We are at the Fletcher Free Library for Ward 8 for the town meeting day in Burlington Here we have candidates Ali and Hannah posted outside and we're curious to see how voting goes So what brings you out here today? Yeah, so I'm my name is Ali. I'm a student here I'm also social worker in the community You know like we're out here fighting for like climate justice housing justice like mental health public safety racial justice all that stuff I've been down to testify at city council about a couple issues sort of in my social work capacity And yeah, I kind of just got involved to him all that way question five which removes like Stigmatizing language around sex work from our our city laws. I think that's important number five on the ballot and concerns about Decriminalizing pimping and brothel owning and sex buying in Burlington and what that means Sort of for all of Vermont for vulnerable people in Burlington And sort of the bait and switch that this was something that came about as an archaic and offensive language Change which we agree that the language is archaic And we also support decriminalizing those bought and sold in prostitution But holding pimps brothel owners and sex buyers accountable So hi everybody, my name is Saja Mugali and I am a writing candidate for Ward 8 for the Burlington school district First of all, the first thing is in Burlington right now. There is no Burlington high school anymore The school is closed and shut down so every student in the Burlington high school has to go to the mall downtown to teach and study and That is a big problem right now because who wants to like study in a mall and so yeah Like the first thing probably We're gonna do is like support for a new budget so we can reopen the school and build it And that's the most important thing of course and collecting Petition signatures for two charter changes one is going to expand direct democracy in Burlington by Expanding the right of petition to include changes to the city code of ordinance And the other is in support of creating an independent board that could investigate and discipline police officers accused misconduct It it is your civic duty. It is the way you participate in politics and do your thing and with proposition zero We're looking to expand that to make it even easier to participate. I want to make sure that as many people vote as possible I want to make sure that people are like informed about what they're voting on and more importantly or most importantly Inform them that there is an election today just knowing that local politics is really important that like What happens here and who wins this race and the other local races like will dictate things like housing policy in Burlington will dictate things like parking policy will determine How our parks look and parks and recreation and and many other important issues and these are issues that affect all of us I'm just exercising my right to vote. I'm mostly concerned about city councilor For my ward, I'm gonna be voting for alley house and why is that I've She came to a club meeting of mine and I met her and she was very nice And I really liked how passionate she was about the issues that she cared about And I thought someone like that would be good to represent me We are at the Fletcher free library for ward 8 for the town meeting day in Burlington Here we have candidates Ali and Hannah Thank you very much. Jordan Mitchell who is there in ward 8 with students from the community news service Good evening everybody and welcome to town meeting televisions annual town meeting coverage. I'm Mark Johnson along with Diane Meyerhoff We're going to be bringing you results tonight from five communities here in Chittenden County Burlington South Burlington Winooski Williston and Essex We're going to also be bringing back tonight our coverage with Interviews with some of the candidates. They'll be coming through the doors here And we'll also be talking with them about some of the big issues that we're going to be talking about tonight as well We're going to begin and talk about what's going on in the city of Burlington There the balance of power on the city council is at stake We have eight of the 12 seats on the city council were up for election today Five of those were contested races three were not in South Burlington We had two incumbents that were being challenged in Winooski a really just a great story of democracy in action Seven candidates vying for two open seats Also a really interesting proposal there with non-citizen voting and we'll talk about that a little bit more as well in Williston, we're seeing again another sign of the great growth that has happened there over the past few decades At issue there one of the big issues is whether or not to go from an all-volunteer fire department to a paid professional one in Essex where that we have heard for decades now this back-and-forth discussion of merging the town of Essex and Essex Junction that has really been in play and We're gonna begin in Burlington tonight with these highly contested races, which a lot a lot of play also in Burlington a number of money questions there is a City tax increase proposal a school tax increase proposal There are also two other money issues one involving a bond and we're gonna get into the world tonight of tax increment financing So buckle your seatbelts for that discussion. Well, we'll begin tonight in Burlington Diane Great to be with you again. And what's at stake in Burlington tonight? What do you keep in an eye on sure? Well, as you said earlier the balance of power is indeed at stake There is some discussion that some of the seats that are progressive seats right now might become democratic seats or independent seats And we're special especially looking at Ward 8 which we saw an exit voices from we call that the student ward if you will And that is an open seat Jane Stromberg the progressive is not running again So we have a progressive candidate Ali house and a democratic candidate Hannah oops, I'm sorry Hannah King, right? Yes, so It'll be really interesting to see two newcomers recent UVM grads to see if that seat indeed goes from progressive to Democrat Which will change who who really pushes the agenda forward into the council in April And why is it that there are three people that are not running this time around? Well They various reasons some just the enormous amount of effort and work it takes it's difficult to have a job a regular job and also Do council the committees and all the public meetings that are involved in council? And there's also this was this was a really tough year. There was a lot of divisiveness There was a lot of acrimony at meetings Some people felt pretty uncomfortable about their own personal safety Throughout throughout the last couple of years. Yeah, I mean there were even cases where Members of the audience were yelling at one another yelling at city counselors We've also had protests one at the at the mayor's Private home also at the home of one of the city counselors as well I think people are feeling a little intimidated Absolutely, and you know we tend to forget because it seems like it's been a while now But remember that was those were some really tough periods in the beginning of the pandemic as well And people protesting against the pandemic rules that were being put in place and that could happen again Yeah, we'll get back to some of the other key races that we're going to be watching tonight as well as a discussion about some of the issues First we're going to head over to studio b. We're happy to bring back That feature of the program and standing by there to talk about more what's going to happen there Emily Brewer is there with lauren glendavidian I am so excited to introduce Emily Brewer to you. Emily is going to be reporting from studio b. Welcome. So glad to see you Thank you so much lauren glen. I'm glad to be here here. So tonight we are Going to be having a wonderful list of guests coming in tonight to speak about the races and the ballot articles But for now we'd like to talk a little bit with you about the results process and the live results reporting Could you tell us a little bit about that? Sure. Well, you know, there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes And we have to line up poll reporters in all the brillington words Who call us after seven o'clock they go to the polling place and call us after seven o'clock with the results Usually they start to come in around seven 15 word one is often the first one. We'll find out this this time And then we compile them in the back We have the results team And they show up on our front page And then we also wait for the towns of esics and willison winisky And often we go right to their websites to get their numbers. It used to be that the clerks would call us but that was before a website And pretty much this year we're really looking for eight words and four other communities. So Unlike general election where we're looking for the results from 14 towns And our 15 14 or 15 towns in the county of chitin in chitin county And we're trying to put the state senate numbers together, which you need all those towns reporting to find out But this is really about the brillington ballot questions And um, I know you can tell that i'm talking too long. So you can interrupt me anytime Well, thank you so much loren glenn. I am looking forward to seeing how the results come in and we are also looking forward to talking to the candidates and getting their opinions on The results of the ballot questions and all of the races. So make sure you tune back in later tonight And we will be interviewing guests all night. So thank you very much We'll get into a discussion about some of the other close races that we're going to be following But we already have the results coming in from ward two diane. What do we know? 702 two minutes after the polls closed. We have the results in from ward two And actually everyone was running uncontested. So uh gene bergman got 559 votes Faiza Hassan, uh, that's for school commissioner. I'm sorry. Uh, the city council was gene bergman school commissioner Faiza Hassan got 48 votes, I believe I think so um an inspector of elections survey over b got 575 votes. So uh ward two beat everybody else out Yep, there you go. There you go Let's um talk about some of the other contested races. We talked a little bit about ward eight before the break there Um, what are what are the other wards that we're keeping a close eye on tonight? Sure We're also I think ward eight is really I think ward eight is the most likely to flip at this point But there is discussion in ward one is a raya high tower. Uh, the progressive Incumbent is running against rob gutman democrat Zoraya was elected in 2020 when the progressive wave came through She sees herself as a compromiser But she generally supports the the progressive agenda So it'll be really interesting to see if rob gutman the democrat can overcome that incumbency, right the name recognition, etc Um and but there is some discussion that it that it's possible. So that is a seat that might flip Yep, yep. I mean my understanding is that the democrats have put some money into that race some serious money as a matter of fact Yeah, and the question is is that enough, right? So we'll find out. Yeah, hopefully soon. Hopefully maybe 704 I know I should ever pass that now. I guess anyway, um, and then the other race is ward five Chip mason the democrat is uh relinquishing his seat after 15 years on the council And he mentioned some of the things we talked about earlier Just the divisiveness and the and the difficulty of the meetings and being on council Challengers for ben travis lanora travis. Uh, she's an independent and for read municia He's an independent with the progressive backing endorsement So ward five was in the news recently on the sears lane encampment And the removal of that and that brought some of these candidates forward. Uh, so it'll be interesting That's a three-way race in ward five And we are also looking at word seven. I think this one's unlikely to change, but some people feel like it might This is ali jang. He's the independent incumbent and he has two Contenders alexander steth who's a democrat who's also republican endorsed and olivia taylor Who's an independent who was who is progressive endorsed. So this gets complicated. Yeah, they really pay attention to this So interesting though ali jang in the past has had both the democrat One time another democrat and the republican endorsement. So it's interesting. They've actually put their their hat in different rings this time So that's kind of interesting. Uh, so, you know, could that could that switch over? It's possible. But again, it's the Having incumbency that is really tough to win a race against. Yeah, let's just remind people there are 12 seats on the city council Who is uh, which parties have have what and what's at stake? Sure, there's 12 seats on the city council. There are These are the eight district seats are up. There's four. I'm sorry eight ward seats are up There's four districts which are not up in this election and at the moment the progressives hold Half half of the seats essentially which means basically they can They can go against anything they don't like but often are able to push their agenda forward So if that balance changes, it's possible that that agenda will not move as fast as they're hoping Right, or if they lose a seat then the democrats could be in control Of course the mayor is a democrat Exactly and has been pushing a number of issues that the progressives have been successful in stopping. Okay. Well, here we go Here's ward eight just came in. These are the results from ward eight Allie house the progressive wins over hanuking the democrat 321 to 278 That's pretty darn close. That is pretty close. So this seat is not going to flip in ward eight And not a huge turnout as as we've talked about In a year where there was no presidential race No, bernie sanders on the ballot. No mayoral race. That's uh, that's a but that's a very very close Close race and very key. Yeah, I'm just checking the other numbers to see what the number So that's about 600 votes in ward eight that tends to be a ward that does not vote And big numbers again, that is the student word we talked about inspector of elections sinade murray 461 Running unopposed and also adam france also running opposed with 453 votes So again, that's that's big news alley house the progressive Wins in ward eight for city council. And so what does that mean? What does that mean? Well, we don't know yet, right? What it means is everything that what it means is there's a different person in ward eight, but but has still has the progressive party label So right now nothing has changed. Okay at the moment and the council level now. Let's look at ward four. That's the new north end Uh sarah carpenter running unopposed for city council gets 1,565 votes This is a ward that votes. Yeah, the new north end votes and here you go We all right now we have school commissioner up ward four martin gulick who is the incumbent wins by 73 percent Let's get back to ward eight for a moment. Well, maybe we'll have to just wait another minute. This is ward six Karen paul for city council runs unopposed with 1,022 votes These numbers seem low to me in terms of voter turnout. We'll have to do a little more research on that school commissioner claire wool also running unopposed 994 votes and inspector of elections jane smith at 966 and I just want to take a quick look here It looks like is a quick look. It looks like all of the ballot items passed in ward six Ballot items in ward four That's looks like more of a mix not not surprisingly We have up on the board here ward eight city councilor two-year seat again Alley house the progressive wins that seat by 54 percent close very close. So that seat does not Does not shift Still a progressive in the ward eight city council And one of the key issues that has been talked about here in burlington is is policing Also, who is going to be the police chief? Alley house has been clear that she will not be supporting acting chief john murad And we didn't expect uh, jane stormberg to either, right? So that hasn't changed Although, I think the mayor was hoping that the council would change so he could bring forward Murad again That there would be a shift and he might be able to get him A pass so That'll be interesting to see what the next move is if indeed none of the other seats changed that was the most likely But we'll hold on right so we see what's next right and he may do nothing right and can keep Murad in the position that he is and while they continue whatever the search processes that they're Undergoing yeah, I guess as long as as interim chief murad is is murad is willing to do that right right? I mean that's what it comes down to i'm just a quick review of the ballot items Maybe we'll just have a quick go over and then I can give you kind of a sense of how different Wards voted on them. How's that? So let's do the school budget first. That's item one Okay, yep the the school budget actually the school budget proposal I found a little bit confusing on the ballot. They talk about per pupil spending has gone up 13 percent But really the the schools have seen a drop in the number of students which then makes each Student cost more money but not necessarily Reflecting on the budget that we all pay as as taxpayers the increase that they were actually talking about Was about three percent And on on the tax bills so it'll be it will be interesting to see how that Comes out particularly given that in november voters are going to face this question a you know a huge question of How much money and whether or not they'll support the building of a new high school And it looks like we have the results from wards two four six and eight So four of the wards that's actually half of the wards And the school the school budget item has passed in every one of them Just a quick look through but that that looks about right Even in word four which new north end tends to be the ones who vote against and they have in some cases Some of the ballot items. So um, it looks like at least in these four Wards again, we're not these are not final results Right, um, but it's looking like people are supporting them some buy a lot Look at ward eight 501 in favor 62 against That's a big that's a big difference So, okay, um article two or item two is the general obligation. This is the The tax rate increase 5.5 percent. You can see it up on the board here And which is for cents and this is for a variety of this is really around the inflation factor for staff and for city city operations in general So, uh, let me do a quick look it looks to me like it passed in ward two It passed in ward eight. This is just a simple majority Which I could never figure out the two thirds this quickly. So we'll say that It went down in ward four, however Okay, uh by about 300 votes. So ward four votes against the tax rate increase and ward six votes for the tax increase So the only one was ward four. Here's ward seven. That's the other new north end ward There's a lot of talking for me here So city It's amazing, huh? So, um, ali jang wins the independent incumbent counselor city councilor wins.  So that could be a recount, right? Yep. Yeah, so that might be a recount So 795 to 793. Oh, yeah Ward one. This is an important one Ward one Zariah Wins in ward one. Okay. I'm sorry. The numbers were just a little confusing Zariah hightower the the progressive incumbent wins in, uh, ward one city counselor close though For uh, 585 to 442. I will not try to figure out the percentage of that But I'm sure they'll put it up on the board for us. So we'll get a chance to look at that Yeah, so Zariah hightower. So again, so far nothing has changed in terms of party Affiliations, but some really some close races. I mean, that's a that's a close race for for an incumbent. That is. Yes. Good point So the other The other here we go. Um ali jang. This is the other look at this 47 percent each ali jang the the independent Incumbent in ward seven city counselor alexander steth only that's two votes And uh, alivia taylor 85 just five percent. So that's really interesting. So that's that's going to be contested because that's an Independency and that's a democratic seat. So that's the one the mayor wants to see So I think this one will be a recount Most likely they'll be a recounting question. I don't know if it's automatic. How could you not ask for a Yeah, right. No, I don't think so. I think you have to absolutely have to okay. This is fun Wow, this is great. This is quick results guys. Okay. This is ward three Joe McGee the progressive Counselor incumbent wins by by quite a bit over christopher aaron falker the republican which we we did predict again. We think perhaps Christopher aaron falker has something else in mind Not not the republican party does not traditionally win in in wards two and three And uh school commissioner unopposed polyvander puttin And julia d. Pietro is the inspector of elections and let's take a quick look at the budget The ballot items looks like Everything passes school budget really passing by a huge margin and just about every ward here except ward four, right? Except for four. Yep. And also the city tax proposal too. This is uh, this is where we are I guess we have everything in at this point. I think the only one we're waiting on is looks like ward five is five Okay, this is without ward five. So you should want to be clear about that This is without ward five the school budget has passed by 75 percent. Wow. Yeah So i'm not supposed ward five if they had a huge turnout could affect that but Yeah, that would be pretty pretty unlikely. Yeah, but these numbers are these these numbers for turnout seem low to me Do you agree? Yeah, I I would agree. I mean it but again as we've mentioned It's a you know, it's a not a presidential election year. It's not a year where we're electing a new mayor And so it really takes that those diehard committed people to come out and vote Absolutely. So uh, we should continue our our walk through the uh ballot items So we are now on number three. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to keep track of the ballot items. Okay We are on three, right? Um Yes, the general obligation bond for capital projects. This is 20 that's 24 million dollars This is the one. Well, we'll just let's just go right to the results. Here we are This is passing by 70 to 30 percent. It needs 66 and two-thirds, right? Right the two-thirds So at this point with everything but ward five in it passes. So We'll see right. We don't want to be finalized yet Yeah, and this is about 24 million and what what what are we going to get for that? We get three new fire engines, which I know you were very excited about Absolutely. We had this chat about fire engines Sidewalk streets a million dollars for more your auditorium Some emergency communications improvements and this will draw down Quite a bit of federal funds for all these projects This is the same item that we vote on in november, but about twice the price then right and now And I think the criticism was that people weren't clear what they were getting So I think this time around has been much clearer about what we're getting for there for the 24 million I'm so and that has a cost between 36 and 90 dollars per year for the median price home in burlington Okay Then we have of course the probably the most complicated issue on the ballot is this whole idea of a tax increment financing district This would expand the tax increment financing district that's already in place and essentially what um city leaders argue is that This does not cost taxpayer Taxpayers money that these improvements will draw in New development and the tax money at least most of it From that increase in the in the tax base will be used for these projects that include um Some changes made in about a six block area of On main street going from battery up to south union And that looks like it's passing by a pretty wide margin with the results that we have in thus far. It's uh It's leading by about a 62 to 60 40 And that's that only requires a majority so and i'm going to break in here because there's more news from ward five This is the last one we've been waiting for so ben traver Yes, ben traver's the democrat wins really overwhelmingly over the two other contenders with 1200 votes So ben traver's the democrat will be going to city council from ward five So that seat does not change because that's chip mason's seat. So We've really had no change Nothing has changed the progressive had maintained There uh, here's the the breakdown of the other candidate 78 for ben traver's the democrat in ward five for city council So, uh, the progressives got what they wanted and i think the mayor may not be too pleased Yep, so the progressives are going to hold six seats six seats and ali zheng is the independent He's going to hold his seat and if we don't have if we don't have a recount which we may have a recap if it doesn't flip The only other interesting thing in ward five Is that uh the school budget overwhelming but look at this the general uh the um tax increase Failed slightly close. Yep. Yeah, that's that's interesting in ward five I would not have expected that Everything else looks like a pass by quite a bit But I have to tell you one of the big surprises that i'm hearing here is the margin of victory for the school tax Big which is, you know, not insignificant particularly given that in november You know taxpayers are going to be really looking at a a pretty significant Bond proposal in order to pay for a new high school Do you think this was impacted though by this whole idea that we're actually going to pay less because of the money coming through But that's only this year. Yeah, right. Yeah What diane's saying is that, you know, there's going to be this all this money that comes in from the state On the question is how much of that money are state officials willing to put towards the school? Will they try to carve off some of that for other uses? And so the way that this is being presented the taxpayers was that even though you're voting for an increase in spending That there could be a decrease in taxes Perhaps up to 7% reduction if state officials actually put all of that money towards the the schools So the interesting thing is if that doesn't happen Then I wonder if there's going to be some backlash and that could affect the november election That was that was the danger. I think of having a fairly big school increase now Yeah Is what might happen come to because in some ways I think well, I don't know I mean I would say it's probably more important to get that school bond passed for the new school because we really Don't have a choice, right? Right, so it'll it'll be interesting to see what the backlash is on that I'm I'm but you know, even if state officials decide to keep half of it, which I know fill sky governor fill sky It's talked about keeping, you know as much as up to half of that Voters will still in burlington see a reduction in their school taxes. It just won't be as big Is what had been built instead of 7% it might be three and a half or three percent But that's only this you mean that what next year will see the full impact of it Right, I mean it continues that that's I think the tricky part that absolutely don't always realize when you're when you're looking at the Um at the ballot, so I'm just we've got all the burlington results in for all the ballot items So I looks like everything has passed From what I can tell I don't see the percent I was just concerned about that two thirds, but it looks like we got that so all the all the Five burlington items would you have we haven't actually finished talking about all of them Have all been approved in burlington Wow, okay. Yeah, okay So did the did the women did the general fund the city tax increase? It looks as though that's actually behind. I'm sorry. That's because my eyesight is really lousy. It's really close though Yeah, it is very close. Okay. The percentages are right here. I'm sorry. I'm 52 to 48 So the tax increase went down because of ward five Yeah, we were saying that on ward five couldn't do that, but it's well in in ward seven out in the new north end Yeah, by a lot, right two to one that was I mean that seems to be really where the the big difference. It looks as though really Ward four and ward seven, you know new north end pretty traditionally places where there's some real challenges getting these passed and that seems to be where where the city the city tax increases Does not look like it's going to pass the rest of everything else does look like yeah And it's interesting that that that's the one that didn't pass and all the other ones did Especially with the confusion around what the tiff district was about and I'm I'm kind of surprised that that and and it's fairly close though Well, you know, this might be a result of the the reappraisal I think many people in burlington feel as though they they really saw a huge tax increase just in the last year the the People came in and reappraised all of the properties and some people saw Some pretty hefty increases in the value of their homes and saw also a corresponding big increase in their Tax bills and this might be some of the backlash to that. I think there were some people that were Very upset. In fact, some people very angry Um at that process and didn't feel that it was fair the commercial property did not go up as much I think people saw that that disparity is not necessarily being fair. I I would argue that that's the The reason for this loss here Yeah, and we haven't had a chance to talk about the tiff district But it looks like we have a clip on the tiff's which might be a better description than you and I will come Absolutely, let's let somebody else explain Is essentially asking if the voters will pledge the city's Um full faith in credit toward the repayment of a bond to be issued in other words sent Sold to investors investors who invest in the bond provide the city with the cash the city uses those funds To pay for the cost of the rebuilding of main street all the way from union street down to battery street Tiff is the only tool the only financing tool to pay for this this type of infrastructure without raising taxes This is a local locally funded project that claim that your taxes don't go up Is not really Accurate so from my perspective now Tiff is a public financing tool, but not a really good or an honest one When somebody's when we when we see something that seems too good to be true Often we find out later that Um, it is too good to be true and that's been my experience With with tiff rather than raising taxes to pay the to pay the Bond back which is done annually or over over a period of years The tax increment financing Is a state state program that allows the municipality to define a district an area of the city In which the revenue comes from the growth in property values So not by raising taxes but by seeing values grow and that growth is captured to pay back the bond Tiff does damage even when it funds worthy projects We can fund great things, but it's not the right way to fund them and There are there are other ways brian suggests that it's kind of our only alternative But I think just a straightforward if you want something you bond for it And then you and then you pay for it. That's the right way to do it because tiff hijacks a tax revenue stream and tended to support schools and city services And uses those dedicated dollars for other purposes in 20 i'm sorry 2011 when this district was created Um, the taxable value of all the properties in the district was 170 million So that's the baseline nothing changes with that revenue. So that that property value Generates revenue that covers the schools at about 65 68 cents every dollar and the balance goes to fund police And fire and streets and all the you know library and parks and rec and all the other city services In the event that that growth never occurs and there's not sufficient growth. We call that increment So you have nothing to capture you need to go to the voters and explain to them that this has happened And then they will have to you'll have to dip into your municipal tax revenue So this is sort of a failsafe or a backstop or like a guardrail to keep us from defaulting on the bond That's so every property in the tiff district and the downtown area and the waterfront area are places where there's a lot of valuable real estate Every dollar that goes up on any property there becomes part of tiff and that Robbs schools and city services of revenue that they would have Otherwise and we've never missed a payment and a single payment in the eight tiff districts in vermont has ever been missed And so that that authorization that's on the ballot Is required and is critical, but we have never needed to go back to the taxpayer to cover that debt service that payment All right, well, thanks That was a much easier explanation for everybody to understand than anything that diane and i could have come up with and The tiff district did Pass just a recap here of what we already know now here at 740 the balance of power in the city council does not in burlington does not appear as though it will change We have one race that was super close But as it stands right now the progressives will continue to hold six seats on the burlington city council And the democrats and Independence will hold the other six Um, diane, let's walk through some of the other Other ballot proposals great. So, um, we'll start with burlington article three This is the general obligation bond for capital projects one by 70 percent. It needed 66 and two-thirds. So it does pass Article four pledge credit. This is the tiff district that uh that brian pine just explained Passed 62 percent Article five. This is the sex workers regulation. We have not talked about this yet Passed by 63 percent Ward one city councilor Zeroyah hightower retains her seat the progressive by six 57 percent ward one school commissioner Akilesa lakazu 100 percent running on a post ward two city councilor gene bergman also running on a post Burlington a school commissioner uh, phaso hassan. This is in ward two hundred percent A ward three city councilor joe mcgee the progressive incumbent wins by 72 percent The school commissioner polyvander puttin again 100 percent Ward four sarah carpenter 100 percent democrat Ward four school uh school commissioner martin gulik the incumbent wins by 73 percent Ward five city councilor ben travers the democrat wins by 78 percent school commissioner ward five lucia comprielo 100 percent Ward six caron paul democrat Uncontested 100 percent Ward six school commissioner claire will also uncontested Burlington board seven. This is the really close race Allie jane the independent wins by two votes Alexander steth is there with just two votes behind so we think that will indeed be uh contested uh school commissioner, um, monica evansik at 100 percent Burlington board eight The key race we were watching. There we go. The progressive wins by 54 percent Uh, this is a particle uh, Burlington article one. This is the school budget 76 percent. Wow. Yeah Burlington article two. This is the general fund tax increase which goes down the only item that's gone down at 52 percent still fairly close And and we've gone through the whole thing Okay, so no change in the balance of power on the city council change The only thing that went down to defeat was the the city tax increase proposal, right? Let's talk a little bit about the this, uh, the Question about the sex workers and what that was all about. Yeah, tell us about. I know you spend some time researching this. Yeah, this is a really interesting discussion I think what's going on here is that there is an effort to try to de stigmatize the whole idea Of um of sex workers. I think you can make a comparison here pretty safely to the whole idea of decriminalizing drug use To try to remove the stigma in order for people to be able to get services without any any sort of Repricutions any sort of legal repercussions I would suspect that we're going to see this yes vote now extended to the state level And I know there's some state representatives that are pushing to have this whole Discussion expanded to to other communities and have it so that people who are engaged in this work are able to get health services And not face any sort of criminal prosecution Though frankly it doesn't seem like it's been a priority of law enforcement And I know the argument against it was that people were concerned that once you removed this language from the City Charter that you also removed the ability to Regulate it in any way where it could be located And the like so clearly people Voted way in favor of it and not even close. Yeah. Yeah We are going to head next to Essex and find out with some of the key issues there again This is a community which has seen a pretty significant change with the merger of Essex Junction in Essex town I miss Having the town meeting miss the town meeting. Did you participate in the information meeting last night online? No, no So that doesn't that doesn't substitute. No, that's that's no no And I know they're working on alternatives to the mass meeting, but I that was missing. Yeah Plus the Essex reporter wasn't Out there, you know, you know Didn't feel like I was getting all the best information I needed that was my concern there. Okay, but I'd like yeah the whole idea of the Town meeting I miss it. I like it the whole principle of the thing because we have a right and responsibility It sounds like you take that seriously. Yeah a right and a responsibility and it's it's uh It's really uh quite You know a positive thing to be able to do this when so many are incapable of Doing the same thing. So we shouldn't take it lightly And I'm just here to vote because I I made a mistake on my mail-in ballot. So I got to fix it here It's a very important part of our our duties as citizens to to vote and to make our our wishes known to uh To the town normally I would have somebody waiting for me, you know impatiently at seven o'clock for an opening Okay, because they wanted to do this before they got to work Now on the other hand, we could say that Australian ballot has been successful Okay, and because it's been successful um You know, we don't have people turning out My life now is just as the peace. I I'm doing a lot of stuff the week before today You know processing those mailed ballots That I wouldn't be doing normally if this was 10 years ago or 20 years ago And I know about a third of the population showed up already. Okay in the in what from my town here Hi, good morning. I'm Ray Garrafano representative sx 6 8 1 and I'm here to help support my friend Brian Sheldon who's running for the one-year seat for the select board and I'm here to meet my constituents. I'm a newly appointed representative So I thought I'd get out here and meet some folks town meeting has a rich tradition in Vermont and Great fully we I work for state and we get the day off.  We've done an amazing job of making it really easy for people And I think a lot of people have Mailed mailed in their ballots already as you can see it's not very crowded here and in years past We've come and it's been really busy with the lots of people going back and forth So I'm grateful we live in a state that allows for that and has made it really easy I think It was nice to have a virtual town meeting. I think a lot of people want to You know get back in person and you know But we need to be mindful of covid still even though it's waning and we're lucky that the numbers are coming down But we had a great virtual meeting last night. That was very informative. The select board put on a great presentation about the articles that people were voting on today and You know communities really energized for you know, we have a lot of opportunities with covid coming With federal money and things happening at legislature. So it's going to be a great year All right We are back and we're going to talk a little bit about Some of the other issues in s6 in particular The select board what what's in play here on the select board? Well, we have the results already. So there we go So I we have two s6 select board seats. They're up for reelection. There's a three-year seat held by dawn hill flory She's the incumbent and it looks like She is the winner, but you know, that's interesting. I mean fairly close to the second person But um, so dawn hill flory wins for the uh, oh, there's two seats. You're right. Okay two seats. So Uh dawn hill flory and kendall chamberlain both win the two seats So that leans andrew champagne out and he was quite quite a bit further behind The other seat Oh, interestingly, so this is the seat where there is ethan laurence is on the ballot But brian shelden, uh had a write-in campaign. Wow, and it looks like pretty darn close Yeah, ethan laurence wins that one-year select board seat in s6. Oh, here we go 55 to 45 percent Again for a write-in 45 percent's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So that's an again dawn hill flory Retains her seat 45 percent and kendall chamberlain wins the seat 35 percent That's the results from sx. You know, this is so interesting because I oh, I know there was somebody in sx who was uh, I think who didn't live In who led in the junction, but I don't think that's going to affect this anyhow I never thought that these communities would not merge. I mean, I was completely convinced so much So much has been merged in those two communities. Yeah, I just didn't think they could undo it all I'm fascinated that I mean it's before the legislature now It's obviously need a charter change to do it But it sounds like it is going to happen and I have to say that really took me by surprise Yeah, well, I mean and how many times have they voted on it? And my goodness over years 30 years, right back and forth But I just it just seemed like so much was happening that they were coming together Right almost almost without even a formal vote. They were just exactly the town manager was kind of making it happen And then it just it all it all blew up last year. Yeah, so yeah, okay. That's that's the news from sx All right, we're going to head next to studio b where we're going to hear from the winning candidate Out in ward four unopposed sarah carpenter I am joined by sarah carpenter who has just been reelected as ward four city counselor Thank you for joining us sarah. Well, thank you for inviting me and Thank you to the world voters of ward four for reelecting me. I certainly appreciate that That's wonderful. Um, I'm curious to know that If your previous experience as a city counselor will help you feel more confident going forward Now that you've been reelected to city council Absolutely, there's a really steep learning curve in all the city politics But particularly just learning to have a maneuver around the council and the issues And of course I started one week after the covid pandemic started. So it's been a very interesting two years And speaking of covet now that covet is sort of Seems to be on the downturn How are you looking forward to moving on with a city council? That's No, not in the midst of covet. I'm actually really looking forward to it. We've had little opportunity to meet in person and as Many of you understand sometimes the issues get very divisive and there's been little chance to sit down and have conversations with other counselors And I I really missed that and I'm looking forward to being able to do that in my next term Well, that's great sarah. Thank you so much for joining us. We are glad to have you here tonight And congratulations and we wish you the best of luck moving forward. Thank you very much Should we do it though? Yeah, okay All right, we are back and I want to thank sir carpenter for joining us tonight And let's head over and find out what happened here in wanooski. No, no, okay So in wanooski, uh, this is what we're talking about earlier There are seven candidates for two seats for two city council seats And that is just really impressive when we put the when we put it up on the screen It's just it's just an impressive number of people Yeah, um, so these are two open seats. This is uh, how colson seat and mike mires's seat Uh, so we can run through. Oh, here we go. And we have perhaps have the results for this So this is there's two seats aurora heard 25 tomas renner 24 and then look at that. Look at that 23 for i mean k webster. She was really close But it looks like enough vote. That's 22 votes. I don't know Um, but this is again the wanooski city council seats. So aurora heard Is uh, she's the human resources director for bernie's campaign works at uvm now tomas renner works at uvm medical center formerly worked in the u.s senate On been very involved in wanooski activities So those two folks will be going to the to the wanooski city council Yeah, but interesting really two real divisions almost there. We've got the top three very tight And then a long way to the bottom four Yeah, interesting. Is that what happens when you have seven candidates? I you know, I've never seen seven candidates before I'm not really sure So again, these are more at large. They don't have wards like we do in burlington, but nonetheless Yeah, it's uh, that's pretty interesting and I know that a christine lot We're going to have her pretty soon. Um, we don't have her at the moment I just want to do one jump back because we didn't talk about the sx Town budget. Okay. Yeah, and one thing I want to mention about it is this is the first year that the town of sx Is not having a traditional town meeting right voting by australian ballot And I don't know what's behind that but interesting that they have made that move So the town budget of 16.7 million dollars for f y 23 passes by 79 percent And they also have an item to authorize cannabis retailers, which is is happening throughout the state and that has passed by 59 percent So there's your town budget again 79 percent. That's a lot. That's a big big number I'm and with about 6,000 people voting a bit a bit morrow Weinberg would like to grab a few of those Votes there in sx and put them in the burlington. He absolutely would All right, so that's the town budget passes by 79 percent and then the second article In sx is the authorized cannabis retailers passed by 59 percent Actually, it kind of surprises me. There's that big that that that 41 percent said no, that's kind of interesting I don't know that I would have predicted that Again, that's happening throughout the state based on state law, right? That's a follow-up to state law Yep, so that's the sx. Yeah, you know as we get back to wanouski again I mean one of the other issues there is this whole issue of non citizen voting Yes, what's that all about? Yeah, no, that's very interesting. So both wanouski and montpelier have passed non citizen voting but rather all resident voting if you will and It's interesting because the legislature allowed it The the governor vetoed it and the legislature overrode it to allow it So again, this is only for local elections though, right not not state level elections And I it's it's it's really interesting. So in wanouski. There are 600 people about who are eligible under this all resident voting and about 60 had signed up last we heard So one of the challenges is that the the ballots are available in other languages But you have to vote on an english language ballot and that may have caused some issues and in some places Let's face it voting is not something something that could be dangerous So there are other cultural issues as well that that need to be need to be addressed And I know one of the other concerns was that you know people were concerned who were considering this that If you vote in an election a state or a federal election you can put your Your efforts to try to become a citizen in jeopardy. Oh, yes So and I think that there were some people that weren't completely convinced that if they got involved with this that they weren't Working to somehow Jeopardize their effort to become an american citizen. So it is interesting to see what the numbers are on that We're going to find out a little bit more about what's going on in the City of wanouski and hear from our friends at exit voices That we received or were issued I love the small town community feel here and getting to like vote in local elections where We know that the votes have a direct impact on what happens locally. So we're psyched being involved within, you know Any of like city work and then any of the town work is really important and then I love how this is a very active community I love how there is a very full ballot of you know a broad amount of people to choose from so I'm really excited about the outcome and then to see, you know, the great work that gets done here We have to increase funding for education And uh, I like the the city council. There was a wide variety of choices for city council It's very good. Very good. How did you get informed about the issues? Oh, I watched the debate on your tv Yeah, it was that that's a good website. I watched the uh The city council debate it's important to me to vote today because I like the city of wanouski Because the wanouski Is like a small city, but there's no small city for people Is a lot of people like to leave over there wanouski because the wanouski is important to anybody Is because wanouski is help anybody is not see this is white people. This is black. No Is he help anybody? I'm here because democracy is important Look at what's going on in the world what would Ukrainians give to have the simplicity of traveling half a mile to vote For the leadership in their country for the propositions We take it too much for granted and um Yeah, it's it's really critical. So Why would I possibly not vote today? I think that the city council of wanouski has for a long time been dominated by white folks if i'm honest And our population here in wanouski does not reflect that and so I was really excited that we had diversity of candidates Not just based on race based on opinion background all of the All of the brilliance that they all brought I was really grateful to cctv for The candidate forum being recorded so that because I couldn't be there that night so that I could Watch later on that was really helpful in me making a decision I do stay up to date on the school board despite not having kids I think I think a lot of folks often think if you don't have children attending schools in the school district Then maybe you're not as engaged in what's happening in our schools But I'm very excited to see this construction happening down at the school and excited to see what that finalized project will look like I think it's really important to share your opinions On public issues. I own a home here. I have kids in school here I can't complain about what's going on unless I share my opinions about what's going on Plus I love voting it feels like such an Important and exciting thing that we get to participate in so I love taking advantage of it I think growing up in vermont you get instilled with that town meeting day excitement from an early age and I've never lost it So I just think it's important We want to thank barry silver and emily brewer for for bringing us that also We want to remind you if you want to follow along with us with the results which you actually might want to do it said On ch 17 dot tv Diane we have results in from willis then we do we have results in from willis then so There were two uncontested city Select board sorry select board seats the three-year seat. These are both Incumbents so ted kenny a three-year seat and gretta Deccostino the two-year seats both Obviously win Interestingly, there are a couple of items Articles in willis then the first one That's more of a I think that's just a housekeeping item About tax installments 88 percent. I don't know if that's on yep. Okay That's accepting the town report again housekeeping item 92 percent article three. This is the interesting one This is the budget and what's interesting about the budget is the big piece of this is to have the firefighters go from being Volunteer force to a paid professional force because they just can't get the volunteers, right?  It was a significant increase and it passed by 55 percent So that's something that people in willis then are willing to deal with that. We talked about growth Right. They're willing to pay for that for that growth. Yeah, 971 to 78 Yeah, so the and the number four is to purchase an ambulance and that passed by 74 percent That's article four. So that's our quick recap of willis then We're going to head back to studio b and check in with the wanooski mirror christine lot Back to studio b. I am joined tonight with the mayor of wanooski christine lot. Thank you so much for joining us tonight christine Thank you for having me very exciting on town meeting day. Yes, and it was wonderful to meet you today I saw you out at the polls in wanooski Can you tell us a little bit about how the voter turnout was today? Sure. I was there checking people in for a couple hours this morning It was kind of slow and steady all day long. I heard it got a little busier in the afternoon for You know Town meeting day isn't necessarily the highest turnout For elections throughout the year, but today's was pretty good turnout for a town meeting day Great. Thank you christine and i'm i'm curious to know Based on what you've seen From who's been elected and the results of the ballot items Do you think that wanooski is headed in the right direction? Yeah, and actually the election results really speak to that because All of the budgets passed with significant significant positive numbers We had a bond vote for a new fire truck that passed with overwhelming support And I think seeing that kind of support for what's put forward on the ballot Shows that voters do like the direction we're headed. Um, they're you know the city the school residents We are I think aligned towards um a good master plan driven vision of of where wanooski wants to be in the future Great. Well, we're looking forward to seeing how um things progress with the two new city counselors that were just selected and We thank you very much for taking time out of your night to join us and speak with us tonight And make sure you stay tuned in for more interviews All right, we're back thank thank you, emily and thank you, um mayor lot. We're gonna give you A just an overview here of what's going on in south burlington. We don't have results yet, but what's what's at stake? Yes, and we're we're hopeful that we'll get results. Absolutely. Absolutely. So we have Incumbent tim barrett and megan emory and megan emory has been on the council for quite a long time This is for the city council. Um, they are both being challenged Uh, tim barrett is being challenged by linda bailey. That's a three-year seat and megan emory is challenged by chris Trombly for the two-year seat um and a big piece of this is all around the land development regulations in that southeast quadrant That's been going on for quite a while now And there was a period where they remember they had a building moratorium and there's just been a lot going on Both of the incumbents voted For the land use regulations, so it'll be interesting to see if that has any impact Again, they're incumbents hard to get hard to get unseat incumbents. So we don't we don't really know But this has been very controversial very Very strong opinions on on both sides. Yep And then the school is also asking for an increase and this is around our theme again going back to the growth issue There just isn't enough room in the school and what they're hoping to do is have trailers for administration To make more room for classrooms in the school. Wow. Yeah, so that's a high and then the superintendent davin young recently Set up his his resignation for this year. So be interesting to kind of see how that how that comes together Yeah We'll find out a little bit more about what's going on out in south burlington with our friends with the exit voices We are at the chamberland school in south burlington We are three students with the community news service at uvm working with town meeting tv Uh, we're excited to see how people are voting today We have some great candidates this this year on town meeting day. This is linda bailey. She's running for city council so i'm out here saying hi to everybody and Just the winding up the campaign Well, this is how you direct your city and how what happens in your city depending on who you vote for There's also the school budget and the town budget to vote on and it's important to Be there otherwise, how can you complain if you have an even truck been there to vote on it? Well, we still have our our city center That has a couple more votes that we want to put before the voters and I have been In that since the very beginning and I would love to see that through We also have our our new just, you know, what we call planned unit developments Which are new rules for how to develop our more developed areas through infill As well as in our mixed use commercial areas And I would love to be a part of that discussion So some some projects that are still ongoing that I would love to see through I think people should come out and vote and stuff like that and I think Democracy is important thing for this country, especially with everything that's going on in the world today People ought to take it serious and stuff and really understand what what is of value to them Their families and everything going forward. Well, I'm a teacher Not in this district, but I am and I know schools are struggling right now. And so here I am You know, I voted yes for the city part two because you know, I think roads and Levies are important. I guess so Well, uh, it's a steady turnout. I wouldn't say it's a great turnout yet But we've got a long day ahead of us and there were a lot of uh people that voted early So we processed a fair amount of those ballots I actually am one of the candidates running for the three-year seat for the south brilington city council My name is tim barrett if you didn't know, you know, the turnout's been a little bit low But of course, this is just a budget city council school director election So just the dedicated voters of south brilington the ones that are coming out Of course, I think about 700 plus people voted early with absentee voting It's our democratic process And we are all charged with making sure that it works And the only way that it works is for you to do your research on the candidates Find out who the worst the best person is and then come and vote or vote absentee whatever your choice is I'm not Megan Emory But I'm out here to support her.  It's not a lot that was on the ballot I am supportive of passing the school budget and our municipal budget Uh, we try to be, uh, fiscally responsible In our community and do what we can to, you know, keep our expenses in check Well, I do think the whole whole sort of development Of chitinon county and south brilington is extremely important They're extremely important issues because Like housing for example I don't see as anybody could argue saying that nobody needs to have shelter So the whole issue really becomes Um, what do we think is important? And how should we go about doing it so that we have the least amount of impacts Negative impacts that we possibly can in the area. Well, the concerns that I have about some major aspects of Life And so there were people who Are willing to uphold Things and others who aren't so I vote for the people who are. Well, yeah, I'm concerned About climate change obviously, I guess most people are And there are a few other aspects Having to do Uh With choices that people are making Town meeting tv is really essential for Ensuring that democracy remains as a resident I have relied on town meeting tv to get the information I need to make votes about local issues and local candidates It's the one place. I know I can go before town meeting day or any other election And hear from all of the candidates and hear about the main issues I feel like everything that they do Is is such a great thing to support free speech and that it makes Local politics accessible to people and it helps open up those Channels of communication between the general public and and policy makers Everything that town meeting tv does for the community is very important town meeting has been very valuable for us Thank you town meeting tv Thank you town meeting tv for all that you do to inform and help the community learn and grow All right, we are back and we're going to give you an update here on the results in the queen city of burlington On the city council. We have had no change in the balance of power at least it appears We have one super close race in ward one progressive incumbent saraya high tower Winning 585 to 442 over the democrat rob gutman In ward two or i'm sorry in ward one the school commissioner race Akias lo casu as Unopposed and winning with a hundred percent of the vote Gene bergman in ward two a blast from the past the former assistant city attorney former city counselor back And was unopposed. We'll be hearing from him shortly In ward two fiso has on unopposed winning a position on the school commission In ward three incumbent. Joe McGee winning over christopher erin falker that a Not even a close race 72 to 28 percent Ward three the school commissioner poly van der putten winning a seat In ward four out in the new north end sarah carpenter unopposed winning her seat on the city council In ward four the school commissioner race martin gullick the incumbent winning easily over challenger erica reddick In ward five where chip mason the democrats stepped down replaced by another democrat ben travers Winning easily over two other opponents Ward five in the school commission lucia campriolo Winning an race unopposed Ward six caron paul long time city councilor Unopposed winning back her seat claire wall long time city school commissioner Unopposed in that race as well In ward seven boy the close race of the night ali jing holding on to his seat Over alexander steth by two votes. We haven't heard officially yet whether there'll be a recount But boy, uh, I would be surprised if if there wasn't On boy, you gotta you gotta wonder you almost would rather lose the race by 20 than two But we'll we'll see whether there's a recount there In ward seven the school commission race monica evanchick was running unopposed Ward eight the race that we were really watching tonight the one that could have really changed the balance of power Did not ali house winning 321 over democrat hannah king with 278 votes the Money items here the uh the school budget passing by just an overwhelming margin three to one Frankly, I find that a bit of a surprise 6,946 to 2,202 and again a reminder in november Voters are going to face a question about a bond issue to build a new high school The one item the one mighty item that has gone down to defeat was an increase in the city tax rate That went down 52 to 48 percent clearly repercussions from the city-wide reappraisal The general obligation bond which required a two-thirds approval does get it with 70 percent to 30 percent This is going to pay for some 24 million dollars in capital items including three new fire trucks The tiff district again needing only a majority vote winning easily This will allow us some improvements to be made in the main street area The question about removing some language in the city charge in the city charter, which Could regulate sex workers Winning almost by a two-to-one margin You can expect to see this vote being brought to the state level and a push at the state level to try to remove The language across the state on this And we have some results from south burlington awesome. Yes so Both incumbents win south burlington for city council that and here we go Tim barrett at 71 for the three-year seat in south burlington And the other race is the two-year seat. Thank you Megan emory Yeah, easily easily 69 Yeah, wow. Okay. So both incumbents retain their seats I don't know if this is a referendum on the land use regulations or not But uh, they win by quite a landslide and it looks like also we're missing one district in south burlington in terms of the ballot items Orchard 71 at this point all of the articles passed But we're still waiting for one more district though They do look like they have big enough margins that probably will likely the those results will stay as they are I think so. Yep. Yep All right, we're gonna head next to Studio b when we're gonna hear from the ward for school commissioner martin gullick Welcome back to studio b. I am joined with martin larock gulick who was just reelected to a third term As ward for school commissioner. Thank you very much for joining us tonight martin. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it Yeah, so you actually won tonight's vote by about two-thirds of the vote. Were you expecting this outcome? You know, I actually did predict that I would probably get about two-thirds of the vote And the erica would probably get about a third of the vote. So yeah, I I think I was pretty accurate Great. And so the school budget also passed in ward four Um, what are your next steps moving forward? Yeah, so the school budget passed but there were 700 voters who did not vote for the school budget So it says to me that we on the school board and the school district have work to do We need to talk to people about what the financial implications are of Not passing the school budget and what the financial implications are of passing a school budget And how it affects our entire community and we also need to focus on what are we going to do about a permanent high school? Do you have any thoughts on that? I mean, my only thoughts are that obviously we're the biggest city in the state of vermont and not having a high school to me is Just it's baffling And it's a crisis and I guess I'm curious as to why I don't see more of our legislators our governor And our folks in power doing something about this. This is a crisis and it's an issue that needs to be resolved Thank you very much martin for that answer and also for joining us tonight after a very busy day today We appreciate you coming in and congratulations on being reelected and make sure you tune Stay tuned in for more interviews as the night goes on Thank you All right. Thank you very much. Emily. We're going to also right now recap the results in the city of wnuski Just a really fascinating story with seven people running for two seats And the winners appear to be aurora herd and thomas renner Following close behind that was iran webster and the four other candidates Really distant With only single digit percentages. So Congratulations to aurora herd and thomas renner winning those two open seats there in the city of wnuski And we should also let folks know that they can look at these results themselves if they'd like to on the website at Channel ch17.tv. All right. All right. That's the aerial awesome All right, let's hit over now. We got one more. Okay school trustee three a three-year seat And it looks like kamal dahal who is the incumbent wins by 76 percent. All right Interesting david xavier wallis was also running for city council too if you noticed. Oh, wow. Okay. All right Wonder what happens if you win both You're a very busy person Let's head back to studio b where i'm a very busy. Emily brewer is there with gene bergman Welcome back to studio b. I am joined with gene bergman who was just elected to the ward two city council seat now gene Served actually three terms on the city council from 1986 to 1992 And you were also the assistant city attorney for 20 years So long long time ago and uh, yes a long time. Yeah, it was great And I just want to thank the voters of ward two and the people of ward two For showing me the confidence that they did today. It was really gratifying. It was out there all day and It was a it was a good day cold Which is the way that march is supposed to be Indeed and I was out there too and the voter turnout was it was a little it It was come and go but did you see a lot of folks at the polls? You know, I I did I'm I'm pretty pleased at the the steady flow of folks particularly From late morning Into right up until the end. So I I I didn't really know if we'd have as many folks as as we did ward two has had A somewhat lower lower turnout and this is an off year election My race was uncontested. So there are lots of reasons why voter turnout might have been What it was, but I I was pretty pleased and I I I enjoyed immensely Meeting people and talking with folks about issues. Well, that's wonderful. Jean. Thank you very much. Now You are a long-term progressive Can you tell me a little bit about how you think your previous experience on the city council will help you tackle current issues that are facing the Sure, you know, when I was elected in 1986 We had just um gone through a revenue sharing cuts by the Reagan administration A neoliberal slashing of government funds to fund All sorts of things from infrastructure to social programs and bernie who I served with And at that time he was the mayor had run Since 1981 on a platform of changing the property tax to make it more progressive to to have alternatives to property tax And we did that the gross receipts tax Is one the special assessment for the The the commercial buildings are one or another We tried and failed to get things like an anti-speculation tax through the legislature but those were exciting times and so Those sort of animate me when I go, you know, we've we just went through a reappraisal And it was devastating for people and there was a shift actually a shift to To the property homeowner From the commercial sector and you know to lower and moderate income homeowners and owners to you know from more wealthy folks and Part of what I believe we need to be doing now and what I take from that earlier time Is the idea that we can make Our tax system or our property tax system our entire tax system More progressive more based on the ability to pay and that there are a lot of ways to do that I'm actually really excited about the the prospect of moving forward with the ideas that were Part of the unanimously passed resolution on reappraisal So we've just in that there's a lot of ideas on there I'm excited about to to work with counselor freeman who threw out a number of really important ideas that we should consider And you know, we'll see if we can be as successful as we were under bernie All we can do is fight hard and try Well, that's great gene. Thank you so much for joining us tonight and sharing with our viewers a little bit about your future plans for the city council And um, we wish you all the best going forward Well, thank you for having me. Thank you for being here channel 17 is amazing It's essential for our democracy. So thank you very much for for being there for the for the folks Thank you gene. That means a lot take make sure you stay tuned in All right, and burlington just a recap here now at uh 8 25 the burlington city council There is no change in the balance of power in terms of the money questions The school budget approved by a huge margin a three to one margin The increase to the city tax rate the only money item that has gone down to defeat 52 to 48 percent The general obligation bond which needed a two-thirds approval Winning with 70 of the vote that'll pay for many items including three new fire trucks The tiff district winning soundly this will allow some improvements to a six block area on main street The proposal to remove language in the city charter that regulated sex workers Winning easily 63 does 37 percent And that those are some of the highlights coming out of burlington again the only item that did not pass in burlington the city on Tax rate be interested to hear what mayor morrow Weinberger has to say about that We hope to be hearing from him later But right now we're going to head back to studio b with the ever-busy emily brewer standing by with joe mcgee Come back to studio b. I am joined with joe mcgee who was just re-elected to the ward three city council seat Thank you so much for joining us tonight joe. Thank you so much for having me Now i'm curious to know what your next steps going forward are now that you've been re-elected to ward three Sure, you know, I think uh first i'm really grateful to have the support of uh ward three residents For a second time in in six months here Um, and you know, I'm looking forward to getting to work. Um, making sure that we're making progress on racial justice making sure that we're Continuing to push for necessary Uh reforms to public safety Uh standing up mental health and medical worker rapid response teams I think that is essential work and i'm looking forward to continuing our work going forward thank you joe and You have you had said in the past that you considered not running for re-election until you had a chance to talk with some of the folks Living at this year's lane camp, which has since been torn down. Um, can you tell me a little bit about um, why that changed your mind? Sure. Yeah, you know, I think it really uh underlined for me the ways in which our government Fails folks who are at the margins. Um, and to be able to um find um A way to advocate for for folks most in need in our community to Um advocate for city resources to meet people's basic needs right now To find solutions to bring affordable housing to the city because we know that we desperately need that Uh, I think you know that gave me a clarity that I hadn't really had um after the special election Well, thank you very much joe for joining us tonight. Um Congratulations on being re-elected to the ward three seat and Now that you are going to be on the city council for a full two terms. Are you looking forward to that? I I am you know, I think we have a lot of important work ahead of us. We are still in the middle of the pandemic we have a lot of uh Work to do to continue to make sure that we're responding to that effectively and um planning for the recovery afterwards so i'm looking forward to doing that work and um addressing some of the affordability concerns that we have We're in the city over the next two years Great. Thank you so much joe for joining us and make sure you folks stay tuned in for more interviews coming up soon All right, thank you. Emily will recap here what's happened in terms of the ballot items in south burlington Everybody in a yes mood tonight in south burlington where the city budget Passed by an almost two or more than a two-to-one margin In the school budget uh close behind with when he was 63 percent of the vote and a Number the third item there on the ballot using on some surplus funds For unanticipated covet expenses and that winning by A huge margin 80 to 20 percent diane. What do we got going on in wanooski? Yeah, i've got the wanooski ballot items the city budget of 8.7 million dollars approved by 71 percent That's high. Wow. Yeah uh number two Actually, that was i'm sorry. That was number two. I apologize. The first one was a housekeeping item Uh number three except funds for non property tax sources again. That's a housekeeping item past 92 percent That's on the city ballot every year in wanooski Article four approved a general obligation bond for a fire truck and related capital improvements for city fire departments That's 1.3 million and i know and i know this is close to your heart mark And this one passes by 79 percent. So very high number there Article five except expend a comp. This is again. This is a housekeeping item 89 percent passes And finally the school article number six. This is the school budget at 21.3 million passes by 68 percent So school budgets did did well. Yeah, they did well this year this town meeting day How do you say no to spending some of this extra money that's coming in? That's true. That's true knowing it's coming from from the magical federal government somewhere, huh? Oh, there's one more actually uh authorized school board to lease elm street from wanooski housing authority for preschool and head start Oh, that's interesting. Sorry. We didn't have that one. I had on one of my list that is uh passed by 80 percent Seems like a pretty a good thing. Yes. Yeah, there you go Okay, all right. That's wanooski. All right, we're gonna head out to uh ward seven find out some of the Issues going on out there again our friends from exit voices Yeah, my name is manifest and i'll just go and ask a couple questions about town meeting day What's your opinion about town meeting day town meeting day is very important because this is when people decisions are made and this is also A community, you know event Where people come together see each other and also have their voices heard and respected It's it's an amazing day Um, what do you think about the new school budget? Um, yeah the school budget. I feel like you know, we have to Support our schools. We have to support our students and investing in our children doesn't have a price You know, I hope that the voters will vote in support of it today I thought what I think as far as the tax increase. Yeah, that's proposed on the ballot. Yeah today. Yeah, um I'm I'm okay with it. I think that uh, some of the improvements that that's proposed the tax increase I think will Benefit the city my other question is that have a great day for you. What what is the important of voting? Uh, oh, I think it's very important voting because You know, uh, it doesn't seem like when one person votes that it means very much But you know when you put all of those votes together They make a big deal and sometimes elections come down to just very few votes deciding You know, bernie sanders when he was first elected to as mayor Um was only elected by very few votes So, uh, I think it's important to have your voice heard and that's one of the main ways I can do it I'm saying my last question is what do you think of the new school budget? Um Again, I think I used to be now. I'm a carpenter, but I used to be a teacher used to teach middle school and um, I Find that education is one of the best things we can do with our with our money What are your thoughts on taxes taxes on taxes? Well, my friend, I think taxes too damn high And I I think because of covet that the uh, city and the state is trying to make up extra money off the tax player Taxpayers of burlington coming up with these excuse my language bullshit rules and bullshit taxation stuff like that That's what I think of taxes because I think the broke where we are the highest tax people In burlington and I live right there in the north end when I bought my house I'll pay him about five six thousand dollar taxes close to nine thousand dollars now Oh, also, I heard about the school budget. What do you think about? Oh, don't you miss the school budget to me? Okay Good, like I say the the school budget has went from Five years ago at like 60 something million. I don't know what the budget is now, but I did vote no Um, they want to be a new high school guys to think about the high school They say the high school on the ground is um Poison or contaminated. So I got a question to ask you If the high school grounds are contaminated then why is north beach not contaminated because the water does run downhill? I saw him saying to you Welcome back to studio b. I am joined with counselor ali jang who was just reelected to a third full term on Ward seven burlington city council. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Thanks for having us Now it was a very close race tonight. You actually won by two votes. Were you expecting this outcome? Not really. I thought that I would vote for by more Um, but you know, I want to thank those that come out and vote it But also this election particularly is an amazing one because it's now time for Independence people need to stay away from political parties Someone who run against a democratic party the progressive party and what's left of the um Republican party and also someone who did not get any endorsement from any union was able to come and one And I'm just very excited. So and also thank you Team ali Thank you ali. And can you just speak a little bit more on um, why you think it's important to have an independent voice on the city council Yes, and I think what we need to talk about is independent voices because what is holding the city back is partisan politics I've been there with them seeing them fight and stay away from those fights I think it is time for us to come together Strengthen our neighborhoods and stay away from just a small ideological groups And run the city and run it to the best of our ability What are your next steps moving forward? Moving forward is basically everything that I run on to deepen the tie in my neighborhood Make sure that north avenue receive the attention it needs and also talk to people about, you know, climate change What can we do in our neighborhood in our homes? And also make sure that the buddington high school is built Well, thank you very much for joining us tonight ali and congratulations on being reelected to ward seven city council seat and We look forward to seeing how the future goes. Thank you Wow fascinating. Um, ali zheng winning his seat by two votes You heard somebody mention in that earlier discussion about how close the race was when Bernie Sanders first won election back in the mayoral race back in 1981 where he won that race by 10 votes, so There is actually a little bit of history that also morrow Weinberger When he was running in his first race Defeating tim ash that was by one vote. You really got to wonder these people that lose by so little they'll be I'm sure asking all of their friends whether or not they voted or not Maybe they don't want to know We uh, are gonna head next to uh, Williston recap Williston results. So, uh, Williston select board candidates Ted kenney for the oh, I'm sorry. We're gonna do ballot items. Let's do that instead This is article one. This is a housekeeping item passes by 88 percent Town number two town report again housekeeping item 92 percent Article three. This is the town budget. This is where all the firefighters are from to move from a Volunteer force to professional force 55 percent that passes And item four is the ambulance purchase and that passes by 74 percent Williston select board Ted kenney the incumbent, uh, of running on a post And graded dagestino again the, uh, incumbent to your seat, uh, running on a post There you go. There you go. We actually have some results tonight that we're gonna give you from, uh, Colchester We do. I don't know if we're gonna bring these up Okay, so we have got the school articles. We'll start with those The first one is to actually compensate the school board directors for $1,700 annually I know this is being talked about quite a bit in terms of equity issues, especially That does pass article two is borrowing money the school district borrowing money for unanticipated Expenses that also passes and the school district budget also as well passes Pretty much everything all the articles in Colchester passed. Yeah, so article four is the municipal services budget passes Article five town park capital plan passes article six town transportation capital plan passes And article seven the mallets bay sewer project. This was this was a big deal They've been trying to do this for a couple of years There's concern about if there'll be too much development because of the fact this happens But on the flip side of it, uh, they're really trying to deal with with contamination in in mallets bay So that that does pass as well Boy, you know that that defeat of the city budget in burlington really seems to be sticking at it Like a sore thumb with all of these yes votes throughout You know the the rest of the county really really, um I'll be very interested to hear what mirror Weinberger has to Say about that issue. Yeah, I hope we get a chance to uh to hear from him tonight and and sort of what his his take on You know, is it because of the reappraisal if the reappraisal hadn't happened? Maybe Yeah, but at some point you have to do the reappraisal right and the state really requires it because they punish you if you don't So at some point it had to happen. I don't know that it need to happen during a pandemic, but yeah, and that's where it happened I just think there were a lot of people that feel as though it was not The the best process. There were a number of people whose Homes were not actually visited. I know there were even people that challenged the results who wound up having it go up Even further. Yeah, so uh, I think yeah, I think controversial Yeah, I think the the process to uh to dispute it was was really the one that I heard the most about People felt like people that they didn't take it seriously and and you know, this is this is challenging trying to do some pandemic they didn't see anyone they did all the uh Records and things that they had at city hall already. So Yeah, yeah And also the the fact that the commercial property Went down in value because again of the pandemic. Yeah, many of the places Were were lowered in value because they weren't producing the kind of income that they had in the past Some people felt that that was not the proper time to have the snapshot done of what the value is and Be interesting to see once we come out of this pandemic What will happen to to those values in the in the future? We're going to head back to studio b with winning ward 5 candidate ben dravers Welcome back to studio b. I am joined now by ben travers who was just elected to ward 5 city council in berlington Thank you so much for joining us tonight then. Thanks so much for having me. It's exciting to be here at town meeting tv Now it's been a long day for you today. Were you out at the polls? I was it has been a long day. It's cold. It's a wintry out there I guess that's the result of having town meeting day as early as possible on march 1st So if i'm a little red in the face and have some hat hair, it's because i've been out there since 7 a.m Now you Won this vote by a considerable amount of votes. Were you expecting this outcome? And i'm curious to know what your next steps are now that you've been elected. Yeah, I was not expecting this outcome I never at any point took anything for granted. I want to congratulate my opponents for reed and lanora for running a great campaign I think they both were great candidates. I'm incredibly honored and humbled by the support place to meet by my community Next steps, you know, I committed as a candidate that while i'm running as a democrat I don't approach this with any sort of political bias and agenda I saw some of my fellow city counselors here To be in the studio. I look forward to working with them regardless of what political party they're from my senses that voters are frustrated The city's facing some very complicated issues right now wants to make progress and so I look forward to Trying to dial back some of the political rhetoric and cut through some of the divisiveness to the end of making progress for our city That's great. Ben. Thank you. And i'm i'm curious also to know You were just elected to a seat that has been held by a long-standing democrat for about 10 years now and Do you think you're ready to fill those shoes? Yeah, I mean chip mason leaves really big shoes to fill I want to take an opportunity here to thank chip for his years of service I was really honored early on in the campaign to receive Chip's support and was very grateful to have him out at the polls with me first thing today One of the things I really appreciate about chip is he approached every issue with common sense with rational thinking and You know, while I can't guarantee chip and I will align eye to eye on every political issue I do intend on following in his shoes and following in his footsteps in in approaching issues in a similar matter carefully Considerately Thinking about all points of view hearing all points of view before making my vote Well, thank you so much for that ben and thank you for joining us tonight after a very long day We really appreciate it and we wish you all the best moving forward Thanks very much town meeting tv is such an essential service for our city I'm so glad that we were able to be here in person this year and look forward to our continuing to work together Us as well. Thank you so much. Thank you All right, well, we're not going to argue with that We also believe in the great value of town meeting television here and It really was so helpful I I thought for all the voters to be able to see some of the forms that were put on a lot of hard work um Was done by an awful lot of people here at channel 17 I'm interviewing and the candidates and the forms that they had and some of the discussions about Some of the issues explaining things like the tax increment financing district I found that the school discussion that was done by the superintendent was just invaluable Um and to recap here what's happened in the city of burlington tonight on the Burlington city council where we were closely watching whether or not there would be any sort of change in the balance of power None has come to pass the key race out and Ward eight was won by a progressive Replacing a progressive And so we're not going to see any any sort of change there unless unless yeah Unless there's a change with that word seven recount. I'm my goodness. Yeah the The alley jing race where he won by two votes But just a recap here in ward one. Um, zariah hightower the progressive incumbent Winning 5 85 to 4 42 In the school commission the key is uh, like, uh, locasile unopposed Jean bergman Blast from the past coming back a progressive replacing max tracy the city council president who decided not to run for reelection Jean was unopposed Faisal Hassan winning a seat on the school commission in ward two In ward three jill McGee the incumbent Winning reelection easily by a almost three to one margin Polly van der putten unopposed winning a seat on the school commission In ward four out in the new north end sarah carpenter democrat Winning her seat unopposed And in ward four on the school commission martin gulick winning three to one over eric eretic Ward five the city council ben travers democrat replacing a democrat chip mason who decided not to run Easily winning over two opponents In ward five in the school commission, uh, lisa campriolo winning unopposed Karen paul ward six winning her city council seat again unopposed Claire wall school commissioner in ward six also running unopposed And in ward seven again the the race that was just Really a cliffhanger here my goodness seven ninety five to seven ninety three ali jang holds on to his seat over alexander steve In this on the school commission race monica, uh, evanchick winning unopposed Ali house in the race that we were really keeping an eye on here the progressive replacing Jane stromberg also a progressive winning over hannah king You know i'm struck by how many school board seats Where folks are running unopposed. Yeah tough job a tough job I wonder i wonder you know, it seems to me that schools are so complex that it takes a long time to get your footing Yeah to be a school board Commissioner and I wonder if it would make sense to have longer terms You know just because we just don't see a lot of a lot of folks running I wonder if that would help people get a little bit more traction and you know, maybe four years in and then I wonder might might also scare people off. Yeah, they have to make that bigger commitment, too Maybe yeah, it is it's tough that it's You know historically too been a case where Getting people who want to run for it. It's a it's a really tough job. It doesn't have this sort of glory Of city council and thought about glory at city council That's become a much more difficult job as we were talking about really to begin the program here We had three incumbents in burlington You know several of whom and and some of others were considering not running as well just because of yes It's really becoming a much more difficult job We've seen protests that have been happening at city councilor's houses the mayor Rowe Weinberger seeing the protest at his home something. I think that really is Is unusual and and new and something that I think some of the counselors found quite intimidating. So We're going to head over to studio b with the winner in ward ones ariah hightower Welcome back to studio b. I am joined with zariah hightower who was just re-elected to a second term on Burlington city council's ward one Congratulations, zariah, and thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you so much for having me So, um You were initially hesitant to run for re-election Can you tell us why that was the case and why you decided to run? Um, yeah, the last years have definitely been extremely difficult And I definitely I was dealing with some acute mental health problems both. I think in terms of the pressure and Just some of the issues getting nationwide attention and some of the hate mail from that But I think over the last few months council has I think struck a very different tone I think the counselors in particular have tried to be much more collaborative even when You know, there's outside voices that are maybe less collaborative and I think I play a really important role in Making that conversation continue in that tone on the way forward And I'm also really excited about some of the issues that I cared about a lot like just cause eviction Moving forward at the state level and of course, um police reform continuing to be Um a priority in the city Great. Thank you. And now that you have been re-elected. How do you how do you feel and um, What are your next steps moving forward? Yeah, I'm excited, of course, um always it's always great to get I definitely felt like even though there was a lot of pushback on the state level or on the national level For some of what's happening in burlington. I always felt like my ward did support me and it's always great to get that validation And yeah, I'm excited again, especially to work on renters rights and continue to try to find the balance between police accountability and public safety That's great. And are you looking forward to working with the new city counselors that were just elected tonight? Oh, absolutely Yeah, I think it's a I think it's a great slate both on the progressive side And on the democrat side and of course ellie dang again. So yeah, definitely It's going to be a different council different feel new things to learn, but i'm excited for another two years Well, that's wonderful. Thank you very much for joining us tonight after a very busy day at the polls And we look forward to seeing what's next for you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Emily All right, we are back and uh, we really want to thank emily brewer for doing a great job tonight interviewing all of these candidates I mean my goodness on What a great job So when we began tonight diane, we were really interested in burlington Whether or not there'd be any sort of change in the city council on the balance of power There were a lot of questions about some of these money issues and whether or not How people were feeling about their pocketbook and given we're in the middle of a pandemic and Um, so what really what stood out for you tonight in terms of the results any surprises? Well It's interesting. I mean we definitely talked about the balance of power the possibility that uh, some of the seats might be upset but really um Power of incumbency stayed indeed as it usually does And uh, there was actually no change to the council. So which is interesting because what we're actually waiting to hear from The mayor morrow Weinberger Curious how he sees that because we know for instance with the uh, the interim police chief murad He uh, he sort of punted it to next council in terms of confirmation Really really hoping to pick up that extra democrat that seat. Yeah, and it didn't happen. So And really and you know in a way he kind of pushed the question of Making the council vote on it Many people thought that he did that in order to try to sort of provoke Some interest more interest in these races and didn't see that didn't seem to happen Yeah, so so a little surprised, uh, I I thought I thought we might have a shift I because there's been a lot of talk about The you know the progressive wave that came in and not everyone has been happy with the results of that But it didn't seem to actually impact the way people voted or for those that did vote I am and I think the other thing it was I was I was I am surprised that so many of the money ballot items passed in burlington and In retrospect, I'm not as surprised that that the uh, the tax increase failed Yeah, because of everything that's been going on and because how I think it's you can't underestimate how angry people Oh, at least homeowners were about the re the reappraisal But you know surprisingly how easily the school budget passed and you would have thought maybe there might have been some lingering anger directed towards that and some also some Not even lingering but some anticipated concern about this vote in november. Sure. This could be a a really Significant ask that's made in november to pay for a new high school the the current high school out in On out on institute avenue there, which was deemed to be Unsafe because of some of the the chemicals that were found there Wow, I mean in november I think people are just kind of holding their breath to see how big that ask is going to be but that school budget passed by a Three to one margin. Yeah, and it's interesting because there were some signs up around town that said keep Burlington affordable vote no on all the items and I thought The thing has struck me with keeping it affordable because I really never have thought of burlington at least recently have being affordable at all So that that was sort of an interesting. I was like, oh, okay So there are people who do think it's affordable right now and it's going to get worse Of course, they must not be very happy about this Maybe there wasn't room on the side to say don't make it even more unaffordable You can't put that on a sign. Yeah, maybe so maybe so so uh, so yeah, it'll be interesting And I wonder if there isn't wasn't also Some confusion and I don't know if this was planned or not around the whole idea of the stake kicking in money I mean because there's this feeling there's so much covid money. Yeah, there's so much money out there So it's all flowing down to to the towns. Oh that that definitely benefited the school tax proposal Maybe people just didn't it was hard to sort it all out. Yeah Well, but I think the real interesting question because even on the ballot it said that you could anticipate a tax decrease on that There were some people that were critical of the school commissioners And the and the folks that put the ballot together to actually name a number on that Without the state having made a commitment to how much right and boy if the state doesn't come through Maybe that was to put pressure on state officials to to do that But if that doesn't come to pass I wonder if there'll be some lingering resentment from that And that could prove it difficult in november when the when the big item comes through Yeah So outside of burlington what really stood out if anything well, I know we're we're running some of the uh, The numbers here. I thought uh, brian shelled and that's interesting in sx For as a right in candidate got an enormous number of votes and you just don't see that very often Right. So that that was pretty interesting. Uh, most of the town budgets and school budgets. I believe passed. Yeah So, yeah, I can't think of any that didn't you know, but I mean we talked about we had a theme about growth And whether other communities were willing to pay for the cost of growth like all the Fire fighters an emergency personnel. Yeah, and there were some big asks for that and they all passed So people are willing. Yeah to pay. Yeah, yeah Yeah, and also that really fascinating race out in in monewski where we really had You know two real tiers where there were three candidates that were in the running for those two seats and then the other four really Really trailing very very far behind. Yeah, and it'll be interesting to see a next next round Yeah, how many some of those folks kind of move back up. You know what that what that's gonna look like Yeah, yeah, yeah, but by then they'll they'll have incumbents, right? So Right, so yeah exactly exactly if they run if they run I mean it's we've seen the power of incumbents He is really very something and I guess the other open question that we have in burlington is Whether or not there will be a recount in the alley jing If anything will change. Yeah, which you know as we talked about before they often don't right right in fact often They find they find votes that For the the the winner But it is interesting because especially in burlington because it is all automated Yeah, it has to be something On it with the machine or a folded ballot or something and I'm you know, it's interesting because I was I was reading something about How many ballots in other states have been thrown out? And I guess they actually let you know if your mail them ballot is thrown out for a variety of intriguing Idea things about not signing it the right way or the wrong code or it's kind of fascinating Um, and you know that one thing I don't know in burlington what happens when they toss ballots Do they they don't let you know? I assume because there's not enough time You don't have a chance to revoke so I wonder if some of those ballots Maybe we call them disputed ballots, which is sort of reminds me of hanging chads trying to stay away from that But that that I wonder if you know some some of those might be disputed. Yep. Yep Well disputed elections is certainly something we've heard about at the national level Yes, we absolutely have absolutely have Yeah, so uh, yeah and a lot of incumbents ran unopposed At the select board level city council level as well as especially school school board Feels like more than I recall, but you know, it may that may be just that may be a trend I don't know and even in the city of burlington to have three of those races completely unopposed Yeah, you know and they're with all due respect there seems to be no whiff of a republican party anymore in the city of burlington It really is all about the democrats versus the progressives. That's really been that way for quite some time, but you know on Not to stand too old, but in the old days, there was you know, there was actually a republican party and there would be representatives of that that party that came through on the again The williston out in williston more again more yeses than knows and People were certainly willing to spend some money and interesting and in a difficult economic time and uncertain I guess economic time more than anything else. Yeah, you know and the thing that interests me about folks Like for ward two where there was an open seat There was only one candidate and I think that's interesting because that's really an opportunity as we talked about you know an incumbent Really hard to to unseat them But having an open seat is really an opportunity and it's interesting that nobody came forward Yeah, I mean it you know that the old nerf end has certainly been very strong for the progressives But I think you're right, you know It is a surprise that there wasn't a democratic candidate at least a candidate put out there Gene Bergman certainly a very strong candidate. Well known name would have been difficult to defeat Virtually an incumbent in many respects, but still I think you're right that that they're Being known to even put up a challenge to him Even just to get your name out for the future, you know like like others in like I think christopher allen falker Certainly in ward three put his name out there as a republican. I think he has other he has other things in mind Right as a way to get his name out So how did how did maril wine burger do tonight? How did we rate that? Well, nothing changed, right? I mean he got he got his some some of his Ballot items his money items. I think losing the tax was big. Yeah, I think that I think that hurts him. I think the balance of power not changing hurts him Yeah, and I'd be just really interested to see if he runs next year. Yeah. Yeah, that I think is Seems like he's running out of energy from my perspective. I that's just me. Well, you know, I can remember Growing up that my mother used to say that being the Being the mayor of new york city was a more difficult job than being president of the united states You know the just the complexity of it. It's a it's a you know There's a lot of difficult issues here in the city of burlington We've got the city place which actually appears as though it something may actually happen on that It's kind of like the Champlain Parkway though, right? Yeah So, you know, those are uh, you know, he may want to serve one more term just to get some of those projects completed But I I hear you. I mean, it's a it's a tough job. He's been in now what 11 years. Is it been that long? Yeah, so Yeah And they haven't been easy ones. No and a lot of you know, the very controversial issues with the Staffing of the police department this question about the the chief You know, it's uh, it's it's again, there's going to be some real complex discussions about the the new high school So really really challenging time and I can't say I could really think of anybody who's an Obvious person who might run. I mean, I'll be interested to see if You know somebody like brian pine or jean bergman or some of the other folks that have been talked about as possible names to To run You know what the what the signal will be from from from rural limber Yeah, yeah, it'll be very interesting to see and so, you know Does he see because I remember earlier on we talked about him, you know, everyone thought he was going to run for higher Office. Yeah, everyone was completely convinced. He was just doing he was just being the berlington mayor So you could do something else and that hasn't that hasn't been the case. Yeah, so it's interesting I do wonder what he sees sort of in his future. Well, there's so few options, right? In the state of vermont, we have, you know, one congressional seat And you know, that's it hasn't been a lot of movement Right now this this year is probably more movement than we've had for quite a while So nearly he's retiring right we gotta move everyone's sort of moving up and around and positioning themselves But I'm you know as long I mean The governor does not going anywhere it appears. So that would be a perhaps an obvious step for a for a for a mayor So, yeah, no, it's uh, it's difficult. All right, we're gonna um, uh, we're gonna Find out what uh, uh, mayor Weinberger has to say and then We're saying good night now. We're gonna say good night. Wow. Well, thank you mark. It was lots of fun. Yeah, it was really great Thank you to everybody out who made this possible. Yeah, I mean, we're so easy. We're out here in front But um, I could tell you there are players an awful lot of people here in that studio who have all been working Really hard tonight and again, you know, Emily Brewer doing a great job with all this Interviews which just seemed to be one right after another and we really kind of had the easy job. We did we did So thank you all very much for joining us and for all of us here at town meeting television. Have a great night. Good night Sheriff you are kind of over marks and happy to answer all the questions you have I'm both the bond the both I'm both about item side and the council races. Um, I'm feeling quite good about tonight's outcomes the two voter decisions that will Probably have the longest lasting impacts on this community are about questions number three and four their voters signed off on approximately 50 million dollars of investments in Key priorities that this administration has been working towards for many years having this second major general obligation bond On top of the other bonding that we've done in recent years for our water infrastructure Is going to allow us to complete the the job that we began back in 2016 With the voter decision there to really change the trajectory of our public infrastructure investment in this community this Validation tonight of that direction means that we are going to be able to finish that job and make Great progress with respect to our roads or sidewalks or city parks or city buildings Um, and and our public safety infrastructure Valid question number four may ultimately be even more transformative I do think people are going to look back on the upgrade the transformation of main street in very similar terms to the way we think of the church tree marketplace 40 years ago We are going to completely rebuild the six blocks of main street from a memorial auditorium to the train station And in just a few short years that experience of being on main street is going to be totally different than it is today there's going to be opportunities for protected bike lanes for outdoor eating for National beauty that we haven't seen on main street in generations with outstanding street trees and land street escaping that Is both beautiful and protects to make Champlain This is going to be a complete overhaul of that key part of our of our downtown With respect to the city council races the We um Democrats had a good night certainly the best night we've had since 2019 we Saw a first time candidate in ward five A ward that has been getting where the results have been getting closer and closer in recent years Winned by an overwhelming amount almost a thousand votes. I think We may pick up a seat. It's still too close to call in ward seven with The margin there being um, I expect there will be I haven't heard this definitively, but I expecting there will be a recount there The um You know and then the other contested races where uh democrats didn't quite pull it out We certainly saw much closer uh races in ward eight than we'd seen in in years And even in ward one where there Is an extremely strong candidate and uh councilor hightower. We saw A race that was only separated by about 140 votes something considerably less than we've seen in other ward one races in recent years, so you know, you sum that all up and to me I see a message from voters of Um, uh concerned about the direction of the city council um a desire for For for a change in direction and I certainly hope that coming out of this we will um Have uh less of the polarizing debates that we've seen over the last A couple of years, particularly in public safety With that I uh, we have to take any questions that you guys have So with the tax increase failing, what does that mean for the future of you know, what citizens would expect from Burlington? so um So what Catherine's referring to of course is about question number two vote on the general city tax by a narrow margin did did fail and Certainly we're gonna you know I really believe in the the wisdom of Burlington voters. We're going to go back to the drawing board We're going to roll up our sleeves got the sleeves rolled up and we're going to find a way through this. It won't be easy this may be In some ways the toughest Operating budget of any that might be responsible for over the last 10 years I think it may be that with the inflation that we're facing and whatnot On the other hand this administration that has gotten through very serious financial challenges before I think this is a challenge that pales in comparison to digging the city out of a near junk bond status resolving the Huge Burlington telecom lawsuit we Will work hard. We'll find a way to ensure that We our highest priorities get the funding that they need will be smart about the areas that we do Make cuts in I can't give you a lot of details on where we're going to land tonight We've got you know four more months before we will finalize that budget But we will we will find a way way through this, you know again I was certainly hoping and that we might have the support on all three You know from my perspective the fact that voters made yes votes for these long term About 50 million dollars in commitments to long terms investments and priorities versus this 2.2 million dollar one year tax impact this is I was we're hoping to get all three if we had to choose This is the one that will that we're I think most able to manage And still stay true to our priorities and and we'll find a way through this You know again, I think it's too early to say it's challenge this that we're going to say status quo with award seven races Not determined yet and that could be a pickup for for the democrats when when that is sorted out and I you know again, I We'll have to see the the council Is independent body their their own elected officials? Certainly, I think the message from voters tonight is they're concerned about the the direction the council is going in We saw some very big shifts in the way. We've seen these races go in recent years. I hope that leads to more More collaboration more negotiation more finding way Through and finding a way to get things done, which is the way I've always tried to govern You know, we've never had a But for I think there was four months in 2017 or something where there were seven democratic counselors the rest of the decade There's only been a plurality or you're not even a plurality of democrats on the council I've always had to work across the aisle Work with counselors of different parties to get anything done. That's the way I like to govern I'm still interested in governing that way I hope there'll be a council more willing to partner in that way going forward on these key public safety issues Which I think where I think I think it's pretty clear the voters want us to find a way to address our public safety challenges head on Make sure we are still making progress On racial justice and racial equity issues that we can do both of these things. I think that's what the voters want us to do That's what I want to do What does this mean for the police chief search?