listen and want to be stretched and I think it's important that we have leaders that are able to be stretched because otherwise we maintain the status quo. Okay, great, thank you. I just want to let the viewers know that we love phone calls. We'd love to hear from the constituents. We have two candidates for city council. We'd love to hear your questions and comments. 862-3966. So let's talk about, since you're both running for city council, what the role of the council is. In the past, they've been somewhat inwardly focused, operationally focused and we talked a little bit about that earlier but looking ahead, what does it look like in 20 years? What will you do to realize that vision over those 20 years? And we're gonna start with Ebony. Well, I would like to see the city administration become more people friendly in a sense that it's not just us against them as far as the people who live in the community and then there's the local government. I would like to see the local government to actually be what it was intended to be, which is to represent all the diversity that is a part of the city. There were a couple of years where the city board was all male and then we started getting women to sit on city council and now it's time, if not now when, it's time to have even more diversity than that where it's time to have a black woman be able to sit on city council and still be able to represent the entire population of Winooski. Thank you. How role of the city council? Well, city council's role is to be accountable and to be a voice for the people. I think it's also important that we engage our citizens to be involved in our political process. And in 20 years, I imagine Winooski being a city that will have increased small businesses that cater to the needs of our growing diverse community. I would want to inspire, solicit, and support our community members to be involved and be participants into this growth as we look to a place where we will be a special place for Vermonters to know that living in a very diverse, vibrant community, we can raise our families, we can have jobs, we can be a real beacon for Vermont. Great, thank you. You're both very quick. I just want to let you know that, that you never make it to the two minutes. I haven't had to interrupt you yet, but I'm willing to do it. So if you want to go a little longer, feel free to do that. Let's talk a little bit about housing. The mayor earlier talked about the housing needs assessment and housing commission. Do you think the city council and the administration, what do you think they should pursue in the next years knowing what you've seen in that housing assessment? 12, let's see, that should be, let me, Ebony, you start. Okay, great. Well, I'm actually across the street from development. This is the Upper Main Street area. And it's exciting to have, to finally have some focus on the Upper Main Street area. And in doing that, I want to just make sure that housing, the housing that's being created, established, it remains affordable for the people who, for Winooskians who are living here. And that Winooskians aren't moved out of the city because they can't afford it. Many Winooskians are saying, are talking about possible fear over gentrification. We don't want to see really good people leave our city because that's what makes our city great. We want to have available, and not just affordable apartments, we want to have affordable homes. So people can start investing, and really investing in the city and in their school systems and in their families. A lot of people use their homes as opportunity to send their kids to school. So there's options out there now. There's smaller homes. Maybe people can't afford 300,000, but maybe they can afford 70,000 or 90,000. But yeah, we need to start being more creative in how we create our community and keep our community happy and in the city. Okay, Hal, housing. Well, I think housing has been really a vibrant, growing part of our community. Lots of new apartment buildings have gone up, but I think we must keep an eye on preserving and rehabilitating our current stock. And I agree. I think we have to be very, very cautious about gentrification. Gentrification really is attracted to a vibrant culture, which we have in our community, but we need to make sure that we have a mix of housing so that people can afford at different levels to either rent or own a home and I feel that that's why our community is such a rich community. So we must guard on that gentrification because without being vigilant, we're gonna lose the soul of our community. And I'd like to do actually a little follow-up to that because I was struck by something both of you said. And that is, and I think Seth Leonard talked earlier about in Winooski, there are actually more renters than homeowners, which is unusual in Vermont. And one of you mentioned about affordable home ownership and we don't often talk about that as much. I think maybe in our community because we're so focused on renters, we think we talk a lot more about that. And I'm just wondering if you all have some ideas on how we might make home ownership more available to a wider group of people. So just a couple of minutes if you don't mind. Sure. Well, I know in the black community, it's very historical to not be able to have home ownership or experience home ownership. And I think that it's something for, either if you're coming from a low economic status or just a place where your credit isn't good, it's really hard to establish yourself in that way. And it's like a domino effect. And we really need to start being more creative in giving people Winooskians who want to stay invested in the city opportunities like non-traditional loans to be able to have housing. We need to contract with contractors who want to build smaller homes. Hey, we live in a state where there's more cows than people. So there should be no reason why we can't build some small homes and have children be able to play in their own backyards and have their own barbecues, that American dream. So I mean, there's a lot of options. There's a lot of solutions for being able to have home ownership. It just takes leadership to believe in the people and believe that they're invested in the city and that they're not going anywhere. So it's support them. Okay, thanks. Hal, we're talking about how to support affordable home ownership in Winooski. Years ago, I served on the board of the Burlington Community Land Trust, which is now Champlain Housing Trust. And I really believe that we need to be a proactive partner and collaborate with that organization, which has a long tradition of creating affordable housing and home ownership for first-time homeowners. So I think we have certainly the resources that we can tap into. And I believe we have the leadership in our community that knows gentrification is not the right way to go. And I believe working a relationship out with Champlain Housing Trust makes a lot of sense. Okay, great, thank you both. Let's talk about education. What is your assessment of the job that the Winooski School District is doing? And we are gonna start with Hal. Well, I served on the partnership for change for the past five years as director. And our main goal has been to support the community of Winooski in Burlington to help their school system shift into a student-centered, proficiency-based learning system. And I think Winooski has done an excellent job in transitioning into that model. I think a great asset of Winooski is its human scale. You have one building with all of the schools and the administration under one roof. There's a sense of family and connection, I think that you'll find there and not so much in larger school districts. Winooski has done a great job for transitioning into this 21st century education model, which is providing our students with the soft skills that they need in order to be successful in community, college, or career. And we're talking about being able to be a strong communicator, a collaborator, a critical thinker and problem solver, being connected to community and to have a sense of wellness and well-being. So I think Winooski has done a great job and I think it's really, this foundation is its board. Its board has transitioned into a policy governance structure. And I think it's came out with a process to have an end statement and where we wanna go and allow the administration and the superintendent and his staff to get there. So I think we're in the right direction and I think it's changing the story and the narrative about Winooski being a place to live and have your family and your kids get a great education. Okay, great, thank you. Ebony, we're talking about education and the job that the school district is doing. Well, education is definitely my background. I started out as a teacher, social worker, and I've done that for many years in Vermont. I've also worked for the Vermont Department of Education and as an education consultant. And during that time, it was no secret that Winooski was one of the worst school districts. And that reputation seemed to have lived on for many, many years. We need to change that. We need to make Winooski more, if it reflect within its leadership and within the staff and faculty that it's to reflect the diversity that the students have. We need to have more teachers of color. We need to have more teachers with disabilities. We need to have more people of color on the school board. I say more, traditionally there has been none. And that's a problem because that means that all voices aren't being heard. So we need to get it together. There's also been racial bullying and harassment amongst the Muslim girls who go to school wearing their hajib and are taunted. And we need to get motivated to provide diversity trainings on a very consistent and ongoing basis so that children feel comfortable with going to school in Winooski. I talk to many parents of color and many youth and they don't always tend to feel comfortable going to school. I also talk to some parents that do one of their main issues is that there's not a lot of diversity when it comes to the actual classroom, teachers, and administrators. And so I think that we can improve on that and we can make more programs available for ESL learners or ELL learners. We can make more opportunity for people, kids that need special help right now. I've been working to make the back area of my shop a youth center because we don't... I'm gonna have to stop you there, everyone. Okay. Thank you. This is the only question you've gone over on. I thought I tried that. Stopped it. That's good. Perfect. Great, great. Okay, let's switch now over to planning. A big issue I think in Winooski with so much development you've had over the past years and what is your opinion of form-based code and is it achieving the goals that you think it should be? Ebony. Can you say that? Sure, form-based code, the new zoning regulations that are in place and asking what you think about them, do you think they're doing what they need to be doing to improve Winooski? I think it's necessary. I think Winooski is a very old city and that with that, to be able to get to the vision that we have as a city, we need to, sometimes we need to move things around. I've gone to a couple of the meetings and I'm pretty excited about the vision. And so to me, this is just something that, a part of the process. Okay. Hal, we're talking about form-based code, thoughts? I think form-based code has really brought a lot of clarity to how we develop and grow our community. There are 10 goals that were set out through the process and I think we're doing a great job in meeting some of the goals in terms of housing and economic growth and having a thriving central business district, I think establishing these gateway districts is really important and having businesses that are meeting some of the community needs and I think the strong river corridor is another asset that we can point to. So I fully support the initiative and I think it's really accomplishing what it intended to do. Great, thank you. Let's talk about statewide issue. Do you support the governor's no new taxes or fees position? What are the issues that you would bring to your legislator as city council members and how you can go first? Sure. Well, I don't agree and I think a budget is a moral document and it should really speak to the values and the important goals that citizens put forth and if a budget doesn't accomplish that then I think it fails and falls short. So I think if we can improve we need to figure out a better way to fund our schools. I think our current system is falling short. Education is essential for having a thriving community and if we think education is expensive then try ignorance. So I think we really need to invest in our educational system and just willy-nilly cutting our budget really falls short of accomplishing those goals. Okay, Ebony, governor's no fees, no increased taxes. How do you feel about that? And what would you do as a city council talking to your legislator? I think what I would do as a city council member talking to my legislator which is what I do as a regular person already. I think that we need to start looking at not so much by per budget but more so by what the people needs are from region to region. I think that when we talk about statewide different regions have different needs and we can't just look at it through one lens. We have to look at it through many lens like for instance the education. We need to make sure that all of our teachers have the, as a former teacher, all of our teachers have the tools that they need to really take our students to the next level. At one point Vermont used to be known as one of the top states when it came to education and that's not the case anymore. And that's because it seems like we're giving more money and more attention to projects like a mega prison than schools. Let's work on our education system. Let's work on fixing that. I don't think that any more money should be raised until we figure out what our priorities should be as a people of this state. And like I said, less stop funding programs that enslave people like the prison complex system. Let's fund education. Less fund opportunities for more senior housing. Let's care about seniors. We don't hear a lot of people talk about seniors or people with disabilities. And so I think we need our priorities straight. Okay, thank you. We have gone through all our prepared questions. Highly unusual. So you guys are right on it. Thank you for that. So I think I'll ask you if you have a question you'd like to ask of each other. We'll try that. Ebony, something you'd like to ask Hal. Sure. Well, Hal, in a recent seven days article you were recorded as saying it was a mere coincidence that you decided past the deadline to turn in the application to run for city council member. And you have lived here for eight years and have not run up until this time. So I'm just really curious as to a real sincere reason, honest reason as to why you've decided to run now. Well, actually I've been asked for many years to consider running for either city council or the legislature. And I've always felt that I could get more accomplished on the sidelines in the work that I've done over the years. But this time when I was asked by a couple of people who I hold dear to my heart and love, I paused because I realized, well, you know what? That same reason doesn't fit. I'm actually working 60% full-time equivalent with my current position which sunsets June 30th. So I now am in a position where I have time and after I pondered that, I decided, you know what? This might be the time for me to do that. And that was a decision that was made after the deadline and I decided I'm gonna run as a write-in. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, how would you like to ask a question of Ebony? So Ebony, I know you've been involved with Black Lives Matter and I certainly have respected your passion for the work. And can you just tell me more about your leadership and what leadership would you bring to the council? Well, one thing I've decided to do as a person who's lived in Vermont for over 20 years and who's been an activist in the community for 20 years, I didn't get to read you my resume but trust me, I have the experience. What you would get from me being on the city council is someone who can work as a team player, someone who is not able, who doesn't compromise when it comes to the truth and when it comes to the people. I want their voice to be available and I want younger women. I want women of color to see that you have a part to play to in local government and national government that you can be, you can have a voice, you can sit at the table, you have a right to be at the table and the type of leadership that I bring is always mentoring people and showing them the way as well as fresh ideas on how we can solve certain problems in Winooski and what the people are really saying. And so I'm really excited to not only be a visionary coming on board but also making history, being the first black woman ever to sit on city council. Like that's big and it's been a part of a national effort to include more of our voices. We've always had votes, we've always helped in elections but it seems sometimes difficult to kind of see women of color on the other side of the table and I'm looking forward to having that leadership continue the stuff that everything I've done in the community, I'm looking forward to having that continue as a city councilor. Great, thank you, Paul. We have about another couple of minutes. Okay, we have a minute each of you can kind of give a concluding statement and tell folks why they should vote for you on Tuesday, March 6th. Hal, you'll go first. Sure, I love Winooski. It's interesting, eight years ago I was living in Essex Junction and my wife and I were pondering, do we move or what? And we were on our way to church one Sunday in July, beautiful day and halfway there we played hooky and came back to Winooski and went to sneakers for brunch and I walked around and saw all these amazing buildings and I ended up calling Keen's Crossing on that Monday and at Wednesday we visited and we decided to move there and why I love Winooski is because it's a place where people can connect where you can walk the city where you can be a part of a community that's growing and thriving and I wanna be that voice for all of the people who live in Winooski. Thanks, you're Hal Ebony. Thank you. Why I would love to have you vote for me is because I'm not just for the people, I am the people and I've never capitalized even though I also consider myself a social entrepreneur off of the trials and tribulations of people. I put myself even with the people on purpose when it comes to like economic levels. I don't have a car now, that was made apparent but I chose not to because I wanted to stay in the community. I wanted to be a part of the community. When I first came to Winooski I was afraid because of the rumors about the drug addicts and the robberies and yeah, those happen. But I just fell in love with Winooski because it has a certain personality to it that I haven't found in any other place in Vermont and I'm excited about what the leadership is, has envisioned and what we're moving towards and I know Winooski, you asked a question about 20 years. I know in the next like 10 years Winooski is gonna be like flourishing so I'm really excited to be a part of this and this is a city I would love to call home for a long time. Thank you. Thank you both so much for joining us tonight. We really appreciate it. Winooski City Council candidates. We should remind everybody to vote on Tuesday, March 6th at the senior center, correct? That's correct. One, two, three Barlow Street, am I close? Okay, good. 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and as I'm always reminded, you also can vote early. Any time, just go down to City Hall. I wanna say 7 to 430, but I wouldn't swear it might be 8 to 430 and you can vote starting, I mean it's open now, you can go down and vote. So early voting, you don't need an excuse like you used to need, you didn't need to have absentee and you had to prove you're gonna be there, you don't have to do any of that anymore and we also have same day registration, which is an amazing thing if you ask me. So thanks to all the city clerks who work so hard to make all that happen. And so again, thank you both so much for joining me and good luck on town meeting day. Thank you very much. Thank you, Diane. Thank you and good night. Myerhap hosts for this pre-taped interview with Christine Law, the candidate for Winooski City Council. There are two open seats in Winooski and three candidates for a two-year term. Thanks for joining me, Christine. Thank you for having me. We're gonna use the same ground rules that we use for all our candidate forums. The candidate will make an opening statement of up to two minutes and she will answer prepared questions for up to two minutes as well. So again, thanks for coming and tell us opening statement while you're running for council. So I have been living in Winooski for a lot of an offer since 2010 and then moved here permanently four years ago to marry a resident. We own a home in the city and last year I decided to volunteer to join the housing commission. While I've been serving on the housing commission, it's been really interesting to learn more about how things work in Winooski and where we are headed, what we need to be on the lookout for and I've enjoyed being able to dedicate like my time and my service to that. And so when I heard that two of the council seats were coming up for reelection and neither of the council members were returning, I thought that I would step up to the plate and offer to step up my role there. I work in my day job as a business analyst for a nonprofit organization and I enjoy bringing that level of analysis, research attention to detail to these goals of the city and making sure that we look at all of our available data and make smart choices for the long-term future of our community. Excellent. And do you have a philosophy, a political philosophy around being a city counselor? I mean, my number one philosophy is just like to do the right thing for the most people for the longest amount of time. I'm really big into long-term planning. I think politically I consider myself pretty progressive socially, a little bit conservative financially. I like to see, like I said, long-term vision and just like really measured smart choices while people are making decisions. Sort of fits in with your business analyst position. Yes, yes, it does. So we have a series of prepared questions based on hot topics in Winooski and we'll certainly, if we have time, we'll have some time if there are other things you wanna talk about as well. Let's talk a little bit about the municipal budget. Is this something that you support and talking about kind of long range, sort of the priorities that are set forth in that budget? Although it's the short term, right? Yes. The long term, right? Yeah, so I've looked at the budget and two things stand out there. So on one point is that, I know like the goal of the budget was to either have a 0% or like up to cost of living percent increase which I'm on board with. I feel like the current climate in the community right now is not to have like a big raise in taxes nor is there any major need for that, any major funding need right now. So I think that's a smart choice. The budget also is designed to follow the current strategic vision. And I support the strategic vision. You know, the focal points there are around economic development for the city while maintaining like the community values of affordability and keeping our small town feel. There's some focus in there on housing which I think is important. That's definitely a topic that impacts all of us. And most of the spending that I did see added to the budget is for like it's in line with this vision, having some infrastructure improvements, having some staffing to carry out the strategic planning, making some system improvements at the city so that they're able to monitor their work and make measured progress that they can keep track of. There's nothing in there that I thought was particularly disconcerting. I think that it looks pretty carefully planned to align with this current vision and I do support that. So you support the current vision as well? Yes. That was gonna be my follow up question. Okay, okay. So supporting the city budget. Municipal ballot questions. There are two of note, I guess, the bond for the headworks project which is a wastewater treatment plant which we don't have to go into the details of because I did hear a lot about that from the town manager. But that is a bond of 1.45 million. And also the public safety which is the regional public safety dispatch and Winooski joining that municipal district. I think so those are the two, at least we kind of held out as two of the important ones. And just curious what your take on those is. I'm behind both. The headworks project, this is an upgrade to a system that we are invested in to improve efficiency and efficacy to treat our water and treat the surrounding watershed area. This will prevent materials from getting into the lake as well as damaging the infrastructure that we are already paying for. And I understand this bond funding is also kind of a rollover. So it's not gonna have any direct impact to folks right now. So I think like that's a smart choice. That's something we should move forward with. The regional dispatch I absolutely am on board with. This makes sense to me, like let's share resources. Let's have centralized dispatch. They've done research already that it's going to decrease response time in emergencies and also support better workflows when there's a mutual response happening between different communities. I think the shared resources for staff is gonna be important. As I understand it right now, there's one dispatch on duty and Winnieski at any given time. Like they can't take a break. They can't learn from their peers. I just think there's a lot of upside to this change. Great, and I was gonna ask something else about the public safety. Do you wanna dare predict if you think this is gonna pass? There's seven towns voting on this. And they only need three. They need three to actually make it go forward. Do you wanna try to predict what that might? How do you think? Do you think people are gonna see it the way you see it? I think so. And I think that this vote is also sort of on can we move forward? Not will we or how we will. Okay. So it's saying, yes, let's look into this and let's try to move forward with this, but it's not saying to anyone like, this is what your city has to do and this is what's happening. So I think having that space to let cities figure out how they wanna work together helps this move forward in a sort of a slower approach. Okay, great, great. So those are the municipal bond questions, which is the headworks quote unquote project, wastewater treatment and public safety, the regional dispatch. Let's talk a little bit about community engagement. Do you feel like there's enough intersection between the diverse communities of Winooski, which we know they're a very diverse community? And are you satisfied with the amount of community outreach, public participation in the community? And do you think the democracy, big word, in Winooski is healthy? In my personal experience when I am out and about in the town, I would like to see more intersection amongst different communities. If I go into any business downtown, I see sort of groups of people who look like each other. We're not just talking about like cultural cross sections, but generational. I even like, while I was out knocking on doors, I heard some maybe renter versus homeowner dichotomy that was a bit of a surprise to me honestly. And I think that's definitely something that we need to look to address to get more folks involved and understanding each other, being more involved like we are all members of the city of Winooski and we all have an interest in the successful outcomes. In the public meetings that I participated in or just attended myself, I haven't seen very high attendance. I think there could be more. I know the city does do a lot of outreach. I've signed up for notifications from the website and they do front porch forum posts and work with the school with the district newsletter. But I feel like there could be probably some more effort there to try to reach folks who aren't going out of their way to engage and try to bring in people who are not seeing this as a priority yet and help them understand how it, it couldn't be a priority for them and it could help them in the long term. And how do you do that? You have ideas on that? Yeah. I think of high school cafeterias. Talked about people. Separating themselves, yeah. Yeah, a couple of thoughts. When I first moved to Winooski, I didn't know about even that the city had a website, I didn't know how to get involved and the first thing that I noticed was the school district flyer that I get in the mail because everyone just gets that by living there. And so I think the fact that I didn't have to go out of my way to do that, it came to me and then included information for how to get myself engaged. I think that's important to create an opening without relying on people to do it themselves. I know there's a lot of activity with the, you know, the community services area. There's a, I can't remember the name of it, but there's a community services commission. And thinking about what kind of events we're supporting and making sure that there is appeal to broad audiences. You know, we're not just saying, here's an event at the senior center, here's an event for new Americans, here's an event for children at the library. Thinking of events that might have cross appeal so that we can try to engage more people at the same time. So it's kind of a creative approach. Yeah. Outside the box. Yeah. Okay, great, great. I think this is something communities struggle with this machine. Whether they be diverse or not diverse in terms of makeup, I think it's something that's always tricky is how do you really get people involved when they may not see a direct impact on their lives right away. Other things like school budgets and town budgets and things like that. So let's talk about, since you talked a little bit about how to get people involved, what do you see the role of the city council, whether it be around involvement or, you know, they have been in the past rather, it's what we called it operationally focused because there were things that needed to be cleaned up. You know, there were some budget issues and there was all that development and sort of how all the pieces fit together. Do you see a role for folks outside of that as well in the city council or do you see it more as a operational kind of job? I think operations are really important. One thing that's key there is that the, you know, the council is really acting to set policy guidance where the city staff is actually implementing things at a more detailed level. And I think the current structure of the various commissions feeding into the council, this puts the council in a good place to take a high level view of what's going on and like advise on those operational pieces. And it's very important to make sure that I think particularly development is a key issue right now. Growth is coming in Winooski. There's people want to move there, we're seeing it. I think that's one of the priorities for the council is to monitor that and make sure that that is happening in a, with a sustained outlook and with the community values in mind. But I do think there's also a role for council to interact with other areas, have some interaction with the school district, use this community services area to just be engaged with other members of the community. And this is a way to find out how to get people more engaged, like let's talk to people and find out what they want to see. So to your point, like it's not just operational, it's not just monitoring what's going on and planning for the future, but also like being a listening ear to the community and finding out what is the stuff that we're missing that we need to have on our radar. The harder nut to crack, perhaps. Yeah. You talked about being on the housing committee. And then you just mentioned that people want to live in Winnieski now, which is, I think the numbers that the numbers of people want to live in Winnieski now have definitely grown, at least I've been around. So you were probably part of the housing assessment or at least you were aware of it. Tell us what you think as a city councilor, you might, some of those recommendations that you might take on or pursue in the next upcoming years. Yeah, so I joined the housing commission because I think housing is one of the most important things that we need to focus on Winnieski. Affordable housing is always, well, this is an issue nationally, right? But this is an issue in Winnieski. And there are some incentives in place already to try to encourage affordable housing. One of the biggest pieces of the housing news assessment is that we need to ensure a mix and a balance of housing. So we're not talking about just monitoring that there's enough subsidized housing for low income folks. Like that's important and that's something we need to do, but we also need to make sure that we don't end up in a position where we have low income subsidized housing and luxury units being put up because that's what maybe developers want, but there's nothing left in the middle. That's the thing that I think, I think that's like the key piece that we need to be monitoring and we need to make sure that doesn't happen so that there are options like across the spectrum for all of our residents and for new people who want to come here. Some specific recommendations that were included in the assessment to get to that point. There's some really, some great data work that has been suggested and is already implemented. There's some software that the city is actually already implementing to get a better handle on monitoring violations for rental housing and make sure that our housing stock isn't deteriorating and some other planning to do some parcel mapping to really have a bird's eye view of what we've got. I think those pieces are really important. It's hard to monitor what's happening in the city and be prepared for the future if you don't have the tools in place to really see that. The other thing I want to call out is the recommendation to utilize. There's an existing housing trust fund that the city has and it's underutilized. So there's already money available to incentivize some things. How that can be used, there's a couple of different ways but like this is money that we can use to encourage more homeownership. I think that's something that, that's one of the recommendations in there in something that is important to the community. And then also helping people like renovate their property if it's getting into disrepair so that we can keep our housing standards where they need to be. And is the housing trust fund, does the council decide where that money goes? I don't believe so. I'm sure there is some guidance involved. But I'm not 100% sure like who manages that exactly. But as a council that would be something you'd be interested in. Yeah, definitely. Good. Let's talk about education. You mentioned the schools and that they reached out to you. So that was a good, that was a good sign. What's your assessment of how the school district is doing? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, the Winnieski schools have, I would say sort of a negative reputation. Like I hear people saying they, they don't know if they wanna send their children there or like maybe people aren't moving to Winnieski because they don't wanna send their kids to the schools. They hear the school district's not great. And I think this is a misperception. I like seeing performance and testing data on the whole of the school is underperforming the state average. But if you dig into that, there's actually an achievement gap between average students and disadvantaged students. Which is a unique to Winnieski. Like this is a national problem. And so average students are actually performing on par with the state. And what that tells me is that while there is this achievement gap and we have these disadvantaged kids that we do need to support, I have seen Winnieski, the Winnieski school district make efforts to that. Like they have programming, they're trying to work on this problem. But it's not happening to the detriment of other students. So if there's this perception that all the resources are going to a certain group of kids and other kids are being left out, like that's not what we're seeing. So I think because the average kid is performing on par with where they need to be, and I do see efforts to help with these disadvantaged kids to try to narrow that gap. Like I would say that the district is doing a good job right now. Good, good. And we are just about out of time, but I want to give you at least a minute to sort of let the voters know what you stand for and who they should vote for. Sure. You know, like I said, I moved here, I married into a lifelong, a lifer I would call him to this family here. I'm very invested in the community and I'd like to do more than I do right now. Serving on the housing commission has been great and I'd like to step up my level of effort and help just maintain like, I feel like the city is on a good trajectory and I want to make sure that continues and that it continues in a long-term sustainable way. Great, great. Well, Christine, thank you so much for coming out and joining me tonight today. Thank you. We're gonna have our, this will be part of the larger debate with the rest of the candidates at a later date and that will all be brought together. But we appreciate your coming out and good luck on town meeting day, March 6th. Don't forget, vote on Townie meeting day, March 6th. Thanks for joining us.