 We coordinated. I know, right? I'm going to start the warning. I was like, I was like, When to start to warning. Can we have people introduce themselves so we know. Who is here. We'll start with that. Dita and then go on this direction. All right. Tell me if this. Is not too loud too low. My name is Dana John. And yeah, I'm happy to be here and I'm the candidate running for city council. I was going to go with Jake. This way. I am Jake Schumann. I am also the candidate running for city council. I am the independent candidate. I'll pass it off to Danny. Oh, where do you, where do you, where do you, where do you, where do you, where do you, where do you, where do you, where do you, where do you, where do you, where do you go around is Daniel Montana. And I live in board three. And are you working with one of the candidates here? No, no, I'm participating in a neighborhood assembly. Okay, okay. My name is Fari. I live in board five. I'm hoping to get onto the public comment section of the NBA. That's also happening tonight. I'm a volunteer with proposition zero and community control of the police. Okay. I'm Brian Tina. I live in board two currently, although a lot of the new maps show me the flip and ward eight. And I'm also interested in civic engagement. So I probably would have come to the debate or watched it anyway, but I might someday be in ward eight with some of you. So. Hi. Hi. I'm John. I live in one of these. And I'm not a candidate. I have an idea. I'm Keith. I live on university terrorists and ward eight. I'm a member of the steering committee. I'm Lauren ever saw I live in word eight and I am also a member of the steering committee. You'll church. I'm also a member of the steering committee. Okay. Our first item on our agenda is after the introductions is to, to allow people to have a chance to speak out on issues other than the candidates tonight. Does anybody want to speak? Have I something they'd like to talk about? Thank you. Hi, everybody. I am here as a volunteer for two voters initiated chart change proposals and petitions that are going to be on the March ballot. We're pretty sure we've met the minimum threshold of the required signatures. If you haven't, please consider signing them. The first one is proposition zero, which is basically we'll give barlington voters the ability to propose and pass ordinances through majority rule. This will give us the ability to put our proposals and have a citywide vote. This will also bring barlington on par with the rest of Vermont where all the other municipalities already have this in their charter. So we are hoping to get that in the March ballot and also hopefully we will have everybody voting yes. And the second one is the police accountability petition, which will give, which will create a civilian oversight board to handle police complaint and investigation. That petition also I think is just met. It's a, it's a required threshold, but we want as many signatures as we can find. I think it's really important to rebuild the public trust in our law enforcement. So if you want to learn more, it's proposition zero.org and people for police accountability.com. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other comments for the public? Okay. I'm going to turn this over to Lauren. She is our moderator for the forum with our candidates. One of our candidates, may brand has just sent me an apology saying she's not able to attend tonight. Okay. All right. So before we get started and open the floor to our candidates, I just wanted to spend a few minutes going over rank choice voting because this will be the first election that we're going to use rank choice voting since I think what 10 years. So this was approved in March, 2021. And basically what it is is all voters will have the choice to rank first through fourth with the right in option. All of the options on the ballot for our East district city council member. So four columns for choices. You can vote for as few as you want. You can vote for as many as you want. You should always vote for your first choice. And then after that, you can choose if you'd like to have a second, third or fourth. The candidate must achieve. A candidate must achieve greater than 50% of the vote to be considered the winner. If not, it will go to an immediate runoff where the lowest. Vote. Lowest voted candidate will be eliminated. And that will continue until one candidate has greater than 50% of the vote. So are there any questions on that before we get started? Because that is important to understand as we're listening to our lovely candidates talk tonight. Yeah. What were the candidates eliminated if there's a number of who does. So if, if we say that one candidate, one candidate has reached greater than 50% of the vote and out of the, there's three candidates in this. And I think, I don't think the run any right ends would count for that. I think it would just be who is on the ballot. So then if we have to go to a runoff, it would just be the two candidates against each other and whoever was the least voted. That third candidate would be the one that would be eliminated. So then instead of three options, it would be two options. So that's a good question. That's a good question. I'm not. So I. The second, the person's second, the person who got the least number of votes, the people that voted for that person, their second choice would be added to the other two candidates. Thank you. Have my notes. Wasn't in there. Any other questions? Okay. So then we can get started. So we have a general outline tonight where the candidates will have a chance to talk about the issue that they feel is the most pressing for the East district, which includes words one and eight. But before we get to that issue. You guys have the option to give a brief opening statement. So I will let the ladies go first. You also had a thought where that determined that. Over here that you can repeat that a few. Hi everyone, my name is Tina John and I'm running. I need a progressive party. And I think so I grew up here in the long term resident. And, you know, I've been a victim of housing insecurities, food insecurity, public safety. I also lost a friend this summer to gun violence. And that was a big newspaper read. And I think the reason why I am running. It's because so I work in the courthouse and I remember one day coming home and no longer be affected by the public safety. It's just stopped. I got so used to it. It'd be so much of like my cases every day from murder. Like mental health drug cases and I just, it's, I stopped feeling anything because it just became part of my life. And I thought that was wrong. You know, I was like, that's not okay. And I thought, what can I do? And then it was that, but also seeing issues being talked about, but not enough representation in the room. You know, oftentimes I'm the only black woman. I'm the only immigrant in the room. Luckily I'm not in this sense, which is really great, but that's also something I wanted to change. You know, when we talk about these issues, it's really important that everyone from different identities are there because they're also impacted by them. So I'm running for that. And I'm also running to be the most, the person's most involved in public safety to finally be on council. But thank you. I think if we leave this between us, we can share it. So my name is Jake Schuman. I announced my candidacy early on as an independent. And I saw the progressive and democratic endorsements as a means of, you know, having an audience, but also to put forward my theory that our city has been harmed by partisanship that we see at the national and state levels. Having lost the progressive endorsement to Dina, who I am very pleased, you know, earned that endorsement because I think that you're a great candidate in this race. I did not seriously seek the democratic endorsement. I went to the Democratic caucus and I said, you know, I'm going to say my piece, but I think that you all should vote for Maya so that we can have a true ranked choice contest. So I decided to remain in the race as an independent so that we can try out what this ranked choice thing is all about, right? Our last race was in 2010. So I think a lot of people weren't here when that happened. And a lot of people might have, you know, forgotten how it works in our city. So I think that it's important to have a lot of people involved and engaged in the process. And so that's why I'm here. I'm here to encourage other people to put their name out there, to stand up and raise their hand and say, I am interested in doing more for this community. And that's why I'm really glad to have two worthy candidates in Maya and Dina also stepping forward. I think all of us are newcomers to this level of the political process, but we've all been engaged in our community thus far. And I just think that in this city, we have a long and strong history of really powerful community led and community involved movements. And so I am okay with being an independent. I think that's going to fare very poorly for me in this election, but I'd like to see more independence stepping forward. Because I think that if we have real people running, and we have real people representing us, then we're going to have a really strong community. So you can call me an independent. You can call me Jake Schuman, but what I call myself is a human. Thank you, Jake. All right. So now we will give each of the candidates two minutes to actually we'll do this one at a time. So we'll do one candidate gets two minutes on what they feel is the most pressing issue in the East district. And then other candidate has a chance to respond and then a rebuttal for that. And we'll do that for each of you. So if you'd like to lead off my cheek going off, it'll be fair. Oh yeah. Very, very good. Okay. Go ahead. So this is the third time we've been asked this question. And the first time in the second time I had different responses. So I kind of want to keep up that momentum and have another new response for what I think is the most pressing issue. In the East district. And it's not that much of a departure from what I said last time, which was about equity. And I'd say. I'd build on that. Right. And I'd say inclusion. And I'd say that the most pressing. Issue in the East district is. The, the way that people are not included in our democratic processes. So look for example at the conversation that we're having around redistricting, right? There are a lot of conversations happening about what to do with the students in the dorms. What to do about wards one and wards. Word one and word eight. How to make it so that. No one word has. A larger share of the student population such that you have a smaller number of people influencing that election. So that fewer people effectively have more representation than in other parts of the city. I think that. In March, we are going to have the opportunity once again to vote on whether or not we allow. Non-citizen residents of our city to participate in our local political process. And I would love to use this platform and I will continue to do so. Strongly encourage. The local population to support that effort. I think it's very important. And I think that. It's, it's thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. It really boils down to it's not just about. Allowing people to participate. It's a, it's about allowing people to be a part. Of the community to participate. Thank you. Great. One minute. So yesterday, I'll tell a brief story. I was out door knocking and then I went to this neighborhood and both of them experienced break ins into their homes. One side said wanted more increased police patrolling their neighborhood because of their home break in. The other person said they wanted more community policing and more community support. They wanted different answers, but they both wanted one solution, which is their homes not to be break it in and both of them experienced not enough safety. And I think for me, what I realized as I'm doing more campaign, more door knocking as well as my job is that it really comes down to the us versus them mentality. I really feel like that is like the biggest root cause. And that's what's adding to these issues because everyone wants the same solution. And I think that's what I'm trying to say. I think that's what I'm trying to say. But at the same time, it's this one size fits all, you know, how to just pull police, like public, public safety policing. I want less police because I have a day I don't feel safe. I want more policing because I don't want to feel safe, but you both don't feel safe. You know, same thing with, um, like, um, so I talked to someone who said their dollars are social worker and they said, I feel very scared that my daughter is being called to the police station because I don't think they need to be responsible for every mental health crisis. They all want the same answer. I think the reason why I'm running is because I have three candidates, like I'm the most directly involved in public safety cases. Like that is my job. And also with housing cases, like I'm a renter, Jake's a renter, may as a landlord, but I worked with landlords and renters, you know, I deal with bad renters. I deal with bad landlords. I deal with bad landlords. I deal with bad landlords. I deal with bad landlords. And we're changing this ideology of like us versus them. Only my solution can work. We're not going to solve the problem. And we're going to increase being deadlock, which is why people are sick of city council and politics. Nothing's being done. Like I want a solution so we can all go home. Unless cases for me. All right. So you can each have a minute to rebut anything in. the most important issue. So if you'd like to address anything that Jake said directly and Jake, if you'd like to address anything that Dina said, I'm not sure, which I think if we go back to Jake, that might be the most fair and then you can. Yeah, well, so I think one of the reasons why communities such an aspect for this election is because first of all, me and Jake are in different parties but we did an event together for people's kitchen and we bought diapers out to mothers in neighborhood and we spent that time knocking and like bringing the diapers and just really talking. We both realized that, yeah, we all care about the same thing. And I think that's like, there is a shift. We all feel this discomfort right now. Like a whole community, our whole world feels it. So it's more so about a lot of us just are kind of trying to get away from the partisanship, getting away from the deadlock and just kind of coming together. Like, I may not get on everything, but like that is okay. Like that's not how things are gonna go. So I'm not against Jake. Honestly, what I want that a day of this election is that, I don't know, like more community and more engagement. That's what we're all here. That's my view from different wars here. Like you're from work three, five, you're from work two. We all experienced different experiences, wards, but yet we're all feeling the same shift of concern. Yeah, I agree and thank you for the shout out. Yes, we might not agree on everything but we can work together on most things. I don't know that we found anything that we can't work together on yet. And you plug my thing, People's Kitchen, so I'll plug your thing, free her Vermont at their launch party. I walked in two minutes later, Dina walked in and we're like, hey, and then everybody in the room is connected to one of us. And so like building that community, I think is really meaningful. And I think that's the mark of a pro-social community oriented positive campaign is when you have three candidates and you have three communities coalescing behind these three candidates and we find the bridges and we build the connections between everyone. I would just say that to what you were saying, I agree about how we have groups in the city who are kind of antagonistic towards the police or feel like there's negative relationship there. We have people who feel that they have a positive relationship there. And then we have people who are ambivalent. And I think that all of these people can find common ground and compromise through community oversight of police. If we can root out the bad apples that the police force has not rooted out on its own, we can all trust the group that remains that much more. Thank you both. So now we will open it up for questions from our board members. I will ask that you just note if you want to address it to both candidates, one candidate over the other and candidates if you could keep your responses to one to two minutes, that would be ideal. That way everyone has a chance. Let's make sure Linda. Yes, and I know Linda is online. Linda? She said she won. Do you have a bunch of questions? I do have some questions. Yes, okay. I have a bunch of questions. Go ahead. You want me to start? Yes. And we'll try and do like round, maybe round Robin. So Linda, you can ask one and then we'll see and then we'll come back to you. Okay. So let me look at my list here. City council takes a significant amount of time both in terms of meetings and dealing with constituents and preparation. And I'm wondering, how does that fit in with your schedule? I saw this one. Okay. Yeah. This is a question for both people. Yes. So I think my favorite thing about my job is it's so community involved. So it's like I work from eight to 430 dealing with like community and statewide issues. So then I have the special privilege of like taking that all in. And then if I was to council, it's just to bring that into the council, say, hey guys, like this has been what the days been like in Burlington and Vermont. These are issues happening. Just kind of want to put that out there and just kind of form people because every day the councils represents different ward. So that's one of the reasons why I think my schedule fits really well because I go from one community work to another community work. So that's why I think I, my schedule wouldn't be of harm. And I'm also really connected to different organizations that are really excited about my agency because they are even more interested in getting involved. Like we need increase representation city council. Can I just interrupt you? I'm very interested in the time commitment because a previous city councilor was not able to make the time commitment. Oh, well, I mean, like I said, again, I work at 430 Monday through Friday. So my schedule is free. Thank you. So I appreciate your question. I also appreciate the clarifying question that you just made because I think it's important for us not to judge others based on the actions or inactions of other people, right? Neither Dina nor myself are the same as, Jack or Ally? Yeah, right, at Jack or Ally. I don't want to throw anybody under the bus but while I am throwing people under the bus, I guess I would note like, something that bears stating is that this is now the second candidate forum that Maya has not been present at. So I think that is also telling and responding to your question because I think that a lot of people ask that question based on the comment that Ally made in the seven days article where she mentioned that maybe young people. Instead of assuming why I'm asking a question, if you could just answer the question, do you have the time? Yeah, well, I just wanted to clarify a few things before I got there, but I do appreciate that we do need to hold each other accountable, right? So I appreciate you holding me to account. So yes, I do have the time. I certainly do and I did that gut check before signing up for this and I have spoken to that at length at other forums but I would also just take this opportunity to mention another part of my platform is that we need to pay our city counselors. They shouldn't be volunteers who earn a stipend. If we can have a professional city council who are paid for at least 20 hours a week, then we can have a city council that is representative of our community. We can have working class people with kids who are on our council. Thank you. Well, I just wanted to clarify and that the last three ward A representatives have complained about the amount of work and have all either quit or decided not to run. So that's three. I would say there's a significant amount of work to be done and how one does that is going to be key to success. And I don't think it's just I go from one job to the next. I think you're going to need support. You're going to need to talk to people in the wards, get their opinions and their input, take them out. And I think that that didn't happen. We're not here to review that, but it's a long history of eating up ward counselors in ward A. That's where they go to the security yard for city counseling. I just want to add though, like the last four years, like I was a D1 athlete on full scholarship, two double majors, two jobs, but I was also working on a law firm doing volunteer work, addressing sexual assault cases. I was working with the WNUC education about their bill they want to pass. I was seeing that all and I graduated with honors. So I'm really, I don't play around when it comes to community at all. And I'm very, very committed. I think that's what I'm excited about as young persons. I'm very energetic and I'm not here to play around. If I was, then I would have not accepted the KNC one week and had one week to campaign to win the progressive party. So I just want to get that out there. Yeah. Is that just kind of the... Oh, well, I mean, well, I mean, we have a lot of issues, public safety, full-brow housing, those are really, really deep, depressing issues. And that's why I'm out every day, 8 to 4.30. And then I'm doorknocked. I was just doorknocking all night only stop because of this Ward 1 meeting. After this, I have people that need me to call that. Like it's a pull-on commitment. And I come and work in class with families. So like, you know, I'm representing them in their lives. And that's really, that's something I can't play with. Likewise, you know, during the pandemic, I was also going to school full-time, getting straight A's and also working 40 hours a week at a homeless shelter where I was paid for 40 hours a week, but I was actually working 60 because, you know, this was the opportunity to get people who are experiencing chronic homelessness house, right? And on top of all that, I was volunteering with the People's Kitchen about 10 hours a week. So we both have very strong work ethics because when you are, you know, when you're at like the bottom or near the bottom of the totem pole of our society, you got to work real, real freaking hard. Well, there's, I'm sorry. And to answer your question, I'd say about, based on my conversations with other city counselors, I've been told that some weeks it's 40 hours, some weeks it's close to no hours, depending on what's going on, but to expect an average about 25 hours a week. So that's how I've done my arithmetic. Me as well, I'm ready. I really want to help. Anyone else in the room? Keith, do you have a question or anyone? I will ask, is anybody else want to ask the question? Yeah. Can you take a question? We're one people at some point. Yeah. Yeah, I understand it's after maybe all the names. We're getting used to this Jonathan. Yeah. It's not going to be an experience. Anne, did you want to ask? Yeah, so the city council, I believe unanimously recently, agreed to increase the cap on police officer from 74 to 87. And given your comments, I just wanted to ask if you agree with that. Yes, I do agree with that. Especially when you consider that a third of our force right now is not able to be on the beat. So I think when we consider how many folks who are on the force are on leave or on administrative duty due to injuries or other commitments or maybe they're a detective and they don't usually go on the beat, I think it's important to recognize that they have needs to meet. And at the end of the day, like when we call for service, we want somebody to show up, right? I called recently for what could have been a very serious emergency for somebody else in this town. And it took 45 minutes for a response. So yes, I do. Yeah, I mean, I second with all of what Jake's saying and what I would say also is someone who works in the courthouse and that, yeah, these cases are increasing every day. Like every day I'm dealing with more and more cases. I'm dealing with the same issues of people for the police is not immediately there and they are complaining about that. I'm also working with police officers who are in situations where they don't feel as comfortable or feel like that should not be their place. And you know, I'm out of the day, like, you know, we can take, I know a lot of people have issues with progressive parties on how to hit a policing, which is 100% valid. I'm not someone to ever go and get someone's concerns about public safety. But what I would say that even if we have 500 police cars for the 500, 500 police is for the 500 police cars that were stolen, I mean, cars that were stolen, like it's still not going to help the problem. You know, we can take away all the progress from the city council. It's not going to solve the public safety issue problem. As someone who works in the courthouse, like I can validate that from a non-political lens. So what I'm supportive is what Jake is saying is that let's get to that number that we need and then take a step after that by dealing with interconnected issues. We can have a police person station in every single car, every single bike, every single home. It's not feasible. Because I've actually heard the opposite that the police are not going to come here because they don't feel supported by city council. Yeah. I've heard that from police officers. Yeah, but I also, see, I've heard that, but I've also heard also, and like, and that's like the thing though, and that's what I was saying earlier. Everyone has their concerns and that it should be like really validated because what everyone's saying is true. You know, the people who don't feel safe, like when you don't feel safe, like that doesn't really get, no one can really take that away from you unless you see a solution being effectively enforced. And so I support, gave that number where it needs to be. I support community engagement and also building community trust, transparency and accountability. Like we can really, really get there. And I think that's why I'm running because I work with both sides and I don't think it's us versus them. It's more of a public safety. Let's make everyone feel safe. Yeah, I think like, so I don't wanna give any specifics about like the time, place, circumstances because it's possible that the reason I called the police or 911, I called 911, the reason I called 911, it could have been a medical emergency, but it could have also been a domestic violence situation. So that's why I'm being nondescriptive. But because it could have been a medical emergency, like it didn't need to be an officer who went to do a wellness check. It could have been the fire department that did that. I think a point that bears repeating is that when people dial 911, we don't always need to send people with guns. As somebody who served in that role for a very specific geographic location, for a year, yeah, I'm not frightened of that. There are people who are not frightened of that and I think it is safe. A lot of important professionals should be making that call. Yes. But that's the CSL and CSO program. They have a hierarchy and they have exactly, exactly. And they have the backup and the support that they need when they need it. Yeah, and I also did sit down with Morell actually in this room for like an hour. And we really had a really long, deep conversation from different sides. And I expressed my concern, he expressed me his concerns. And where we both left off is that we may not see the same, but there's clear problem. And I really think the community concerns needs to be the number one priority as we make decisions about policing, police staff answering the calls. Because if you're gonna tell a parent whose daughter's a social worker that they should be out there, like they're gonna feel some type of way. Like they have every reason to feel like that's your child out there. But there's some social workers that wanna be out there. There's some police that wanna be there, but others don't. So let's all just kind of find that middle ground. And that's with the mayor, that's with the community, that's with the police department, that's with social workers. I'd like to change the subject totally. I think the university district was eight and one. It has a bigger problem than policing. It's really housing. And what that means is young people who are trying to start a career who don't make a good income as a starter can't afford to stay in our city. And I think that is really, we've seen that with the far, the far trick attitude. It feels like the real estate people, I don't wanna name everybody, but big corporate landlords and the political establishment and the university seem to all be in cahoots about making our district, our streets homes for basically people who come in, the last class, the freshman classity is 84% out of status. We're giving homes, giving living units, just transition, people transitioning, coming into our state, playing in our city, and then leaving. And nobody seems to be doing anything about it, although you all have on your placards, affordable housing. Well, how did we get out of this situation? And what would you think would be the way to solve it? Yeah, so when I first ran housing was actually my main platform, I think also because I had to do an honors study on housing, coming with policies. And so I graduated from UVM, but also in the seven days I did, as I said, I did call it UVM. The over a minutes of students every year, they're adding to the housing crisis. If you're, they're choosing a lot out of state students, my theory is because out of state students bring more money than in state students. And I think one of the reasons what I wanna do is really hold that accountable for that, even as someone who graduated, because I know what's like to not have a home. I know it's like to be housing insecure. It's a really scary position, but I also live in a family-dominated neighborhood. And so I wanna hold UVM accountable. I wanna also work closer Champlain housing about how to build more housing for people that can afford it. I wanna also make sure housing sustainable. And also like I said earlier, we need to hold UVM accountable. Like I'm not scared to do that. Like that's really one of the biggest issues here. Keith, I think there's something in your question that I wanna pick on specifically. I think that we could have a whole forum just about housing because we have a very long history in the city of all of the creative solutions that we've brought to bear on how to provide more housing for more people more equitably. But you spoke about large landlords, large property owners. And I think that's something to pick on, right? Like I think of Cambrian rice, almost a thousand units of housing. Based on the numbers, it has the ability to increase our housing stock by 6%. One housing development could increase our entire amount of housing by 6%. Six sounds small, but that's a huge number of units to bring online. But the way that they're building it is very slowly and very incrementally. And why are they doing that? They're doing that because it won't flood the market with housing, it won't lower the cost of housing so that they get the maximum return on investment, right? So I think that if we're going to allow property developers to build large amounts of housing, we should work with them to bring it on more quickly. We need to feel a sense of urgency here because right now people are getting essentially evicted from the city because they can't afford to pay increased cost of housing as they move from one apartment to another or their landlord sells their unit and the new owner wants to charge higher rent or it's a no cause eviction, right? So many things, so many things to discuss here, but that's just one. For Ward 8, Linda, do you have any other questions? We'll do another live round Ward 8 and then we can open it up to follow up on Keith's which is very interested in this idea of holding UVM accountable. I think we all know how, you know, what some of their policies have led to a lot of this housing problem. And I'm wondering how you think UVM can be held accountable and what kind of solutions do you think they can bring and why it would be different this time because these have been something that has been talked about for many, many years. That's for both of you. Yeah, thank you for that, my name is back. Yeah, well, I mean, I think one key is that we need to make sure that the mayor is here present when we talk about the idea of holding UVM accountable. I really think when we have these conversations, we need to make sure we have people with more power than that's the room, more power than city council was just like the mayor, like he needs to be here because I have a date, like he has greater power in that decision. I think once we get to that step then we can talk about sit down meetings, you know? Like I think champagne housing is such a great housing trust and I feel like including them in these conversations, we need to build the coalition. So when we do a trash stadium, like they have to answer to us. So I feel like that's, I'm kind of open more so in that route of starting that conversation with the people with more power because then the city council only has so much power. Can I just also do a little follow-up here which is to add in what your thoughts are about the trick. Wait, let's take answer and then you can follow up Linda. That was okay. Well, you look at the Trinity campus conversation, right? Where the University of Vermont needs a variance to build the things that they wanna build and the way that they want to build them. So there's an opportunity for leverage there. And I think ultimately we have very little leverage with the University of Vermont as a municipality. And so that to have a relationship with them that is more productive and meets everybody's needs really I think requires a stronger relationship between city council and our legislative delegation. I think that, I mean, like I have no reason to question the strength of that relationship right now but I can just say that I as a city councilor would work with our state legislators to do what we need to do to get UVM to do the things that they need to do for our community. And then your follow-up. Thank you. Your follow-up. Yeah, did you wanna follow up Linda? No, that's okay. I'm giving other people a chance. All right, any other board eight questions? I have other questions. No one else. All right, everyone in the room is silent so we can let you get another couple and Linda. Here's a question for you. So quality of life issues, like noise issues, for example, have kind of taken a back burner since defunding happened. And I was wondering in the face of all the issues that you think, you know, that there are big issues whether or not you think that quality of life issues are deserving of attention and what would you personally do to help constituents with these issues? Yeah, so I think what I like a quality of life issue that I think is important that took a back burner as the police prioritized different things. Is traffic safety, right? A lot of people are driving in ways that are not very safe. And that's creating situations where people choose not to walk or bite. And so that's a quality of life issue that individual decisions that are made for good reason then impact all of us because then there are more cars on the road and the environment suffers. But I also wanna talk about the quality of life issue that we describe differently, right? Safety, housing, these are quality of life issues that people don't have housing is a quality of life issue that people have suboptimal housing is a quality of life issue that people don't feel safe. I agree with Dina like we can't argue with people's feelings. So for whatever reason that people feel unsafe like that is a quality of life issue. So as far as how to deal with that, I mean, it's everything, it's all of it. Yeah, I think my sense of quality of life when I was door knocking earlier today I was on East Ath and I was talking to someone and they were talking about crossing the street. Their road is so busy the cars just go and then as they're walking like he says like the car slowly just like slam. And I said, oh, you're there and I'm a long time runner. Every time I run there, it's very, very scary. You know, it's like little things like that as well as elderly woman was telling me how she feels like elderly people are taking out the conversation and everything. So we're just old like da-da-da. But she's like, but like my life matters too. Like my rights was like, yeah, it does. So I really feel like it's these, the little things act to quality of life like walking, making sure elderly people feel safe whenever they drive and cross the street, but cross the street. But also what Jake's saying to public safety food housing and I'm also going to put out their education. So this spring I worked with the Wyniewski School District about them wanting to pass for increased funding. And my role was to deal with English-language learners and like the low-income students and how their families need support with getting jobs. And because if they can get a job and their kids can't eat if their kids can't eat then it's like the kids aren't going to go to school. So that is also quality of life issue, education making sure students who attend school who come from my background which is like low-income, new American that they have the resources they need. So they're able to participate because if they don't most likely you're going to have them out in the streets and the next thing you know that's going to have to public safety. So I'm really breaking everything down for personal experience as well as work experience. And with the students aspect I worked with studentconduct at UVM as well as one of our representatives Tano's student conducts. So I'm really, if the council, I really want to work with him in that area about students and like the noise control because that's an issue and that's an issue in my day-to-day job. Thank you. One question is for the reward-eaters. Okay, Linda. I'll ask another question. Are you familiar with the issue that where there's, I think there's an issue in Ordin's committee about having homeless people have camping rights in the public parks. I was wondering if you're familiar with that and what are your thoughts about it if you are? Yeah, so I'm familiar with that due to like research and talking to, when I write doorknock but also like back to what I was saying earlier I really want us as we're addressing the issue of homelessness. I really think it's really critical that they're also involved in this conversation as well. I feel like oftentimes they get treated as like like lesser than other than like ostracism society but sort of like if you want to talk about woman issues you have to have a woman a part of it. If you want to address about homelessness issues we have to make sure the homeless community is a part of it too. Cause they're at the day, third of the ones living on the streets we're going home. So I want to, that's what I'm really big on whenever you address these issues that everyone is involved because it's not fair for us to talk about issues if the person who's the biggest victim is not there. So that's something I want to do and that's why I've been really working volunteer groups about homelessness and also about mental health aspect of it too. So that's my answer to that. And I'm open to working with homeless people by addressing homelessness issues. No, but that's my answer though. It's because, you know, I may have my opinion on it but I feel like we need to also make sure we're getting their voices and how they feel about that. My opinion on it. Well, end of the day, I'm in support of making sure that homeless people of the day have a sense of home and security just how I am for people who have hopes. So I want to find like the perfect answer to that and how I'm trying to is talking to different groups of people who are not talking to my neighbors. Yeah, if I can glom on to that wonderful sentiment that you just expressed. I'm not speaking to anybody in this room or on this Zoom but I think it is a sentiment that I found out there speaking to members of the community that some people view homelessness that it exists as the problem and some people view homeless people as the problem. And I think it's really important to recognize that it's the former and not the latter that homeless people are worthy of dignity and that we should not describe them as a problem but as victims. So moving on to answer the question I actually consider as my friends two of my fellow millennials who work for the city in the police department and in the parks department who coordinate closely on that policy that city council is now looking at. My understanding is that it used to be a somewhat informal policy that the city had around encampments on public lands and now city council I don't know if they're looking at formalizing a policy or just amending a formal but informally enforced policy but historically we have been very humane about it and with the public sentiment that has begun to be expressed that describes homeless people as the problem folks are being moved more often than they had been and in the past folks were guided to areas that were out of the way that they would not cause neighbors to feel unsafe and if encampments were broken down property would be stored and retained for them. So we used to be very humanistic about it. Thank you. Thank you. I don't think we have any information in the room. And I know I'll save a few minutes at the end if we to make sure. Oh, go ahead Keith. I don't know, it's from what I'm hearing you and you don't sound like you live in the neighborhood that I live in. I don't know, I don't know. Yeah, we have a good quality of life from eight o'clock in the morning until maybe eight o'clock at night but between eight p.m. and the next morning it's not. And we live on the street that's getting more and more kids more and more families and we like it to be that way. And so I still don't understand how you don't think we can't take on UVM and say to you you need to house 90% of your students because we need to get priority to working class people in this city, some of whom would be these Vietnam vets of which I'm one who are homeless or there would be these homeless people who could use a place to live in. If we didn't have these people who would be willing to pay anything just to be in college and to be in a house. I think we are really, I don't get your point with Eric Farrell and Camion Rice. I think he's done a hell of a lot against a lot of people pushing against him but I don't, you didn't talk about how UVM could be building more houses on Trinity campus, more dorms so they could go higher up. We are so afraid to even talk about this. Vermont Digger had a story today about housing crisis not one word about the number of students that are taking up housing units in a city that's supposed to be the Queen city and millennials are having to move out and drive in. We're talking about whatever this is. That's the generational conflict between me and Dina. That's my, the question is, what can we take on UVM? No, we can. I wasn't evading that commitment. I just think that it requires coordination because at the end of the day, a lot of the power to be leveraged in that interaction is through the state house. I think that, and I'm not a huge fan of that article. There was so much that was said that was not included in it. But yeah, I do think that UVM cannon should build more housing and not only that building more housing increases the quality of the housing for the students because right now they're paying with their parents' money so much money for substandard units that then increases the standard rate in the city but also decreases the standard quality. So I think if UVM can do more projects like the Redstone lofts, like that's a real viable... Maybe 20 of those. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, and I do think that we need to build up and I do think that as ranked as one of the most climate resilient cities in the country, we do need to be prepared for greater growth than we expect and we should start figuring out how to build up in more places. Yeah, and I just look like in the article I did call out UVM in the article. Like they did say Tina John, alumni UVM is calling UVM. But yeah, I did hold them accountable because like realistically speaking, out-of-state kids pay way more to go to UVM than in-state kids. So why would UVM want more in-state kids than out-of-state kids if they're gonna get more money from the out-of-state? Like that, it's also the economics of it all that they're seeing too. So that's why I'm very receptive holding them accountable. That's why I wanna make sure the mayor is on the same board with Ward 8th because of the day, like he lives on summer which is like, I don't know where district is gonna go but he's basically on Ward 8th. Like his, maybe some say they're very close. So he needs to be part of this conversation. I also get the legislature to be part of this conversation. Apply pressure on UVM. I'm 100% receptive up because they're building up is something I'm about. I want more dorms being built because I have friends still go to UVM and they literally over admit students and then they just throw them anywhere. But like, oh, we'll just pay for your housing. Don't worry. It's like they're doing that. And why? Because they're out-of-state kids bringing them money. That is it. They're cash cows. It's literally, that's why if they care they would have done something about it but, hey, if you're gonna make money from it who's gonna stop them? They're at the state university. So. Well, now they got competition. Yeah. Now they probably wanna take away my diploma but yeah, it's not something I'm scared of. That's why he said in the article. Linda? Me. So I guess I would just, if the redistricting maps go beyond the election I mean, I know there's some attempt to try to have that all buttoned up before you guys would take your positions but if it's not, I'm just wondering how you understand Ward 8's problem. I think that, speaking for myself there are a lot of different solutions but some of them don't seem to work for some other people but I was just wondering if you feel that you can represent our needs and if you understand that Ward 8 was gerrymandered we didn't used to look like this. We used to be part of at least my particular neighborhood was part of Ward 2. Keith's neighborhood was part of Ward 6. Ward 1. And so. It should be part of Ward 6 basically if you look at it I don't know why we're never there. So yeah, so I just wanted to know that it should this issue go beyond, go into the term that you would be part of whether or not you would be able to understand and represent our interests. Yeah, I mean, I think the conversation redistriction should go into this term whether it's me, myself, myself, Jake or Maya. I think first of all we're running for the East District that's Ward 1 and Ward 8. So we're representing two wards that's really, really big. So I feel like that whoever wins that should be involved in that. And yeah, I would say the way Ward 8 looks it's like Ward 1 is so huge. Ward 8 is like literally like a strip of land. It's very off-putting. And also for me, like I live in a very family dominated neighborhood. So when I look at redistricting like the family aspect, I really hold close. I talked to one, someone else at the Ward 1. He described it as like, I don't want families to be gutted out of Ward 1. And that's how I feel. And I was like, well, yeah, a lot of families in my neighborhood feel the same way. So yeah, I really wanna be part of the conversation redistricting especially if I'm holding, if I would, I might shake, maya whoever wants to redistrict like they're, they need to have that voice too. What do you think that, you know, Ward 8 has been advocating for, you know, trying to have a more, be part of a more compact community that isn't dominated by students. Students, yeah. Yeah. Is that something that you can support or because some of the maps that are out there resemble the current Ward map, which is problematic. And I, and I, you know, the ad hoc committee, I don't know if you're familiar with the ad hoc committee, but the city council had an ad hoc committee which took community input from all over the city. And one of, if not the top one, we can get the information from Ann. The goal was to eliminate entirely Ward 8 or reconfigure it entirely. So I wanted to know whether or not you feel that you could support that. Yeah, I support reconfiguring Ward 8. I don't think it'd be student dominated. Dominated is the best answer because every day, you know, I'm one of the young people who votes but not a lot of students vote. That is also an issue. I think that's kind of problematic to have a ward that's predominantly students knowing that a lot of majority sadly don't vote. And so that is something I'm supporting of reconfiguring, finding that perfect balance. Because, you know, Ward 1 is so huge where we have like families, we have homeowners, we have renters, we have young people, we have a diverse population. I think Ward 8 deserves the same. And I think that's why I really want to have an invoice if I went city council, making sure I represent the Ward 8 concerns. Both questions. Yeah, yeah. So I think like I really take direction from Zariah who I think has shown some good leadership in this domain where she's part of the group who is trying to figure out how to redistrict in the best interests of the city. But then when she is not in that group and she's sitting at the working group of the full city council, she's advocating for the needs of Ward 1, right? So it's like as a city counselor and especially as a district counselor, you need to balance the interests and the needs of the whole city against the interests and the needs of your specific constituency in the East district in Ward 1 and Ward 1. So I think that, you know, I'd be interested in hearing more about the specific concerns and interests of Ward 8 residents because I'm not super familiar. It's all second or third hand from other people participating in the redistricting efforts. I drew a map that I think might be interesting to some folks in Ward 8 and I'd be interested to hear their thoughts. But I think that maybe this is a good opportunity for a direct democracy initiative where now that the issue is more tangible to speak more to the populace and get more feedback on some proposals because at the end of the day with redistricting, not everyone is gonna get what they want. And so it's a question of how can we make the group that feels that they lost to be as small as possible and to feel like they have compromised as minimally as possible? And if I forgot any elements of that question, just let me know. So we have about five minutes left. Yeah, so we can, Linda, do you think that you have most of your questions covered? Yeah, I'm just, you know, I hope my questions have been of interest to everybody. I mean, if Anne knows a lot about the redistricting as well as Keith and Bill, so if they wanna follow up maybe- It's a done deal, the final vote is on one day, so. Wow, okay. So- 10 years. Yeah. Any last minute, board eight questions, if not, we can go to our friends from board one. Good, go ahead. I wrote this down so I can read it fast. This is a question about voting in local elections. The canon says that there's low turnout, local elections, because an electorate is a disconnected or alienated or simply finding irrelevant. Even the incredibly tight 2021 mayor election between Murrow, Max and Ali, which should have been critically important and relevant to all of us, had a meager turnout, one in three for board one and one in five for board eight. That's really sad. Recall that ballots were mailed to every single registered voter, all they had to do was lick the envelope. That's all they had to do. And yet one in five in board eight and one in three in board one. What motivates you to vote in local elections and how can you work with the engagement in the electorate? Thank you for clarifying that. So my first civic board that I joined was the board for the registration of voters, because that's something that I care about. I think that democracy is kind of just for show if we don't have better participation, right? Like if you look at the two caucuses, the Democratic and the progressive caucus for this race, it was 70 people combining the voters for those two caucuses that decided who had which endorsement. So I think, yeah, voter turnout and people feeling like they have, they can make a difference is something that's always been important to me. And that's why the first thing I did in my civic engagement with city government was on the BRB. And a lot of the work that I did there was voter registration drives. I think ultimately it comes down to reconfiguring how we do our campaigns and how we communicate about them. We didn't do campaign finance reform at the national level and we didn't really do it in a super meaningful way at the state level. So maybe we can do that at the city level. And as we implement ranked choice voting, maybe we can create a system where we have a central information point and we have the city puts together, the BRV puts together. Here are your three candidates that you get to choose from. Here are their statements on these issues. Here are little video clips. Everyone gets the same and it's all one single point of access. Yeah, and I think to what Dina has said in her campaign, we need to make it more accessible to people who speak different languages. Yeah, so since my experience as I've been like door knocking every day is that I'm, I'm 50% listening to people, but the 50% is telling people about this election. And like, even though we have like the lawn signs out with the NPA meetings, the newspapers, but yeah, me and my team every day were just telling people, hey, there's election, oh, I didn't know. You know, that's something my team and I've been really, really frustrated about because on the day, they know very well, I just care about also the long-term effects of this all because like I said earlier, like this, there's a shift. We all feel this sense of unease discomfort, frustration. I really want the long-term aspect of it. And I think that's why every day I'm just trying to get people to know their selection and also as a new American and a BIPOC person, like accessibility is so, so important. You know, I would say like, I'm very privileged where I came in this country earlier on that I was able to learn English at a faster rate, but not a lot of new American people have that privilege. My parents don't have that privilege, but my dad speaks five languages. Since I ran, he was like, oh, wait, what if I can start coming to these events and like translating so more a diverse pool of people can come? He didn't even know that was a needed skill. So that's why I've been kind of working different new American communities about getting them being a part of it. And like, honestly, as a Black person, you know, the televised police brutality mercy we have seen has made us very scared of like, and less stressful of political elections and government officials. I'm trying to really work on that fear and say, hey, let's, we also need to vote. You know, and I think basically my campaign is more so advocating for that because at the end of the day, like this election is gonna come, it's gonna go, another one's gonna come, another one's gonna come. Like, let's not make a campaign about telling people to vote. Let's get something that they already know about the campaign. And can I use a rebuttal? Which is to say that sometimes it's not about campaigns for people, right? Sometimes it's about campaigns for issues. And we have had so many campaigns in this city to say that we don't want the F-35s to say that we want Burlington Telecom to remain community owned to different community led movements in this city that have amounted to very little because our city council and the mayor both have the ability to say, we are not going to accept this petition drive and we are not going to put this on the ballot or for a ballot initiative to be advisory only. And, you know, 65% of the population can say, nope, we don't want F-35s and city council effectively says, we don't care. So, you know, let me plug Proposition Zero. When it comes before you in March, please support it because the people can feel empowered if they actually have power. I would like to make a counter argument for that. That is the habit of putting complex policy decisions to vote for the people. An example of that would be Brexit. Where I think a lot of people voted for it, we understand that we don't. And there is also a position where you maybe find people who find your standing issue and not those. I'm not excited to do it. Throwing to the public to vote on it in 30 seconds. Now, I agree, there's definitely things that should be presented to the public as something they can vote on. But it's not quite as simple as just straight democracy for every policy decision. If you guys want a minute to rebut just so we can kind of stay on time and then... Well, I'll agree and disagree. I will agree by saying that, yes, I guess to an extent that is true and that's why we have campaigns, right? The opposition is going to raise money and coalesce an argument to be made in a public manner. But I would also push back on your argument and say that we can't let fear stand in the way of empowering the public to have a voice in how our democracy functions. What are the statistics for voter turnout in the board? Do you remember those on the top of your head? Well, it's very low and very high. That's one in five. That was a mirror all that you might remember. There are 4,250 on campus that are in doors and that's part of 4D. Yeah, so if you want to respond and then we'll give you guys a minute for closing our arguments. I'm sorry, we're running a little bit behind. I'll give a very brief, yeah, I agree with you in the sense of, yeah, some issues, community inputs really critical, but some issues, I think that's how we elect counselors and state reps to represent us. I really feel like there is a balance. We have state representatives for a reason. So I also would put pressure on them to making sure, no offense, Gina, to making sure they're also educating their constituents, like, hey, this is happening. I'm planning on voting this way, just letting you know that education is really important, just even the community can have on everything. Let's making sure the people who are voting for us is educating us about what is going on and that that adds to that. And as well as I talked to state reps, I really want to make sure when we're educating people what's going on as they're making the votes, it's accessible to everyone. So if you want to issue two minutes for closing, Seymon, thank you to everyone for your question. Can maybe get your comment or question in the last bit after candidacy, the closing statement. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Good luck to you. Yeah, thanks a lot. Thank you. I'll make it brief so you can have a time to answer your question. But yeah, I mean, first and foremost, like when I first ran, my focus was affordable housing, as well as how to get new American people more involved in public issues. But it has since grown and I really have just really enjoyed campaigning like every day I'm outside door knocking from five to eight up until like 10 sometimes just talking to the community because like even like this Ward 8 as well as the last two Ward 1s I've been through, a lot of things we're talking about is so emotionally charging. It really is sensitive. It's really is hard, especially when you feel the victim of it. And I think I'm really excited to run because as I put out my vote out there, like a lot of different groups have not been wanting to join more of the conversation. I really just want a long-term impact. I care more about my community more so than I can see at the end of the day. And I think whoever wins, I just want to make sure, bring my support. And I'm really, really excited just to be a part of, I don't know, East District, you know, I'm really glad to be here. So I've been a member of this community for 13 years going on 14 now. And in that period of time, I have volunteered and I've worked in the nonprofit sector. I've worked in the service sector. I've worked in social services. I became an EMT. I've worked for DCF. I have worked for homeless folks and with homeless folks. But when I was young in this community and I stood up and I volunteered to take on more responsibility and participate in a more meaningful way, I was told, you know, you can join a board or commission. And I did that. And, you know, still to this day, I'm told, you know, you could join a board or a commission. And I think that there's a strong generational component to this race where Dina, myself and Maya are three different generations. And I feel like at this point, my generation has been waiting to take over the torch. And if we try to take that torch too strongly, then we risk perpetuating the harm that has been caused to us on the next generation. I think that it's rare for a young person to step up the way that Dina has. And I think that it's impactful and meaningful for us to support that person. I think when Allie said that young people have struggled on city council, it's because she wasn't supported. And I think in this race, you have three people who all want to support each other. And so at this time, I think that I would like to say that I have been waiting for an opportunity to serve this community a more meaningful way. And I am happy to continue waiting. I think that Dina stepped up and raised her hand to serve this community. And I would like to endorse her and say that anybody who is considering supporting me should vote for Dina. Because I think that this is a moment for you to become the leader that we would like to see you be in this community. And I think that you've got a lot of support in this room from people that we've built community with together. Thank you both. Yeah. Did you want to say something? I just want to answer them. That's okay. The point I made earlier about the process and we're going to go back to the last one. Oh, okay. I'm going to go back to the last one. And that's what you're going to do. Like the process is like you're going to vote or you're basically vetting any proposal. So it's not just throwing it to the public. I'm sorry, it's like 150,000 people, not comparable though to Brexit. Well, thank you. Thank you. I will, we've gone over, but we've always worried if we could not even go an hour. And this is amazing. Now we've got an hour and 20 minutes. And I hope everybody's had a chance to ask their questions. So we'll sign off for Ward 8 NPA. Thank you very much for coming and listening. Thank you to everyone. Thanks to the candidates.