 Hi friends, Sinead here would be purged with some more exciting news. Town Meant Day elections will be using ranked choice voting for the first time since the 2021 charter change and all Burlington voters get to participate. On familiar with ranked choice voting, keep watching or click the link below. Ranked choice voting lets voters rank candidates in order of preference, first, second, third, and so on. If your vote can't help your first choice win, it counts to your second choice instead. Here's how it works. If one candidate gets over 50% of everyone's first choice votes, they win and the election is over. However, if no candidate reaches a majority, the candidate with the fewest first choice votes is eliminated and their supporter's votes will count toward their second choice. This process continues until one candidate reaches over 50% of the vote. Ranked choice voting gives voters more voice, more choice, and makes for a stronger democracy. Learn more about ranked choice or try it out for yourself at betterballotvermont.org slash BTV 2023. To ongoing Town Meeting Day election coverage by Town Meeting Television, this is one of a series of forums that we are bringing to you in advance of Town Meeting Day on Tuesday, March 7th, 2023. Town Meeting TV hosts forums with all candidates and covers all ballot items you'll see on your ballot. Town Meeting TV election forums introduce you to community decision makers and connect you with issues that shape your local community. If you are tuning in live, we welcome your questions at 802-862-3966. You can watch Town Meeting TV on Comcast Channel 1087, Burlington Telecom Channel 17 and 217, as well as online at youtube.com slash Town Meeting TV. Welcome, Tim and Jake. Please tell us why you're running and what will be different for Burlington once you're elected. Jake, if you want to start. Yeah, I'm running because I think that our city council is no longer representative of the population of Burlington. I think that we have a lot of folks on council who are there because they can afford to be, right? We have retired folks. We have folks who have a lot of free time and high incomes. And I think that, excuse me, I think that it's important to have working class people. I think it's important to have people who have experienced struggle, who are connected within the community with people who are struggling and who are addressing these issues on the front lines. I want to serve my community. I always have served my community and I see this as another opportunity to continue serving my community. Great. Thanks, Tim. Yeah, thanks, Sinead. You know, I'm running because I love Burlington. My wife and I have lived here a long time. We own a home here in Burlington. Our three kids go to school in Burlington. My business is in downtown Burlington and we love the community. And in recent years, we have been concerned about Burlington and about some of the things that we've been seeing in the city. And our neighbors and our community members have been concerned, too. They've been concerned about affordability. They've been concerned about public safety. And most recently in the East District, they've been concerned about our level of representation. We had two of our city council folks resign. And for a good number of months, we were instead of having three city counselors, we had one city counselor, a counselor, Hightower, who I think has done a wonderful job. But she's only one person. So we've been concerned about making sure that the East District, and particularly Ward 8, who is without any representation, has a full complement of city council people. So, you know, I think what I can bring to the city council and what I hope to bring to the city council is an independent, minded, nonpartisan, collaborative, common sense approach to city governance. Great. Thank you. Regarding the budget, will you be supporting Burlington school budget 4.9 increase over the last year? Are you concerned about proposed teacher cuts? Why are we not? We'll go with Tim. Yeah, so absolutely supporting the budget. I said I have three kids. My son, Sam, is at BHS. My son, Abe, is at Edmunds. And my littlest guy, Malachi, is right down the street here at IAA. So, you know, very much in favor of the school budget have been concerned about teacher cuts. In fact, one of the cuts that was on the table was a cut at IAA. Also, though, understand the need to mitigate as much as possible the increase in the property taxes. So, it's tough balance, but very, very much believe that a strong and healthy public school system is a keystone of a vibrant economy and in a vibrant community. Great. Thanks so much. I think we might have a call. I'm going to go ahead and answer and then Jake will have your answer. Sounds great. Hello. Yeah, hi there. I wanted to be able to pose a question at some point during the forum. Absolutely. How does that work? If you want, we can pose the question now and we can go back to the budget question. Okay, fine. Should I turn down my volume or what? No, you can go ahead and keep talking at this volume. We can hear you perfectly fine. Yeah, you guys are welcome to ask it now. Okay, am I on now? Yep. Okay, I think this is a lag that's what I'm hearing. Okay, so my question for both of the candidates has to do with the Trinity campus zoning, proposed zoning amendments, which will be coming before the city council soon, having been approved by the passed on by the Planning Commission. My question is, what is your position on the proposed zoning amendments sought by UVM and what position will you take and what do you think that the city can and should do in response to those proposed zoning amendments? Great. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for the question. So I think, excuse me, sorry to our sound person. I think that the zoning amendments are very reasonable and they are very normal for projects such as this. But we have a problem with UVM. We have a problem with the fact that they want to build more housing so that they can admit more students. And I think that a lot of members of this community have raised the fact that our memorandum of understanding what is payment and lieu of taxes. So the University of Vermont does not pay property taxes. They make a payment to the city every year in lieu of taxes and our memorandum of understanding has lapsed and we do not have one. And we need to sign a new one. That is my understanding of things. And well, this is leverage. But for me, you know, I like to think about the long term growth of Burlington. I think that for a very long time throughout the country, cities, states, our country has been governed without a long term vision of sustainability. So for me, I think what is important to the Trinity campus redevelopment is that we need to anticipate what does Burlington look like in 10, 20, 30, 50 years, right? We need to make sure that whatever development happens there, it is scalable. So it is the right size for right now, but it can become what it needs to be that it incorporates scalable infrastructure and transportation. I think that there is more than just the MOU at play to consider. Great. Thanks. Yeah, thanks. So, you know, I think the proposal for the Trinity campus in principle is a good one. But I also think that it's incredibly important that we take this moment to sit down at the table with the university and negotiate with a sharp eye toward the university's role and responsibilities for our community. So if we are going to build student housing on the Trinity campus, are we also going to see the university increase enrollment? And if the university does increase undergraduate enrollment, are those freshmen and sophomores in a couple years going to be out looking for housing in downtown Burlington in an already saturated and incredibly expensive market? So, you know, that negotiation process has to play out. But I think that the city council really, really needs to focus on this issue. And, you know, I would like, you know, Jake talked about what vision we have for the city. And I think it's a good question, an important question. You know, one of the things that I think about with respect to housing is, you know, do we want, I want, you know, Burlington to be a city where more of our nurses and our firemen and our school teachers can afford to live, where we have affordable housing so we can have a broader, deeper housing base for folks along all sides of the economic spectrum. And the University of Vermont plays a huge role in those dynamics. And the city council has to take that incredibly seriously. Great. Thank you. I'm just going to pose a school budget question to you again, so both folks get to answer. Will you be supporting Burlington school budgets 4.9% increase over the last year? Are you concerned about proposed teacher cuts? Why or why not? Well, I'll tell you something that I'm concerned about is 4.9% percent. We had 10% inflation over the past year. So I want to make sure that we are taking care of our teachers, right? I support school budgets generally because I think that school borrowers are very fiscally conservative as a rule because school budgets are generally very controversial. We have staffing that is going to get lower over the next year. And that's because our enrollment is going down. We have people retiring, so there will not be layoffs, we're told. So I think that's great. But I just want to make sure that we are taking care of those same frontline workers that Tim referenced, that we want to make sure they can afford to live in the city. And part of it is affordable housing, but part of it is also making sure that we take care of the people doing good work in our community. And I think it's important to make sure that all of those folks doing that good work are getting the salaries they deserve. Great. Thanks so much. Burlington has six items before the voters on the ballot. Those are Proposition 0, instant runoff voting, all resident voting, redistricting, citizen police oversight body, and a polling place change. Of these, how will you vote and what do you feel the most strongly about and why? We'll go, Tim. Okay. It's a long list, so let me make sure that... I'm happy to repeat. Thanks. How much time do we have? Take as much time as you need, maybe a minute or two minutes. So, you know, let's start with Proposition 0. You know, I'm opposed to it. I am a tremendous supporter of representational democracy. I worry very much that this is going to introduce large amounts of unknowable, unseeable outside money into our community debates. So I'm not in favor of it. I think the best approach is engaged city counselors and an engaged community. So I do oppose that instant runoff voting. I think there's a tremendous value of having some consistency. We have it in the city council races, so I'm in favor of that. I do hope we do more work to explain it so that we... that people understand it, but I am in favor of it. All resident voting, I am very much in favor of it. Folks who are legal residents in our community, our members of our... full members of our community, they work here, they contribute, they pay taxes, and they should have the right to vote here. The next one is redistricting. You know, the map is not, I think, what I would have chosen. Having said that, I personally am going to support it. I think that there's value, even though this is not, I think, anyone's first choice. I think that there is value in moving forward and trying to build some community within the wards in the districts that we have, as they're now... as they're going to be drawn. You know, if I were elected and I'm on the council in 10 years, I think it's really, really critical that all of the wards and all of the districts have full representation, because I think that the absence of full representation, particularly in the East District and particularly with Ward 8, contributed some of the hard feelings and the difficulties with redistricting. The citizen police oversight body, very, very much supportive of and appreciative of the motivation behind it. I, too, absolutely demand that we have an accountable police department that is full of the best and the brightest and the best trained officers that we can attract and recruit, and that police department must be accountable to our community, and it must do the important repair work that it needs to in order to rebuild community trust. So in terms of the goal that I think is behind this initiative, I support it. I think it's the wrong tool to achieve those goals for multiple reasons. I think it's profoundly unfair to our officers. I think that the appointment of the members of the board worries me that it's non-democratic. These are non-elected officials. They're not going to be appointed by elected officials. They're going to be appointed by what I think is a complicated process that lacks transparency. I worry that it will not have the transparency effect, the sunshine effect that its proponents think it will. I think a lot of these decisions about employee discipline, officer discipline would still have to take place in the executive session, and I think it is noteworthy that members of law enforcement, former members of law enforcement, people who have experience in law enforcement would be prohibited from serving. So I don't think it's good policy, and I'm not in favor of it. The polling place change. I'm in favor. Great. Thanks so much. Jake, I'll just repeat those because it's kind of a long list. Proposition zero, instant runoff voting, all resident voting, redistricting, citizen police oversight body, and a polling place change. I do know all of those, but sometimes when you're going through the whole list, you come across five and then you're like, which one did I miss? So going through it in order, Proposition zero, I support, I have been involved in the effort to collect signatures for Proposition zero for a very long time, and that's actually how I got involved in the effort to collect signatures for the citizen oversight board. At the time I was living in the New North, I had not a whole lot of support for signing that petition. To get people to sign it, you really needed to dig in and get into the details and talk about it because people were very skeptical, and they were like, well, I want to know what I'm signing here. I want to get into that with you, but I really want to pitch you on Proposition zero, and there's a lot of other people coming through this polling place, so maybe I'll just put that one on the back burner for a minute. And I just say that by way of some of the allegations out there about people not thinking about what they're signing. That might be true up at UVM, or I don't know, I don't want to judge those students. That's not necessarily true. Proposition zero, it is a way for the people to participate when they feel that they are not afforded that opportunity. Our city councilors have two-year terms. Our mayor has a three-year term. Right after you get in, you can pass resolutions, you can change things, and you're insulated from any retaliation from the electorate if you go against the best interest of the people. So Proposition zero is, I think, just a way for our community to engage in meaningful dialogues and to propose solutions. So I'll move into IRV or RCV, Ranked Choice Voting. I support it. I support it because I am opposed to a two-party system. That's why I ran as an independent last time around. But I think Proposition zero allows for Ranked Choice Voting of ballot initiatives. It has provisions so that you can propose alternatives and you can have competing ideas for how to solve problems. All-resident voting, absolutely 100% without any doubt support all-resident voting, not just because I think that everyone should have the opportunity to participate in electing officials, but I think all-resident voting allows for non-citizen residents to run for office in the city, to be on the school board, to serve as election officials, etc. And I think that is of vital importance if we really want to include people and if we really want to understand the variety of perspectives in this community. Because I so vehemently support all-resident voting, I do not support the redistricting. I do not support redistricting because my first home that I purchased in Burlington, well just my first home that I purchased, was in the King Maple neighborhood. That's a neighborhood of working-class people. It is a neighborhood that is the most diverse neighborhood in Vermont. And for a very, very long time, it has been the neighborhood where the lines get redrawn. Every time redistricting happens, this little chunk of that neighborhood goes over here, that one goes over there. They are the people who lose so that every other neighborhood can stay in the district or the ward that they want to stay in. With redistricting, somebody has to be the loser. And I don't think that, you know, if we want to do better, and if we want to create the inclusive community that we all espouse so frequently, we need to start the works at some point. And I think this is an opportunity to do it. I mean, I see those opportunities all the time everywhere, but this is just yet another. I support the Citizens Oversight Board because I support the police, right? I think that Burlington's police force is very professional. They are very qualified. I watched the swearing-in ceremony from February 2nd, I believe it was. I was really impressed by the comments that Acting Chief Ymir Ad made about the vision and aspirations of our police department and our police force. I was really impressed by the credentials of the people that were coming on board and joining the team. I was really impressed by the diversity of that cohort. I think that our police have long, for a very long time, wanted to be and do the things that our community wants from them. I don't see this as confrontational or oppositional. I see it as the community creating an opportunity to engage in a meaningful way to create a process to do better. I would say that just to Tim's point, discipline still stays with the chief. It's really only those egregious instances. I don't think that morale will go down. I think morale will actually improve as a result. I don't want to take up the remainder of the time going into that. The appointment of the committee, that is very normative. If you look at the Federal Elections Commission, the Postal Office Board of Governors, all sorts of institutions in our country have an appointment committee, like a committee that is appointed, to then appoint the working group. The reason for that is to insulate the group from political whims and create a sense of stability. This type of democracy goes back as long as we have had democracy. I'm going to get the pronunciation wrong, but these committees, these appointment committees, I believe they used to be called Zenobs in ancient Athens. Transparency, I refute that transparency is not going to exist. I think that the argument that there is no transparency is based on the fact that yes, because city council still needs to write those rules. Finally, law enforcement officers not allowed. When I was collecting signatures, I had told people, yeah, I don't like that either. I feel like I might even advocate against that at a certain point. The people who made this put a lot of work and effort into it. They had a lot of really good conversations. I want to respect them. I tried to understand. I'm bought in. I'm all for no law enforcement officers allowed because it will allow for the level of trust that this community oversight board seeks to instill. What's more, they still get to be allowed in the process. Finally, polling places. Yeah, absolutely. Let's do it. Great. Sorry for being long winded. All right. We've got five minutes left, so let's keep cooking. The Vermont legislative season is underway. What are some important initiatives to the community of Burlington that you will be tracking and supporting as your work as a city council member? Go, Tim, first. Yeah. One of the things that I have been concerned about are the increasing levels of firearm violence, and not just here in Burlington, but of course across communities in Vermont and across the country. I have been really interested in S4, which is currently, I think, out of committee in the Senate, which would make it a state crime to engage in what's called a straw purchase of a firearm. It's already a federal crime. It would make it a state crime to obscure a serial number on a firearm. It would impose age limitations on the acquisition of semi-automatic handguns. Gun policy has long been something that I have focused on both professionally, but also have a tremendous personal interest. Like I said, I have three kids in public school. My wife is the principal of a public school, so the four people who I love most in the world are in a school every single day. And I think it's really, really critical that we address firearm violence in this country. Obviously, this bill is not going to do it on its own, but it's a good step. So I've been following it, and I think it would be positive here for Burlington and positive for Vermont. So that's one of the things I'm focused on. Great. Thanks so much. Jake? Well, you know, I've said a lot about the community oversight board of police. So certainly I'm following the conversations that are underway right now around oversight of police at the state level, right, that we're talking about oversight of sheriff's departments. At the national level, President Biden included it in his State of the Union address. We need oversight of police. So that's certainly something that I'm following in the legislature. Beyond that, I think that we really, specifically in this city, we need to be paying a great deal of attention and really working with our legislators around the moratorium on school building funding, right? The state historically has supported the building of schools with subsidies and cost sharing, and they don't do that anymore. I don't know where the publicity is at, so I don't want to out anybody's bills that are in the works. But I would say that, you know, I think we should not be building prisons, but we should not be building prisons and failing to build schools. And I would also add Troy, our representative in Chittenden 15, he is working on the housing issue and looking at UBM student enrollment. So I'm very interested in his progress there. So many other things. Yeah. Great. Well, thank you. Maybe we'll take 30 seconds each for some closing comments before we wrap up. Maybe we'll go jig first. Okay. Thank you for keeping track of... I'm trying. Yeah. Yeah. I think like there are two things that I'd like to address that I've heard a lot of feedback from the community about. One is that I'm part of a group that doesn't like cops. I don't think that group doesn't like cops. I think that group really does recognize that public safety is very important and the police are necessary for public safety. I don't think it's reasonable to think that folks might put in so much effort to create this system to exact revenge. So I just really ask that you challenge that assumption and have a willingness to engage in that debate and that discourse. Just ask why do you support this? I'd also like to say that a lot of people say I'm young and insinuate that I might not stick around. Hey, I'm here. I'm doing it again a few months later after the first time. So I hope that you know that I am committed and I'm here. Great. Thanks, Jake. Tim? Yeah. One of the things that I have found to be incredibly fun about this process so far is getting out and knocking on doors and meeting people, meeting Jake, meeting you, but particularly in the community, in the East District. I have been really sort of inspired by how engaged people are in our area, how knowledgeable they are about these issues. Sometimes it's a little bit intimidating, but it's been really fun and it's been really, it's been giving me a tremendous amount of hope. And I think that the city is facing challenges, but there's a lot of opportunities here too. And I really, I hope to be elected to the city council because I'm really excited to do that work and to continue that level of engagement. Great. Thanks so much, folks, for being here. Please don't forget to vote on or before March 7th. Ballots are not mailed automatically, so make sure to check your voter registration and request a ballot if you need one. And thanks for watching and sharing TownMeetingTV. If you are not already, please subscribe to our YouTube channel.