Burlington is not heading in the right direction, from failed development projects to a failing police department and policies that put the needs of big developers and corporations over working people. The policies of the last decade are not working and our neighbors, our community, our city is struggling.  We're done demanding civil rights. We will not just take people being civil to us, we want the same treatment and we demand equality. On March 2nd, we will have an opportunity to elect new city leadership and we need you to be a big part of that process. Find out more and register for the caucus at progressiveparty.org slash new direction. Pay for by the Vermont Progressive Party. Good evening and welcome to the Vermont Progressive Party's third and final mayoral forum. Tonight we're focused on economic justice. My name is Gil Livingston and I'm co-chair of the Progressive Party's Burlington Steering Committee along with my partner Annie Schneider. I want to thank a few people before we get started here. I really appreciate people who've joined us through Facebook and taken another evening to examine important issues for the city of Burlington. I also want to thank both Councillor Max Tracy and Councillor Brian Pine for joining us for a third time, sharing their wisdom with respect to economic justice in anticipation of a caucus in a couple of weeks. We also this evening are thrilled to have Grace O'Dell, who is the executive director of NOFA Vermont, facilitating this forum for people who don't know the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, among many other things. It's a state leader on the issues of food access and food justice. And finally I want to thank our co-hosts for this evening's forum and they are the Vermont State Labor Council of the AFL-CIO and Rights and Democracy, Vermont. Just quickly, the goal this evening and you may have observed this if you saw either of the two prior forums, the goal is to provide an opportunity for left of center Burlington voters, whether you're a Progressive Party member or not, to get to know candidates before formal nominations and campaigning. We do not intend to debate between candidates. Instead, we'd like to support a conversation in which Grace is engaging both Max and Brian and perhaps they'll engage each other on critical issues with regard to economic justice. I do want to, before I turn this over, remind people to register now for the Progressive Party Caucus. And if you're not a member of the party, please take time now to join the party while you register. The caucus is on December 1st. It will be by Zoom. In order to register, go to the Progressive Party website, which is simply lowercase progressivepartyalloneword.org. When you get to the home page at the top, please select town meeting day 2021 at the top of the page, at which point you'll see again the video which we just displayed. If you scroll below the video, you will see another link that says register for the caucus. Click that link and there's a simple straight, straightforward explanation of how to get registered. Voting will happen in the two days following the first. So it'll happen on Wednesday, the second, and Thursday, the third. So there'll be a two-day window to vote online, but again, you will not be able to vote or to participate in the caucus unless you register. With that, let me turn things over to our facilitator this evening, Grace O'Dell. Grace? Thanks, Gil. It's so lovely to be here and I first just want to start thanking the progressiveparty and everyone's diligent work, putting these series together so that we get to know the candidates and get to have a little bit more discussion before the caucus. I want to thank all of you for being here tonight with us and taking the time to participate in our local democratic process. It's so important and it's great to have you with us. I want to thank my partner who's caregiving for our kids, so I'm able to be here during the dinner hour and all the caregivers who are helping out in your houses so that you can be here, too. So again, my name is Grace O'Dell. I use she, her pronouns, and I'm going to be facilitating tonight where we're focused in on this topic of economic justice. So I'm going to state our opening question and then you can will be titillated by this coin toss that we're going to do to see who will kick us off with an opening remark. So here we go. We are living through the massive disruption of a global pandemic, as well as enormous cultural awareness raising through our national uprisings and the movement for Black Lives. I'm curious to hear if elected mayor, how will you center economic justice in a way that helps us emerge from this period with justice and equity core to all we do as a city, not as an afterthought?  I am heads. That's tail. So, Brian, you get to go. OK, Brian, we'll kick us off. Do you want me to say the question again or you got it, Brian? I wouldn't mind having you repeat that, Grace. Thanks. Sure. So we are living through massive disruption of pandemic, as well as enormous cultural awareness raising through the national uprisings and the movement for Black Lives. If you're elected mayor, how will you center economic justice in a way that helps us emerge from this period with justice and equity core to all we do as a city, not as an afterthought? Great. Thanks a lot. I just want to quickly touch on a question that was raised in the forum last night that I didn't get to respond to it. But essentially, the question was, how can I show people that I will stand for my by my values over siding with people that I'm friends with or have relationships with? And I just want to make it very clear that my decisions as an elected official are guided always by my values are always guided. But what I determine is best for the constituents that we serve. So I do not in my record shows that my votes have not been take made with concern for friends or people who are powerful, who I know. I don't believe that's our role as elected officials. I take that responsibility very seriously. I took an oath and that oath essentially says I will vote in my conscience what is best for the people of my of this city, of this community. I just want to make it clear that specific examples. Hopefully I'll get a chance to share those. I don't want to use up all the time for this question addressing that. But I will I will come up with or I will share with you specific examples of how I've led with my values and how I've actually basically gone up against both people in power and people that I have maybe friendships or relationships. So to come back to the question about how to center economic justice in a pine administration, I would just say that economic justice has driven my entire adult life, both my career, my political work, my neighborhood organizing my work in essentially establishing and building community in my own neighborhood. I live in the old North End, the most diverse and economically diverse as well as culturally and racially diverse neighborhood, not just in Burlington, but in all of Vermont, with the exception of our neighbors across the river in Winooski. And I take that as a matter of pride as an old North Ender for 35 years. And I believe that our relationships to each other within our community need to be grounded in a commitment to providing pathways to leadership, pathways to to future opportunity, pathways that allow people who've been marginalized by our society at the local level to to expand their their opportunities, but expanding their opportunities in a way that meets them where they are and offers support in a truly collaborative way, not in a paternalistic top down way, but in a way that recognizing that everyone has the desire to live economically independent, self-sufficient life with dignity and respect. And all of our decisions need to be grounded in the notion that we as city government need to advance the economic independence of low income folks and BIPOC community and LGBTQ plus community and all those who've been marginalized by our society. Thanks, Brian. Max, would you like me to restate the question for you or do you have it? No, I got it. Thank you, though. So I think that if we want a mayor and if we want a city that centers economic justice, we need a mayor who has done that throughout their entire lives. And, you know, like Brian, I've been dedicated since arriving in Burlington 15 years ago to economic justice. When I was a student at UVM, I led a movement for liberal wages for all campus workers. And during that time, we did all kinds of interesting things to advocate for and kind of I think wild things, I would say, to advocate for economic justice. It's not just about, you know, I think economic justice work is certainly serious and I think we need to approach it in that way. But that doesn't mean we can't have fun.  We even took over Waterman. We did those kinds of things because we felt like we needed to reach people in different ways and have and be clear about the fact that, you know, there are many different ways to advocate for and to push for economic justice, you know, in our community, that debate kind of evolved over time. Is the 2008 recession hit and we were fighting layoffs and we were able to actually get the university to not go forward with a second phase of layoffs, which I think was particularly meaningful. But, you know, coming out of that work, I realized that, you know, just for stalling layoffs here or there was not enough. And that, in fact, we needed that working people really need real protection.  And so I was in the process of trying to do that again when that also failed or when I was laid off. And, you know, that's something that I've centered in my work, not only, you know, personally, but then also politically. I've been, you know, on the picket line with working people, you know, bus drivers who are on strike, teachers who are on strike, marching through the old North End with nurses who are on strike. You know, and since working at UVM, I've been working with nurses day in and day out as part of the Vermont Federation and nurses and health professionals, helping to make sure that their voices and their needs, you know, their voices are heard and their needs are met as frontline health care workers on a daily basis. I mean, just today I was working with nurses to make sure that they they're well informed about their potential contract extension vote. And I'm actually having to balance doing this mayoral race while also working with my, you know, my colleagues at the union to make sure that that nurses have the representation and have their their their rights respected under their contract. So this is something that is part of my daily life now and something that, you know, I want to bring to the mayor's office because what we've seen has been, you know, an administration that's been far too focused on market rate policies to to focus on this idea that, you know, if we just leave it to the market, that that will solve all our problems. And we see that in everything from housing to, you know, to employment to so many different areas, you know, of our city. And I think, you know, what we need is an activist city government that's willing to recognize the inequalities created under capitalism and make sure and specifically the inequalities created for for BIPOC individuals as well as, you know, as queer, trans, you know, non-binary individuals in our communities and make sure that we're centering those voices and centering our policies more importantly on that and taking bold steps that are a a significant departure from the current administration's emphasis on market rate policies that really only benefit a few. We need to be a city for everybody. Thanks for that. So with those opening remarks, we're going to now move in. I want to dig in a little bit to your thoughts on the housing situation in Burlington. So as you know, you know, renting and home ownership in Burlington remains extremely expensive and lately has only gotten more so for folks who even make a living wage, you know, much housing is out of the price range. COVID itself has exacerbated housing shortages here and income loss. So broadly, can you speak to what your plans are to address the housing crisis in Burlington? I'd really like to hear both short term during the pandemic and long term and some things, you know, that would be helpful to hear your stances on around eviction protections during pandemic and long term, what to what extent do you believe that the housing crisis can be solved through supply side solutions? So I'm going to turn it back to Brian. I will go in any order you want us to, but I believe the orders were supposed to rotate per question. That's how it works. All right, back to you, Max. All right, thanks. I appreciate that. So in terms of the housing crisis, you know, the main thing that we need to do during this COVID pandemic is make sure that everybody stays housed and to have a housing first policy. I think we've shown that we can that we can do it and that there's a false narrative of scarcity around housing. It's not necessarily a matter of if it's possible, but really more a matter of will. And I think that that's been really shown through this COVID pandemic. I think that, you know, we need to make sure that we're also doing everything we can to set a vision for a city that is more just and equitable for, you know, for renters and homeowners alike coming out of this pandemic. And I think that the burden, you know, of of rent in this city is far too high. People spend an incredible amount of their income and an unsustainable amount of their income on rent in this city. And we've seen lots of different policies try to address that with bearing degrees of success, you know, if we hadn't done certain things like, you know, inclusionary zoning, I think we'd be in a worse position. However, I think there are real limitations to the policies that we've implemented thus far. And I think we need to look in a new direction that's a little bit more aggressive when it comes to comes to housing, implementing, directly implementing just cause eviction provisions. That's actually coming to the council on Monday. We'll be seeing if we can put that on the ballot for March. And I'm really excited to to vote for that on Monday and to advocate for that. This is really trying to establish more protections for tenants. I also feel like we need to enact rent stabilization policies because again, the market driven policies of, you know, just build it and that will solve our all of our problems by just creating more housing supply has been proven false just by nature of the fact that, you know, we've seen hundreds of units come online in Burlington. And while the vacancy rate has gone up, you know, slightly, we haven't seen rents gone down. I've, you know, heard time and time again from people in my neighborhood and really throughout the city that rents are unsustainable still and that the building boom, you know, that that's happened in recent years has not done nearly enough to make Burlington affordable for them. So I think we need to have a much more interventionist government policy and specifically enact just cause eviction policies as well as rent stabilization here in Burlington. Thanks. Helpful Brian. Thanks a lot. The housing issue is very near and dear to my heart. It is where I've spent a good part of my adult working life has been to ensure that housing is is not a commodity, but is in fact a human right. And at the local level, we've we've taken what tools are available to expand protections for those who are often marginalized and we have passed tenant protections in Burlington. I was instrumental in fighting for those changes. We fought alongside tenants and homeowners from across the city for all of the protections that are in place today. I believe the first to acknowledge that we didn't win all those fights. We fought the fight for rent control in the 1980s. We didn't win that fight. We fought just cause eviction in the late 80s. We did not win that fight. Doesn't mean we give up. It means we figure out how to build a consensus or at least a popular movement and build political power to demand that we address the housing needs in ways that we haven't yet figured out how to do and in ways that we haven't yet adopted, I should say. There are there is essentially a progressive housing agenda that has been crafted over the last 30 plus years, which is really based on what we call the three P's. So there's there's protection of vulnerable residents, and that means those who are renting generally are more vulnerable to the market whims production of new housing and the preservation of both our existing housing, both the stock, but also the affordability. I have fought battles to save Warflane Apartments, Bob and Mill, Northgate, Farrington's Mobile Home Park. All of those are now either resident controlled and resident owned through co-ops and through nonprofits, or they've been converted to nonprofit ownership. We haven't lost affordable housing. Unlike most cities that create new affordable housing, they're only barely keeping up because they've lost affordable housing. So my experience fighting for those issues is what I think is something that makes me stand apart from from the certainly the administration around these issues. I bring to this process and to this issue personal experience with the intricacies of both housing policy, housing programs, housing finance, every aspect of the housing issue, including homelessness. And I chaired the Regional Homeless Alliance for five years and brought people to recognition that what we were doing wasn't working. We were managing homelessness, but we weren't actually addressing homelessness and the root causes of homelessness. So perpetually affordable housing is also a Burlington concept that we often take for granted, but it's actually a fairly radical concept. The notion is that when you put public dollars into housing to make it affordable, you should protect that housing and that investment over time and ensure that you are placing both the residents at risk and that initial public subsidy. That's something that I have won awards for. I was brought to D.C. to get an award for that. And even though we haven't solved the problem, we have great models. We just need to give them more resources and more support and expand the way we think of how to ensure housing security and stability for everyone. Thanks. A related question that some folks have weighed in with curiosity to hear what how will you balance the university's desire to own more property as well as private private developers interested in purchasing more property with with accessible housing and with within the context of what you're both just saying. So Brian, I'm going to pass it back to you. I attended the University of Vermont. I'm a proud graduate and I would say, though, that during the time that I was there was right in the middle of this massive expansion. Honestly, from 1973 to 1993, UVM doubled their enrollment. Incredible story. What they didn't do during those 20 years is add a single new bed or unit of housing. So what they did is they pushed the housing demand into the community. And that means there's about 4,000 roughly students living in the community who are competing with with much more buying power than families and working class people for housing. And so that has driven up rents. It has limited the availability. It has forced people to move further away and have longer commutes and have less time with their families and spend more dollars on vehicles and on transportation and all the climate impacts that go with that. And so what we have is a need to re renegotiate and re reengage UVM in a meaningful conversation and discussion and demand that UVM take responsibility for housing more of their students. There's land that's at the university. It's a little bit it's adjacent to or on the university that needs to be used for housing students and it needs to be creative, though. It can't just be dormitories. A lot of people will say, well, let's just build more dorms and then force the students in there. All first and second year students are already living in university sponsored housing. We need to find a way to capture that part of the student body that are third and fourth year students, juniors and seniors and provide them with an alternative around cooperative housing, around different forms of housing that would attract students to live in. And we need to make sure that it's priced in a way and it's built with all the amenities and the energy efficiency and all the great features that you could build to make people actually want to live there so that we aren't putting pressure on the housing market in our neighborhoods. And that will have a major impact on both quality of life in neighborhoods, families being able to both afford to live in neighborhoods near and around the university, but also they want to live there because it's it's a more mixed community. It's you know, more mixed in terms of who's living there and the and the types of ownership. And so absentee ownership of rental properties targeted to students is a huge issue in Burlington. We can't address it on our own. We have to have the university at the table addressing this issue. Thank you, Max. So I have a long track record of holding the university accountable from basically the first moment I got here, I was you know, I once was, you know, I also UVM grad also really loved the the university, but at the same time also feel like it has, you know, deep flaws and has really negative impacts on our community in addition to the benefits that it brings to us and that we need to, as Councilor Pines said, also hold them accountable for the impacts that they have on our community and make sure that we put more pressure on the university to to build more on campus housing. I think we also need to make sure that we have an eye towards how student renters are treated in our community and make sure that student renters are, you know, know their rights and are empowered because all too often student renters are living in poorly weatherized homes that have very little that are, you know, poorly cared for and that are real just really just investment properties for, you know, out of state, out of state folks. And so I think that we need to make sure that we're not only dealing with and putting pressure on the university to make sure that they're building more housing on campus and totally agree with Councilor Pines also on the need for it to be creative mixed use because he's right. We're just not going to be able to build, you know, straight up dorms. I think we sort of see that with some of the additional housing that's gone in up there where there's been very limited buy-in, you know, in terms of that housing just because it's kind of off. There's nothing else there other than housing. So I agree with that. I think the other piece of your question around developers and what we do with large scale projects, I think we need to be very cautious about these large scale projects where they come to us promising huge economic benefits, as was the case with the city place project. I think we've seen the real limitations of that thinking. And I was one of the only counselors to oppose the mall development pretty much from the beginning, you know, voting against the pre development agreement and voting against the development agreement, opposing it at the ballot. And the reason I did that was because it did not include enough affordable housing. It did not prioritize access for people at all economic levels. It didn't really create that truly inclusive vision for development of what our city can be. And so I opposed that. And in so doing, tried to make it better. I introduced provisions to increase the percentage of affordable housing in there and try to push that forward. And so I think that when we have big developers coming to us, we need to not throw our support behind them immediately and really try and advocate for them, but we need to make sure that we're holding them accountable and really making sure that their economics, that their economics benefit everyone, not just the privileged few. Thanks for that, Max. And that's a good sort of transition into my next questions, which is connected to this topic, actually, I want, I want to hear a little bit from you about the city place project. As you know, the Vermont AFL CIO and the building trades have been working to provide national AFL CIO financing for the city place project. And I'm curious if union financing is secured all of those city place construction jobs would be union jobs that prevailing wage levels that have families supporting benefits levels. So if city place accepts this union financing approach, would you join the AFL CIO and support the project? It's my turn. So I certainly welcome the AFL CIO stepping up and bringing the idea of union labor into the conversation. That was certainly one of the things that was missing from earlier versions of the project. I also feel like the percentage, as I said before, of affordable housing in the project was insufficient and unacceptable. And so I appreciate them bringing those things forward. At the same time, though, you know, I think that we need to also make sure that we're protecting Burlingtonians and making them live up to what they already promised, which was to reconnect the streets. That is, you know, a really open question as to how we're going to do that and specifically how we're going to pay for that because the TIF financing, the tax increment financing mechanism that we were going to use has a limitation or a time and expiration data essentially on it. And so what we need to do is make sure that we're holding Devinwood, we're holding city place, BTC Mall Associates, whatever, you know, ownership structure, they're floating today because it seems to change with every other day. You know, they have a rotating cast of characters coming to Burlington. But whatever, you know, whoever it is that's developing the site, we need to make sure that we're bringing these values to the table, but that we're also making sure that we're keeping the public's interest in mind and centering that and not putting the burden of, you know, a failed development project back on Burlingtonians because we really can't afford that. We need to make sure that we're putting pressure on the developers to make good on their promises, while also including additional benefits like union labor and increased affordable housing. Yeah, Brian. Yeah, the that development was was a I'd say it ended up being a rather speculative concept and it rather in this community, I think was not a uniting project, but it was an ultimately a dividing project and it was, you know, it was approved by the voters in two separate questions, but it was pretty narrow approval. It wasn't a huge overwhelming sense of approval. I think we all recognize that what was there, the old mall needed to be dealt with. And if we're going to embrace, you know, what we need to do around the climate crisis, part of that solution is urban infill development is part of the solution because of what you do to increase transit and what you increase ridership. You also have the density that's needed to support local businesses. So it really does create some conditions that can support a healthy and vibrant downtown. And having said that in the in the what we found over time is that a lot of the assumptions were incorrect about what that project needed to succeed. It didn't need the extra height in the end and it didn't need some of the provisions that were sought and were advocated by the developer. So that means we didn't do as a city. And I want to say the administration didn't do full and proper due diligence to make sure that what was being requested was in fact what was needed, but also what was being proposed was viable for the market. When you have commercial rents that are double what rents are in the market, it's not going to be a viable project. So there are a lot of I think cautionary notes that should have been seen from the beginning that weren't. But looking forward, I completely agree with both deeper levels of affordability and with the project labor agreement that is being discussed with the AFL-CIO. That is an innovation that was an idea a while ago and now it's finally coming closer to fruition. But it's not ready yet. But it's a concept that I would embrace and I would pursue very aggressively. An additional piece was brought up last week in the Wards 2 and 3 Neighborhood Planning Assembly, was to take the 85 or so affordable units that are required by ordinance and bring down the rents even further through what are called Section 8 subsidies. So it's a rental assistance that comes from the federal government. And while we can't necessarily promise and pledge that because we don't control those resources, as someone who's worked very closely with housing authorities at the local and state level, I would bring the expertise to ensure that if we can in fact bring rental assistance to bring those rents even further down for lower income families and folks, we could achieve a greater level of affordability without necessarily putting an added burden on whether the project is financially feasible. So we have to recognize there's certainly a limit there, but I would like to push those limits and find the most innovative solutions to creating more affordable, deeper affordability for those new housing units that hopefully will come online. Thank you. Thanks. While we're on this sort of general topic of employment, I'm curious also about the reality of being small business during the pandemic. And I'm curious to hear as mayor what would some increased supports, investment or relief for small business development in Burlington you would bring and particularly interested on hearing how those small business development incentives, programs might speak also in the context of the uprisings, you know, center marginalized and BIPOC and women and FEM business owners. So what are your thoughts on? I think it's my turn. I think it is. All right. The the challenges that are faced by businesses in our community that are owned by those that we have marginalized as a society are unique. And actually, I think need to be dealt with in a unique way.  If there's a desire to grow the local companies in this way, we need expertise that knows how to look at, you know, strategic business planning issues that is something that I've done across my career and continue to do for organizations that are looking for that type of assistance. BIPOC owned businesses are something that we have a directory right now through the true street marketplace. They actually put together a directory of BIPOC owned businesses and I would urge everybody to take a look at that. And if you do any when you do shopping for any purpose, whether it's the holidays or personal needs, I hope people will look at that as a way to support those businesses who are already here today. We also, I think, need a renewed focus on building new career path opportunities for young people who are coming out of our high school maybe because they got their diploma, but unfortunately, there are still students who drop out of the high school. And I worked in a program that Mayor Sanders started in the 80s called the Burlington Youth Employment Program that provided specific training and a whole range of skills. Actually, we had a garden project down in the intervail doing organic gardening. We had a recycling program and I supervised a crew that did housing renovation in the Old North End. And this was a local initiative that Mayor Sanders went to the state and got state dollars to help subsidize the wages for the young people. And we brought young people into the building trades. We also brought union carpenters to oversee those jobs. So I was like an assistant manager and the union carpenters were the lead project managers. And what it brought was young people and experience with learning the trades, learning about safety, learning about all the issues that you need to enter this field, but also learning about the power that you get and the benefits that you get as a family that have living wage jobs and have benefits if you are in a union. So we tried to introduce young people both to the employment opportunity and the benefits that can be gleaned by being part of a labor union. So that was a unique, I think, approach that Mayor Sanders brought and I as mayor would bring something like that. That's my focus. I would also look to agreement so when we provide any assistance to a developer that's building commercial and is going to create some employment that we have workforce development requirements that they actually provide job training opportunities very proactive towards new Americans and to BIPOC community members to bring them into the workforce rather than just provide TIF financing and say we're done with it. We need to require from them a commitment to engage with people who are left at the margins of the economy and bring them right in to decent family wage jobs and the benefits that come with that. So in terms of small businesses, I think we've seen businesses be really going through a time of tremendous strain in our city. And I think that we need to make sure and that we've seen city staff really step up in a lot of ways but that under this administration, specifically what we've seen is just a real failure to understand the transformative power of CEDO. This is an office that came about under Bernie and that has done tremendous work in its history but that has really, in my opinion, been operating on fumes and I think it's because of the lack of focus and investment from this administration. There have been tremendous people working there but they're doing so under very challenging circumstances. And so I think we need a mayor who can work with and resuscitate and understand CEDO and specifically engage, you know, really expand this neighborhood scale focus. I think one of the opportunity costs that we see under this administration is that when you focus so much on big developments like city place that you don't have time to do all the neighborhood scale stuff. So I would really refocus our city on neighborhood scale development that benefits everybody and that goes for all neighborhoods. I think that there are, you know, a lot of places in the city that don't feel like they're really part of Burlington in a lot of ways because of this over this over focus on, you know, on downtown and on sort of providing for people who already are doing okay. And, you know, I think we also need to make sure that we're giving businesses their support. One of the things I feel like we've been seeing happening in the, you know, in the old North end is that BIPACO and businesses have been, you know, under threat of eviction. And, you know, one of the, one of the awkward things about kind of running against Council pines is that we work together really well on a lot of things. And one of the things we've worked together and collaborated on has been providing support for BIPACO businesses in the neighborhood that have been under threat. I think back to, you know, last spring when Redstone was going to evict the Asian, the Asian market. And that was going to be a real, a real loss for our neighborhood. And so Council pines and I stepped up and, you know, worked together on that. And I think that that's what the kind of leadership that's needed, you know, in terms of our city is that we're going to bring that kind of thing to the city of Burlington. And really, I think that one of the things that I've realized in that is that we need to really provide a path to ownership for BIPACO business owners because when you're just renting that you're at a tremendous disadvantage, you're at, you're really on shaky ground a lot of the time and you're vulnerable to eviction. And so we need to provide a path to ownership by providing low interest loans for, for people to own that so that we not only have perpetually, you know, accessible and affordable, you know, housing, but that we have businesses that are owned there because that's really at the heart of wealth generation. That's really at the heart of so many of these issues that we see when we talk about the BIPAC community and the disparity that exists between white wealth and black wealth in particular is that lack of ownership. And so we need to create opportunities and pathways for BIPACO business owners to be able to step forward and own their own businesses and have that security develop, you know, continue to develop their roots in Burlington and do so in a way where they know that they're going to be secure in Burlington. But that starts with having an administration that prioritizes a neighborhood level focus and that, that, you know, when we have these, when we have tremendous staff doing this work, that we value them, that we, that we really give them, give them the tools that they need to succeed in doing that work. And that's really what I'll bring to the table, as, you know, as mayor is that that emphasis on making sure that we're not just, you know, thinking about, you know, those who have, but really, you know, all of the different businesses in Burlington and trying to bring a diversity to those businesses so that people's needs are really met in Burlington, as opposed to, you know, having uses and businesses that really are only accessible to certain classes in our city. Thank you for that.  And I think it's incredibly refreshing for us to be able to have these conversations together and to have leaders in our city government who, who work together really collaboratively and may it be so all across the nation. So I think this is great modeling. And I also just appreciate these themes around sort of all of our cultural understanding in so many sectors, all that you're saying about business ownership applies in my world of, of farmland access and our history in agriculture and who has access to land and who doesn't. So I think it's really good to have a public reckoning that these are pervasive systems that apply in every sector. Something that came up that you both just touched on a little bit was around union jobs and I want to hear a little bit more about that, in particular city workers from AFSCME local 1343 picketed over the summer when the mayor was demanding that employee contracts be reopened to give back some modest but hard earned raises. And the mayor initially said that absent agreement there would be layoffs of union workers. As mayor, will you commit to respecting the employee contracts and fighting to protect these union jobs? I'd also be curious to hear a related question. How will your administration in general support organized labor, including some new efforts to unionize in sectors like the service industry? So is it back to you, Max? Yeah, I think so. So as a union organizer, certainly doing this work day in and day out to represent nurses up at UBMMC, I fully support union members and exercising their collective bargaining rights. I think that there is that our city workers form the backbone of the city and do such important work.  I think it was at the beginning of February, this unbelievable city worker Laurent, who has been with the city for decades. We got in his truck and drove around the city plowing the city. And I just got a real sense for what their life is like, you know, what his day in and day out sort of experiences like. And so I think that that's the kind of direct outreach that's the kind of mayor that we need someone who's willing to go to DPW and sort of see what, you know, what the workers at DPW experience. You know, I think that we need to also really make sure that we are providing, you know, continuing to provide full, you know, full employment and doing everything we possibly can to avoid layoffs and furloughs because that will only further destabilize families and workers, you know, in our community who are again doing this tremendous work for the city. The one caveat that I will say, however, is that we do need to reexamine and work on the police contract because there are real issues with how officers are disciplined. I think that we've seen the limitations and the really honestly, the failures within that contract. And we need to when that contract is up for renegotiation, we need real change around how officers are disciplined and how they're held accountable in that contract so that that's not an impediment, but that that's really a tool for us to hold officers accountable, especially in in in incidents in use of force incidents because that's where I think so much of, you know, so much of the failure of that contract has been. So we need to make sure that we do everything we can to renegotiate that contract and really prioritize BIPOC folks and make sure that we craft the public safety system that has real accountability in it because that's going to be that that that's going to be crucial towards making people able to, you know, feel safe and not only feel safe, but actually be safe in our community. So I think that there's, you know, that that's an important caveat or an important element that I want to bring into the conversation when we talk about these contracts is that, you know, that there is this other element, which is the police contract and we need to address that and we need to do so when it's in, you know, in a concerted fashion the next time it's up for renegotiation. Thanks, Max, Brian. As we have found, there's not a lot of daylight between us on these issues right here. So let me at least dress one thing that I think is deserves at least mentioning because someone posted a question, which I just saw about the African market on the corner, which got an eviction notice and it was a 45 day eviction notice and the new owners of the of the building. Decided they would like to perhaps renovate and occupy the space and unfortunately, there's not a lot of legal protection in that case. So rather than well, my approach to that as an elected official was to reach out directly to the BIPOC owned business by a BIPOC woman to reach her directly through my own channels to find out what support are you looking for? What do you need in this situation? Not what I think should happen or what maybe would look great in terms of like sort of an organizing strategy around attacking the owner of the building. I think that what that what's happening here is clearly a sign of what happens in an economy where the ownership is everything. You get to tell people what you can and can't do. But I wanted the business owner to be centric here. And the response was I just need help finding a new place and getting another extra month. And so in the end, they got an extra month. They have gotten help from the city to find new space. And I sought out some other assistance, financial assistance from the city that will be flowing to this business owner, as well as through an incredible community organizer Melissa Kane. We have a go fund the effort that will bring resources to BIPOC owned business. I just want to be clear that, you know, we together can do amazing things when we care about folks in this way. And I have certainly proven that I can do that on the issue of union contracts.  When you give up stuff at the table, you shouldn't be expected to then reopen to be asked to give up more. That that that is a fundamental concept. Fundamental concept of collective bargaining. We have, I think, five bargaining units in city government. And in each instance, I would be a mayor who would support the rights and the process of collective bargaining in a very meaningful, respectful way. I would bring back the idea that Peter Clavel advance, which is labor management and bringing labor and management into a collective process to identify areas of for efficiencies and areas for cost savings that avoid having to reopen contracts, but instead achieve, you know, financial outcomes that keep the level of service and the level of employment and the level of wages and benefits but providing more cost effective services to our citizens. That's, I think, the responsibility of leadership. And that's a type of leadership that we need to get back to. So I would I would bring that focus. I would bring a labor management focus. I would always honor the contracts with collective bargaining units. That's something I feel very strongly about. Thanks, Brian. I'm I'm wanting to turn now to the city budget and the process around the budget. You know, we're coming up on likely a reduced budget. And I'm curious to hear what kinds of cuts you might anticipate making given reduced federal dollars and potentially reduced property tax revenues. I'm also curious if you would be interested, open to using participatory budget making processes so that there could be more democratic process in the budget experience for the city.  Absolutely, we have. I think we have a proud tradition in Vermont of direct involvement in local government and in democracy. We have direct democracy through this thing called town meeting. What we haven't really figured out, though, is how to make it more meaningful through the course of a longer period of time rather than that one day. And we have neighborhood planning assemblies. There's one way to do that. I think we need to completely rethink the way we engage citizens. We have we hold meetings in buildings. We hold them at dinner time. Sometimes it's helpful or convenient for people. But a lot of families will come to our community dinner and then they'll walk away, leave to take their families home because we don't provide adequate child care because we don't offer enough support for all types of people to participate in our processes. So I embrace the idea of participatory budgeting. I have some familiarity with it. And in fact, one of the things that Mayor Sanders brought to Burlington was take this federal resource that comes to Burlington in the form of a block grant called the Community Development Block Grant and let the citizens decide how to spend it. In most cities, that program is called the mayor's program because the mayor gets to decide exactly where the money goes. And it goes to things like tennis courts and basketball courts and sometimes even golf courses. But in Burlington, we decided to democratize the way we allocate those resources so that we can be sure that the purpose of those funds is being honored and the purpose is to alleviate poverty. So rather than the city figuring out how to spend those dollars, we asked the community to do that. So in my mind, that is a great model for how to approach the way we budget. But we need to accept an idea that meetings and going to meetings isn't necessarily the most inclusive approach. For single moms, going to a night meeting, I don't think it's really an option for a lot of single mothers in Burlington. So if we're gonna think about this, we need in my mind an outreach strategy and inclusion strategy and citizen engagement needs to put those voices in the center of what we design. But when you think about folks who are left out, first rather than as an afterthought, oh, let's get childcare at the last minute or oh, let's offer some food, let's make it really a core part of how we approach the way we govern so we can bring people in in a meaningful way and give them support to be engaged members of this community. Because when we have community engagement around budget decisions, around any of our decisions, people get a greater sense of togetherness, building community of belonging. And that's really what we all want. I think that's what people really want in their community. They want to feel welcomed. They also want to feel connected to each other. So when we have connections with our neighbors, it feels wonderful. What we need to accept is some people don't have the ability to participate the way we've defined participation today. We need to completely rethink and revamp the way we enable people to participate in local government and in local government decisions. So some of the ideas for doing that, now that we've gone through COVID and seen, we have the ability to provide certainly online access for people. But that's only for those who have the means. They have the technology, they have the bandwidth, they have the internet, they have everything. We have, I think an obligation to get innovative really creative about enlisting the voices, including the voices of people who aren't already at the table. And that would be a focus of mine as your mayor. Thanks. Over to you, Max. Yeah, so I think that we really needed to come at our city budgets from a place of understanding them as moral documents. That the budgets are really our priorities and as an extension of those priorities, really where our morality is as a city and how we spend the people's money and how we engage people in the decisions around that spending is paramount to creating an equitable and inclusive city. And so I fully support participatory budgeting. I think we need to move towards that system. And I think that that can be part of more of a neighborhood scale focus. Cities around the world use participatory budgeting to make large and small decisions. Porto Allegra, for instance, uses it in a much bigger way to make very large infrastructure decisions. Whereas the city of Chicago, I spoke with Alderman in the city of Chicago and the way that they do it is they have it on a much more neighborhood scale where folks can propose projects that they're passionate about. And then they go through a vetting process where they're able to see if they're feasible, where they're able to get technical assistance because people may have a great idea, but they may not know all the things that they need to make it happen. And then if a project is able to be determined to be feasible, then elevating that to the ballot in March and giving people a real ability to vote on that project if that, and weigh in. And you could see, I think some really exciting civic engagement happening around and campaigning around different projects. I think that that could be a real benefit. You can even have carve-outs for specific areas. You could have specifically areas focused on climate, areas focused on racial justice. You could really, you can get really creative with participatory budgeting, but we really need to start that process. And I think that in addition to that, we also need to transform the process of how we do the budget. This year we saw the real limitations of our current budget process because usually it's a process where we're, in normal times, we're in conference room 12 or what will, well, it's not gonna be the same location, but what will not be called the Bush or Conference Room. And we just sit there and have these conversations and not that many people come to that because even though it's posted and whatever, because it's not accessible, we need to take the budget to the people and let them know how specifically their dollars are being spent in their neighborhoods and how the budget actually impacts them and do so in a way that's not just spreadsheets and numbers, but that really makes it accessible to people from different cultures that makes it accessible to people who have through the multiple intelligences, because not everybody is in numbers with us, we need to have ways of making the budget real to real people. And I think participatory budgeting, combined with bringing that neighborhood scale focus is gonna be crucial. And that's something that I think we need to change in the city of Burlington. Do I have any, a little bit more time or? You have like maybe 10 more seconds. Okay, so the other piece was on the cuts. I think we need to, one of the things that we've also seen is that, while property taxes have been coming in at a much greater rate than we've seen, I think we had to potentially expect it. I think one of the things that we've seen is that, with gross receipts and other taxes that come in and that have a lot to do with tourism, that we need to diversify our economy and make sure we're not getting too reliant on rooms and meals taxes and things that are part of a tourist economy, because we see that in these moments of economic downturn or really unusual circumstances like this pandemic, those sources are not what we thought that they, what they are in boom times. And so we need to create a diverse economy in order to really provide a real protection for our city. Thanks. Yeah, I mean, as we're speaking about participatory democracy and budget process, I'm wanting to hear from the folks who are chatting us and asking questions. We'll have time at the very end for a closing statement, but I'm gonna try to get in a few of these questions. So if you could really hold this to one or two minutes max, that would be good. We've been asked a couple of times about whether you think we should have a renters rights bill for the state or for Burlington to be fair to all tenants. And I would turn that back to you, Max. Yeah, absolutely, of course. I mean, that's a no-brainer. We need to enhance tenant protections. I deal with all kinds of circumstances pretty much on a daily basis in terms of just the shortcomings of our current housing code. And I think we need to do everything we can to strengthen that code and give tenants more rights and make sure that they not only have these rights, but that they know them and that they're empowered to actually protect their rights. And so I think one of the things that can happen is I think we see entities within our community do great work on those fronts to provide people with that. Thinking of the CBOEO and legal aid, but I think that the city needs to also take a proactive approach towards educating renters as to their rights, so that they know how to actually navigate systems, like how you would take something to the housing board review. I think a lot of tenants, for instance, when they get their security deposits taken away for unfair charges or unfounded reasons, they don't know that they can actually appeal it to the housing board review and argue their case and provide evidence as to why this charge is not merited and actually win money back. So I think that we need to give people the tools that they need to really uphold their rights and that we need to engage tenants in a real dialogue on how we can enhance those. I think a great starting point, as I said, at the beginning of this was to make sure that we enact a just cause eviction provision in March and I'm excited to vote for that on Monday. Brian? Sure, when I got involved with Vermont tenants as an organizing entity, there was no statewide landlord tenant law, none. It was just each tenant was on their own to file a lawsuit and legal aid had to fight those law, had to fight for tenants' rights every single time. I was part of the coalition that went to the state house and actually won the first landlord tenant law, which was passed in 1986. We have passed a number of local ordinances that have taken tenants' rights to a whole different level, but we are nowhere near far enough. We have not protected tenants to give them the relative rights of security of tenure that a homeowner enjoys, that if you pay your bills, if you follow the rules and you don't violate any of your lease, you should be allowed the level of security that is essential for having healthy families, for people being able to age in their apartments and not worry and also take away the fear that people live with every day, that if they complain about conditions, they can easily get a notice that says, you know what, at the end of this lease, we're just gonna have to say you're done. That ought to not be allowed and that continues to be allowed in Burlington. And I have been pushing just cause eviction locally, going back to the 80s when we fought it then and we have come back to it. It has taken us a long time to get back to it, but I want to give credit really to the Burlington Tenants Union for bringing it back up as a core issue. And I think that that's an organization that has raised issues that have been long forgotten and ignored and we need to take those issues seriously. And as mayor, I would center those issues, I would look to organizations. When we would bring up the tenants issue, by the way, in the 80s and Bernie was mayor, you know what he would say? That's a great idea, I love it. But unless you can turn out 20, 30 or 40 people to contact a auditorium, it's not gonna happen. I need you to show me that you can bring some people and build political power so we can get the Republicans and the Democrats to agree to this. So that was part of an organizing strategy and we passed everything with bipartisan, in some cases, tripartisan support action. Thanks. Thanks to you both. Another question from a viewer is, did you support the downtown improvement district? If so, why? If not, why not? Brian? I did not support the downtown improvement district. It was a, it was sort of a, I believe it was a perhaps well-intentioned, but it went too far in turning what is essentially a public asset and a public resource into a privately controlled and ultimately privately governed city street. And it made no sense to me that after investing in the late 70s, early 80s and to creating the marketplace with public resources and into continuing to maintain that marketplace with a combination of both fee payers and public resources that we would consider converting that over to a private entity. It just, it didn't meet Burlington values. It didn't, it was not consistent with Burlington values. And our community I think made it really clear that that was not the direction we wanted to go. The marketplace approach and the whole notion of a downtown improvement district can be done and be consistent with Burlington values. It was not proposed that way. And that's why I didn't support it. But as mayor, I would bring the focus back to what were we trying to accomplish? What were our goals in advancing a downtown improvement district? What it was is to make sure that we had a vibrant, thriving downtown that would welcome people from all backgrounds. And that was at least my understanding of what the ultimate goal was. And it went too far in expanding the sort of patrolling and sort of police powers of an entity that would ultimately be controlled by business owners and property owners. And I thought that structure was flawed. And I would not support that approach. Max? So I fought the DID pretty much every step of the way. I was on the Charter Change Committee and I fought it hard there. And fortunately I was one on one counselor on a three-person committee. And so I got outvoted on pretty much everything I tried to do to resist it at the committee level. I resisted at the full council and then really encouraged people throughout the city to vote against the DID because it really would have tilted the powers, tilted power too far in the direction of private interests in our downtown and would have given, would have created where there is currently a public governance structure, would have taken that governance structure and privatized it. And in so doing would have also provided increased power over our downtown to those business owners, to those property owners to make thing, to do over infrastructure decisions because basically what's gonna happen is that they were gonna contribute money and then by nature of that money, they were essentially in my view, gonna be able to buy influence or buy power as to how downtown was gonna look and how downtown was gonna function and what kinds of services would be provided where and the public would have been largely left out of those conversations that we wouldn't have had as to democratic a conversation. I'm really gonna be hesitant. I won't embrace a structure like that. I think we've seen in administration that again has tilted way too far in the direction of private interests that under capitalism in my opinion, already have tremendous power and influence over our city and how decisions are made. And so to further that process would be a disaster for Burlington. So we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can to empower the people to have control over their downtown and to make sure that downtown works for everybody because if only the business and property owners are the ones that are driving the conversation, they're gonna drive downtown towards their interests. When we include everybody, that's gonna be a very different looking downtown because that's gonna include a lot of different priorities and that will ultimately not only be a more vibrant downtown but also a more sustainable downtown for years to come. Thanks. So we just got a question that I think could be a helpful closing question prompt. So you're gonna have some time to make a closing statement on the topic of economic justice but we've just had someone who's watching ask, what would be your vision for Burlington in 10 years given everything goes well for economic prosperity for all people regardless of race, gender, sexuality, religion, ability? In other words, what does daily life look like if economic justice is really centered? And I offer that to you. I know that you want to make general closing statements about economic justice, but I think that hearing a little bit about what is your vision for where we're going as we close our time together would be helpful. And so I have to switch it from who I'm first at the beginning. So I'm gonna let you take it away and we'll each have a few minutes to speak to this. Sure. So I think, Brian, you went first, right? Yeah, I think that's what it was. Okay, so when I think about what Burlington has for years was, I think a city that was leading the way. It was a city that was winning awards that was really at the forefront of small American cities. And unfortunately, we've fallen back on that. We really aren't at the forefront in so many areas. And I think that's because we've, we haven't kept our eye on the ball on these bread and butter economic justice issues. We've let, runaway housing costs take over and really detract from that that that viability and so doing making, creating, and exacerbating additional disparities and additional gaps for people of color in our community. And so I think that what we need to do as a city is re-embrace that role of government. The government can take an activist position when it comes to Burlington, that it can intervene to create prosperity for everybody, that it can intervene to address the externalities, to address the real flaws within a capitalist system and that in so doing, we can really create prosperity for everybody. So Burlington in 10 years that I wanna see is a Burlington where people aren't spending 40, 50, even more than that 50% of their paychecks on housing. It's a Burlington where people aren't working minimum wage service industry jobs, but where everybody has a liberal wage job. It's a city where we've also increased, it's also what kinds of jobs. So making sure that we have opportunities for people to be part of the union and we have a much more vibrant labor movement in our city that not only includes existing unions and grows those unions, but that creates more opportunities for people to collectively bargain in our city and really to even out that balance between management and labor. It's also a city where people have not only access to affordable housing, but they have access to safe housing. I think that in so many cases, we see housing that is not safe because of contaminants like lead. We see other issues like weatherization being significant detriments to renters in our community. And then we see other cases where landlords take advantage of tenants and where their rights are not respected. And so it's a Burlington where renters are valued, where they're able to actually have access to not only affordable housing, but housing that's actually decent, that has dignity and where people are able to live. And I see that as being part of a housing first model where it's for everybody. It's not just for the wealthiest few who can afford a house because of intergenerational wealth. And that goes back to what I was saying. I think the beginning, which has to do with the fact that wealth doesn't just, that wealth is that we need to acknowledge that wealth is really accumulated along very disparate racial lines. And white folks have tremendous wealth in our community, people of color do not because of the legacy of systemic racism in our community. So we need to confront that legacy by having a more interventionist city policy that includes things that really address some of these externalities that we see from capitalism. We need to enact right control, just cause eviction policies, making sure that we're doing everything we can to empower business owners, not relying too much on a tourist economy. All of these things are gonna be real under a progressive administration. If we take a chance, we are willing to accept, that are willing to take a different path than the status quo. I think we can find ourselves in a very different Burlington. And my experience is over the last 15 years, fighting for economic justice, fighting for liberal wages, fighting for unions, fighting against big predatory developers. All of those things will inform this approach and will, I think, be instrumental in actualizing a more just and inclusive Burlington that is more economically equitable for all residents. Thank you, Max, Brian. Great, thank you. This has been just an incredible experience, really. I just wanna thank everybody. And I wanna say that I have a deep, deep love for Burlington and Burlington's people. And that when I came here as a college student, I didn't intend to stay in Burlington. I actually intended to go back to the community where I grew up, because my family's been there for two centuries. My whole family wanna be back there, but as soon as I got here, I became somebody who not just loved the fact that we live in an incredibly beautiful place, but that I lived in a place that had a different vision of how we could achieve a more equitable and more sustainable society. And my experience as a young person at working with the community and alongside some of our early progressive leaders taught me incredibly important lessons around how when you lead and guide with your values, when you lead with the concept of love, actually, as part of what you bring into this process of self-governing. Democracy is about self-governance. And if we don't lead with our core values, and if we allow for conveniences and its favoritism towards interests that we think are the interests we should be advancing, what we forget to do is to take care of our neighbors and our friends and everybody around us or people we've never met and may never meet. And so my vision is that we have a community where people who've been marginalized by our society, and that includes women, that includes non-binary folks, includes BIPOC folks, working class people. We need to center them in all of our policies. Everything we try and do needs to be built around the notion that many of us, especially as white males, arrive with a lot of privilege. We have baggage that we were given and those bags were given to us really by birth. And we need to recognize that those who weren't given the same privileges, the role of our self-governance, our democracy, is to level the playing field and to provide for opportunity and fairness and equity and access to the same potential to reach our fullest potential as people. I personally was lucky and incredibly fortunate to be able to work for this city for 18 years, building affordable housing, protecting children from lead poisoning, ensuring that we had neighborhoods that supported families, supported businesses, allowed our seniors to age in place and brought with us everyone, didn't leave anyone behind. And that was our focus. That was our focus because that's the right thing to do. When we lead with our values, when we're guided by our hopes and not our fears, and when we bring people who are often forgotten or left and pushed aside into the process, but not just into the process, but into the core way that we think about our role as government, that's when we can achieve our full potential. That's when we can build a truly inclusive, welcoming community where people have a sense of belonging and my career, my record stands for itself. I'm a bridge builder, I'm a community builder. I have done this my entire life. And if people want to engage with me, we have pineformayor.com is one way to reach us. And I would encourage you to reach out because this is a process, this is the longest job interview you'll ever have is what somebody once told me. I was Peter Clavel called it that. And I believe that's the case and I need to earn your support and I am here to earn your support tonight. And I hope that we'll continue working together. And as we move together to the caucus on December 1st, everybody needs to sign up. Please reach out, share your thoughts, share your criticisms. We only learn through criticism. So we're in this to hopefully learn and improve as people but to improve our community is the core value that I bring. Thank you very much. Thank you, Brian. Thanks to both of you for all of your thought and conversation tonight. Thanks to everyone who came to join us and took time out of your busy lives to Zoom again. And thank you again to the Progressive Party for putting on these forums so we can get in depth with these topics that matter most to our city. Gil, can I hand it back to you? Thank you, Grace. Just briefly in closing, I wanna thank both Brian Pine and Max Tracy. You are both compelling progressive leaders who would serve us well. And we ought to all be proud that you're both interested in representing the Progressive Party in the upcoming campaign. And Grace, you're a friend, but I think honestly, you've done a terrific job managing a difficult conversation. Thank you for organizing us and supporting this discussion between Brian and Max. As I mentioned at the beginning, this is the third and final of a series of forums that we've had with Max and Brian. They're all recorded, they'll all be posted on the Progressive Party Facebook page. So if you missed the first two or you wanna catch up on this one again, they'll be available there and do let your friends know if they're curious about learning more about the two counselors. And finally, as I mentioned at the beginning, it's important that you register online to participate in the Progressive Party caucus on the first and information is available on the Progressive Party website. You can register there and voting in that caucus will occur online in the two days following the caucus, which is on Tuesday the 1st. So thank you again. I appreciate everybody for participating and for folks sticking with us through Facebook to listen to this compelling conversation. And please have a good evening. Take care.