I don't know if you knew this. Boca Churro. What? Does it ring? Yeah, Boca Churro. Okay. Yankees have won 10 in a row. I know. And they're four games out of first place. Yeah, I know. They came out of nowhere. They did. I keep emailing my dad and just saying, shh. Everyone read them off because there was no reason to think they would be good.  You're clicking right now. It's kind of like this tenuous little thing I'm holding, but Mike and I are going to go. That's what the new, these are brand new Yankee hats that I just got for him and I today. These are the authentic.  Oh wait, that's just the logo. Give it a reaction to the hits of Corbin.  Anyways, who's in first place? I know we're not. But you're not. You're not even ahead of the Yankees. We were. You were. But then you started to Red sucks. Anyways, today we're doing a movie review of the 1963 Bengali film by a little known director, Dr. Ditt. Yes. And that's how it's, that's how it is. It's Bengali pronunciation. I'm glad that we've been doing this on our channel because without us, no one would know of this man. Yeah. He's, you know. We're doing a service. We really are. So here's our goal to help these lesser known artists become more established. I think it's our sixth. We got three. Right. Then we got the one after that with the wife. Yeah. Then we got. Wait. Naya Khan or whatever the one on the train was. The hero. Yes. This is sixth. Was there another one? Obviously. If you count, if you count the short film. The short film. Two. But yeah, it's a short. That's a short film. It's such a dry film. Anyways. Yes. And he only has seven. So. That's obviously. That's a joke. He doesn't only. We'll be only. We only have one more to watch. It was a joke. This is all jokes. Free. But it's directed and partially written. And because it's based off of, I believe, a short story. Correct. And the music. The music as well. But I think it's, that's pretty common for him. Except for obviously when he used Robbie Shankar for the Opu. Starring Anil Chatterjee. Lots of Bengalis. Can I say that? Madhabi Mukherjee. Jaya Bakchan. A very young. Very young guy. Jaya Bakchan. I didn't, until I looked at it, I didn't know it was her. Yeah. Who was Jaya Baduri. Yes. But and then a whole bunch of other Bannerjee's, Chatterjee's. Oh yes. A whole bunch. Was Andrani in this one? She was. We watched this together. I assume you watch most of the Bengalis. Most of the Bengali ones. She absolutely wants to watch. Yes. But yes. Anyways. Obviously, Hunter Spence Fall Review. It came out in 1963. If you haven't watched it, please go watch it. Watch it. Come back. It's actually on HBO for us, even though he didn't get to watch it there. Well, you can rent it on Amazon. You can rent it on Amazon. But it's for free on HBO.  The whole thing? The whole, his whole catalog. Wow. I don't, I don't know why in terms of, it's not a, not a big thing for HBO. So. I don't know. But I love it. I'm not saying I don't love it. I'm curious to know. I bet there's a relationship between the film preservation society and Swasezi and HBO and all that. Anyways. But once again, Hunter Spence Fall Review. If you haven't watched it, please go watch it. Come back. Rick, your initial thoughts, please. I'll just cut to the chase as they say. He hated it. And he hates Bengalis. That's right. I've, I've added it to my list of favorite films of all time. Okay. But where does it stack in him? Because I knew you would like it. I had no doubt. Yeah. It, actually. So Opu is a standalone kind of thing that's, it's kind of like Jaws for Steven Spielberg. It's the thing that broke him through. Yeah. And he's, you know, Spielberg's made better films than Jaws, but Jaws is, he don't have Spielberg without Jaws. And I tell that way about Opu. And there's a lot of things he does in Opu that you, you see, but like the hero. So different. So different. And the maturity in what he was doing. Yeah. This one for me is actually more than the hero. Yeah. So this is your favorite now. This, this after Opu's got that special place and I could never put anything above it. Yeah. Because it's like his great work, like Anya Rock's Gangs of Wasp. You know what I mean? Yeah. But I have so much that I absolutely adore about this movie that it's, it's hard not to make it my big. Yeah. I absolutely loved this film. I think it was a simple complex story. Great way to say it. A simple complex story, but almost perfect in every way. Yeah. In terms of. There's only, I have only one. I'll say this. I only one thing about it. Yeah. Me too. But the fact that like just everything from obviously the direction to the writing to it, it shocked me in terms of it did stuff. I wasn't expecting. Especially for 1963. Yeah. To do characters surprised me in terms of obviously, you know, this is, I, when I started I'm like, okay, we're going to have a bunch of mansplaining misogynistic men. Patriarchal. Patriarchal. Right.  And then obviously something you thought were going to be great and then turned out to be a different way. And obviously her story and her strength, I thought was absolutely incredible. So it hats off to such a ride. I know this was based on a short story, but obviously he, he fleshed it out even more and did a great job and kind of captivating you for two hours, 15 minutes in a black and white film from 1963. That's still relevant today for a lot of people. It absolutely is. It absolutely is. It's relevant. And this is one of the things I love about his films. And most of the films that we've seen that are Bengali or even in the Malayalam films that we've seen of recent date that we've just raved about are the full immersion into the culture where you may miss some nuances. If you're not familiar with the culture, but the predominant aspect of it is the human condition and universal truths. Yeah. And I, there's so much to talk about when it comes to the story, the script. I have a very neat perspective in this because there's no culture in India that I'm more familiar with than Bengali because of Indrani. Yeah. So there's such a special connection I have where I can get some of the things that aren't even inside jokes. They're just endearing things.  Or when the little boy has, when the daddy comes back and he asked for his daddy's bus tickets, I saw it in Indrani's face on through the phone, something she recognized that I recognized something was going on there. And she said, I used to do that with my daddy all the time. He'd bus to work and whenever he got home, I wanted to see his tickets. Why? It was just this neat thing like the adventure that he went on. It's a touch on where dad had gone. That's cool. That's cool. So those little aspects and hearing the horns honking because I'm always hearing that in the background on the phone with her. I have that little slice of it that adds a level of endearment. But other than that, you don't need that for this. The thing I'm most astonished by and I'm astonished by a lot, that a film in 1963, a Bengali film makes a woman the anchor and the hero of your story. Hollywood is still fighting for women to have roles like that. Yeah. And here he's like, not just making a woman the star, but the issues that pertain to the woman and the difference. We can go on and on about progressive versus conservatism. Incredible. Let's talk about her. I thought she did a fantastic job and as well as such a rise writing of her. Yes. It was a great scene when, you know, he was kind of weary of her because, you know, he found her lipstick. Right.  He was like, what is she really doing? Yeah. Is she one of those people? And then he heard this whole conversation and she was making up stuff about her husband to make sure his pride wasn't hurt by what happened to him. And his image. Even though he wasn't there. Right. And he gets to overhear it. Yeah. He literally, he would have never known about this conversation obviously unless he was there, like he was, but like she didn't know he was there. She didn't have to do any of that. And she did it because she loves him. Yeah. And she knew, even if she disagrees with a lot of the patriarchal aspects that he got from his dad, which I love the complexity of her husband. Her husband or the dad? The complexity of the husband. The dad wasn't complex. He was, he was pretty straightforward. But he didn't surprise me though when he did come back and he was like, cause I wasn't expecting that yet. No, I wasn't. I was not expecting that yet. No. And there were several times where I laughed. He was saying things. And I said to Androni what funny one.  Because he really represented and it's still around. Yeah. He represented the mindset. It's always the older generation. It is. There's something that happens in people. There's a physical thing that happens and it is allegory allegorical to what actually is happening to them and just life where they become rigid. They become less flexible. They become set. And I understand when people have had a hard life and things don't go their way is they can become pessimistic and it creates a deep friction, especially when family is so important in India. But I love not only that moment, but we'll jump around from the acting and the writing and the cinematography. Two of my favorite moments in the cinematography, one of them was in this. And it was that moment where the camera goes from her talking and what we got was this weird split screen reflection of her talking and her husband listening to it.  I don't need to be concerned.  Exactly.  Thank you. And it still bothered me because obviously at the beginning she said something. She was like, you get upset when your chai isn't ready when you get home. Right. And that stuck with him. And I'm like, that's your character right there. And so I'm still not fully sold.  But that whole thing where I thought he was just going to be this guy. Right. And then he grudgingly at times kind of grew into a better person. He had a struggle. Yeah, he was definitely the man that doesn't like if his wife makes more than him. Right. Doesn't like it. Very fragile ego. Yeah. And so a bunch of that patriarchal stuff that's still in society today, that one's never made any sense to me. The one like women making more than men if looks really. Well, it stems from this ages long expectation of the roles people play.  And one of my second favorite thing he did cinematography wise. I can tell you my shot. It might be the same shot. It's with him. The husband. Yeah. It is. By the bed? Yes. With the cigarette? Yes. That is pretty. Well, it was one of the most pretty black in my shots I've ever seen. And it was brilliant because in the moment he did it, I said that the shot came up. And I said to Androni, I said, oh my goodness. Yeah, that was just a gorgeous shot. I said, first of all, it's gorgeous. But look at what he's doing. He's showing you the two sides of this husband right now. The shadow represents the legalistic, patriarchal, rigid part of him. And then the other fluid part of him is the progressive, modern, the real guy in there that's really fighting against kind of the Jekyll and Hyde. Yeah. And that's one of my favorite things about Satya Jirai is he understands that cinema is first and foremost a visual format. Yeah. And as a director's medium, you have the power to say more with an image that you show you don't tell. Yeah. He absolutely name all the directors that have been breakthrough genius Mavericks, Charlie Chaplin, and then go to Cecil V. DeMille and then go to Alfred Hitchcock. And the list goes on. He is absolutely in that list of names. Oh, 100%. 100%. Yeah, he's absolutely brilliant. Everything he's done that we've seen is incredible, especially for the time that it comes out that he's pushing boundaries not only with story, but with the way he tells. And it tells not something I've noticed. He tells very progressive stories, but in what, 1960s? Yeah. Like a time that people weren't telling these style of stories or these messages that they were trying to get across. Right. What I've learned is very interesting is he's very much a product of Bengal. Mm-hmm. Because the focus on being educated, the focus, I mean, it's kind of stereotypical. Books, glasses, and cigarettes, that's like the stereotypical Bengali man. Be really, really educated and you smoke and you got glasses and it conveys the level of education you have. And being extremely progressive and on the edge of the evolution of the human being in culture, in art, in literature. Yeah. And he's very much a product of that, but he's also a product of the fact that he very early on in his life was so in love with international cinema and the world. He thought internationally. Yeah. And it shows. Now, the Jaya. Yeah. She showed great promise at that age, man. She did a great job. Yeah, she did a fantastic job, even though she was in it for very little. I think we saw her first in Sholay. That's where we've at first seen her. I didn't even realize it was her until we're watching it. And then Gerani said, you know that's Mrs. Bachchan. Yeah. Oh my goodness, it is. I wouldn't have picked up if I didn't at the end look up IMDb. And I was like, oh, that was Jaya Bachchan. Cool. Yeah, I thought she did great. Anil, I thought did a super fantastic job of showing the complexities. Yeah. While showing one side of the patriarchal egotistical asshole man. Fully believed the family was a family. Yeah. And then also showing his loving, supporting side and his growth. I thought it was a great ending scene. The end. Where they came together after, which I'll talk about the boss, which I thought was a great character. It really could have been a throwaway. Yeah. But it was an important part of the story. Very important because, one, it showed that this character who you thought was going to be this great, nice character that was going to kind of come help in and help the family turned out to be basically, he was a racist. Right? About an Anglo-Indian who is what they call her, right? Right, but didn't play him. No, didn't play him like that. Which is amazing for that day and age that he wasn't, he was a very compassionate, kind person who actually had a very prejudicial side to him.  But it kept getting dark too. It did. It did. It did. And when she leaves, you see the sense of regret he feels of what just happened. Yeah. He didn't want to lose her. No. And then that last, I can't say enough about the last scene because here's the husband, right?  Come to her side, rally with her. Don't say, don't you realize what you've done? What kind of pressure was on the family now? And when he finally says what he says, it was number one, it was believable the way it was written and done. And then I love when he says, aren't you scared? And she says, feel my hand. I out loud, I went, oh, that's beautiful. Yeah, I loved the ending. I thought it was great. It was complex. It was also a beautiful shot there at the end that he gave of the big city, the light in the middle of it. I thought that was great. I didn't love the Anglo-Indian girl. That was my only, that's the one thing I don't like about the film. He's a white girl, technically. What is it? What is it? I don't know. What is it? She wasn't garbage. Right, exactly. But she wasn't at the level of everyone else. That's exactly what it was. And so she was fine. But the others were great. Yeah, that was my biggest gripe with it. But that was the first time at this time that we had seen I think a white person really? Yeah. From the classics that we've seen? Yeah. Really? And I'm assuming she was, she was born in India, right? But she was like left over, like because of the British that came over. Her family's here now and that's where she lives. Yeah, and Johnny told me it was very common when the British were here, and especially, she's specifically referring to Bengal, that a British soldier or a British man that was there would marry a Bengali girl. And their child would be Anglo-Indian. Yeah. Yeah. But I thought, even though I didn't love her performance, I thought I loved the idea of adding that part and that style of racism from an Indian into the story. Me too. Because it touched on something that, you know, we haven't really seen in film, even now, about the white people that live there and what the relationship is to some of the people there. Correct. And that obviously most people like her, accepting and loving and treating her just like another person, but this other guy just has prejudice just because they were left over from the British. Yeah. And so it shows a really complex side and then shows obviously this housewife who is not used to the big city showing all this new stuff. I love the scene where she found that lipstick, but then also when she found the sunglasses, she got the sunglasses. She looked great in the sunglasses. She did. She was very fashionable. Exploring all this new stuff. Yeah. And they handled everything.  Handled everything so well. Like when she threw out the lipstick, she was like, do whatever you want. Just don't misunderstand what I'm doing. Exactly. And I was like, that's, that was great. It wasn't a big fight. It wasn't anything. She was just like, you know that's not, you know that's not me. You know, there were, what went through my mind, they're very, very different films, but there's one similarity that kept, that her performance and this film reminded me of. And it was, I felt there was in this character and in her performance, there was a similar strength, commitment to core values and morality, commitment to do what needs to be done and not be controlled by patriarchy and everything else. I kept being reminded of Mother India. Yeah. I can see that. Absolutely. That sense of the strong woman with incredible, and she was always so optimistic. I fully believed their relationship. I love the tenderness she expressed to her husband when she was talking to him when they were in bed. She's just smelling his neck and kissing his shoulder. I fully believe that these two were a couple and though I didn't empathize with the patriarchal side he got from his dad, I did empathize with the struggle that a man would have who's torn. Especially at that time. At that time. Yeah. And love that he cited. It's just that last shot of him walking side by side with his wife and him fully embracing basically what the film basically says is embrace modernity. Yeah. Embrace the evolution of humanity and where we're going as a society and ends with an optimistic note that the old ways are going to slowly fade and the new is going to survive. Also I want to talk about the score even though it was a very simplistic score I thought it was nice and it added to the simplicity of the film. Yes. The simple complex story of the film. Yes. It wasn't overpowering. It wasn't anything that was like over the top but it just added a nice whenever it was there because a lot of times it wasn't. It added and I thought he did a great job with it. That's one of my favorite things about Satya Durai. I was saying this to Andrani in the car. He's about the film and I said he knows how to let a movie breathe. Yeah. He does what Michael Jackson referred to in concerts as let it sizzle. So if you watch Michael in rehearsal for some things the band would try to go into something and he'd stop and he'd say no, no, no. We've got to let that sit. Let it sizzle. Don't end it. It doesn't need to end right there and he loves to just let a moment like when she first puts the lipstick on and she's looking in the mirror he's fine with just letting it sit there for 30 seconds while she's looking at herself and just let it be with no score and even in the dialogue no one's talking rapid fire. It's just very natural. Somebody says something they may take a minute to think about it and respond because he lets life breathe in these moments and he doesn't feel the need to entertain anybody. He just feels the need to be believable and real. That's just great filmmaking. Yeah, I totally agree. Well, what should be our next Satya Durai? We're going to watch a movie. We've only got one left. He's like Quentin Tarantino. He has a bunch that we will get to. There's so many that we haven't got to yet because every single time we do one there's always a bunch of recommendations of the next one. And Madhabi Mukherjee. Yes, Madhabi Mukherjee. I love her acting. Because I know one that a lot of people love and that's always on his list of his best is the music room. I hear a lot about that one. I hear it's really good. I heard one. I don't know the name of it. He has almost like a thriller. I think it would be really interesting to see a Satya Durai thriller. So I want to know what you think the next Satya Durai film is. It's Durai, right? Or am I saying it? It's funny. I know there's two ways. When people pronounce his name the proper way, like Indrani will say Satya Durai. But when they just say his last name they'll say Ray. Oh, really? Yeah, a Ray film. And then if you pronounce the whole name it's Satya Durai. It's very interesting. Interesting. Let us know what the next Satya Durai film should be down below.


Do you ever feel like work is bullshit? I am overwhelmed, underappreciated and overworked. We are repeatedly promised new and better ways of working, but still forced to swallow the same bleak reality day in and day out. If anything, things are getting worse. We've been sold flexible working, co-working, portfolio careers, work-life balance, algorithmic management, freelancing, permalancing, hot-desking, reverse finance internships, job perks, office yoga and all these other coping mechanisms in the desperate pursuit of self-direction and fulfilment.  All that and the feeling of powerlessness, hopelessness as we continue to sell our labour to make money for shareholders and bosses.  But does it have to be this way? Could worker co-ops fix our broken economy? Well, maybe. There are over 440 businesses in the UK that are owned and collectively controlled by the people who work there and run for their benefit. Worker co-ops are organised democratically, so there is no boss. Workers who are also company directors get equal say in how the businesses run, how much everyone gets paid and what happens to the profits. From magazine co-ops like New Internationalist, where I'm one of the co-editors, to baker's co-ops, ceramic artists, tech startups, filmmakers, cafes, basically any workplace can be a co-operative. Worker co-ops go against the grain in a world where jobs are often focused on competition and individual success and where workplace hierarchies are institutionalised. But do they work? So research shows that working in a co-op often gives people a very strong sense of solidarity, of care, of mutual support. A dominant neoliberal culture tends to suggest that one person's success needs to depend on somebody else's failure. Co-ops give an opportunity to reject that logic and instead for people to support one another and to thrive together. At the same time we do still find patterns of overwork, work stress and low pay within the co-operative economy. Co-ops alone certainly are not enough to eradicate precarious working conditions, they can however be a practical form of resistance against individualism, against competitiveness. Humans have always survived through co-operation, by collectivising our resources and sharing any surplus. Co-operatives, as we know them today, can be traced back to the industrial revolution. In 1844 the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, a group of artisans in Greater Manchester, opened their own shop to cut out the middleman and provide more affordable food. Modern co-ops today are still guided by the principles the Rochdale pioneers developed. Most importantly, co-operatives go further than giving workers a stake in the companies they work for. The workers own the whole thing, they are not just given a share of the profits, the profits are theirs to distribute how they want. While work without bosses sounds attractive, it's still work and being part of a worker cop can be a tough gig. Making decisions collectively can be difficult and time consuming and involve many, many meetings. And those decisions are important because there are no managers with fat salaries to blame if things go wrong.  The overall turnover of the UK's co-operative sector is up to £37.7 billion, but there are some co-operatives that are barely scraping by. Surviving under capitalism, while sticking to your politics, can sometimes feel impossible. So why do worker co-operatives even bother? As a freelancer, you often have to take jobs that pay rent rather than jobs that you find meaningful.  We decided to be a workers' co-operative because we didn't want to recreate the same exploitative structures and instead wanted to create an alternative that provided us with secure, fulfilling jobs in a collaborative environment. So my colleagues and I are in a survey among culture sector co-operatives in the UK, Canada and the US, where workers reported that among the biggest challenges faced by the co-operatives are consistent cash flow, rapidly changing markets and access to affordable office space. But over 90% of participants reported that they were either somewhat or extremely satisfied with their working conditions. They said that among the biggest benefits of working in a co-op are supportive work relationships, a friendly work environment, opportunities for creative self-expression and the work culture that encourages teamwork and cooperation. The co-operative model is resilient. Almost three out of four co-operative start-ups are still going strong after their first five years of existence, compared to just 4% of conventional companies. But the importance of co-ops goes beyond their ability to provide secure and ethical jobs. Our economic system is structured around some people's contributions being considered of higher value than others. At their most radical, co-ops can be at all in bringing about social change, skill development and empowerment. If we can organise our own workplaces differently, we can change other things too. For example, in Mississippi, a group called Cooperation Jackson is using co-operatives to start building an economy based on solidarity, focusing on the needs of the black and Latino working class in their community. Ultimately, they want to replace the current socioeconomic system of exploitation, exclusion and the destruction of the environment with a democratic alternative. Many of us spend more than half of our waking lives at work. Why should the profit generated by our labour be distributed outside of our control to shareholders and senior managers? Why should they get to call all the shots? It's our lives we're working away. Maybe it's time we started taking them back.


A federal High Court sitting in Potacot has struck out suit by the People's Democratic Party challenging the eligibility of Accord, its governorship candidate, and running mate to contest the 2023 general elections in River State for lack of jurisdiction. Preciting George Justice Stephen Day-Law Parm in a separate suit also struck out PDP suit against all the National Assembly candidates of Accord for lack of jurisdiction. Justice Day-Law Parm in his judgement did not bother to go into the merit of the matter but based his judgement on the recent decision of the Appeal Court in Lagos and River State which reviewed that no court has jurisdiction to hear a case filed by another political party on a bordering on internal party affairs. Speaking to newsmen outside the courtroom, Benjamin Omeji and Joy Nune who were presented Accord, the governorship candidate, its running mate and National Assembly candidate said the judgement is victory to Accord and democracy. The court has upheld the PO preliminary objection filed by us. We are saying that the court has no jurisdiction to entertain this matter. We raised several grounds upon that. The matter was filed out of time. It is an inter-party affair which no party, nobody has the right to inter meddle with. And the court has based its judgement on the division of Court of Appeal Lagos division which recently came out and was submitted to the judge in this matter that nobody has the right to question the internal activities of Accord A. And it was based on that that the court gave his decision. We have seen that Duma Lulu Bricks and other candidates of the Accord party are very qualified to contest this election and they are now ready to go out fully to campaign. So it's obvious that the Accord party was ready for the elections and we thank the judge for making justice real. On his part, the Accord governorship candidate Duma Lulu Bricks expressed happiness that justice was not denied at last, saying that Accord has put a stop to every interference of PDP into another political party. Justice was not denied. The Court of Appeal in Lagos and also the Court of Appeal here in Podaco that ruled that this meddlesomeness of the PDP must stop. This is an internal affairs of another political party. Nobody in that party is questioning the primaries or how the candidates emerged. So today, at least justice is up and it is in this same manner that next year, March, rivers will deliver judgments in my favor.


Thank you all for joining us today. They are CCTV. This is Ali Jiang, the secretary of the Vermont New American Advisory Council. I am here today with distinguished guests, such as former, I mean, city councilor, Jean Bergman of war two, and Sarah Montgomery, deputy director of the city clerk office, I think, right? But you'll introduce yourself. And just wanted to let you know a little bit about the Vermont New American Advisory Council. It's a coalition of new American leaders that came together in order to increase civic engagement amongst new Americans, increase opportunities for new Americans to strive civically, economically, and culturally in the great state of Vermont. We are made up of new Americans from all walks of life, from Asia, from Africa, and we do great, wonderful work. VNAC is made up of a technical, cultural, and linguistic diverse group of new American leaders who work in many sectors across Vermont, including but not limited to city councils, program managers, health providers, educators, and business owners. We were formed in 2020 during the pandemic, but since then we've been doing great, amazing work. We wanna thank CCTV for hosting us here, and we have a great partnership with this amazing public television for each and every single one of us. As you know, the city of Burlington has new voting procedures, and that is, that's what we are going to discuss here today. Non-citizen voting, what does it mean, what are the differences, right? And also rank choice voting. But these great people here, and let's allow us, allow them to introduce themselves, and let's go first with Sarah Montgomery from the city of Burlington. Thank you, and thank you for inviting us to join tonight. My name is Sarah Montgomery. I'm the assistant city clerk for the city of Burlington. I've been in this role for about two years, and my primary focus in that role is election administration. Sarah, wonderful. And I am Gene Bergman. I'm the Ward II city councilor. I actually worked with Sarah over the last few years as a city councilor, and I have found her to be just great to work with. So it's been a pleasure to work with both of you. And I was on the Charter Change Committee that brought forward both the legal resident voting and the rank choice. So very happy that we're moving forward on this. Excellent, wonderful, wonderful. Thank you all so much for the introduction. So we now have a level of experience for city council and also Sarah to tell us a little bit about these new voting procedures. Okay, so now let's start with rank choice voting. What is rank choice voting? Sure, okay. So quite simply, it's sort of like you're choosing which candidates you like in which order. You get one vote and your top candidate it only really works with three candidates because otherwise you're voting for one of two candidates and your first choice is your first choice and if the second choice wins then it's all done. But if there are three candidates or four candidates or five candidates and sometimes in Burlington we actually have that many then you get to say I would like to this person to be my number one, but if that person does not get more votes than the other say two then I get to choose who would be the next person that I would like in line. And so the thing which is different, we actually have had this for a few years in city council races. This year it's different because we have a mayoral election that it applies to and apparently there are three candidates for mayor so you get to pick your first and if that one doesn't come in the top two then you get to pick your second choice and then there'll be a comparison between those other two. So the beauty of this is that you're not wasting your vote. You can vote for somebody even if they don't necessarily have a perfect shot or even a good shot because you think they really represent you and you can vote your heart and you can vote your head and you can vote both of those on the flip side with your second choice. And as long as if somebody gets to 50% then it's all over. So that's the way that that works. Okay. Cera do you have something to add with the definition that you just heard from Councillor Bergman? No I think that was really thorough. Thank you Councillor Bergman. And then now what if for example we have three candidates I am a voter but I'm not interested in ranking any of them can I choose to just cast my vote for the one candidate and will my vote be counted? Yes absolutely. You just put a one there or you put your check there and it is going to be it'll be counted and if that person in the say a three way race is one of the top two and then but nobody gets 50% then they'll re rank and it'll continue to vote. Before this you could win in the mayor's seat I think actually in all of the elections with just 40% of the vote. So what we've done with ranked choice voting is say you got to get 50% plus one person. You got to get more than half of the people to say they want you to be their representative. Okay wonderful. I'll come back to you for more question but now let's talk about the tabulation of the votes. Now it's no longer just the machine to tabulate all what has been the experience with you and your work with the city and it seemed that we tried it already with the city council. How has been the experience for you and the staff that you work with? So we have had two elections so far where we've used ranked choice voting in both of the elections. All of the races landed on a 50% majority for the candidate in the first round so we didn't actually need to go to rank choice tabulation for either of those races. We did test it out and it worked smoothly but in order for the rank choice tabulation to actually go into an effect we need to have a race where that 50% majority isn't met immediately. As far as practicality it's just another round of tabulation going through our software on election night so it just takes a few extra minutes to get those ranked choice vote results. So basically if I understand it correctly if we count the votes and none of the candidates have 50% then will we ask people to come back and vote again or how does it work in order to make the decision that we have a winner? Yeah, people don't need to vote again or make any additional marks. We have all of the data from their ballots on the memory cards from the tabulators so we're just taking that data and running it through another round where the software does the calculation to get that winner. Excellent, wonderful. So basically not too much work for you it's just the same thing. Exactly. Exactly, wonderful. And now why did the city of Burlington, Councillor Bergman, choose to basically change the voting system? What are the benefits for the voters and for the city? One benefit is that the person who's elected gets 50% of the vote. The current mayor, when you know well, did not win in either of his last two elections with 50% of the vote. That puts a cloud in a lot of ways. We can deal with that but it really is better when somebody has a majority of the people behind them. The second reason is because, and I said this before, you get to vote the way you really want to. Nobody is telling you that your vote is wasted. You get to say, I like this person and I wanna vote for them and I'm gonna vote for them knowing full well that if they don't have the greatest chance that if you do your second choice and that second choice lands ahead of yours that they're gonna be counted to. That really means that the more extreme campaigning somebody has to really think about whether they're going to alienate people. It doesn't mean that it won't happen and it doesn't also mean that people will not speak their truths but it does mean that a person who is running for office has to consider whether they're gonna say things to be very incendiary, likely to mean that nobody who doesn't love them is gonna vote for them. So it means that the debate has a real chance of being more productive, being more civil but there's no guarantee on that and there shouldn't be. People will and do say what they want to say. Okay, wonderful. Seda, let's switch back to you and then ask you basically when is a deadline for actually candidates to file to be on the ballot? January 29th, so this coming Monday at five o'clock p.m. At five o'clock p.m. And what do you need to do in order to be on the ballot? So you need to submit petition signatures from registered voters within Burlington for mayors. That's mayoral candidates. That's 150 signatures for candidates for city councilors or any other offices. That's 30 signatures. They also need to submit a consent of candidate form and if they're running under one of the major parties an endorsement from that party. Okay, wonderful. And I think for city councilors there have to be 30. 30, right. Less registered voters in the ward for you to do that. Wonderful, that's great. So you mentioned a little bit about the candidate, basically the party endorse candidate and we know that in Burlington couple weeks ago there was a caucuses, the Democrat hard one, the progressive hard one. Do you think we can legally request for these caucuses to include now rank choice voting? Can we do that or is this at the discretion of the parties to make that decision? I would think it's the discussion of the parties themselves but that is a good question. That would be a discussion we'd have to have with our attorneys too. Yeah, you keep calling me former and I think that's because I was a former city attorney but I actually was the attorney for the city on elections and it's my understanding and I'm not speaking as an acting attorney right now. But my understanding is that state law governs that, it's the parties that organize themselves in terms of their nominating process. So if we were to want to do that as a city we would have to change our charter which is a special state law to allow that to happen. Okay, wonderful. All right, so everyone for the listeners you heard it that rank choice voting in the now a new way of voting in the city of Burlington you have more than one choice, more than two you have many choices in order for you to pick who's the first, who's the second and who's the third, right? And also the 29 at 5 p.m. is when candidates need to file secure signatures in order to be on the ballot. We still have some times, okay. Also wanted to remind the viewers that you can call anytime here at CCTV to ask a question to our distinguished guests and the number is<PHONE_NUMBER>. 862-3966. Now let's move to non-citizen voting. Let's start with you and please Sarah tell us a little bit what is non-citizen voting? So non-citizen voting also known as all legal resident voting in Burlington allows Burlington's residents who do not have US citizenship to vote in local elections. So this includes all city and school elections and all offices within Burlington as well. Okay, wonderful. And for rank choice voting do we also include school board members? So basically everyone on the ballot will need to be ranked. It can be ranked. Can be ranked. Okay, excellent. And non-citizen voting, would you like to add anything about the definition? For me, and I hearken back to the great emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, that it is really a way that we can have government of the people by the people and for the people. So that if you are legally in this country, you haven't and you live in the city of Burlington, you have an interest in the way that the schools are run. You might have kids and many have kids in the school. So the school board and the budget, it's essential that I think it's essential that people have a say and that really happens when you've got a vote. The same thing is true of the streets and sidewalks. We're here on a street where we've just put in bike lanes and there's needs for new ways of getting around. And so people have a real interest in what we do and how we're going to support people getting around. Buses and bikes and alternative ways of doing that in cars and fixing the streets. So I think it is great that the mayor would be responsible to all the people who are really living here legally and that means voters and them having the chance to vote. And whenever we talk about living here legally, I can have a visa from my country of origin to work or to go to school here. Does this law apply to me? Or is it you have to have a green card? You have to be a green card holder in order to participate. I'll leave that to the administrator. It is anybody who's legally residing here. So there's no specific parameters about how they're residing here as long as they are considering themselves residents of Burlington. So if I just moved to this beautiful city and it's just been six months ago, I may not even have a better understanding of the culture, but I still can register and vote. Now, how do people register in order to vote since you are not a citizen? Our registration process for our non-citizen voters is pretty close to the one for our citizen voters. There's a separate form that they will need to fill out and it can be returned to City Hall either in person or somebody else can drop it off for them. They can also return it via email if that's easier for folks or by mail. And they can also register to vote on election day. And this is not to send it to the federal government or the state of Vermont, but to the municipality in which you reside where non-citizen is allowed. Exactly, they would send it straight to us at the city clerk's office. Yes, and now, again, another question is basically the list. These are the list of the citizen, these are the list of the non-citizen. Would they put their ballots in the same exact voter tabulation machine? Yeah, there will be two separate checklists, one for our citizen voters and one for our non-citizen voters, although the check-in process on election day will be the same for everybody. Our election workers will have that distinguished within their checklists. Once the voter is issued a ballot, then the process is the same for our citizens and non-citizen voters. They'll be using the same ballots and depositing them into the same tabulators. Wow, amazing. And you said also that people can register and vote on the same spot the same day. And now what type of proof they need to bring in order for the worker, poor workers to know that he's legally here or she's legally here? Again, it's a similar process for a Vermont voter registration process. So we are asking our non-citizen voters to write their Vermont ID number down on their voter registration form. If they don't have a Vermont ID number, they can also bring an alternate form of identity to present that can include a current invalid photo ID, a utility bill, a bank statement, or a government letter with their name and address on it. Okay, wonderful.  Well, you know, sort of like the ranked choice where you getting 50% is important. Being able to say that you represent all of the people that live here and that they matter and they have a chance to influence the way that their elected officials will be and also who they are, that's really important, I think, for the integrity of the city, of the government, of the process. So, you know, we've got a housing project by BHA, Burlington Housing Authority, right around the corner. Many new Americans are living there and they have a real interest in how those sidewalks function, how the street and the bus stop and all of the stuff that their daily lives go, that are something that I as an elected official and you as an elected official and all sorts of folks have to deal with. So, it's important that for, it's important for elected officials to know that people there, if they're angry with you, if you're not meeting their needs, they can vote you out. You can't just ignore them because them people aren't citizens and it's important for them to know that they can do that. And I think that when people have and use the power of the power that is given them, their democratic rights, that we become much, much stronger as a community. It just brings us together in a much more way and when people are alienated and they're in their little subgroups and what have you, they're little enclaves, then it becomes so much harder to solve any of the problems that we've got. So, I think it's wonderful and I'm, yeah. Wonderful and maybe both of you, can you please remind us how this became a law? How both of these voting procedures became a law? Did the citizen of Burlington had a say to say, yes, allow it to do it or no? Any of you? So, Sarah, what was that vote that we had the vote last year and we can talk about that, but the voters by what percentage? So, for all legal resident voting it was 68% support. 68% of the voters of Burlington allowed it to become a law. Yes, so we had to change our charter, the state law, and we did that after Montpelier and after Winooski did it, both of those had court challenges that the Vermont Supreme Court said, not a problem here. Go ahead and do that. So, we haven't been sued yet as far as I know. And so, we voted by over two thirds of the people and then the legislature gets it, they've got to approve all of our charter changes. The governor did veto, the governor, Governor Scott like he did with the other two, I believe, vetoed our charter change that the legislature passed and in order for it to overcome a veto, you have to have a super, super majority of the legislature and they did, we did. And I just want to thank the person who led the passage of all of our charter changes, Representative Malavane Estanik, I just want to give a shout out to the leadership that she showed in Montpelier on that. But we were able to prevail and it's the law and now Sarah is the lucky duck to implement it. Wonderful. And, you know, this is relatively new, the non-citizen and it did not happen yet to the previous elections where rank choice voting were already tried, right? This will be for the first time. And is Burlington the first city in the state of Vermont who allowed non-citizens to vote? Are there others and what has been the experience for them? We're actually the third with both Wendyski and Montpelier implemented this before us and they've had elections where they had their non-citizen voters eligible to vote already. So we've been in conversations with them and been able to learn from them through the process, starting with the charter change and moving forward into implementation as well. Amazing. Okay, you talked about we have not been sued yet. Have those municipalities been sued and what was the outcome? They have been sued and those lawsuits were, the cities were supported by the courts. The courts said that these are legal, these are constitutional and you can go ahead and do this for local elections. And we're very happy. I think that that was the right decision. Okay, wonderful. So as you all heard now, non-citizen, if you are legally here in the state of Vermont, in the city of Burlington you can now legally vote and you can register on the spot by bringing some level of proof and then be able to vote on the spot. This is just amazing. So more people would have a say around city affairs but the school district, the city council and the mayor. This is just very good. Now let's talk a little bit about what you have heard specifically from the other communities that already implemented it, like in details, like how to manage, easy to manage, what are they saying? There's a little bit of extra administrative work around this one, especially since we're not able to enter our non-citizen voters into our Vermont state-wide voter registration system. So it just has an extra layer of managing that separate checklist. The numbers haven't been huge for resident registered voters in either community. So I think that's made it pretty manageable. So far, we have 23 resident voters registered and the data was estimating that about 5.5% of our population might be non-citizen voters. So I think we have a higher threshold of voters that would be eligible to register in Burlington, then Winooski and Montpelier. So we might hit a higher number there. But I think their experiences were positive so far. Wonderful. Now, I mean, I believe, let's talk about this, this issue. And I still cannot understand how it will work. I voted for the first time as a non-citizen in 2022, let's say. And in 2023, I became now a citizen, right? Now, am I able to vote twice? Because you have a list where my name is as a non-citizen. And also, I am now a citizen and I'm in both lists. How would you make sure that now these two lists are accurate? There is no basically duplication of the same voter if they become citizen. Yeah, so a voter is only eligible to be registered on one of the lists. When we're registering our resident voters, we're checking our statewide voter registration list to make sure they don't exist on that list already. And the same, we would do moving forward for citizen registrations. Okay, wonderful. And now, what's the age of voting? Does it, is it the same, 17, 18 or 19? What's the age? I believe it's the same, 18. 18, okay. So you are 18 years old, even if you are a student, now you can register and vote on the spot. And I believe that you have to be 18 by the election day. So if you are 17 today, but you're going to turn 18 on March 5th, which is town meeting day, our city election day, then you could register and vote because you could actually register on the day of the election and you would be 18 years old. And the same would be true with any city election. But you cannot do that for the state elections or you can't do that for the federal presidential elections. So there is no voting on those for all legal resident voters or we're not citizens. That's great. And now this question is about being able to be on the ballot. I am a non-citizen. I want to run for office. Am I allowed to run for office as a non-citizen? Yes. For mayor, city council. For all city positions. If you are registered to vote. Yes, yes. First you register, then you run. Okay. Wow, this is great. This is exactly what Vinak is about, civic engagement amongst the new Americans that live here. Most of them have lived in different countries, have experienced hardship. They came here and now the city, the queen city is giving them a voice to run for office and also to be able to have your voices heard and respected. At any level that you will look at it, thank you the city of Burlington. Thank you, Jean. Thank you, Emma Mulvaney-Sanek, who you said has done an amazing job behind the scene at the state to make this pass, to override the veto of the governor. And now we are going to test it out and we are going to see how it's gonna happen. Yes, yes. Now, where do people can find more information about both non-citizen voting and also rank-choice voting? We have information about both posted on our website, BurlingtonVT.gov, and we're always happy to take calls from people who need more information at the city clerk's office as well. And what phone number do they need to call? It's<PHONE_NUMBER>. Exactly, so you can see it on the screen, more information, rank-choice voting, city of Burlington legal resident voting, and also at VNAC, we will make sure that we have this information on the website as well. I think that there may also be QR codes that people can use, although I don't see it. Okay, that's great. This is amazing. If there are any good information that I miss to ask that you think is great for the voters, for the citizens to know, and non-citizens to know. I, you didn't miss it. The only other thing is that you can think about it, you can decide, oh, I'm gonna do it, oh, I'm not gonna do it, and you actually have between January 24th today and Tuesday, March 5th to make that decision, you can go to the polls if you can get there before seven o'clock in the night when the polls close, then you can register then. So it's something where people can get the information, but they can also think about it and decide and figure out, if they register early, then they can vote early as well. If you wait, then you have to vote on election day, but say you have to go to the doctor, you're gonna be at the hospital for a while, you gotta go to the doctor, it's gonna be very hard for you to get back. You can register to vote now and then, I think it is gonna be February 14th, Valentine's Day, that ballots will be mailed and you'll be able to mail that and get it mailed to you and you'll be able to mail it back in and vote and have it counted as long as you register to vote. So that's pretty exciting. Yep, yep, this is, it is exciting. Now, the second list of non-citizens that you will be gathering, how would you protect that list in order to make sure that those potential voters are not targeted by federal government or Trump or I don't know. Now, that's a good question. It is public record as is all voter registration information. So there's certain pieces of voters' information that's protected, their date of birth is protected, any contact information is protected, any ID number that they provide is, but the actual names themselves and addresses are public record if somebody requests that information. Wonderful, all right. We know exactly where to find information it was put just right now. We also know that now, Burlingtonians who is 18 years and older without the citizenship status can now vote. We know also how we vote, which is by rank, just voting by ranking your best second or third candidate, right? And I think this is just an amazing thing for the city of Burlington. We wanna thank you both for your time, for your energy. And just if you have last words to say, say it. Thank you, thank you for having us here. Thank you for the work that you do. We don't really make this as good a community as it is and as it can be without folks like you Ali. So thank you. My pleasure, my pleasure. Thank you, Sarah. Yeah, thank you. All right, wonderful. And also we wanna thank also CCTV, Channel 17, for bringing the voices of the people together. And now it's all about town meeting television and it's election time. Make sure that you research very well the candidates. Make sure that you have your IDs ready. Make sure you know where you need to go to vote. And for more information or so, you can just call the city of Burlington. You can call Jean Bergman. You can call Vinak people to ask you the question. Thank you again so much for your time, CCTV. Thank you both of you for being here today. And happy town meeting day, everyone. Thank you all so much.