 No, no problem. I think we are just a minute behind, but that's okay. Sandrine, we're good now. Yes, we are. So it's just, I'm just waiting for Aiden. Okay. All right. I think we're good. Hello, everyone. And welcome. My name is Jitain Kharka. I am the development committee chair with VNEC. And so just want to let you know, VNEC is the Vermont, New American advisory council. And tonight we're very thrilled to host our first Burlington Meryl forum. And I really want to thank all the candidates who responded to our request. And joined us tonight. Let me introduce you all to the candidates that, that who have responded. We have, we have, councilor Max Tracy, Hi, Bedrosian. I have Will Emmons. I have Kevin McGrath. Councilor Ali Dan. And incumbent mayor, Miro Weinberger. Thank you guys for joining. And we're really excited. And also wanted to introduce you, introduce you to our team of VNEC. I have my friend, Joel Adolf as a member of VNEC. And I also want to introduce you to our team of VNEC. I have my friend, Joel Adolf as a moderator and also I'll be co-moderating and facilitator along with Joel. And I have Goma Movica, our VNEC vice president, and Aiden Hazi. He will be our timekeeper. And I have Sandrine as a, IT support and also sees the president of VNEC. So for next, I'll like to call upon Goma Movica, vice president of VNEC to give us a little background on who we are and welcome all to this forum. So Goma. Thank you, Jitan. I would like to welcome first our candidates. Thank you for honoring our invitation. I would also like to welcome everyone watching us live. And also, thank you, them for giving a very important to this event. I would like also to thank you, our partners. We have CCTV. Thanks to them. The event is live on our YouTube channel. We also would like to thank you. Thank you to all of you who is our fiscal sponsor and also the Forman Community Foundation, who have been very supportive to this event. I would like also to thank you, the VNEC crew who worked tirelessly to make this event happen. I'm thinking about our president Sandrine. I'm thinking about Mohammed Sharfar, who is not here. I would also like to thank Jitan, Adam, Patrick Brown, Joel and many other VNEC members who worked for this event. But before we go into the event, I would like to address a few things. One, who we are and two, why we are here. VNEC, which means Vermont, New American Advisory Council is a new organization. And our mission is to increase civic engagement, social barriers to a sense of belonging, expand opportunities for New Americans to communities to thrive socially, culturally, economically in Vermont. So why are we here today? It's a very critical day for New Americans and critical event for New Americans today from Burlington and beyond. On March 2nd this year, we are going to elect our new mayor of Burlington. And as we know, choices matter as human being. What we choose define who we become tomorrow. And I think knowing who and what we vote for is very critical, especially in this time for New Americans. So today we would like to hear from you. What are your visions for New American communities in Burlington and in Vermont? Why New Americans should elect you as a mayor? And how are you going to empower New American to thrive in all domains of life? So it's a civil conversation we would like to hear as we are getting ready to cast our votes in coming days. I would like, without delay, to give the floor back to the moderator for the continuation of the event. Thank you very much, everyone, for joining us. I want to welcome all the candidates who join us tonight. We're very grateful for your time to join us tonight and share some of ideas that you have and a vision for this great city of Burlington. Thank you so much. My name is Joel Dorr. I'm going to be the moderator tonight with my good friend Jitann. And Adenaji is going to be our time keeper. Before we get started, I'd like to, you know, go run over some quick rules. And so before we begin, we'd like to let everybody know that each candidate is going to have one minute of opening statement and then a two minute per question that we ask. And then if you happen to have a colleague that asks you a question, we'll give you the opportunity to answer that question in one minute. All the question will be answered. We'll go by alphabetical order of names. And so that will be the order that will answer the question. When we get back, when we go to the closing statement later, we're not going to get, we're not going to start with the person that starts from the beginning. We're going to start from the person that started with the last, okay? So those are some of the ground rules that we have. When your time is up, my good friend, 30 minutes before your time, Aden is going to raise a card. It will say 30 seconds left. Then the last card will be time is up. And that means you need to wrap up and let other person answer the question. At the end of, at the end later, each of you is going to have two minutes closing statement. And then before closing statement, we'll take some question from members of public. Any answered question, we'll find some ways to send them to your campaign. So that's the, that's the rundown of the, those are some of the rules that we have for you guys tonight. So let, right now, let's begin with opening statement. And we'll start with a hike. The floor is yours. Thank you very much. And thank you to the new American advisory council for hosting this event. I'm hike bedrosian. My father lived on North Avenue until he died in 2013. He was Grisha bedrosian, but when he was born, he was getting on Sahakian in a small town in Armenia in 1909. In 1941, at the age of 32, he was drafted into the Soviet army with only 24 hours notice. His mother clung to his legs before he got on the truck crying, and he would never see her again. After two days and nights on the train, he and the other soldiers were each given 35 bullets, four pieces of bread and sent into battle against a massive German barrage near the border between Russia and Ukraine. My father had a bomb crater all day and emerged in a field with dead bodies. He eventually was taken prisoner by the Germans and survived a week long death march to a prison camp in Maripul, Ukraine. My father wrote that the prisoners there who had been there a long time had swollen stomachs and were bones and skin. And when the fresh ones arrived, the Germans would use them to load the dead and dying onto trucks to be buried. In his first three weeks in the camp, my father was forced to do this five times. In the spring of 1942, the Germans discovered he could weld and they took him out of the camp and used him as skilled slave labor in different parts of Europe for the remainder of the war. Your time is up. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'll finish at the end then. Thank you so much, Eric. Thank you for calling us. And I know that opening the statement is going to come from our Chancellor. Thank you guys for having us and for organizing this. And I love your background logos. It looks beautiful. As many of you, I am a new American like you who came here 13 years ago. And as you all know, we have to reinvent ourselves when we settle in this beautiful city. in 2007 and I'm currently a member of border finance and also the chair of the racial equity inclusion and belonging committee, which never existed in the city until I became city council. And with the council, we created this and we now have a strategic planning moving forward. You know, I am in front of you running for mayor to be the next inclusive and forward-thinking mayor. And I think it is about time for city hall to be open for people just like you and I. So that the city can be inclusive and we tackle social problems, social issues that we all encounter. And my full-time job as a parent university manager at the Burlington School Discipline University, which is a program geared toward helping new Americans. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. Our next opening statement, it's going to come from Will Emmett. Can you hear me? Hello? Can you hear me, sir? Yes. Yes. All right, all right, let me get started. So I've been around Burlington quite some time. I used to play pick up soccer with Nepalese and Somali and I used to coach Sudanese children on my basketball team, vote in person on March 2nd. This is the right people have fought and died for. Think about that before you consider dropping about in an envelope. President Lincoln nearly died of smallpox after the Gettysburg address as there was a pandemic during that time as well. How ironic you maintain this health that prevailed as leader of the North. I'm running a paperless campaign to the extent possible so I'll be voting in person. So confident that I'm the best qualified candidate that aside from food and rent, I'm willing to work for free. For years, I worked as an employee representative for a cup of coffee a day. So it's never about the money. During Christmas, my grandparents' house was transformed into a wreath-making factory. I remember most the smell of pine. After NFL coach Lombardi passed away, his sister will come and purchase Grave Blank is to help us pay for Christmas gifts. He spent his career promoting equality amongst players regardless of race or sexual orientation. Thank you so much. I will name- Sorry, I'll finish. The guy told me 90 seconds. I just cut it short a bunch. Thank you. Thank you so much. Our next opening statement is gonna come from Kevin McGrath. Hi, thanks for having me tonight. My name is Kevin McGrath and I'm a resident of the Third Ward and I've been around Burlington for about 25 years and I've personally worked with hundreds of immigrants in the factories of Vermont. So I'm very familiar with the immigrant community. The purpose my candidacy is to work for the establishment of governmental systems of equal protection, respect and merit to ensure that these systems work for all citizens and residents of Burlington. My goal as mayor is to create continuous improvement systems of merit, direct democracy and critical thinking to actually solve problems, create atmosphere of racial justice that works for the entire community and work to create livable neighborhoods and work for the affordability of housing and city policies. Thank you. Thank you so much. Our next opening statement is gonna come from Max Tracy. Wonderful. Thank you so much to the Vermont New American Advisory Council for having us this evening. I certainly appreciate it. I'm really excited to be here and to share my vision for Burlington. Currently the Ward II city councilor, so portion of the old North End, I also serve as president of the city council. And I'm running for mayor to make Burlington a city where all can afford to live. We know that working people and families are being priced out of Burlington because of high taxes, rent, childcare expenses and so much more. And these trends are really unacceptable to me. They prevent people from putting down stable roots in Burlington and really establishing really thriving lives for themselves. And so my administration will prioritize being a city government that is accessible to all, collaborative, transparent and accountable with its actions. As mayor, I'll invest in a vibrant future for the whole community. Together we can contain and overcome this pandemic, lift the local economy, clean up our lake, uproot systemic racism and reduce our impact on the climate. These bold actions not only address the issues of today but they make us more resilient for our future challenges as a city. Thank you so much, councilor Tracy. Our next opening statement is gonna come from Mayor Murrow-Wander. Sorry about that. Thank you, Chul, G10 and GOMA and the whole new American advisory council for bringing us together tonight and creating this unique opportunity to really focus on immigrant and refugee issues. It's only been a couple of generations since my family came to this country fleeing oppression, which is one of the reasons it has been a priority of mine since day one for the city to do everything we can to support immigrant and refugee families who have chosen to make Burlington home. To that end, I'm proud of the role the city's played in initiatives such as supporting the creation and ongoing operations of the Old North End Community Center making sure critical public health information has been translated and widely communicated throughout this pandemic and launching an early learning initiative designed to assist BIPOC families. Today, our entire community is facing a once in a century convergence of multiple simultaneous crises, a pandemic, a historic recession, a long overdue reckoning on racial justice and more. The high stakes amidst these emergencies are even higher for our immigrant and refugee families. Moments like this demand proven leadership. Moments like this require us to come together and make sure no one is left behind. I'm excited to talk more with you tonight about all this and more. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Our last opening statement is going to come from Patrick White. Patrick is not here. He's not here today. Okay. All right, so now let's go to the question. Just one moment. All right, here's me here for a second. All right, question number one. The city of Burlington declared racism as a public health issue together with over 40 organizations on July 16, 2020. How would you as a mayor apply this declaration at a hiring strategic investment in communities of color, housing, and equal protection level? That's part one. Pat, be your back question is, and what are the key indicators that you would put in place to track the progress that you're making? Or next, so this is going to go with Mayor Weinberger. Great, Joel. So I was there that day. I was a big part of declaring racism as a public health emergency. And I appreciate this opportunity to really lay out how I intend to attack this issue if given the opportunity for another three years. Basically what I want to bring to this challenge is the same kind of urgency, focus on data, focus on rapid deployment of resources, focus on follow-up that we brought to the opioid crisis where we have reduced in 2018 and 2019, we reduced deaths by 50%. I think we have a similar opportunity to make that kind of empirical on the ground progress across all of those elements of racism that you laid out there and more. We just in the last few weeks brought on board a new staffer to help lead this effort, a public health equity manager. And we are going to keep working with those more than 30 and I expect there'll be dozens more ultimately organizations to make progress ultimately on things like narrowing the kind of racial disparities we've seen during this pandemic. It is unacceptable that we've seen the life expectancy of black Americans dropped by two years as a result of the pandemic. There are disparities like that in almost every aspect of our healthcare, housing, economy, transportation, education system. And we are just starting the process really, Charles, of figuring out exactly which of these metrics are the right ones to focus on. And I would welcome the VNAC into that conversation and to be one of the partner organizations at the table as we do this work together in the years ahead. Thank you so much, Councilor Tracy. Thank you so much. I'm certainly committed to uprooting systemic racism across our city by making sure that institutions are held accountable for their actions. Our police department, for example, needs to be held accountable through real, independent community oversight to the disproportionate use of force leveraged against our black and brown neighbors. We know that there is a disproportionate level of force used against black people where they represented 28% of use of force cases during the first 10 months of 2020, despite just comprising 6% of the city's population. This is the highest rate recorded in recent years. And in response, we must continue to transform public safety by transitioning armed officer positions into social support roles that better address community needs like trauma-informed mental health, substance use disorder treatment, and outreach to individuals experiencing houselessness. But we must go beyond these efforts in terms of racial justice to also include economic and cultural empowerment. And that means focusing on business, land, and home ownership because we know that 97.7% of Burlington's black and brown neighbors are renters with just 2.3% owning their home compared to 38% of white residents. In addition to more broad-based policies like rent stabilization, we should, for example, create targeted, revolving loan funds to support BIPOC business and home ownership. And across the board, we must do all that we can to meaningfully improve the material conditions of people's lives, as well as the cultural and social conditions to make sure that people have what they need to thrive. Thank you so much. I would, same question to Kevin McGrath. And in terms of social justice, and we definitely need to address these issues in Burlington. One thing I would like to push forward first is if we're gonna have an air of respect and dignity and equal protection, you know, then why does the state of Vermont send inmates and prisoners to for-profit prisons 1500 miles away from the jurisdiction and which is responsible for them? Just that fact alone is an overriding principle that really needs to be addressed because that speaks to them making systemic racism in and of itself. It is a racist policy and it's meant to be a racist policy. You know, if we want opportunities for immigrants, opportunities for African-Americans in Vermont, we need to really address a lot of the issues when we need governmental reform. We need city government that actually works for the citizens in general. City government in Burlington doesn't even work for the citizens. And so what we really need to do is look at governmental reforms and use an international standards approach of continuous improvement, you know, to achieve those metrics. And we need to sit down and de-escalate tensions with the police and all the members of society in general. Thanks. Thank you very much. Next question, the same question to we, Lemons. Yes. So for years, I've fought for equal and equitable enforcement of the rules. I'm highly trained arbitration advocate. I specialize in doing my own litigation work at this time, reason being several things. I spoke out about a lot in my community, but I also spoke, I spoke out about an event that I witnessed. It was an assault followed by, it was extremely racist. It was an assault followed by racial profiling days later. I started looking at how racial profiling was actually intentionally brought to the city in 2015. And I testified against the city of Burlington in a case between that and other things. I got overloaded with litigation against myself and I'm still currently fighting it, but I could certainly tell you about coverups of white convictions in this town and how the specific charge that I testified for the person against was not properly reported. So stats are hard for me to listen to. But I also, I went to Bernie Sanders office. His office suggested I go to the ACLU and I also called the NAACP and those organizations are overloaded with work. So when that didn't work, I actually went and I hired the gentleman, a lawyer myself. And the city of Burlington dragged it out for over a year, but eventually they dismissed the charges, my understanding. So you will not find a person who is more dedicated to making sure that inconsistencies are cleared up and people need to be exonerated than I used to happen immediately. That'll be the first thing that I do when I step in the doors, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next question, the same question to Councilor Aludia. Thank you for the question. And I think July 16, 2020 was just a couple of months ago. And I think the issue of racism has been here long before all of us. It's not an issue that a declaration can solve. It is an issue that we need tangible, action oriented policies that are recommended to the mayor and also the city council. And also those people would make sure that they implement those recommendations. And I think currently the city of Burlington is working on a strategic plan around the racial equity, inclusion and belonging. And it is being led by Taisha Green. She's the director of the racial equity, inclusion and belonging. I think declarations out of those are symbols. Raising a black lives mother flag is a symbol. But uprooting racism, it should start with understanding what it is, how does it feel like and how does it play out in order to solve it? You cannot solve an issue you don't understand. And I look forward to each and every single one of you and your communities to vote for me. And because I have demonstrated commitment to this issue since I came here. I've been a trainer. I've been also supporting those who are affected directly by this issue. And currently I'm overseeing the strategic planning currently being led by Taisha Green. Concrete action oriented, that's what I'm striving for. And you also may remember, there was an issue about a mirror like right here. Everyone loves a parade mirror. And you remember how lengthy of a debate we went through in order to get that mirror down. When it comes to racism, we only can find opportunities to solve it and move forward. And that's what I intend to do and continue to do to be a public servant and making sure Burlington works for every single one of us regardless of your race, your gender, who you love or where you come from. Thank you. Thank you so much, Chancellor Ali-Dian. Last is Haik Beiroseyan. Thank you. That was a great answer, Ali. Mine will not be as good. But I think racism certainly is a public health emergency. One of my favorite people in the world is originally from Tibet. And he came to Burlington in the 90s. And he has since left Burlington and he said it's because he was treated poorly and in a racist way by the Burlington police. I don't have any specifics on that. But when I hear things like that, it breaks my heart. And I would wanna do everything I can to root that out. So when it comes to our police, when it comes to education, if a small child does not feel welcome, that damages the child and it affects their chances for the rest of their life. So we just have to create structures and attitudes and continue to work with great organizations like yours, like Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program and Association of Africans Living in Vermont. And I've had experience in various jobs with these organizations. And certainly in terms of it's a smart question because the second part asks about how do you measure success and outcomes? And certainly I think you'd have to do some comprehensive surveys of happiness, life expectancy, education levels and income, et cetera, to really get that data and know how much progress we're making. Thank you very much. And now next question is gonna come from my good friend, Yutan Karkar. Thank you, Joel. So next round of the question, I'll be starting from Mayor Miro Weinberger. The question goes, the issue of funding or defunding the police has recently become a major conversation topic across New American communities and other residents of Burlington. Some think Burlington should defund the police, other things that are other ways to reform the police. What is your stance on this issue? Thank you, Yutan. You want me to go first, Yutan? Yes. Okay. Well, thank you for the question. I think this is probably the issue that there's maybe the greatest distinctions between me and my opponents in this race. From my perspective, the city council made a major mistake. Last summer really created a crisis when it voted to reduce the number of police officers in this community by 30% without a plan for how we would continue to respond to 30,000 incidents a year without the 100 officers or nearly 100 officers that we had had tripartisan consensus for decades that we needed. And there still isn't a plan all these months later. I did come forward with and propose a plan to the council which they voted down, again, just a couple of weeks ago. Really the only way to fix this issue is now for the voters to fix it. And it's really in your hands which direction you want to go to keep this community safe. I do believe in police reform and have long been a believer in police reforms. I think since 2015, there may be no city in the country that has done more to change the way that police is and to improve its policing. We were a very early adopter in New England, body cameras. We completely changed the way we respond to acute mental health crises and other dangerous events where individuals are barricaded. We now, I brought forward and the council has approved really changing a significant number of the professionals that we have within the police department so that we have other types of backgrounds responding to a significant number of our calls. There's a lot more to do. I think we need structural and cultural transformation of policing. We need a new consensus on what the right form of policing is in this community. The way we need to do that, however, is not by just criticizing the police and ostracizing them. We need to bring them into the conversation and we can forge that consensus together. Thank you. Next, next racing. Well, thanks for the question. As I said before, I think that a crucial piece of our efforts to uproot systemic racism will be to transform public safety. We know that our public safety system currently does not work for all and that's represented in those statistics that I was talking about where we're seeing record rates of force being used against individuals of color in our community. And that's completely unacceptable to me. We've also seen some pretty egregious use of force incidents on individuals, specifically in our community in recent years and those incidents not go and officers not be held nearly enough to account for what was done in each of those circumstances. So I think as mayor, I wanna continue the efforts to transform public safety by transitioning sworn officer roles into these direct social service roles that provide greater support for individuals in our community. As I said before, around those issues of substance use disorder, trauma informed mental health responses, outreach to individuals experiencing houselessness, just really making sure that we're prioritizing the delivery of services and connecting people to resources that they need in our community as opposed to emphasizing criminalization and use of force in those efforts. I think it's also crucial that we continue to build out a community oversight model that provides real accountability for these incidents that were forces used where we see officer misconduct. We need to have real independent community oversight in order to truly transform and hold accountable our police force and make sure that folks have recourse when these incidents take place. So those are key elements of what I would do as mayor going forward in order to make sure that our public safety system truly works for all. Thank you. Next, we have Kevin McGrath. Thank you. I think if you look at the issues, what the real issue is, is the city council and the mayor. I mean, that's their job. You need to bring community values, the values of our community and what I want and what the immigrants want. You need to bring that to public service. That's your job, you know? And all I've seen is 20 years of failure when it comes to providing the kind of services that the city needs, whether it's public services, whether it's law enforcement or water quality. As far as it goes with the police, we definitely need to de-escalate the tensions and we need to demilitarize. We have police officers that run around that look like paramilitary. They're in black. We need to put them in white shirts. We need to put them in trousers. We need to get away from this paramilitary style, paramilitary look, intimidation look that we see. And we need to all work for it to respect the rights of everybody. And again, I'll put to it, it's the failure of the mayor and the failure of the city council that we have these issues. So at some point, you people need to start agreeing, disagreeing, sit down and come up with some solutions that will help the community. Thanks. Thank you. Will Emmons. Thank you, sir. The issue, it stretches so far beyond police in Burlington that I wish I would have tackled it on the last answer, but I've heard a lot. I've spoken to a lot of people. I'm certainly not in disagreement about decreasing or increasing. I'm in disagreement about stats in general. I actually went around and interviewed one Puerto Rican amputee, one Greek Native American amputee and one Black Italian friend of mine the other day who indicated to me that they're being pushed to out of town hotel. So if that's happening, how are we getting an accurate reporting of stats to either defund or increase? I also note that the city of Burlington has been intentionally destroyed over the last nine years, prior to which there was a halfway decent relationship between the police and the community. I intend to get in there and immediately improve that because protect and serve is the model. My cousin, actually my aunt, his aunt, my mother's cousin was murdered and she was stalked, she was stabbed and her cousin and my cousin is now a cop. And he's a good person. And when you get in there and you actually sit down with these people and go over the concerns and bring some members of the community to discuss those concerns instead of bringing it first before you even bring it public, you actually go and try to do it in person first. And if that doesn't work, then you go public about it. And then you, or you can publicize that you had a meeting. Either way, the us first, that mentality could be resolved by going in and that's why I specialize in reasoning and negotiating and helping people to understand what their expectations should be versus what they're getting now, which is a whole lot of nothing. Thank you. Thank you, Will. Next, I have Councillor Ali Day. Thank you. And I think this is a great question and a very current and hot topic about police transformation, police issue. I mean, I think it would be important for all of us to go back a little bit as to why Burlington or police department is suddenly under the microscope. Everyone is talking about the police. And I think it is all about like what Mr. Kevin McGrath talked about our values. And we have a value here in this community about transparency and also about action. But unfortunately, both of those two aspects missed reason why we are in front of a public issue, public problem, a big one, right? To me, it would be imperative, doesn't matter whatever we wanna do. We wanna ensure that every single person living here, working here, having a business here should feel safe and their family members also should feel safe, period. And Burlington also, one of us to remember it's a great city, it's a safe city, but we also have to remember the creation of policing over 400 years ago. It was to chase out slaves that run out of their plantation and police was created to go after them and catch them. And that's exactly the pattern continued until today. What I'm interested about is public safety. And public safety should not be the job of police alone. The new agency that can work with the community to provide some level of safety for non-criminal calls, we need to have it. We need to also be able to keep the police accountable by creating an independent oversight committee that will help them to support them to do their jobs right. And at the end of the day, safety is not the job of police alone. It's our responsibility, your responsibility, my responsibility to talk to my children to make sure that when they are arrested by the police, they should cooperate. Thank you. Thank you. So the last, we have Hayek Badrosian. Thank you very much. I think it's important that we have a few extra police so that if there is someone that needs to be fired, we can backfill that position quickly. If we cut the staff to the bone, then police are gonna know that it's gonna be difficult for the department to get rid of them just as a matter of practicality because there is no one to backfill their position. So I think it may seem counterintuitive, but I think in order to hold them accountable, the police have to know that there's a few extra buys there and then that they're expendable and can be held accountable. And in terms of the right way to do that, I don't disagree with a citizen oversight board. My thinking would be that it would make sense to turn the existing police commission into an elected body so that they're answerable to the voters and then empower them to hire and fire similar to the way the school board does it. And again, with the idea of having a few extra bodies, the extra time that would allow the police that could be used for training cultural competency and de-escalation and other nonviolent methods, which I think should be a continuous part of the police's mission is to improve and train constantly so that outcomes can be better. I would get rid of the dark, scary looking patch that was instituted by Brandon Del Pozo and go back to the bright colored one with a picture of the tower on it because that's what Burlington had for 40 years and it worked fine and it set a friendlier tone. You don't need to scare people with your symbols. And transparency and body cameras. I don't think body cameras should be able to be turned off. The audio should not be able to be turned off and the police should not be in a position of having to turn them on. So the technology needs to come along there too. And I think the police should be actively discouraged from telling people they can't film them because that's a citizen's oversight role too. Your time is up. Thank you for joining us again. So our next question is about economic opportunity. So here's the question. How would you as a mayor and a city support and celebrate the diversity that New American owned small business bring to the city? We're gonna begin with Mayor Weinberg. He's point of information. Not the last one Ali, you're about to say that, huh? I think he started the last one, right? Yeah, I mean, I think he been starting the past two months, it seems. Okay. I'm not depending him. Let's wait. Okay, it's good. Let's switch the gear. We're gonna start with Mike. Sorry, what's the question? All right, let me ask the question. Oh, here it is, here it is. How would you as mayor and a city support and celebrate? Okay, we've gotten to the point in Burlington where there are so many opportunities for a great cultural dining experience that a year or two ago, some friends of mine and I had what we call a Momo crawl up North Street where we went sampling the different food and all the wonderful New American eateries. So we can develop themes and events and certainly support the cultural mission of the various organizations. Thank you so much. Next, your cancel idea. Yes, thank you. I think it's also another great question from you guys, Vinak, and I think it is important to build on what the city is currently already doing in terms of providing grants for by-park business owners in this community, right? And as an extension to that, I am the only candidate running for mayor who's specifically talking about a community wealth building. We need to think about economy, not from the standpoint of private businesses alone but also for the community. And I think New Americans and people of color in general have a lot of artistic skills. They also can organize themselves in creating some co-op models and the city will be there to support them legally, financially, and so because this will contribute to a sense of belonging, which you guys are about and I'm inspired by your work in creating the community wealth building that never existed in the city. I think the role of CEDO will need to change a little bit because under my administration, there will be some changes that I cannot talk about right now but I want to be sure, right? That it's not only about the economic development but also about the cultural empowerment of people who are not, who are foreigners and who live among us. Their cultures is so rich, is so diverse and I think we need to find a way to disseminate it in order for children, for community members to learn about the beauty because our diversity is our gift, it's also a feature and how do we make sure that we each and every single one of us have access to those opportunities. And I think New Americans also need to be supported in accessing homes, in stopping paying rent over and over again or running after section eight. We need to find programs that will help them become home owners. And I think a couple of us already own homes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next. Oh, sorry. Same question to Will. So I've definitely echoed a lot of things that Ali just said. I would take it a step further and say that, you know, back in the day around here and don't quote me on the actual nationalities but they used to have block parties in between at Nexa City Hall Park. They had block parties that would be Bosnian or Italian things like that. And now we have a lot of Sudanese people. I've definitely, when I was younger, there's a lot of Vietnamese people that came across in Burlington and they have a fairly large community. And I would bring back social building events, community building, I should say and create events that surround that, inviting food trucks, things of that nature for all different cultures to bring in their authentic way of showing other people how they cook culturally or build community-wise. And so that way everybody gets to know each other because the sense of community was very great back in the day. And I intend to improve on that and having events like a restaurant crawl or things like that where people can go around and try different foods for different people is also a great idea. As far as wealth building, ghost bringing and Cuban-owned, Albanian-owned, Sudanese-owned companies and offering a grant system is certainly a good idea. So I would echo what Ali said there. Thank you so much, Kevin McGregor. Yeah, thank you. I agree with much of what's been said by the previous two people. But if the immigrant community really wants to assimilate into Burlington, they're gonna have to support the building of student housing. The student housing issue is what's denying home ownership to the immigrants, the working-class homeowners in Burlington. And believe me, that's by design. I mean, they came in 20 years ago and dumped 3,000 students into the housing stock. And that was just the control wealth and power within the city. We need to build systems of equal opportunity. And one way to create that is to build student housing because these are transient, we want people who are gonna be extended families, who are gonna build their families here, who are gonna own homes. I personally work with hundreds and hundreds of immigrants. I work with immigrants from Bhutan and Maypole and I know some of them, and I know some of them, they moved to Columbus, Ohio where my family lives. And they did that because I know for them talking to them personally because they wanted opportunity. Burlington has to provide opportunity. You are Americans first. You can move anywhere in the United States. And I think that's important because I've talked to immigrants about this. You're an American first. If you wanna be a Vermonter, you can be a Vermonter. You're an American first. And look for opportunity and Burlington City Council and the government really needs to help provide that type of opportunity. And student housing is one of the ways that we can do it. Thanks. Ask Tracy. Well, I think that it's important that we recognize in this moment that businesses are under really tremendous strain right now and that we need to be providing direct support to businesses to make sure that they're able to stay in their spaces. This is something that I've worked closely with businesses in my ward in the old North End to do and something that I would look forward to doing on a city-wide level as mayor. For instance, last year when central market was at risk of being evicted from their space, I worked together with neighbors, my fellow councilor, councilor Pine, individuals from CEDO, the landlords and the business owners to craft an agreement that allowed them to stay in their space and continue to provide a crucial community resource within our neighborhood. This is a business that is incredibly loved by so many in our community. You see just a stream of people going in and out and it was gonna be a real loss to have that go. So I think that we need to provide direct support to these businesses in those cases. But what the situation really raised for me and what I think we've seen kind of continue is that folks really need support at moving towards ownership of their businesses so that they're not in this place where they're having to negotiate constantly with landlords and take so much of their income and put it towards rent but really being able to build wealth. And so we need to, as I said before, really continue to build programs that focus on revolving loan funds and making sure that people have access to capital. That may take other forms too in terms of the city. I think I agree with councilor Jang about the need for cooperative ownership structures and lower barriers, as we saw in the case of another business that got started in my ward, Cafe Mamawana, where they adopted a cooperative ownership structure. And there may also even be a place in a newer reimagined Memorial Auditorium for some sort of business incubator space for folks who wanna start food-based businesses in order to get their foot in the door or get their business going. So I think there's a lot of opportunities here if we continue to properly resource and build up our CEDO department, making sure that folks have exactly what they need to stay in business and to thrive. Thank you so much, councilor Max Tracy. Last one, Mayor Winder. Well, the first thing we need to do is make sure as many immigrant and refugee businesses survive this pandemic and this terrible recession we're in as possible. This is a big, you know, part of the reason why the top priority of the city for the past year has been fighting the pandemic, containing the virus and doing everything we can to support households and small businesses as we try to make through these historically challenging times. We've had some real success at that. We worked directly with new American businesses that did not have banking relationships to help them get assistance from the federal government. During the PPP program, we have set up BIPOC-only grant programs led by Taisha Green during this period that have really helped get the rent paid, help businesses make it through this period. We try to bring this focus on having a racially just pandemic response and recovery to everything we do. We passed an eight-point plan. We created an eight-point plan last June to do that and that still guides our thinking every day. As we come out of this incredibly challenging period, we need to make permanent some of the innovations that we've created during this period that have helped new American businesses. A couple of examples of that. We should make this trusted community voices program that we started just before the pandemic and that provides stipends for, I believe, six individuals now in different, six different refugee communities. We need to make that a permanently funded part of the city budget. Similarly, we have gotten better at communicating with our immigrant refugee communities during this pandemic. I put in the draft of the budget and through conversations with the council, we will have $40,000 in the budget for a language access plan that is not just about business, but I think it can be supportive of the economic vibrancy of new American businesses as well. And then final thing, well, I'm out of time. We'll leave it there. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You're 10. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Joe. So the next round of the question would focus on community engagement. How would you support and valorize civic engagement of new American communities in an impactful and inclusive way? What platform would you provide? So there is a, there is building of community and influence in systemic change. And Mayor Miromoyen will go. Great. So let me hit on three examples of how we have done this and then talk a little bit about the future going forward from here. There was no real community center for immigrant refugee communities when I came into office nine years ago for that engagement, meaningful engagement to take place. We've changed that now, working very closely, supporting funding and backing a number of ways. The Champlain Housing Trust, we now have this outstanding Old North End Community Center and the city is part of the ongoing operations of that with the big presence from our parks department and the payment of substantial rent payments to make the whole community center work. I will just say a little bit more about these engagement programs I just mentioned. The trustee community voices program is something that I intend to make permanent. And we are just starting during this, we've had an ethic during the pandemic to send out translated information in numerous different languages, about public health information throughout this. There is something that going forward should become really baked into the DNA of the city. You can see the early examples of that now when you go to the city website, they're now right on the homepage. We have translations into 15 different languages of a great deal of information. This needs to be codified and made permanent. The city council approved a language access plan last November that we brought forward and now in the upcoming budgets, we'll make sure that that plan is properly funded. Those, there's more that we can and must do. We've made real progress over the last nine years on this. We've also built a new racial equity, inclusion and belonging department. And I do acknowledge and appreciate the partnership with Councillor Jang on that. This now three person department is gonna help make sure that this is a key part of our city forever going forward. Thank you. Next, Councillor Max Tracy. Well, thanks again for the question. I think that it's an important one. And I think about an example of just how meaningful and how important and how debates can be and debates and community discussions are shifted when you include more people and when you bring city government to the people. On an exciting note, Burlington is gonna be seeing an Amtrak train coming back to Burlington, providing more access. But as part of that process, we had to figure out where we were gonna put the train overnight. And one of the sites that was being considered was next to the Riverside Apartments where a significant number of new American families and individuals live. And I felt like those folks need to be brought into the conversation and just having hearings at down at DPW down in the South End was not gonna provide meaningful opportunities for people to be involved. So I took the meetings and actually scheduled them in the community room of the Riverside Apartments and made sure that there were interpretation services available for folks there to actually make sure that they were able to understand what we were discussing in that meeting. And I think that that's really important and meaningful as we think about how we move forward in creating a more inclusive city and a more inclusive public processes. I think that also goes to how we do elections and making sure that we do more to explain and involve people in the processes of voting. In this election, I'm proud to have provided translated materials on the leaflets that we dropped throughout the city as well as on our campaign website, making sure that folks had that language access available to them. And we know that when we do that, we see greater participation. I know that, for instance, that last year, my friend, Muhammad Jafar worked closely with the Secretary of State's office to get an event to help explain the voting process. And because of that, we saw so much more participation. So it's those kinds of efforts that I think we need to continue to build upon to make sure that people are able to participate on a daily or weekly basis in the city. And then also in these crucial elections that really shaped the future of our city. Thank you. Next, Kevin McGrath. Yes, thanks. What was the question again? Okay, I can read that to you. How would you support and valorize civic engagement of New American communities in impactful and inclusive way? What platform would you provide? Okay, thank you. So there is a building of. The platform I would provide would be just a total charter change of the way Burlington City government works. Burlington City government does not work for the citizens in general. It works for a select few people associated with the University of Vermont and housing and development. We need a more direct democracy, simpler democracy. We got 14 city counselors. That's just a smoke screen. We need more full-time city representation. What I'm proposing is a full-time seven-member city council that works and sits with the mayor at the same table that sits around and discusses and that everyone in the city has three layers of representation being their city counselor, the president who is in that large and the mayor. And we sit and we talk and we have discussions and the immigrants are part of that. And it gives immigrants an opportunity to become a city counselor, a full-time $50,000 a year job and help their community access the government structure and hopefully get some results. And that's what's missing. We have a lot of talk here tonight, but we don't have a lot of results in the last six years in Burlington. So we really need to work together, talk together. We're all in this together. I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of immigrants in the same factories. So I know what their lives are like. Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. Next, we have Will Evans. Sir, could you just repeat that question one more time? I want to make sure I'm answering correctly. Sure. How would you support and valorize civic engagement of new American communities in an impactful and inclusive way? What platform would you provide? So there is a building of community and influence in systemic change. So I've done quite a bit of work in community engagement. I'm very experienced in how to coordinate meetings, things like that, and events. And while I was a volunteer with underprivileged children, I was at Burton Chill. And it's a background check certified job. And you're dealing with a lot of underprivileged children and children from troubled backgrounds. And one of the proudest moments I had was when I was asked individually to go and help a child who did not speak any English at all. We had a conversation specifically through body language on how to snowboard, which is incredibly hard because he was not used to the climate at all. And he was a child from Manuski. I believe he was Sudanese if I'm not mistaken. It's been four or five years. I'm sorry, excuse me, about three years. So when I was up at college, I was always in the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, communicating with people. And what I would do is improve those communications, improve the opportunities, and raise funding to have engagement of citizens from all nationalities. Because Burlington, although I heard somebody say it was mostly white the other day, that's not actually true. It's very cultured, and it's becoming more increasingly cultured, and I'm trying to build on that. Hopefully I've answered your question. Yes, thank you. And the Cross Club as well. I've spent ample time at their King Street Youth Center just playing pick up with, since I was a kid. And also now I kind of go with kids as I'm coaching and things like that. Thank you. So next, Councilor Ali-Ding. Thank you. I'm a social entrepreneur. I identify problems in the society, in the community, and just work to bring people together to get it done. And one example is parents university. From scratch, I built that program, securing the resources, and now it's running greatly without my input anymore. And now I'm thinking about all the things, right? And there are, in terms of civic engagement, I think I will rely on you. Your expertise, your knowledge, because you are all educated people and already public servant, right? I think it's my administration we work together and to solve this problem. Lack of community engagement among new Americans, once and for all, and who will be leaders around the nation. And I think I will also wanna create what the Burlington School District currently has, office of homeschool liaisons. The city should have it, not $40,000 a year, but $40,000 a salary, per person who speak Nepali, Maimai, Kirundi, Swahili, and to work directly with all departments to make sure that the valuable informations are translated and they can reach people directly because they understand their culture and so on and so forth. If you look at our city website, there is no boarder guide. If you go there, there is no profile of any candidate that is running and it's not even translated and I think it's unacceptable. It has to change. And I think diversifying also the leadership in the city to reflect the newcomers, people like you, master degrees, PhDs, why are you not working for the city, right? I think there are fundamental problems we need to look at deeply and solve them, move forward. But the most important thing too, this is not an issue about new Americans alone. We are also talking about people with disability, elderlies and we need to engage them all. Thank you. Thank you, Ali. And last we have Hayek. Thanks. There have been so many great answers to this question that I would continue to support elements of what everyone here has said. Agile International Day, the Old North End Community Center, the Equity Inclusion Office, supporting efforts at environmental justice like the efforts Max put in with the train question because continuing to support educational program like the kind that Patrick Brown is so good at organizing and then when it comes to valorizing and supporting civic engagement among new Americans, I think anytime we see a new American on the ballot, we need to celebrate that. And if you like two candidates equally and one is a new American, I would give my vote to that person because they bring a valuable diversity of experience that improves us as a community. So for example, Ali Zhang, what a wonderful example. And I think we should celebrate his candidacy and the fact that he's a city counselor and welcome more participation by new Americans. Thank you. Thank you very much on the last question. And then we'll open it up for our open forum. So here's the question. Safe and affordable housing is critical to mental health and well-being of new American in Burlington. Yet affordable housing remained to be a long-time issue in Burlington because of rising costs of rent and stagnant wages. What step will you take with respect to rent control and expanding income-based housing in the city? We're gonna go with Haik for this question. I'm gonna pass. Thank you. Next is Chancellor Dia. Yes, I mean, I think rent control is a great, wonderful concept. And I think this is something that we need to explore and not replicate what, for example, happening in Minneapolis and try to bring it here. What truly works for our great city is what we need to find and collectively we should implement it, right? And I think making sure that new Americans have access to homes and to stay away from rent. And I think as part of my work, I have helped so many new Americans who have never idea, no idea how this process work to help them go or appoint them, connect them with the right people and now they're home owners. And I can tell you three great, wonderful stories from saving to building to now home owners. I think those are great, wonderful stories. And in terms of, how do we provide more affordable housing? I think there are so many concepts. And my style is I do not have all the answers. I am not an expert in many fields, but what I can do well is to bring expert together and collectively we would outline what need to be done and we will make sure that those will happen. And one example can be rent to own. You've been in a home for 10 years, you just been paying rent, throwing money out of, but now how do we bring developers who can build homes or such as habitat for humanity, such as building up, changing some density zones in order for people to own their own apartments. And again, I wanna just rely on those who have the knowledge and expertise to get things done. I think rent control is a good thing, but currently we have a ballot item number five, which I believe people also need to support in making sure that those who are renting are provided some type of level of security. Thank you, Councilor Dienk. We're gonna go to Will Emmons. So this is kind of where the systemic things come in and I'm not actually referring to racism. Take a look around you, everything's fenced off way before coronavirus. Now your property values are being reassessed with the intent to decline. That's when large developers swoop in to buy at the best rate, develop, then charge excess fees to renters, causing poverty, homelessness, class, warfare, overall decline and quality of life for everybody. From the poor to the middle class, to the upper middle class, people are affected by that. And what we've seen in the city of Burlington is drive away business. And when business gets driven away, the tax burden shifts over to whoever's left, which would be the homeowner. I'm actually a low income homeowner myself through the Champlain Housing Trust program. And so what you do is encourage the path to ownership. I agree with exactly what Ali had just said about rent control, setting some sort of ceiling, because Burlington should not be paying the same rental prices as Northern New Jersey and New York City, especially when the draw for businesses is not there. So I'm gonna yield my time on that. Thank you. Let's see who's next. Sorry. Kevin McGrath. Hi, thank you. Housing, that's the big issue in Burlington and don't expect the city council or this mayor to even begin to address that issue. The root cause of the problem is the 3000 students that are being dumped into the neighborhoods by the university. And these students don't just go to one location, they destroy house after house after house after neighborhood after neighborhood. You gotta understand that's by design. Now, when the mayor first came in and they did the Champlain, the housing for Champlain College, that showed you what the problems were in Burlington. That showed you the corrupted processes of the planning department and development in Burlington. That was the best project that's ever been done in Burlington in a long time. And those are the type of projects we need. We need quality student housing, get the students out, the undergraduates out of the neighborhood, provide housing for people who want to upgrade their housing, become first-time owners, encourage the divestment of these poorly maintained rental properties into owner-occupied rental properties. And that's where the immigrants can come. The immigrants are a valuable addition to the community and they can provide this type of sweat equity they need. And the city really has to have some respect for sweat equity, not just multi-million dollar developers and flippers and what out air B and B. Thank you. Thank you. So my same question to Councilor Tracy. It's pretty clear to me that our current housing policies just are not working well enough. We have seen an emphasis on market-driven housing policies over the last nine years. And while that has generated some units in Burlington, rents have not meaningfully stabilized or gone down for enough people in our city. And that causes people to have to make incredibly difficult choices between affording food and healthcare, transportation needs, really trying to just balance their budgets because so many people spend far more than the 30% that it's thought reasonable to spend of your total income on housing. Some people are spending well over 50% of their incomes on housing. And so I think that and that has real implications not only for their day-to-day lives, as I said before, in terms of ability to afford basic needs, but it also has to do with ability to save up and be able to one day potentially put down a down payment on property for yourselves and your family. And so I think that it's important that we go beyond these market-driven strategies and take a more interventionist role, specifically around rent stabilization, taking actively working to implement rent stabilization policies so that we don't see these continuously high year-over-year increases that continue to outpace the actual paychecks that people are bringing home. That's been a huge issue in Burlington and something that's led me to embrace this strategy of rent stabilization because we just are not seeing nearly enough progress and we need new strategies in order to make housing more affordable for low and moderate-income individuals who are currently struggling so much to be able to afford to live in Burlington and in many cases are being priced out of Burlington. So I think we need to embrace those strategies and move forward in a very different and bold direction. Same question, Mr. Mayor. Well, I'm really glad to have this question and have a chance to discuss it and I'm gonna push back pretty hard on a lot of what you've just heard because there's just a lot of inaccuracy and poor facts, incorrect representations just made. I am deeply, deeply committed to affordable housing. I have done much more in my career regarding affordable housing than anyone else running for mayor. I was an affordable housing developer, permanently rented limited affordable housing for 15 years, starting with a volunteer job for Habitat for Humanity and then created my own business that did that kind of housing for a decade in Burlington before becoming mayor. As mayor, I've been totally committed to those strategies we built and saved hundreds of permanently affordable homes. We opened on my watch projects like the Bright Street Co-op and hundreds of other homes. I've worked, the way we do that here in Burlington and have for decades is to work closely with the housing nonprofits and we've done that and I've pushed the housing nonprofits to be specifically responsive to the needs of immigrant and refugee families. The housing nonprofits were like a lot of the market building smaller and smaller units until I was elected and I pushed them to build three bedroom apartments again so that to accommodate the larger families that many new American families have and they took that direction and made changes such as when CHT purchased South Meadow. I've also doubled the housing trust fund on my watch. Something, I'm gonna be specific on this one because it concerns me to hear Councillor Jang say he's for affordable housing when he voted against that was one of just two counselors to vote against the doubling of the housing trust fund. This is how we create more permanently affordable housing in this community. I don't support rent control because it doesn't work and it's been shown again and again and anyone who is tempted to buy the idea I encourage you to look at the research on this. It makes communities less affordable. It doesn't help the people it's supposed to. We have, however, stabilized rents. All of this work has meant that rents have not been going up in recent years and vacancies have been doubling. Your time is up. Our strategies are working. Thank you so much. Councillor Ali-Jian, would you like to respond? Yes, I would like to respond. I mean, I think it is inaccurate when they say that I voted for a specific issue and I'm against affordable housing. I think it's not accurate to say. But every single issue, we have to put it into context. And I think I don't even remember what the mayor is talking about and was wondering if we can expand on that particular issue and I can explain why I voted a certain way. Oh, absolutely. This was one of the key housing, maybe the most important housing vote of the last nine years was when we came forward to double the housing trust fund to put it to the voters last spring for the town meeting day 2020. And this is something that was a big problem in the community for had not the housing trust fund had not increased in 20 years. I brought forward a charter change to double it ultimately about 75% of the voters supported that but you didn't even want to put it on the ballot, Councillor Jang. I was really surprised by that vote. Thank you so much. We do want to move on to the opening forum. Jitant, it's gonna work out through some of the question. Thank you. Sure. Thank you very much. And those were the questions that we had already pre-gathered. So right now we do have few questions from the community, but I think we can only take one respecting all of your time. And I'll go with the question here. City members of our Vermont community, numerous state and local departments, city government are looking into adopting language access policies. What is your view on language access? How would you do to ensure effective implementation of such policies? So that would, I will call Councillor Max Tracey. Thanks for the question, whoever asked it in the public and these questions have been awesome tonight. I certainly think that there's more work to be done in order to make sure that everybody in our city can access and participate in government. In this mayoral race, I've prioritized language access, making sure that the flyers that distributed included translations on those flyers. And then again, also on our website, I think that that's something also that I've worked as I said before in the committee setting to bring translators into those settings and make sure that folks were able to participate there as well. Again, I think there's more work to be done to make sure that folks with speaking different languages in our city are able to actively participate, not only in voting and elections, but on a more regular basis in the functioning of city government, city council meetings, committee meetings, just those things that impact their daily lives and would look towards expanding our language access and translation services if elected mayor. Thank you. Next, Kevin, Mike Raap. I personally think Burlington does a wonderful job of doing that. And I think they're really committed to what they're doing. Every place I go to, if I go to the healthcare center or if I go to some type of format, like we were at one format the other night where they had, I think, four interpreters possibly or so, so I think they do a really good job. And what I really think is access to services and realize that we, you know, in America, that there is some type of equal protection out there. You don't want the immigrants to feel like they're out there on their own trying to try to survive with no help and no ability to communicate. And one thing I'm very happy about and I think the immigrant community in general should be happy about is the president. I think it's going to bring a different attitude towards immigration and myself personally, you know, I think that the immigrant community in Burlington is definitely enriched. You do a lot of work, you know. I've worked with you, I've been there, I've done it. And you deserve an opportunity to access the American dream and to have decent housing and to have decent health care and being able to communicate and being able to find that is important and I hope that Burlington will, you know, continue to do the same in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Next will be Will Emmons. Can you repeat that question one more time, sir? Language engagement. The city members of our Vermont community, New York state and local departments, city governments are looking into adopting language access policies. What is your view on language access? How would you do to ensure effective implementation of such policy? Yeah, so interesting. Another situation I was walking down Riverside Avenue one day, I used to live in Sam and run low income housing and so my neighbors were Othnian, Nepalese, Sudanese. We used to play basketball, that's all I know. And what I bumped into a lady from Iraq one day and she didn't speak a lick of English but somehow we got into a conversation that her nickname was Rocky like Sylvester Stallone. So she didn't speak the language and I didn't speak her language but we were able to figure out a way to talk to each other about our past and we had about a 45 minute conversation as I carried her drapes home and the point is I was looking into trying to help her get a scholarship to college. So I kind of can understand where the language barrier it needs improvement but also like Kevin said, there's a lot of places in Burlington that do have language access to them. I feel like we could always do better and make sure, especially at the high school that not only is diversity a language thing but reflected on the walls and things of that nature. So language, improving language for any program that exists in Burlington should be a number one priority in that realm. Thank you. Councillor Ali-Deng. Yep, thank you. I mean, I think I wanna send that person who just asked that question to my website and go to my blog and find a blog title, lack of empathy for the underprivileged and it's a blog that I wrote maybe in 2017 when I was first elected. And I think it was just because I was inspired by some action that I have taken as a city councilor leaving my job like Kevin is saying, we're not being paid, we're just volunteering. Leaving my job in order to go find new Americans, make a video for them to not use the city water or to boil it. There were no information going to the new American communities. And I think from there, the city definitely responded appropriately and started to talk about this language access plan. Right now we are at its development phase. I think implementation is not, we're not there yet at the development. And the development, I believe I connected Brian Law with your organization so that you can help in putting that policy together. The implementation is not the problem. And this issue again, is not only about the language, it's also about culture. Think about it, each one of you have your own culture, your own religion. You live here, you celebrate here, you mourn here. The people, your parents, people who die, how are they buried culturally? We need to look into the sense of belonging in a deep and meaningful way beyond just language. I speak four different languages and each one of them has its own culture. And then you have to understand the culture and also understand the language. I mean, I think we also need to stay away from always trying to provide transition services. But how do we educate new Americans themselves to learn the English and to be active member of society? And that's what I'm more interested about. Thank you. Thank you, Aldi. All right, so the last question I have, Hi, Bedrosian. I would say everything Ali just said, it was a brilliant answer. Just in terms of nuts and bolts, I would make sure that all city employees have access to language interpreter services, training in that, and that we hire a multilingual staff where it's appropriate and possible to. But otherwise, I'd go with Ali's answer. Thank you. And if anybody wants to respond, everyone can get one minute. Yes, Miro. Great, yeah. I actually hadn't given an answer on this question yet. I just want to make you clear, I'm deeply committed to our language access plan. It was, the administration did bring to the council and got approved just this past November, the creation of this plan. I agree with Councillor Jang. Would have liked to have gotten this done sooner, but it's there now. And it's, and now a key element of implementation is the funding of it. And if I am reelected, it will be well-funded in the year that's coming up. And I hope people see the commitment I made to language access in the way that the city has been a key partner in keeping Burlington one of the safest cities, maybe the safest city in the country during this pandemic. A big part of how we did that, given the communities that we have here, is to make sure the information was getting out to people throughout the community in their native language. If they were not English first speakers, if they were not, people who did not have strong English skills, you can see in all of our pop-up testing sites, all of our vaccination clinics, there are translators there whenever those facilities are open and we have really created written materials that are and been part of this statewide effort to make sure there were strong written materials and videos throughout this pandemic. We're going to take that ethic and make sure we never lose it as we come out of this pandemic. Thank you very much. Now we're going to go to the last page, which is a closing statement and we're going to begin with Kevin McGrath. Two minutes, please. So my name is Kevin McGrath and I want to thank you for inviting me tonight. I really like the discussion that I hear tonight and we agree on a lot of things. We got to start, Rolton has to start having results. And the mayor, he talks about affordable housing. What he really talks about is subsidized housing. These are not free market housing. That's a totally different story. If you look at Burlington for the last 20 years or whatever, you look at what rents are and you look at what wages are, there is no affordability. It doesn't exist. What I want to tell the immigrant community is you want to live in unsubsidized affordable housing. If you need protection, you need housing. Yes, I support subsidized housing. Burlington is a community with no free market affordable housing and it never will have any unless major changes are made in development policies and in that CEDO. I support subsidized housing. We have enough subsidized housing. It's time to really start talking about free market housing, affordable housing. And thanks for having me tonight. Thank you very much. We're going to go next to Will Emmett. Yeah, so, and I want to end on a positive note, but I also want to say that this week I realized that there's a second fake social media account impersonating me. It's called at amputee Emmett's. I'm at Emmett'sFromMayorGmail.com. Excuse me, at Emmett's From Mayor Instagram, Twitter. And I just wanted everybody to know things like the City Hall Park took two years to build Empire State Building 1930, one year with all the sidewalks that are around it. And you take all the money that was abused in that situation you could give it all to the New American Advisory Council and that would definitely promote new business in this community. I intend to grow Brownington. I intend to grow business which will grow citizenship which will attract new companies which will be opportunities for not only people of foreign descent, but people that grew up around here of all similar opportunities because I come from a low income background and we always worked well with our community. So I appreciate the time that you guys have given us tonight and thank you for having us. And definitely look forward to seeing you in the future. If you see me on the street, feel free to come up to me. I'm very approachable. Thank you. Thank you, Chancellor Alidia. Yes, thank you so much again. Like everybody said, I mean, I think your questions today were just tangible. These are great issues that we never heard almost never about because they do not affect most of the population. But I'm so glad that your organization exists and as a next mayor, I'm looking forward to work with you in a meaningful and forward-thinking way to solve the issues that New Americans experience here around poverty, to discrimination, to racism and all of that. And what I want to say is just please consider giving me your vote and consider letting your people as leaders to know that Ali, someone who looked just like you is running to be the next inclusive mayor of the city of Burlington. And this campaign is all about implementing a vision of a fair, just an equitable city that works for every single one of us. A city that seeks to eradicate all systems of oppression, of discrimination against the people of color and minority groups such as you, me and many others. And a city that strive for a sustainable economic development, smart growth, the respect of our environment, a public safety and a fiscal responsibility. As a next mayor, I will ensure that in our police department, reflect Nepali people, Dinka people, Mai Mai people, as well as our fire department and all the major department in this great city. I look forward to your vote. Please check my website. Ask me questions and vote early. And donate if you can. Thank you again for having us. Thank you. Next, closing statement is from Haidt, Pedro Zia. Thanks. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna read the second half of my opening statement as my closing statement. We'll go back to World War II, where it just ended after my father was used by the Nazis. He hid his real name from the Germans the entire time and he stayed in Germany after the war. He was afraid of what Stalin would do to his family if he ever found out that my father had worked for the Germans and he never went back to Armenia until 1968. He applied to come to Armenia in 1949 and he was rejected because he criticized America's friendly relationship with the Soviet communists. But a year later in 1950, the American government took a more favorable view of my father's statements and invited him to come. That was the year my father arrived at the Port of Ellis Island and became a new American staring up at the Statue of Liberty for two hours until somebody shook him out of his days and told him to get off the boat. I wouldn't be born for another 23 years, but I know from growing up with this survivor that the longing for the old country that lives in an immigrant's heart is a very real struggle and trying to give your children the best chances of success without the benefit of extended family networks, generational knowledge and money that many people are born here have is a serious challenge and it's hard. But I also know the promise of America to a new immigrant. This is a country where you can be anything you want, where you don't have to be controlled by old traditions or your family's expectations, the freedom to be anything you want is still what draws people here from every corner of the world and it's the great strength of America. And Ali Jing is a great example. I'm gonna thank you for coming here to write your own chapter to all immigrants in Burlington and as someone who was born here in Burlington, I wanna say I love you and I cherish a new immigrant community very much. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Chancellor Tracy. Well, thanks again for having us in this important conversation. I've really appreciated the ability to just share these ideas with you and talk about what our vision, our respective visions for our city will be going forward. I think about how hard our community has been hit and how everyday people are really struggling to pay rent, property taxes and just basic expenses. When those costs of living continue to go up, wages just really haven't kept pace and so we deserve better than the status quo. As your next mayor, I'm gonna end the trend of working people and families being priced out of Burlington. I'll transform public safety to work for all and build economic resilience for new Americans and the rest of our community to whether this storm and those to come. I'm asking for your vote because the change we need to uplift all can't wait. And more of the same certainly isn't gonna get us where we need to be and in fact is leaving many behind. I have nearly a decade of principal leadership as a city councilor and now as the council president and prepared to work with our community to build a brighter future for all. You can learn more and get involved at maxformayorbtv.com. I wanna thank you for your support and I look forward to record voter turnout on and before town meeting day which is March 2nd this year. Thanks again to the Vermont New American Advisory Council and all the work that you do to uplift our community. Certainly look forward to future collaboration with you and so many others. Thank you, May Weinberger. Well, thank you to the New American Advisory Council for tonight's debate. I think this is the last debate of the campaign and I also think it was the best organized one and one that really gave us a chance to engage these issues in an important way and with more substance than some of the other formats allowed. So thank you and it's great to see you again, Joel, G-10 and Goma. You know, this race is coming to an end. It's still a week, more than a week till town meeting day but the voting has begun. If you are a registered Burlington voter, go check your mail, make sure you've gotten a ballot from us. If you haven't yet, please get in touch with City Hall because you should have one and there are many ways that you can turn your ballot in between now and town meeting day. I encourage everyone to do so. A new system this time are there are these four ballot boxes that you can go at any time of the day and drop off your ballot in. As you do that, make this important decision about who's gonna serve as mayor for the next three years. There's three things I hope you'll have on your mind and you'll think about it as you're voting. One, just that we are in very challenging times, times where local government is dealing with high stakes issues and I think in a very real way these stakes are even higher for refugee and immigrant communities and this is not a time for a mayor to be learning on a job. This is a time for proven leadership and after nine years in this position I think that's fundamentally what I offer that no other candidate can. Two, I hope you coming away from this conversation I've been able to articulate the many ways in which the city has over the last nine years delivered real progress for new Americans in this community with the old North End Community Center, language access planet and the pandemic response and much more. And then finally, many of these efforts are midstream right now. And if you give me the opportunity to continue to work on these issues over the next three years we will deliver a very substantial change instead of losing ground by changing leaders. I ask for your vote between now and March 2nd rofermayor.com, it's been a pleasure to be with you. Thank you. We have come to the end of our forum tonight. We wanna thank all the candidate for their time you've been extremely generous with your time and we are so grateful. Last but not least, I wanna thank members of the VNAC for organizing this forum. I think it's a timely debate where leaders, next leader can come and share some ideas and vision on record. So this is really outstanding and I'm grateful for your work. Channel 17 is recording this program live and we're grateful also for having these resources in our community, really great, great, great stuff. Now I'm gonna hand over to, before I hand over, before the candidate leave, we wanna make sure that if we do have some questions from members of the public, we will also send those questions to your campaigns and hopefully those questions can be answered and we'll find some ways to share them with members of the public. That's it from me, I'm grateful. Thank you again, Jitan, would you like to make the last comment? Thank you. Sure, I want to thank you all as well. Thanks the team of VNAC and a couple of things, if you would like to learn more, you can also visit our website. Actually, today we're officially launching it, it's never been a public, but it's vnaac.org, or yes, .org, vnac.org. If you go in there, you will see a lot of resources. In future, we're thinking about adding more civic engagement resources. Just recently, we have translated the ballot questions and all the common languages and there are video translation. You can also share on your platform for folks who wanted to support some of the ballot questions and also there are how to vote on videos on different languages. And also, you can also follow us on Facebook from our New American Advisory Council. So with that, I would like to thank everyone. So maybe we can close, if there is... Yes, one minute. We want to recognize the amazing work done by our timekeeper, was very great on it. And so thank you so much, Adil. Would you like to say one comment, please? Yeah, I just want to appreciate everyone's timely manner and it was great to have all of you here today. And thank you for all the work that you're doing. And I look forward to seeing what the outcome is on March 2nd. Thank you so much and have a good night. That's it. Thank you. Take care. Thank you.