Welcome to the U.S. Naval War College, the Navy's home of thought. NWC Talks features our world-class experts examining national security matters. We hope you enjoy the conversation. The response to criticism regarding the inadequacy of protection for U.S. troops against the IED threat in Iraq. Then Secretary-Defense Donald Rumsfeld replied that, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want, or wish to have at a later time. Now, that's a remarkable statement. And while much has been written on the importance of strategy, less understood is how strategy affects force planning to produce the army, or indeed the joint force that you want. I'm Jim Cook, a professor of national security affairs, and welcome to NWC Talks. So why is this important? Well, we've taught the logic of force planning here at the Naval War College for many years. And I find it helpful to think of the logic as a methodology for the force planner to answer two basic yet important questions. What capabilities do we need? And how much is enough that addresses the issue of capacity? The strategy helps us answer these questions, but the first step in our methodology is to conduct a thorough assessment of the future security environment. Strategists and military planners conduct assessments to identify challenges, and attend at risk to U.S. national security in the near, mid, and far term. Such challenges include remaining the most powerful actor in an increasingly multipolar world, and the rise of strategic competitors in revisionist states such as China and Russia, and their disruptive impact on the current international order. So-called rogue states, including North Korea and Iran, that seek to develop weapons of mass destruction and carry out malign activities that disrupt regional stability. And non-state actors, such as terror groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda, and transnational criminal organizations including the drug cartels. Advanced technologies and hypersonic weapons and artificial intelligence only add to the complexity and ambiguity while attacks in cyberspace increasingly blur the line between peace and war. Meanwhile, human security challenges include poverty, the lack of employment and education, while increasing urbanization and the lack of corresponding infrastructure to absorb and accommodate the movement of people into cities leads to frustration with governments and ultimately despair. Now examples of these strategic assessments include the National Intelligence Council Global Trends Report, the Director of National Intelligence Worldwide Threat Assessment, and the Joint Staff's Joint Operating Environment Report. Additionally, the Joint Staff conducts an annual joint assessment to solicit both combatant command, the warfighters, and service perspectives and input, while the Joint Military Net Assessment measures the Joint Forces ability to execute the national military strategy. The next step in our force planning methodology involves grand strategy that prioritizes the wide array of security challenges I just described. Grand strategy also provides a long-term vision for the United States and its role within the international system, as well as the overall aim for U.S. policy, essentially telling the government's national security apparatus what it must do to be successful, while also articulating the purpose and integration of all levers of national power, specifically diplomacy, information, military, and economic power. In order to address the security challenges, achieve strategic objectives, and protect and advance U.S. national interests. Our national interests are established by the country's leadership, and they help determine what's really important by describing the nation's fundamental wants or needs. Now some national interests are enduring, such as the security of the state and its people, and economic prosperity, while others are more the product of the individual leader, such as the importance of environmental security, human rights, and democracy. National interests are a critical component of grand strategy because they help determine what a country is willing to fight, die, and pay for. United States grand strategy is represented by the national security strategy that's normally constructed by the national security council at the direction of the national security advisor, and issued under the president's signature as commander in chief. In addition to grand strategy, the force planner has to consider other strategic direction, such as the national defense strategy and the national military strategy that focus on the military instrument of national power. The national defense strategy articulates the vision and priority missions for the Department of Defense as an enterprise, while also providing guidance regarding major investments and capabilities. Although fully acknowledging that America's military has no preordained right to victory on the battlefield, the 2018 national defense strategy includes 11 defense objectives that range from defending the homeland to remaining the preeminent military power in the world by emphasizing lethality and strengthening alliances and partnerships. The national military strategy describes the attributes and design of the joint force and explains how it will be employed to meet the national defense strategy objectives. The national military strategy is also intended to provide top-down guidance for operational level planning by the combatant commands, including war plans. Additional sources of strategic direction include the nuclear posture review to shape nuclear policy and force structure, specifically the utility of maintaining the so-called triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles, strategic bombers, and submarines, as well as the role of these expensive, yet strategically important nuclear weapons delivery systems and warheads for deterrence and other purposes. Now, if the strategy provides the ends or what we need to do, then concepts describe the ways. Specifically, concepts describe how the joint force will accomplish the strategic objectives described in the national defense and military strategies. Concepts are future-oriented and incorporate technology and creative thinking to develop more innovative solutions to the complex security challenges described earlier. The United States Armed Forces has a proven track record of developing joint concepts from the 1982 air-land battle concept that was developed during the Cold War to support a strategy of containment against the Soviet Union in featuring a deep, close, and rear battlefield construct to coordinate air and ground forces to defeat a numerically superior Soviet military force through bold maneuver and an offensive oriented mindset. Synchronized combat power, command and control, and tempo. In addition to contributing to the successful end of the Cold War, I would argue that the air-land battle concept also played a significant role in the liberation of Kuwait under General Norman Schwarzkopf's command during Operation Desert Storm. In 1996, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili published Joint Vision 2010, consistent with President Clinton's national security strategy of engagement and enlargement. The vision emphasized four concepts, dominant maneuver, precision engagement, full-dimensional protection, and focused logistics that are enabled by information superiority in order to achieve what he called full-spectrum dominance against America's adversaries. Now, while ambitious, Joint Vision 2010 looked out over an extended time horizon. And while far from perfect, in retrospect, did a creditable job preparing the Joint Force to confront the challenges of a new millennium and shaping the joint force of today. More recently, the 2012 capstone concept for joint operations introduced a new approach called globally integrated operations intended to quickly combine elements of the Joint Force that are globally postured consistent with national strategy to integrate, fight, and win across geographic boundaries and in multiple domains. The capstone concept was written to support President Obama's strategy that required a rebalance away from the post-911 war on terror conducted against non-state actors, primarily on land, and towards the Asia-Pacific, with a different set of challenges, including a largely maritime environment. This new approach inspired the development of joint operating and supporting concepts that were designed to quickly project military force from bases around the world, to fight through obstacles and into the theater of operations, and win against adversaries with advanced capabilities and contested so-called anti-access area denial environments, where air superiority and sea control advantages that American forces have enjoyed for decades are simply no longer assured. It's easy to see these concepts applied in response to today's crisis in the South China Sea or other global hotspots. Now, these concepts can be used as scenarios and war games to test the effectiveness of the joint force and answer difficult force-planning questions. For example, what's the future of aircraft carriers and man versus unmanned systems in anti-access area denial environments? Concepts also help identify capability options that with further development, analysis, and refinement will ultimately determine and validate required capabilities and produce a better sense of capacity, how much is enough? But while many view the term capabilities through the relatively narrow lens of weapon systems, the Department of Defense and joint staff take a more holistic view that's captured by the acronym DOTMIL-PF. Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership, Personnel, and Facilities. This DOTMIL-PF conceptual framework includes both material and non-material solutions that facilitate and enable the concepts to achieve the strategic objectives and advance US national interests in the future security environment. Once identified, these required capabilities are considered in the defense resource allocation process. And once approved and funded by Congress, never a certain thing in today's political climate, although the logic does provide a powerful argument for advocacy, will result in future forces, or in Rumsfeld's words, the army you want. In conclusion, while certain aspects of this admittedly complex and largely bureaucratic defense resource allocation process have changed over time, and will undoubtedly continue to evolve in the future, the methodology behind the logic of force planning has remained remarkably consistent and resilient. And while Rumsfeld's comments may not reflect favorably on the assessment and strategy leading into the 2003 United States invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration eventually reassessed and recognized the unique counterinsurgency and irregular warfare challenges with the war on terror in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and changed its strategy accordingly. Moreover, the Department of Defense employed this force planning methodology and engaged the defense resource allocation process to create new operating concepts and make the necessary adjustments across the DOTMIL-PF spectrum in order to increase the operational effectiveness of the joint force in these particularly challenging environments. Looking ahead, this methodology will continue to serve the armed forces well. Perhaps now more than ever, in a time of transition, where the return of geopolitics and long-term strategic competition clearly demand a more lethal, agile, and innovative joint force to ensure the protection and advancement of US interests abroad. Thank you for spending a few minutes with me today. I'm Jim Cook, and this has been NWC Talks, The Logic of Force Planning.


Good morning and welcome to the no-spend. It's Sunday, but today I am gonna have a banana. I'm only gonna have one of these for breakfast and I've got my tea going and all that good stuff. I'll have to show you Doyle because he's like doing one of his favorite things in the world.  There you go. He was sitting in the sunbeam, but he's not anymore. Like, only part of his body is in the beam. But he likes to sit there. And then, so this sunbeam is from like one of the little windows upstairs. So then later on in the day, he hangs out in the loft area because it kind of like moves this way. So yeah, it's kind of funny. What are you doing, bud? Hmm? You hanging out with your sunbeam friend? Anyway, so that's what's happening here. Nothing too exciting. Just had to take a picture for my mom. Yes, she's like... I don't know if they're changing insurance. I don't think they're changing insurance. I think they're getting tabs for my dad's car. And they needed the insurance card information or something like a sticker thing of it. So yeah. So I sent her that already this morning, but that's kind of what's happening here. Nothing too incredibly exciting. I have some things I got to do, but yeah, today is gonna be kind of a lazy day and I'm kind of excited about it. I've got some projects I want to finish up and I know I've been saying that for days, but it's true. I have some projects I want to finish up and while I'm doing that, I'm gonna watch some... I've been really enjoying Schitt's Creek. If you guys watch that, I have Netflix. So I've just been putting my laptop up and watching it as I like do stuff. So yeah, but I've been really, really enjoying it. But I think I'm gonna do that for a little while. I'll probably till lunch to just bang some of this stuff out and I will see you guys when it's lunchtime. Well, hello, it is lunchtime. So what I decided to do today was have another tomato because tomatoes are amazing and I have the tomatoes I got yesterday. So I want to like start incorporating tomatoes into the diet, you know what I mean? But I do have one more container left of that hamburger helper. So I'm gonna finish that up as well. Oh, and plus I'm gonna have a Coke. I think, yes, I have a Coke left. So I'm gonna have a Coke as well. Yeah, and I think that's gonna be it for a lunchtime.  It like, I don't know. It just seems to like add a little bit more of like moisture kind of a thing. I don't know, like the noodles can get a little bit dry after a while, but it's the last one. So I'll sprinkle a little bit of this cheese on top. So anyways, that is what I am going to do here. Doyle, right there. He's currently eating. We just got back from our walk. It's actually way past lunchtime. It's like two something. Yeah, it's 2.31 y'all. So I did finish the whole series of Schitt's Creek. Not just a season, all three seasons I'm done with, but I've been watching it for a little while. But yeah, so then I started watching, I watched the first episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, I think is what it's called, or do they just call it Queer Eye now? I don't know. But yeah, it was a good episode. So anyways, I'm just doing that little, doing projects. But yeah, Doyle's deciding now if he wants to go upstairs or not. He's like, I don't know. P.S. When he sits on that little mat, it usually means that he needs to go out to the bathroom. But he doesn't need to go to the bathroom right now. But I didn't have that little like carpet mat thing for a while. And every time he'd run down the stairs, he would like go slide.  So it actually worked out pretty slick. And I've got a really big one in my front entryway, but I don't know, some threshold brand something. I'm sure they still have them. But anyway, enough blabbing. I'm actually really hungry. So I'm gonna get to having my lunch and I will check in with you guys when more exciting things start to happen in my house. Oh, hi. So it's like super late. I guess not, it's like 740. But in my world, that's really late for, you know, edibles and stuff. I'm not like 100% sure on what I want because I'm like, not that hungry.  Yeah, I shouldn't really do that. I need to like set an alarm on my phone or something because yeah, I just get all wrapped up and then it's like, oh wait, whoopsie.  Doyle thinks I need to eat something too. He's been waiting. So, looking in the pantry. I'm just feeling a little uninspired. Ooh, you know what I kind of want are some vegetables. A little veggie plate for myself. I think I might do that. Okay, well I'm gonna make a veggie plate. I will see you guys in just a minute because I will show you what I'm gonna put them up in your plate and do that. So, let me grab this stuff out. I will just see you guys in a few minutes. So here is the dinner situation. I know it looks kind of crazy, but that's kind of what I'm craving right now. And I got all this stuff yesterday and I'm just really hungry. So anyway, well I'm hungry for this because it's like light, you know what I mean? So I got my ranch dressing, carrots, and about a half a cucumber. So that's what I'm gonna have for dinner because I've been craving carrots and cucumbers because they're delicious. And let's be honest guys, I have not been eating the most healthy on this like no spend situation. So I just had to do it. I just had to get some fresh fruits and veggies, you know. What's going on, Doyle? Yeah, anyway, I just got out of the shower too because I don't know what time just keeps getting away from me. And one of my most favorite things to do is to take a shower and then put on like fresh pajamas. But I'm kind of like always wearing pajamas now because I'm always home. But yeah, so that's what's going on. Oh, I'm gonna have some, I'll have a bottle of water too. But it's empty currently, so I gotta fill this bad boy back up. But yeah, I think that's gonna be it for me today. Sorry, these vlogs are getting like a little bit boring because I just don't have anything like fun and interesting to share. Yeah, tomorrow's Monday. I don't really have anything fun going on tomorrow. I might do some like other YouTube related things tomorrow. I'm really not sure yet though. Just kind of depends. I'm waiting for a few emails to come through to see. My brother keeps texting me because we're talking about things. Sorry, I'm like distracted by my brother's texts. I'm just talking about digital things, you know, because he's a digital guy. But anyway, I am craving my food now because I want to eat it now that it's like made. Basically, I put it on a plate and I cut up a cucumber. So it was not that exciting. But I'm gonna let you guys go for now. I thank you guys so much for hanging out. Let's see if Doyle wants to be on camera. Hey Doyle, where you at? Come here, come here. Come here, look. It's a Doyle in his natural habitat on the sofa like a doggo.  But anyways, that's gonna be it. I will see you guys tomorrow for another installment of the no spend. If you like the video, give it a thumbs up. Feel free to subscribe, comment, share it, do all those things those YouTubers tell you to do. And I will see you guys tomorrow. Bye guys. Can I help you? All right, bye.


Welcome to ongoing election coverage from town meeting television. This is one of many forums we are bringing in advance of local elections and town meeting on the first Tuesday in March, March 1st, 2022. Town meeting is traditionally where voters weigh in on local government representation, municipal budgets, school budgets, and local ballot items. All candidates on the ballot are invited to participate in town meeting television election forums. Town meeting television election forums introduce you to community decision makers and connect you with the issues that shape your community. If you're watching this live, we welcome your questions at<PHONE_NUMBER>. And you can watch town meeting television on your Comcast channel 1087, Burlington telecom channel 17 and 217, as well as online at town meeting televisions YouTube page. My name is Elaine Haney and I'm here this evening to go over the FY23 budget for the city of Winooski with Mayor Christine Lott and the interim manager, Wendy Harrison. Thank you for hosting us this evening and thank you to town meeting TV as always. So tonight we are presenting Winooski's proposed municipal budget for FY23, fiscal year 23, which voters will see on their ballot this town meeting day. So I wanna start with what you get for your tax dollars in Winooski. And this table shows a breakdown of how much the average Winooski home paid over the past year for each of our municipal services. Police tends to be the highest expense since we staffed that department 24 seven. These numbers also account for revenue allocated to specific use. So for example, the $6 video Brian Community Center building at the bottom, we offset some of the costs of operating that building with the rent that's collected. So the average bill would have been about $2,600 this past year for the next year FY23. It's going up about $75 a year, which we project to be a 2.89% increase to the tax rate. We are also proposing a 4.5% increase to the water and wastewater utility rates as well, which is about $39 for the average house in Winooski over last year. So I wanted to get those important numbers out there quickly at the outset. For folks who really wanna dig in, you can visit the city website, WinooskiVT.gov slash FY23 for our full budget and I will work through the highlights here. So we like to start by grounding everything in Winooski's community values of being a small and connected city that's welcoming to newcomers. It is a place where we can all participate in the success of our families, our local government and our community. Those values drove a community conversation that created a strategic vision. So we use these sort of these four areas that residents want us to invest in in Winooski to drive our local policies and our municipal budget and decision making. Over the past several years, a lot of effort went into community listening and strategic planning for how to get from that vision to the future that folks wanna see here. We have a number of planning documents that guide these efforts. For example, we have a housing needs assessment and a transportation master plan that prioritize our most needed housing and street improvements. We have an eight year master plan that outlines high level goals across all of this. And so we use this to make sure it's like our guiding light to make sure the decisions are supporting that community vision. Also wanna note that voters supported some really big projects to achieve this vision over the last several years, including the Myers pool rebuild and Main Street revitalization project. So with these commitments in place, we haven't been focusing on big new projects in Winooski, we've really been working to carry out our existing vision and commitments and focus our new efforts on affordability and equity. So a few small highlights of progress over the past year. We've been engaged in a really large collaborative effort with partners to respond to the pandemic and different needs across our community. Our Main Street and downtown projects are moving forward to bring more economic opportunity and housing to the city. We've expanded youth programming and reopened the pool. Very exciting this summer. And we're in the midst of an equity audit to help identify where to prioritize changes and resources in the future. We'll also have our first all resident election this town meeting day where voters supported and the state supported us to allow all residents of Winooski regardless of citizenship status to vote in our local elections. I'm gonna turn it to Wendy now to speak a little bit to our budget goals. Thank you, Mayor. As part of the preparation of the budget, the staff talks to the council and gets overall guidance before the budget is prepared. And that guidance this year was to maintain current staffing and services. So no new big asks or requirements and to keep the tax rate increased below the cost of living adjustment, also known as COLA. Now our largest challenge this year rather than COVID was the CPI. And we still won't know the most relevant CPI for the city until after the budget is presented. So the CPI when we began was at 6% and that is used to determine the increase in salaries and supplies. And when salaries go up, there are benefits that increase at the same rate. We had to pick a number to prepare the budget. And so the number that we chose was 3.4% as a cost of living increase. So we'll have some work to do if the COLA comes in higher than that but we will be able to manage without throughout. The grand list growth, we assumed a 0.08% increase. And that brings without changing anything else that brings $48,760 of new tax revenue. And just for the public's knowledge, a penny raises $50,689. That's a good number to know when you're looking at increases in tax rate. Health insurance is always a challenge. We were fortunate this past year that it will be decreasing 7% for the calendar year of 2022. But because we budget for a fiscal year which overlaps two calendar years, we're projecting a 10% increase for 2023. And we expect health insurance to not go down again. We do have the local option tax which is a relatively new tax. And that was voted by the residents, by the voters of Winooski on themselves. They chose to pay this tax. And that has performed very well and we're budgeting 450,000 which mitigates some of the increase in property taxes. So what is included in this budget proposal? As we said, the council goal was to continue the existing staff size and services. And services have improved over the last few years. And so one of the most important programs that has been initiated recently is the grant funded equity and inclusion efforts and federally funded youth programming. So what those are made up of is the working communities challenge grant and Winooski was one of very few communities to get that grant. And it speaks highly of the city. And then ESSER, those are funds that are through the school district, their federal relief funds from COVID. And the school district has contracted essentially with the city to provide programming for youth who have been impacted by COVID. This next summer we'll be bringing staffing of the pool in-house. The Y is not able to provide that anymore. So that's a change that is coming. The school district chose to continue the school resource officer for another year. So we do have that as part of our police department budget. And then we have regular capital improvements, annual street resurfacing, sidewalk maintenance. And we'll talk about that later on in the presentation. So the specifics on the amounts of items that are increasing in the budget. The city has planned for a number of years to have an annual increase to funding its capital improvement program, which is very important. So that annual 5% increase is in this budget. It's $23,759. There are also incremental increases that have happened over the past few years that are scheduled to continue, which are to fund the Winooski Valley Parks District and town meeting TV, because we want you to be successful. And that is $2,000 of an increase. Something new this year was to share the revenue from the local options taxes with downtown Winooski. And the thought process behind that was because downtown Winooski serves and promotes the businesses. And the local option tax is from the businesses, essentially, that there's a connection there and that they'll be able to do their job better with a portion of this tax revenue. This year, that will be $22,500. And then something that came upon us late in the process was a mandatory assessment for the transit service provided by Green Mountain Transit. And that's a 16% increase. That was more than we have had in the past. Hopefully it won't continue at that level. That was responsible for the largest single increase, which is $35,800. And then the pool services that I spoke of earlier, increased costs to have those as staffers is $25,000. And that's in the budget. And there are offsetting revenues to that expense. Thanks for that breakdown, Wendy. And here is just a sort of a visual aid of our expense and revenue numbers. So these charts are showing how costs break down across the general fund budget. And I wanna reiterate what you were getting at, Wendy, that in large part due to inflation and the consumer price index, expenses are up 6%. So the budget, the expenses have grown 6%, but we're able to increase the tax rate by less than 3% because we've been able to increase non-tax revenue through grants and through local options tax. And here you can see expenses by type, just visually showing how so much of what the city provides is staff. And so salaries, benefits, as those increase, that drives increasing the tax rate. And then finally, we have our utility funds, our water and wastewater rates. So for a number of years, these utility rates were stagnant and did not keep up with operating and capital costs. A few years ago, we put a plan in place to do some rate increases over several years to get those funds back to being balanced so we can keep up with not just operations, but be able to invest in our aging water infrastructure. We had another pipe issue just yesterday over on East Allen Street. We wanna have the resources to be able to avoid those incidents and keep our infrastructure in good shape. So this four and a half percent rate increase is part of that plan. And in 2024 or FY24, we should have these funds balanced and then see smaller increases moving forward because we'll be able to keep up with operations and capital. So here's some of our tax rate history. And I wanna show this to illustrate that I often hear about how high the taxes are in East Allen Street. And on average, our rate increases, over the last eight years you see here, our rate increase has been about 2% a year, which is pretty in line with inflation and cost of living adjustments. That is as costs go up, as cost of living increases, so do the costs that the city is paying for with tax revenue. So that is why there is an increase every year because of the costs to keep doing what we're doing, increases every year. But while some of these spikes have been larger, you see in FY19 and 20, that's when voters supported the pool and Main Street. So there were some higher needs there, but on average, our rate increase has been about 2%. It has been our goal to be at a sustainable level like that and just kind of keeping up with COLA. Unfortunately, this year with that being so high, it does necessitate a larger increase. I also wanna share, Wendy mentioned that a penny raise, that's only about $50,000 in new tax revenue. That's one employee salary. So a one cent raise to our rate doesn't buy a lot. If you compare us to our neighboring communities that are much larger, a one cent increase could get four or five times as much money to pay for services. So whatever we wanna add a new program or new facilities, it just costs us more because there are a few of us contributing to our shared pot of money. This is one reason why we wanna see some amount of steady growth and development in the city is when we increase overall the number of people with households paying into taxes, it spreads the cost out more across us. Not to mention that we have a housing shortage in our area. It's another factor. Mayor Lott, if I could pop in for just to let folks know if you're watching us live, you can call in with questions at<PHONE_NUMBER>. Thank you for that. So this chart here is our top 10 largest taxpayers. Just wanted to share, we found this interesting at our council meeting. Combined, they pay about 48% of the total revenue collected. So enough about just taxes and tax rates, but what is coming up next year? We have a couple of emerging issues that are pretty important. So obviously we're gonna have to continue responding to the pandemic needs there continue to change.  The main street revitalization construction should begin this summer. We are working on a city-wide traffic calming policy and a parking study. I wanna talk a little bit about ARPA and TIF fund planning, some financial acronyms there, and then finally a state mandated city-wide reappraisal. So starting with the fire truck bond vote, you're gonna see an ask on the ballot for voter approval to take on debt up to a little over a million dollars to replace our aging ladder truck. The current truck that the department is using is nearly 25 years old, and it doesn't provide adequate reach to a lot of buildings in the city. We need to replace it anyhow, and this is an opportunity to do a replacement with a more versatile piece of equipment that will better serve the community's needs. So we actually can sell our old ladder truck and one of our engines to help subsidize the purchase of this new truck, and we'll be able to operate with two trucks instead of three. Staffing has been a challenge in fire services, not just in Winooski, but across the region to state. And so this will let us operate safely with a reduced amount of staff as well. There's a two-year backlog on orders for this kind of equipment. And so we would be asking for voter approval for a bond, but we wouldn't take that on right away. This would just allow us to place the order. And then so hopefully in 2024, we could get that new equipment here. And at that time, we would take on the payment and debt. The Main Street Violation Project, we've been talking about this for several years. We are finally almost, we're in like final design and right-of-way acquisitions. And hopefully we are on track to start construction in 2022. Just some designs here to refresh folks' memories about what that project entails. It goes from the bridge north of the rotary, from the top of the bridge, all the way to the town line at Colchester, adding in a bike lane on the uphill side, moving some of the parking around, putting in a tree belt and making some really great improvements to that important corridor in our city. We have initially voters approved a $23 million bond for this project. Costs are down to 21 million and we've received 4.7 million in grants to further reduce the burden to taxpayers. Wendy mentioned our annual street resurfacing earlier. This map shows our five-year plan. We do have some degraded street conditions in Lewinowski and this is the current schedule for how we hope to get caught up there. So you can see this summer, we plan to do work over around Florida, Gale, the east side of I-89. And then you can see in 2023, we plan to do some streets over here and then the next following years through 2026. And we also have some sidewalk plans. We are in this budget planning to add a sidewalk on Manso Street and that street currently has no sidewalk and it is a goal to have at least one sidewalk on every street in the city. So ARPA and TIFF, financial decisions coming up for 2024, it's gonna be a big year. So we have been awarded $2.2 million in COVID relief funding from the American Rescue Plan Act. We're working to launch some community listening sessions over the next several weeks and then a survey in March to learn how residents have been impacted by the pandemic and what gaps you hope we could address with these funds. It is kind of one-time money that we hope we can use to spur long-term improvements in addition to just addressing immediate concerns that COVID have caused. So that money has to be kind of allocated by 2024. In 2024, we also expect to pay off the debt that was used to revitalize our downtown for. So 20 years ago, voters supported taking on substantial debt to invest in our downtown with the hope that growth in the downtown would generate new tax revenue to mitigate increasing costs and help with our financial sustainability. When we pay that, sorry. So the tax revenue we've been collecting from the downtown for the past 20 years has been going to pay off that debt. When we finally pay off that debt in 2024, that revenue will start coming into our general fund. And so we also wanna have some community conversation about what long-term financial sustainability looks like so we can direct that money into having long-term sustainability here in the new state. So at the same time in 2024, we also have some staff positions that are being funded through temporary dollars, the working communities challenge grant, the ESSER funding coming through the school district, as well as some allocation from the TIP district. And so here is a picture of the complete city staffing and I've highlighted the positions that have limited funding. So when we think about long-term financial planning and use of new revenue, we also need to be thinking about the value of these positions and how we might sustain them moving forward. Last, our state mandated reappraisal. Just want to let folks know we have our local assessor contracted to do this work for us. It should begin this summer. So we're using someone local. New assessments would be logged in 2024 and there will be more information shared out as we get closer to beginning this process. But I just want to make it clear that a reappraisal does not equal an increase to your tax bill. So when you vote at town meeting day, you vote for a budget, a total amount of money, and that gets distributed across everyone's tax bills. So the amount of money we're collecting doesn't change. If your home value goes up relative to the average home in Winooski, your share could be higher, your bill could go up. If your home value goes down compared to the average in Winooski, your bill could go down. And if you have an average home, you will not see any change. So just want to like allay some fears there. We are not expecting to have massive changes in what's, you should not be expecting to see something like what happened in Burlington is what I'm sort of getting at. We're using a local assessor. We will have, you'll have access. You'll be able to talk to us about it and we will be getting that information out closer to the summer. So going back to the basics, again, this is our proposed budget amounts, our 2.89% projected increase, $75 for the average home in Winooski. That's $18.84 a quarter. Reminder, while the tax rate increases 2.89%, the actual budget is going up 6%. So I just want to say thank you to staff for hard work in making that happen and also acknowledge how the grant funding we have sought has helped and the local options tax that voters supported has also helped to mitigate costs. So for town meeting day, we've got our city and school budgets. There are two council seats open for two year terms as well as two school board seats. I think we have seven candidates, which you should hear more from via town meeting TV in the near future.  So as I mentioned earlier in this presentation, this election is our first to allow all resident voting where all legal residents of Winooski regardless of their citizenship status may vote in local elections. For voter registration form, you can visit the city clerk's office Monday through Friday, 730 a.m. to 430 p.m. Or visit our website for full details on how to vote in Winooski. That's WinooskiVT.gov slash vote. And in the state of Vermont, you can register right up until the day of the election. So do it sooner. But if you don't, you can still vote on town meeting day. We will also be able to distribute absentee ballots for those who wanna vote early or vote by mail. The deadline to make a request is February 25th. And you can vote early in person at city hall beginning February night. And then town meeting day, our election is at the Winooski Senior Center. That's 123 Barlow Street next to the St. Stephen's Church. Open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. And we will be enforcing a mask mandate and social distancing. And here is how to reach us if you have questions, if you're watching this after the fact and not able to call in live right now. All right. Thank you so much, Mayor Lott and Wendy Harrison for presenting the Winooski FY23 General Fund Budget. If you have any questions, you can call at<PHONE_NUMBER>. And while we're waiting to see if anyone calls, I do have one question for you. In terms of the overall effect on the taxpayer, what will that impact be for the average homeowner in Winooski? So the average homeowner will see a $75 increase on the municipal tax bill. And I should be clear for folks that your property taxes include both a municipal and a school bill. So this is just the municipal side of things. This is not the state education piece. And then for water and wastewater bills for your utility bill, about $39 for the average household in Winooski will be the increase. And when you refer to the average household, what is the average household in Winooski for context? Yeah, that would be assessed at $225,000. And as a reminder, we're talking about your assessed value, what you see on your property tax bill. That is obviously not the market value of your home. That's why we've been mandated by the state to do a reappraisal. Right, right. Well, thank you very much, both of you for your presentation this evening. And thank you for tuning in to town meeting television, ongoing coverage of local community candidates, budget and ballot items. You can find this and more forums at www.ch17.tv. Don't forget to vote on or before the first Tuesday in March, town meeting day, March 1st, 2022. Early voting by mail is available by contacting your town clerk's office. Polls will also be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thank you very much for watching.


Aloha and welcome to Books, Books, Books. I'm your host, Mihaila Stoops, and my guest today is Flo Wigger. She's the president of the board of directors of Maui Friends of the Library. Flo, thank you so much for joining me today. And before we dive into our conversation, I want to ask, how are you? How are you coping with everything? And how are your volunteers? In many ways, it's easier for me simply because we didn't go through everything that a number of the volunteers went through. And we have people who lost their homes. We did not lose ours. But losing the bookstore and losing the library was very, very devastating. And I'm finding that what ends up happening is that I'll feel okay working on projects to get us back up and going. And then all of a sudden something will happen. And it'll really remind me of everything that we've lost. And then you go through this, oh my god, what are we going to do? It's sort of like PTSD. It's that same kind of thing. But again, we were very, very lucky in terms of the fires stopped about three quarters of a mile from our house. And so we knew we were going to be okay. But it was a very difficult time. Even with that, my husband was a physician for years at Pfizer. And he ended up finding out about 10 of his patients perished in the fire. And a number of people that we know in the community, excuse me, a number of people we know in the community are really suffering. And as you mentioned, several of your volunteers have lost their homes. For our viewers, I want to inform them that the only bookstore in Lahaina was managed by my friends of the library. And for me as a Lahaina resident, it was not just a place where I could go and buy old books, used books, also new books, a lot of Hawaiian books. But it was also a gathering place and a place to meet other people that love books and to talk about books. And the building is no more. And I assume we also lost all the books. Am I right? Oh, yes. Everything, everything in the store was down to ashes. Absolutely everything. There's nothing left, nothing. And Maui friends of the library is a non-profit that supports all the libraries in Maui. And as a matter of fact, a few years ago, there was a Maui friends of the library, I believe, was the fundraiser for a major remodeling project of the library and supported the library with books. And tell us a little bit more about this nonprofit. It is a nonprofit. Maui friends of the library came into existence in its initial type way back in the early 1900s. And there were people who had moved to Hawaii, had moved to Maui, lived in Lahaina, and they wanted to start book clubs. And they would gather at someone's home and doing the way book clubs do today. They would read books, they would share food, and they would talk about books.  And in the 1950s, when more libraries began to emerge in Hawaii, Maui friends of the library became incorporated as a nonprofit. And the whole way that we function is with volunteers. No one, no one makes any money in terms of getting paid or anything like that. So all of our, all the people who work with us are volunteers. And what we do is take donations, all kinds of donations. And frequently, people were just bring in boxes and boxes of books. They'd say, oh, we're cleaning out our attic, or we're doing this, or we're moving someplace. And we have to get rid of the books. And so they would put them all in boxes and bring them to the library, the Maui Friends Library Bookstore. And the oldest one that we had, the Maui Friends Library Bookstore, was a used bookstore, which existed in Lahaina. In fact, when I moved here 30 years ago, there was that bookstore. And it was a used bookstore, Joanne Carroll ran it. And it was a for profit bookstore. And Joanne had had it for years and years and years. And finally decided that she just didn't want to have all the hassle of owning a bookstore. So she turned it over to Maui Friends Library, just gave it to us. And so we were for a long time located at the Worf Cinema Center. And then a couple years back, well, I think now about four years back, we became part of the outlets in Lahaina. And then first location, first location. And then two years ago, we moved to the location that we just lost, unfortunately. But that's still how we operate. Our function, as it's stated in our 501c3, is that we provide support to the libraries on Maui. So that we get books, we price books, we put books on the shelf, we sell books. And then we have that money sitting there. And the libraries on Maui can come and ask for support in things that they want to do in their library. So for example, at our meeting two weeks ago, we just authorized a fairly large expenditure for the library in Kahalui, who has not been opened, I think has been about two and a half years that we've been waiting for it to open. And now it's even more critical. So we gave them a fairly large sum of money so that they can move ahead with the remodeling. We also supply scholarships for people who want to become librarians. And they have a very good program at the University of Hawaii. And you can get classes at the Maui campus. And so we provide scholarship assistance for people who want to do that. Consequently, we have people working in the libraries all over the island that are scholarship recipients from Maui Friends of the Library. That's our whole function is providing support to the libraries on Maui. That's what we do. Wow. I did not know about the scholarship. That's absolutely amazing because you're helping them function, basically. Having the space and the books is not enough. You also need to have the librarians and things tied labor market. That makes a lot of sense. That. Well, and what we have found is that because of the relationship that UH has with all of the different colleges throughout the state, that they've got such a fabulous, online learning program. And then we augment the online learning with students being able to take classes at the college, the Maui College. And that makes a huge difference. And so people are very enthusiastic about wanting to become librarians. And it's something then that we are able to provide the academic training. And of course, the state then is able to have people that they can employ as librarians. Because that's part of the relationship that we have with the state library association is that we train people to become librarians, then they can get people under the library system and they become employees of the state library system. So it's very beneficial to both of us. Are you aware of any plans for a new location for Lahaina Library or are there, is anybody thinking about what's next for the library in Lahaina? Oh, yes. Oh, yes, we are. We were having meetings constantly with the state library, state librarians, Stacey Aldridge, and then people on her staff and people over on Oahu that are very interested in what's going to go on with the library system on here in Lahaina on the west side. And part of what we're trying to come to grips with is that, and you know this, as I think everybody who lives in Maui knows this, that the state budget is always severely taxed. And the Department of Education doesn't have enough money to do everything it's supposed to do. The libraries don't have enough money to do everything that they're supposed to do. And so part of that whole agenda now has become even more important because we've got to get another library in Lahaina. And we've got to get another bookstore in Lahaina someplace. And how are we going to do that? Right before the fire, I think like two weeks before the fire, we arrived at a decision, our board arrived at a decision, to develop a bookstore in Kihe. We did not have one in Kihe. We have bookstores in Kahalui, Pune, we had one in Lahaina. But those were the bookstores that we had on the island. And so we realized that Kihe is one of the fastest-growing locations on the island of Maui. And so we said it's time now to get a bookstore over in Kihe.  So when you know now we're going to have a bookstore in Kihe, which we know people are going to use, we've got to have a bookstore on the west side. There's absolutely no question. The bookstore that we had in Lahaina was very, very profitable. It was very good. Who is coming to the bookstore? And I'm asking this for our viewers because I actually volunteered one summer with my daughter as a salesperson and I had an amazing experience there. And I've met a lot of the patrons, but I'll let you tell us who was using that store. The demographics were very, very mixed. A lot of people who live on the west side mixed with tourists because the boats would come in to the harbor. And people, in fact, right before the fires happened, I was working a shift in the afternoon and a couple came in and they had a whole sack, just a big bag of books. And they said, we're bringing these back. And I said, oh, do you live here? Have you bought books here? They said, no, we don't live here. We live in New York, but we come to Maui every year on vacation and we come to your bookstore and we buy books and we take them home and we read them and now we're bringing them back. They said, okay. And they said, no, we just want to turn them in, but we want to buy more because we're on the ship and we're going to be going all around. And by the time we get home, we're going to have a lot of books to be able to read. Okay. So we would have this real diverse group of people. And the thing that we did, and it's something that each of the bookstores can do on their own. They can sort of figure out how they want to run their store. And one of the things that we always were doing in Lahaina, which I thought was very good, was that we would collect a lot of books for children. And we had a little section in one part of the store and they were free books for children. And so we had this box. And when people would come in and they'd have children with them, the first thing I would do, and I would advise the other workers to do this, I said, take the parents or whoever is in charge of the children, bring them over to that section, tell them these are free books, the kids can go through, they can pick out whatever they want, and they're free for the taking. Well, those kids would come back over and over and over again. And sometimes they'd bring books back and sometimes they wouldn't. But they knew this was a place where they could go and they could get free books. Because a lot of people who would come into the bookstore were very interested in their children being able to read and get a good education. And you had people that were working two and three jobs to support themselves and their families, but they still wanted books. And so when we could identify people that we thought really needed to have the educational experience, we would make sure that they could have that educational experience. I was surprised by the white selection of books. You could find brand new books, meaning new titles, not. And then you could find rare books. I remember there was a book that was priced at $175. And it was a rare edition. I don't remember the title now, but obviously it was a rare edition. And also, you shared with me before the show this story of these people that walked in the store and actually bought a banned book. It was a book that was banned in their state that they resided. Yes, it was a book about Kermit the Frog. And of course, one of the things that's very big about Kermit the Frog and this is when Jim Henson was still alive and he was working with Kermit the Frog. And the rainbow connection is one of the things that people know about Kermit the Frog. And this couple came in and they wanted to know if we had that book. And I said, well, actually we do. And it's one that sells quite well. So we keep reordering so that we keep that book in stock. And the woman said, well, we really wanted to get it, but she gave me the name of whatever state it was, Tennessee or Kentucky or Alabama, one of the states over there. And she said, that book has been banned. And I said, well, we don't have any banned. We don't believe in banning books. So we have absolutely all kinds of books. We have books that I think some people would like to see banned. We have books that other people would, but we've got them all. And we encourage that people broaden their scope and read as much as they can. There were cooking books, there were books on self-help and how to do this and how to do that. It was really a very, very wide range of books. And the fun part for me when I work there as a salesperson, you know, when I had some free time, I would go and peruse the shelves and open up a book and read it. And it was a great experience. So I do want to put a blog here right now, you know, if any of you viewers want to volunteer at any of the my friends of the library bookstores, please do. It's an awesome experience. Oh, and well, the other thing that's so, so good about it is that it really, it really increases relationships between the people who work in the bookstore, the volunteers, and the local community. Because so many people come in and they end up talking with the volunteers. And the volunteers will say, Oh, and if you're interested in that kind of book, maybe you'd like to read this author. And so there's this continual dialogue that goes back and forth, which is so worthwhile. It's so worth. Yeah. And you carry a lot of Hawaiian books as well, old, new, and that opened another number of people walking in saying, you know, I want to read a good book about the history of Hawaii. I want to learn more about the history of Hawaii. And then I would, you know, pick a few and recommend like, you know, this is a more detailed read. This is an easier read and so on. It was the Lahaina store, the one I'm most familiar with. It was a great opportunity to educate local residents, but tourists as well. Oh, yes. Well, and, and we have, we have a wonderful, wonderful collection of volunteers across the three stores that we, well, two stores now, but we add three. Punene, which is located out there on the other side of the education building at Punene, and you have to go down a dirt road and you have to pay attention to signs because then it's go this way, go this way. And then of course we have the Queen case store, which is absolutely fabulous, absolutely fabulous. And then we had Lahaina and we have had volunteers in those stores that have been volunteers 16, 17 years, they've been volunteers. And they're, they're very possessive of their stores. John T., who was the former chair of the board of Maui Friends Library, John T. has held many positions on the board. And he's the one now who's in charge of the Queen case store. And he would always, he would always challenge me, he'd say, okay, this is how much money we're going to raise this month. How much are you guys in line are going to raise? Can you raise as much as we do? And I'd say, John, it's not a competition. It's just a matter of getting books out to the public. You say, I know, but I want more money than you. And so we always add this thing going back and forth. But we have people who have been there volunteers for a long, long time. The other thing that's very good about the Friends Library bookstore is that we try and be responsive to whatever our local community is. So for example, when we were open in Lahaina, we were open from 10 until six. So we had two, four hour shifts, 10 to two, two to six, because the outlets in Lahaina were open at that particular time. So that meshed with them. Puneine has a different schedule. And again, it's because of what the community at Puneine needs. Queen Kay has a different schedule, because it's what happens in terms of the people going in to Puneine. And we do or end up into Queen Kay. And we do all kinds of other activities. For example, right now, and I just got an update from one of our volunteers, we have been taking books. We've had the person who's in charge of the bookstore or the, the, the books in the warehouse delivering books to the bookstore. He's coming over to Lahaina two days a week, and he brings boxes of books. We are taking those books into the behind a Civic Center. We've got an area set up. When you come into the Civic Center, we're right at the front door, which makes it very nice. And we've got all kinds of containers filled with books. People can just come and take those books. We're not charging for those books. We're just giving them away to people who want to come in and take books. And they're going like crazy. Absolutely. Just going out. So at Lahaina Civic Center, that's where people can find the free books from my friends of the library. Yep. Yep. And I just talked to one of the volunteers today. She said, well, she said they're going like mad. And she said, you know, more and more people now are going out of the hotels where they've been and they're going into other housing areas. But she said, we're going to stay here. We're going to stay here as long as we can, which I'm so thankful of because people are still coming and they're still getting books. And that's terribly important. So we've tried, as things have occurred with the fires, we've tried to step up, we've worked with the Red Cross, we've worked with FEMA, and we were delivering books to the hotels where people could just go in and pick up books and have something to read. And now we're going to be depending on where we end up if the Civic Center closes, and then we have to go someplace else until we can get a bookstore back up. Now we're negotiating with the Department of Ed to have somebody come in and do story time with the children so that they have something there. What is the timeline for reopening a store? Oh, the timeline for reopening the store is, as soon as I can find a spot, as soon as I can find a spot, we've got books in the warehouse. If I can find a spot somewhere in West Maui that would serve the needs, we can go in, we can see what needs to be done in terms of putting in shelving, things of that nature. I've got the guy who did the marking of the books in terms of how much we charge and all of that. He's ready to go. He calls me every couple of days, have you found a spot? Have you found a spot? I'm waiting, I'm waiting. And so we can go. Are you currently fundraising? Are you soliciting donations? Are you in kind, financial donations towards rebuilding the store? If people want to donate to us, we will certainly take it. We were very, very, very blessed. We have a good bank account in terms of dollars. And so we're not trying to take money away from other people that probably can use it more in terms of their organizational structure. But if somebody wants to give us a good lease on a space, we'll take it. So let's work on this. Let's find a place so that we can open that store again and break the books to all those book lovers and avid readers. That's right. Well, Flo, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope that our next show soon is going to be about the opening of the store. Yes. Yes. Organizing some sort of events there at the store. Yes. So if anybody knows of a space that we can rent, we're ready to go. Well, just have them call you. Yes. And contact information on the website is fol.org. And of course, it can reach out to me as well. And I'll communicate with Flo and let's get it done. That's right. Thank you so much. Thank you, Flo. Aloha and mahalo to all the people that sign in. Okay. Thank you.


Homeowner suspected the maid, then she checked the security camera. When it comes to getting housemaids, most employers would agree that it's not always easy to get along with one another, especially during the adjustment period. But while the most common issues relating to house helpers include lame jobs, disrespectfulness or failure to follow instructions, one woman from Singapore experienced a rather strange problem about his housemaid. Bothered that something suspicious was happening, the homeowner decided to check the security cameras installed in her flat. What she saw in the footage left her terrified and undecided of what to do next. Neural Baker was a 25-year-old working mom from Singapore. She was renting an HDB flat and was living with her husband and two kids. Her mother was also with them. Because being a wife and a mom at a young age was not initially included in her plan, Ms Baker had to work so hard to be able to save for her children's future. Although her husband had a job, she needed to support him as the cost of living in Singapore continued to soar. Since online businesses were in its golden era, Ms Baker studied how it worked and decided to take advantage of the opportunities. With her passion and dedication, it didn't take long for her to establish herself as an online seller that ultimately led her to launch her own small business. The young mom's priorities had been doubled, and she realized she needed an extra helping hand in the house. Her mother was not getting any younger and her kids needed as much attention as they could get. After discussing her plan with her husband, he agreed and allowed her to hire a housemaid. With the help of some of her friends, Ms Baker had found the perfect housemaid from an agency in an instant. Since her kids were still small, she required to stay and help her. At first, the young woman showed great enthusiasm for her job. The kids were fond of her as well as her mom. Her priorities were the children as her mother often took care of the cooking and cleaning. In the first few months, Ms Baker and her family didn't have a problem at all. But as the housemaid was mostly left alone with the kids in the house due to her growing duties and responsibilities in her business, that's when odd changes began to occur. Ms Baker was confident that they were treating their housemaid right. The first time she noticed that the young woman was not doing her job correctly, she talked to her to make sure she knew that there was a problem. The helper was apologetic and promised that it would never happen again. However, she hadn't been faithful to her words. It came to the point that Ms Baker had to repeat the household chores. Aside from being lousy in her job, Ms Baker, as well as her mother and her husband, had noticed the odd behavior of the maid. She was usually staring at something as if her thoughts were at a loss. Other times the woman would mutter barely audible words. When Ms Baker could no longer hold her curiosity about what's really happening, she decided to check the security cameras. Ms Baker kept on asking the maid if she was feeling okay or not. But try as she might, the helper didn't tell her anything. However, it was clear that the helper had already lost interest. Trying to find out what went wrong, she got into her room and accessed the footages provided by the CCTV. There were many possibilities running through her mind as she was browsing the clips and footage. What if her kids had been too naughty and the maid couldn't take them anymore? Ms Baker continued to watch the footage until she came across a particular video that made her scream. While she was initially looking for clues why her housemaid was acting strange lately, it didn't occur to Ms Baker that she would find something that was bizarre. The video was taken on March 23rd, and her housemaid was evidently fresh from the shower. As the maid was approaching where the camera was, she began to move irrationally. At first, Ms Baker was puzzled. But when the young helper who's wearing a creepy white dress began to act as if she was being possessed by some supernatural entities, her curiosity turned to fear. What was happening? Although she was initially shocked and terrified by the footage, Ms Baker tried to calm herself and replayed the video. This time, she watched intently. Judging by her maid's bizarre movements and facial reactions, Ms Baker thought that she was being possessed. The odd behavior of her housemaid that was caught on CCTV reminded her of Sadako, the famous ghost from the movie The Ring. Strangely, she didn't feel the same level of fear and creeps as she had felt when she first saw Sadako on screen. That's when Ms Baker realized that the footage has something more to tell her. Ms Baker had watched the creepy footage multiple times before she finally decided to get up and make up her mind. She had a suspicion but that feeling just doubled the confusion that she was feeling at the moment. Being with her housemaid in the past had brought her a kind of comfortable feeling. It was nice to have someone in the house who's dedicated to helping her do the hard things. After watching the footage, she didn't know if she could still trust her again. What was even worse, it was her family's safety and welfare that was at stake. In her confusion, she decided to get help from the online world. A week before Ms Baker discovered the creepy video of her housemaid, there was footage about an alleged ghost in a moored that was caught on cam. Ms Baker remembered reading the comments and thought that some of them indeed made sense. Hoping to have someone confirm her suspicion about her maid, Ms Baker uploaded the CCTV footage on social media. In an instant, it went viral. She then waited for the comments to come in, and that's when she had confirmed that she was right all along. While most comments described that the video was indeed creepy, other concerned individuals had voiced out their opinion about the footage. The housemaid was faking the possession. One particular comment from a man named Justin Chen had caught Ms Baker's attention. According to Mr Chen, the maid was definitely aware of where the camera was. She could have been possessed while she's in the shower. But of all places, she chose to act strangely in front of the CCTV. It was clear that the housemaid wanted her employer to see her drama. But for what? Aside from explaining his point why he was sure that the maid was making everything up, Mr Chen expressed his concern for the employer and his family. A maid who's in her right mind wouldn't go as far as to pretend a ghost just to scare off her employers. Mr Chen advised Ms Baker's that it would be better if she would let her maid go before she gets a chance to do worse things. Clearly, the housemaid was not happy in their house anymore. Ms Baker was touched at the way people expressed their observation. The signs that the maid was in her right mind and was intentionally acting strange were obvious. According to the commenters, the housemaid started her bizarre movements from the shower. If she was already possessed in the bathroom, it wouldn't cross her mind to dress up. What's even funnier was the fact that she chose a long white dress. Others told Ms Baker that the housemaid was not aware that she was too obvious. Another concerned individual decided to share his story that was related to Ms Baker's unusual experience. Enzo Lumpkins wrote that it was not his first time to see a house helper faking possession. Homeowners suspected the maid, then she checked the security camera. He even added that he had also experienced it from his maid who wanted to leave the job. The maid then admitted that it was a kind of exit strategy that was quickly becoming common. Ms Baker already had an inkling that the footage was not real. But still, she asked for the opinion of others so that she could come up with a better judgment. Together with her husband, they talked to the maid who was still reluctant to admit the truth. Although she never got the apology she was looking for, their family decided to let the maid go home to her county. After all, she had been kind to them at the beginning. Ms Baker could only wish that she wouldn't do it again. The lesson was clear and she reminded herself to take double precautions the next time.