Our next color is jasmine from michigan. Hey jasmine. How can we help you? Hi, Sal. Um, so I recently lost a hundred and thirty pounds. Um, wow Awesome, so I'm trying to get back into I guess a normal lifestyle without gaining back a lot of the body fat that I lost And I know there's a lot of science behind like everybody gains back the weight So I was wondering what your opinions are on that and what I can do to Get back to maintenance sort of eating style and training excellent This pairs really well with the question we just answered you will go. Yeah, so first off Congratulations, that is tremendous. That's such a hard thing to do. So the fact that you actually did it I mean, that's a testament to to you I need to ask you a few more questions before I can answer this properly I need to find out. How did you lose the weight? Was this did you get gastric bypass procedure? Did you have? Did you do it through exercise and diet like what were the things you did to get there? It was all diet and exercise I started calorie counting and then just actually being active. Okay, cool. All right So so I'm gonna say something that might sound a little bit like I'm not answering your question But just bear with me. Okay The most important thing you can focus on to prevent yourself from gaining weight has nothing to do with the Physiological things that are gonna happen to your body as you watch your calories and exercise and stuff like that Those are all the Mechanistic things that you can work on and I have no doubt in my mind that you'll be able to do them because you've actually done Them already and lost a lot of weight the thing I'm gonna recommend that you focus on the most is working on the behavioral aspect of it the emotional aspect It's essentially the mental part of all of this So I highly recommend if you haven't already Investing in a therapist or somebody who specializes in working with the behavioral aspects of Not just the weight gain that happened prior to your weight loss But now what happens now that you've lost the weight in my experience working with people who've lost a lot of weight They've usually used food as a way to self medicate So now what they've done is they've removed that way of self medicating and through sheer discipline They're able to lose the weight But at some point all those reasons why maybe you had that weight on you in the first place Start to creep back in and so you can have the best plan the best workout the best everything in terms of what to do But if you don't address that it can be very very very challenging if not impossible Does that resonate with you? Yes, it does. Okay, excellent. All right now. Let's talk about the the mechanisms that you're going to work on However, many count what how many calories you consume right now now that you've lost the weight. What do you what's your maintenance at? That's what I can't figure out necessarily I go between eating like around 1600 a day just because I'm not hungry to like around 2800 a day, so it just varies. Do you have any idea of what that would average out to per week? I haven't done the calculations, but probably around like 2200 or so, okay, it's actually not bad. No, that's not bad. It's not bad at all considering you've dropped down 130 pounds Now now let me ask you another question. What does your exercise look like daily? Are you doing tons and tons of activity every day? So I have a rebound or trampoline and when I'm bored I just kind of jog on it for a couple hours a day honestly, okay So I'm not sure if that cardio is influencing what I'm doing at all. What about training? Are you are you following any of the maps programs right now? I just finished anabolic. Okay, excellent. What did you see with anabolic? My muscles definitely got a lot stronger. I like managed to do I guess body recomp in the last year So it definitely just solidified everything I had been doing. Oh very cool. Very very cool Okay, so you're doing two hours of cardio a day in order to be able to consume 2200 calories a day nothing necessarily wrong with that in terms of sustainability in my experience It's gonna be very difficult to maintain that five years ten years fifteen years and beyond because it's a lot of Structure dedicated activity. I would recommend trying to make your daily life more active It's a much more sustainable way of doing things. So maybe getting a step counter Seeing if you can increase your steps just throughout the day in your daily routines And then try to replace the rebounding with something like that Adam asked you the question about Resistance training stay on that nothing positively affects the metabolism like building strength and building muscle So I would stay on that get your body strong Get your body to want to build muscle It'll make it so that you don't need to worry about burning so many calories manually on a daily basis And even though I can't you know, I'm not I'm not working with you and I haven't seen your how you train inside the gym My suggestion would be to make sure that you are focused on Strength over burning right so a lot of times when I have a client that has a big weight loss goal It's all about moving and burning calories a lot of the messaging that you see in social media and even on TV around Weight loss is all about burning burning burning And so a lot of times when my clients would come in the gym That's how they approach their exercise there their sets their reps their weight when they're training is they're trying to keep moving and wait Take some rest periods to settle down and actually your goal should be can I you know Can I add five pounds to my bench press? Can I add 10 pounds to my squat and really kind of reframe? Your thought process of going into the gym and exercising. It's more about building strength building muscle That's what's gonna help speed the metabolism up That's what's gonna allow you to be able to increase your calorie intake without putting on body fat And so I'm not sure what it looks like right now for you But I know in my experience with clients a lot of times when they're trying to lose weight It's all about moving and burning and I got a read I got a reframe what that should look like for them And it's like hey when we go to the gym, I'm not concerned about you You know moving around like crazy and in short rest periods You don't rest rest for a solid two minutes between these sets and let's try and increase that strength and let's increase the weight That you're moving Okay, okay, Jasmine. Do you mind if I ask you a couple of personal questions? Yeah So when before you got on this journey and you were a hundred and thirty pounds heavier than you are now What were the what was the food doing for you or what were you eating the food for in other words? was it did you find yourself eating because you were bored or sad or Anxious what was that food helping you with? It was probably a combination of all three honestly, okay, and what have you replaced the food with? exercising Okay, so what you've done is you've okay, so you've medicated with food before and now you're using exercise to medicate Does that sound am I saying that accurately? I would say so. Okay. Now. This is actually a Strategy that I would use with clients so when they would have Like you did with food where it was a way to self-medicate either, you know sadness depression anxiety Whatever and I would actually have them Replace it with exercise because it's an easy transition. However, you can't stay there, okay, right? Because using exercise in that way is also developing a unhealthy or bad relationship with exercise, and it's also Totally not sustainable. Does that make sense to you? Yeah, okay excellent So this is why I really again. I want to stress this work with somebody who is Experienced and an expert in this field and I'm telling you the people that I've worked with that I worked with quite a bit of quite a few people Who've lost over a hundred pounds the ones who were successful were the ones that did exactly what I'm talking about the ones Who didn't do what I'm talking about I'm not a single one of them was successful long-term. Yeah Yeah, I think you're coming in with the right attitude of trying to find your maintenance and You know a lot of times the biggest struggle with somebody has lost a lot of weight that I'm helping coach is That temptation of wanting to burn all the calories and make sure their activity levels are really high and they're doing high-intensity things So, you know the advice I can only just echo Trying to sort of refocus on just Building your body up and getting stronger and focusing on the metrics So even something like a powerlifting program something like that, you know might be something to look into But you know once you dial all that in and you know You're utilizing food to just you know fuel the energy going into the workouts.  Thanks for calling in Jasmine. Yeah, thank you so much. No problem That's a you know, you're absolutely right Adam The vast majority of people that were in her situation don't even get close to where she's at I'm not even aware. Yeah, not even aware and she's she's I would say More than halfway there, but again, I can't stress when you finally get there. You're not done There's another phase you need to move to that can be just as challenging as the previous phase in and it's Necessary in order to maintain what you've already accomplished. Otherwise if exercise becomes your new drug And we all know that very well what that turns into Either a it can become bad in and of itself or b Eventually get sick of that drug and you drop it very quickly and go back to your previous drug Which was you know, nobody ever thinks that you can you can abuse exercise and fitness, right? It's a good thing, right? Right, it's healthy. I'm exercising, but you absolutely can't especially if you don't handle the root cause if you Got in that situation because and I love that you went that direction with her because that's what's common I think with most people is that's your outlet your outlet is I'm gonna go in the gym and exercise And you know a lot of times it gets people to their goal But long-term eventually that stuff surfaces and then you that's where the that's where the binge and the fall off The wagon and then the all the weight comes back on because you never dealt with what was really causing the weight gain in the first Yeah, I'd say the first in my career I worked with three initially I worked with three people who lost a lot of weight and they Later on gained it back and and failed and it was so For me it was such an eye-opening thing and I remember thinking like what can I possibly do? And so I had this completely different strategy Moving on in my career where when somebody would come to me and would want to lose a hundred pounds or 80 pounds or more What part of the structure was that they work with a therapist and that I work with your therapist When we did that the success rate was much higher because then it was we're really working on the route And I'm not a you know, I was I'm a trainer right and I can work with food relationships I can work with that kind of stuff, but I wanted an expert Who was a therapist or counselor who could work with that person on the side part of it and it was so much more effective


Just start it off and everyone just give it a little introduction.  And that doesn't include just introducing yourself. We just want to start real quick by going around. I just want to announce something real quick on our sign-in queue. The rings that are here, they do not have a chance to sign in. If you didn't have a chance to sign in, please raise your hand and we'll overrun. Let's get you right now. Lovely. Thank you, Hank. So you should go start off real quick by Hank there. I use she and they pronoun and I'm part of Ward 4. Thank you, sir. Thank you. My name is Lauren. This is our daughter, Colby. My name is Lauren Christie. I grew up in the north end and I meet that. Oh, that's so bad. Carly. I'm Carly. I can use my loud voice. Lucy. We're going to pause and do you want to introduce yourself? I'm Robert seven. You guys have a mic there. I'm Vera and I'm here. Thanks. And I'm her son Tom Flurry and she has lived in the north end for almost 64 years. So this is her first NPA. And she wanted to come because she's Burlington is a great city and it's getting even better actually. So. Okay. So that microphone is only for how many TV and people on and on. That microphone comes out of here. Are you going to pass the mic? Yeah, I'm going to pass the mic that does work. She's asking for that. Are you going to pass the one that doesn't work? We have to use both of them, Susan. We have to give them a microphone for now. So. But they got it. You have to get a phone. Oh, perfect. North Avenue cooperative. Okay, so I'm going to pass this mic. I'm going to pass the mic. Donna. Word seven. Caleb you saw the word seven. Karen. Word seven. Okay. I'll include the. Hello, board eight. Hello, board eight, Susan seven. I'm from steering committee. Oh, four. Word for our so high. That's right. You do it right in seven. Brian pine from CEDA and I live my hearts and word three, but I now live in work to because they change boundaries. We turn here and word for. Hi, Karen Paul. I'm city councilor Ward six way on the other side of town. Very happy to be here. Hi, I'm Nikki Garrison and I'm in Ward seven and I'm a steering committee member. And the timekeeper tonight. I'm from Brattleboro, but I lived in Burlington from 70 to 80. I'm Ray war seven. So quiet piece for the four filmmaker and dog walker. I'm calling. I'm from the board for. I'm Lori wood seven. I'm from the board for the board for the board for four. I'm Anna wood, the board seven. I am Caitlin worth for. Your work for. Dara Carpenter she her pronouns and work for city council. I'm Helen. I used to. I'm Helen. I used to. I'm Helen. I used to. I used to. I'm there. Hi Andrew. I'm the board seven. He him. My name is Lee Morgan. I live in board seven and I am your progressive nominee for city council. And you know, very strange. My name is Alex Ward or he him. And I also moved to the new North and I guess eight days ago. Hi, I'm Olivia Taylor. I live in word seven. I'm on the steering committee and I use she her pronouns. Hi, I'm scum. I live in word seven. I use they them pronouns. Rick Ward seven. I'm Dan cast Regano. I use he him pronouns running for city council and progressive and Ward four. Hi, I'm Mark Barlow. North district city council. Ward four and NPA steering committee member. And welcome everybody. It's amazing. I'm over here. I'm in work, work for me. I'm Christy seven. And I'm using her. Trisha came to her pronouns, and I'm one of your elected elections inspectors. I have Joe Carrier, seven. Brian Williams, four, seven. Joanne Halis, four, seven.  We would drive way too fast. Oh, this is a technical thing. That's how most of you will know me, and I'll just make a little bit of a joke. I'm gonna get her out of here. Thank you. Great to learn a little bit about everybody. Our next item on our agenda is, we do have a few neighborhood folks who are interested in joining our steering committee. Anybody who lives in Ward 4 and Ward 7 is welcome to join the steering committee today. To, I'm not sure if Hunter McMahon is here. Actually, we're gonna do that next month. Okay, thank you. Thank you for both of our nominees. No, no. There is another. So Hunter, we'll hear about next month. So I do invite everybody back. But our other nominate is Katelyn Bettenborough. Is Katelyn here? No. Oh, hello, Katelyn. Great, do you wanna say? Do you want a nomination? Yes, please. I nominate Katelyn Bettenborough. Thank you, Lee. We need a second. Is there a second? I second. Oh, I know, I'm not four. Award for a second, Lee. Second. Thank you. There is a second for Katelyn. Does Katelyn wanna say anything? Of course. Gosh, I was like, no, what? You need to let me just say. Don't even have my mic. Well, it's a little much. Little much, I wasn't expecting this. Um, yeah, I was in North End for less than years now. Other than that, I've had over a decade of experience working with homeless and unhoused populations. I was working with veterans from trauma and trauma. Katelyn, we can't hear you. Oh, you can't hear me. I hope this was on. I have no idea. Oh, good question. Oh, good question. Really close. Please, my voice. Thank you. Gosh, so yes, trauma recovery and criminal justice involvement. Doing that kind of work. I have since segwayed into working on a more corporate lifestyle, bringing in ID&E ideals and actual legit programming instead of just something, a nice sticker on a boardroom. So that is kind of what I'm doing professionally. Outside of work, I'm still very active within the community. Family is a bigger opportunity to help shape those conversations, have those different conversations, and of course be an advocate for those in our community who have historically and then continually to have their voices unheard or talked over. So I am looking forward to holding space and making sure that they're really receptive to everybody and each other. I just want to welcome all of those who live in them. You aren't done. Thank you. And so we have nominated and seconded all in favor of voting. Those folks in Ward 4, excuse me, to vote Caitlyn on to the steering committee. All raised, okay. Thank you. Anybody against seeing none? Lovely. Our next agenda item is that we are going to hear from some folks who are running for election in our wards, starting with our candidates for Ward 4. I'm going to hand them to introduce themselves and say a few words. So I'm the timekeeper and I'm going to raise this up, right? And this is the three minute time, right? Let me just get it right. Can you take me a second? Okay. Thank you, thank you, Sarah. My name is Dan Pat Fragano. I live in Ward 4. I use he, him pronouns. I'm running for city council as a progressive. I asked the steering committee if I could go first and I'm actually going to have to leave right after this couple of minutes. I've got my son, River here. I'm solo parenting for a couple of nights and the usual folks who would do bedtime or could do bedtime are also out of town. I know there are people even in this room who would be willing to take him, but the parenting decision for today is to be here and then head out right after this. So I wanted to let everybody know. Thank you, Lee. And thank you, River, for being so good. I've been a teacher for about 15 years. I'm a community organizer working mostly on climate justice, more recently on some other things like housing and transportation. I have the orange signs out with the bike on them. I ride my bike all the time. I'm running because I care a lot about Burlington and I want to make it better. I've been engaged since moving here about three years ago on a lot of topics. I care deeply about a lot of the issues. Number one for me is the climate emergency. I'm totally trying to do my best here. So thanks. Vicki, please keep my time. Yesterday was 65 degrees in Burlington. It beat the daily record of February 27th by eight degrees. It was 57. So we're feeling a climate emergency in real time. I've been endorsed by Sunrise, the Sunrise Movement in Champlain Valley and also run on climate. I'm running a climate emergency teaching and discussion on Saturday in this room at two o'clock. If you'd like to join, even if you don't support my candidacy or don't live in Ward 4, everybody's invited for a 90 minute session to learn about the climate emergency. Talk about how it makes you feel and figure out what it means for Burlington. So all of you are invited on Saturday. I care a lot about housing. So I was at the council meeting on Monday. Oh, yeah. I was at the council meeting on Monday supporting neighborhood code. So I care a lot about housing. I care a lot about transportation, justice and safe streets. So it's walking, biking and public transit. Choose not to drive a car because I like to walk, bike and ride the bus. I care a lot about community safety and public health. I think we need emergency low barrier shelters to make sure that nobody's sleeping on the streets. I think that's inhumane and cruel. I think we need more oversight and accountability for the police departments. I think we need to immediately open an overdose prevention center as soon as we can to save lives and connect people to treatments. And I care a lot about democracy. So three things were just not set to the ballot in six days. So that's more oversight of the police department which was blocked. And I would have said, let's vote on that. The apartheid free resolution which was also blocked at city council. I would think the community should have also voted on that. And then a charter changed the tax all polluting fuels.  And so I'm also from more democracy. If you wanna get in contact go to danfordburlington.com email me at danfordburlington at gmail.com see me on Saturday here at two or find me at the polls from seven to seven on Tuesday. Thanks and I hope the rest of the meeting is good. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much, Dan. There is also just some literature in that back table for anybody who is looking to take anything home from some of the candidates today. Now I'm gonna invite Sarah Carpenter to get the words from Warchore. Thank you all. Ms. Spectra. Oh, my name is Sarah Carpenter and I'm the current city council here from Warchore was elected in 2020, just about five days before the pandemic started. So it's been an interesting last three years of managing the city and with all of its ups and downs but I'm really gained in you. We went through some tough years and started some things and we've got so much to fix. My professional career for many years was in affordable housing. I was the executive director of 502 Square and involved with most of the senior facilities out here and was involved with developing them. Went on to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency which is the largest funder in the state in affordable housing. And I continue my interest. The city still got a lot to do. We don't have the box to do it but we need to facilitate it through zoning changes which we're starting to do. All things like the South End Innovation District as well as the neighborhood code. I was involved with Cambrian Rise and we've got two or three other major projects on the docket that the city desperately needs and I will continue to advocate for that. I'm just so distressed about that number of unhoused folks in our city. It's really the worst I've seen in my professional career and I thought things in the 80s got tough and then we got better and then we got worse but we're at a low place there. And one of the things I hope to bring to the table as a counselor is really much more proactive advocacy with Montpelier. I did that in my work at VHFA. We cannot solve this problem without the state's help and we need to have a real presence in the state house. We need all of you to have a presence in the state house because that's the only way we're gonna fix it. That and in addition to the struggles we're having with supporting people with substance use disorder, the programs we have are totally inadequate. We need more outreach capacity. We do need an overdose prevention center and we need transitional housing to support folks as they go into recovery and we're desperately, desperately short of that in addition to low barrier shelters. Another interesting mine and I certainly currently serve on the city's human resources council is staffing. Both in the city because we are struggling with how to serve folks just with our basic daily services. Certainly we're struggling with staffing up our emergency services department. We've got openings in the fire department and the police department and with our newly created community services. This year we're budgeting for up to 24 non sworn officers, but we can't fill all the positions. And so I'm hoping I can spend more time in my human resource role figuring out how the city can really more proactively improve people to help us with our issues. We put there. We are now gonna hear from the candidates for ward seven. Unfortunately, Evan Litwin could not be here tonight, but our Syrian committee read a statement from him. Hi everyone. So this statement is from Evan Litwin. Hello and good evening to the members of the NPA. I have a chronic medical condition that has recently flared up and continues to require medical attention.  I want to express my sincere gratitude to my providers at UVM Medical Center who are supporting me through this. I will continue to work as much as I can and continuing to connect with voters as much as possible between now and election day. We are just one week away and I'm grateful for the support and kindness I've received from my neighbors, many of whom have checked in on me over the past several weeks and friends who have provided me care in my home or by doing daily tasks. My message during this campaign has been focused on a vision of safe, healthy and lively futures for the place we call home. I have heard time and time again your priorities and I will work hard to preserve all our beautiful city has to offer, be bold and forward thinking in addressing public safety and community health and pragmatically work to improve housing affordability. Over the next week, in addition to working on getting well, I will be sharing this message of progress with as many voters as possible. If you would like to learn more or would like to get in touch, please visit evan47.com and I've also been given permission to give his email if you have any questions for him as well. Thank you. I'm sharing that Olivia from Evan. I'm going to ask Lee Morgan to say some words. Thank you, thank you and please feel free to shout at me if I'm not talking loud enough. So my name is Lee Morgan. I'm running to be your ward seven city counselor and I'm sure everyone joins me in sending this wishes to Evan for good health. So I am running to work with everyone to make sure we are building a Burlington where everyone can feel safe, secure, and supported. So I have truly found my home here in Burlington. I met and married my wonderful husband here in Burlington. Give away, Van, give away. One of the many wonderful things that has happened since I moved here. So another wonderful thing that's happened since I've moved here is I have really found what it means to be in community and I have tried to step up and support my neighbors like my neighbors have supported me. So how I'm doing that is I am serving in my second term on the parks and rec mission as the vice chair. I have also served as a former steering committee member here at the NPA for about a year. And I'm also an organizer working on trans rights, working with houses people and working in substance use disorder. So now I'm taking that advocacy to the next level and I'm running for city counselor. And as part of that, I've been connecting with neighbors at the doors and there seems to be a consensus. People are worried about public safety. We're worried about housing and affordability and our houses crisis. We're worried about the opioid epidemic. And most of all what I'm hearing is we are worried about the out of control property taxes. It's resonating with a lot of folks I'm talking to. The good news is we are not as divided as you may think. And despite what some politicians may say, and I have to recognize that I guess I am a politician now, we stand together and I believe that a better brilliant is possible. So the question is, how do we do that? How do we must, what are we going to do to that? How do we put forward to make a better future for all of our communities? I am not candidate. Who is ready to ask? Did you turn the mic off? You turned the mic to stop working. It's not live at the bottom. Yeah, it's not working. It's so true. It died. So that actually let's take it off. That's it. How is my time, Nikki? That's fine. She's on top. I'm taking this job very seriously. I'm just projecting. I think I can be pretty loud. This is for the Zoom. Is it back on? It should be. It's not on. No. How about I just project? Can everyone hear me? Yeah. All right, let's go with it. I think we're just going to go with it. So let me find my place here. Yes. So again, I am that candidate with the political will to act. As many of you know, I am in recovery for over 15 years. I am also formerly unhoused. And when I go down Church Street, I see people who look like me doing what they can to get by. We got to get to the root of these causes. And how do we do that? We need to make sure that everybody who wants to sleep under a roof tonight can. And we cannot currently accommodate that. But we can if we work for that. We need to make sure everybody has the resources they need, the treatment they need. If they need to see a doctor, we need to make sure people can do that as well. Folks in Burlington, we know we are losing people and we need to act now. Now, let's also talk about taxes. Many of us are feeling the squeeze. Good, hardworking folks who grew up in Burlington now in the retirement are having to, I'll wrap this up really quick, are having to move out. I've talked to many people who are looking at selling their homes, people who have recently lost their spouses. Do we want that in Burlington? I know I don't. I will work to make sure that people who want to live here can stay here, age in place. I hope you will join me in making that future possible. Leave for Burlington.com and thank you so much. Those that it's on, it's on, but I don't think it's coming out of there. But you all just heard me say that. Good, huh? All right, I'm going to speak into this for now. Oh, to see if this... All right. Well, thank you, Leigh. I don't know which one to... Thank you. Well, speaking, now we're going to hear from our candidates for, or our school commission, starting with Monica, Yvonne. Yvonne Chich, Yvonne Chich, Yvonne Chich, Yvonne Chich. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. I'll hand you this one. Okay, I hope you don't mind. I'm going to project my voice. I know this one's just for the Zoom meeting. Oh, closer to this thing.  So, as you know, my name is Monica Yvonne Chich and I've been a Burlington resident for nearly 10 years. I have served on the Burlington School Board for three terms representing New North End residents in Ward 7. I'm passionate about education in our community and believe that a robust and equitable education is the basis for a just, engaged, and thriving society. In my position in the chemistry department at UVM, I maintain research instruments similar to MRIs and educate students in their use. My husband also works at UVM in the Howe Library and our daughter, who's sitting right over there, Zoe, is thriving, receiving a robust education at Downtown BHS. I have made connections and established relationships with many different people in the city of Burlington from my colleagues and students at UVM to parents across the city and neighbors in the New North End. As many of you know, the School Board is a body of 12 elected commissioners and our work is accomplished in collaboration with one another, right Kendra? Having served on the School Board for three terms, I'm part of many such accomplishments. One of our more recent achievements was the passage of policy A2, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, which passed this past September. This is a comprehensive policy that deals with the district's commitment to equity and anti-racism and was developed using a five-staffed racial equity lens tool. A powerful aspect of using this tool is to get input from folks that will be most affected by the policy. Thus, we used focus groups that included marginalized students, staff, and family members whose lived experiences helped us develop this policy. As the co-chair of the School Board Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and my entire tenure on the School Board, I support numerous equity efforts across the district. One of these is following the progress of the use of restorative practices. My first term on the board, I was part of the district's RP leadership team and ever since I've had a keen, and ever since I've had a keen interest in the success of RP in our schools. Building a sense of community and belonging are at the core of RP, as well as BSD's strategic plan. With RP, we are striving to create a culture of equity and belonging that leads to the best environment for learning. Another aspect of my committee's work is supporting the implementation of the LGBTQIA plus Task Force recommendations, such that members of this marginalized group feel more accepted in our schools. Just a little bit more. The recommendations span from including LGBTQIA issues into curriculum to non-discrimination policies to creating safe and loving environments in our schools. My committee is working on creating such policies and is following through on the implementation of these recommendations. These are just a few examples of what my work as a school commissioner encompasses. Having served on the board for six years, I have institutional knowledge of how our district functions and believe to be the best candidate to represent our diverse children throughout this city. That means it works. Folks, we really are tight for time, so we really have to stop at three minutes because it's not equitable for people to go long. Thank you. Thank you. And with that note, I'm gonna invite Bill Otagek to speak on the School Board Commission. How you are. Bill Ochen, I've lived in Ward 7 about 15 years. I worked at most levels of education for 20 years, including having been a middle school classroom teacher. I'm seeing some faces here that I recognize tonight, parents, taxpayers whose voices are not really being heard. They know better than I do the true state of education in our public schools. They live with the failing discipline system, the frequent interruptions and classroom instruction caused by disruptive students who learn, most of all, how to play the system. They live with the diminishing expectations and academic standards. These families are reluctant to speak up because they justifiably fear being ostracized and seeing their kids ostracized or worse. I have been privileged to hear their concerns because I have demonstrated my willingness to listen and to talk about areas that sort of need improvement in plain English rather than smothering the other facts under a comforting blanket of euphemisms and trendy buzzwords. The school budget, all voters and taxpayers know about it is what the district tells us, in cautiously crafted soundbites. Has anyone outside of district headquarters seen it? I asked the superintendent for the price of precise language, he'd financially respond. Your elected school commissioners, is there a record of how they voted on specific measures and policies that were placed before them? I can't find that, Douglas. Shouldn't you know how they voted? I'm gonna make an analogy. In some police departments, there is an unwritten code known as the blue wall of silence. Some of you may have heard of it. In those departments, it is understood that it's dangerous to your career or to your safety to report corruption or other criminals. I worked in the substitute for five and a half years everywhere and at every level in this district. I know how the school culture is operating because I have to navigate them every day. I saw how self-discipline, conscientious students are impacted by living under our gene, bruised, disruptive and openly hostile view. This has been normalized. It was maintained by an unencumbered blue wall of silence, which I call the cacking wall of silence. Because that's what most teachers were. Remember, five and a half years watching from inside the schools, then listening to parents and kids. And the more I hear, the more questions I have. The one firm conclusion that I draw from about this district, that they're recording and reporting cannot be trusted at face value. I asked Ward 7 voters to give me two years. I promise to report back to you regularly on what and how we're doing in planning. Thank you, Will. And now for our school commissioner for Ward 4, Martin. She's not able to make it. She's down in Montpelier. All right, doing the good work. That in Montpelier. Thank you for that update, Monica. I'm now going to invite folks here to ask questions to our candidates. We'll have some time. Should we have them go up in the crime scene? Perhaps. Sure. Thank you, Vicky. Lovely idea. Come on up. We can have a conversation with you. Yeah, we can. You can talk very loud. And responses have to be 90 seconds or less. Did you have a good start off? It's time to move to the mic. Okay. As an old radio guide, we say eat the mic. Okay, so you move. All right. I have one question for Mr. Ochan, is that your name? I have heard reports that you have been putting up anti-trans stickers around this part of city. Is that correct? The question is, have you been putting stickers up that are against people who are trans? Sorry. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Jim. I mean, pictures of them. Yeah, I mean, some of this. Any other questions for our candidates tonight? We have one online. Thank you. Or Lee, if you're elected, how will people of Ward 7 communicate to you and how do you plan to communicate to Ward 7 members? Excellent question. And can I ask what was your name? Rick. Rick, thank you for the question. So community engagement is a passion of mine. So right now you will find me every Wednesday morning at Murrow Wineburgers Coffee Hour. Obviously that's going to be ending. So I hope there's some continuation of some community event. So I have not, me and my team have knocked over 1800 doors during this campaign, and I am establishing a great baseline of connection with the community further than I already had. So yeah, so I have put my phone number out there. The phone number you see is my personal phone number because I want people to feel like we can have that personal connection. If you are struggling with something, I want to know about it. I want to help you. And if I can't help you personally, I want to connect you and help. I am at every city council meeting. If you want to connect with me, you can see the audience at city council. I'm always there. I watch or attend almost every police commission meeting. If you've ever been at a city meeting, we have probably sat in the same room. And right now what I hear from a lot of my neighbors is this crisis of keeps cutting in and out. I'll do my best. This crisis of isolation that really started around the time of COVID. And I just want to put that message out there. It may be sappy, but if you feel alone, you can reach out to me. After today, you are only as alone as you want to be. I am here for you. Please reach out. There you go. Other questions back here? Yeah. And please introduce yourself when you like. Thank you so much. My name is Bidu Roy. The question to leave. So I am from Ward 7. So my question is that I am a new immigrant. I am a former refugee, a Buddhist refugee. And I'm not Nepali. Though I speak Nepali, but I'm from Vietnam. So we don't know perfect Nepali because we have stayed in Vietnam for decades, years and years. I left the country when I was 13 years. So I was very perfect with Buddhist language and English, not with Nepali. I never knew Nepal. I came to Nepal as a refugee and I learned Nepali there. So I was zero in Nepal. So I stayed there for 23 years. And I was a teacher in the refugee camp. I was a youth counselor and I was also a sports coordinator. And when I came here in 2015, I realized that there are a lot of Nepali people, old Nepali peoples and young as well, who can't speak the language. So if you are elected, how do you think that you will connect with them? You will get communicated with them because they do have a lot of problems which they can't reach out to you or someone.  So how do you think that you will react with them or communicate with them? Nice to take questions. Thank you. Excellent question, Badour. And for those of you who don't know, Badour just opened a wonderful store. It's across the street from the jolly, a wonderful market. Wonderful market and something I was very touched by. So you say, how can I connect with people that different culture don't speak the language? Well, I got to tell you, Badour has been an incredible inspiration for me at the day of his grand opening. Him and a spiritual leader performed a ceremony that blessed the community. Each and every one of us, at first I thought, oh, he must be blessing the store for success. It wasn't about that. It was about the community and that we all have what we need to feel safe and taken care of. So you've been a mentor for me in that. So what can I do to connect to people who I don't speak their language? You know, well, part of that is connecting with people who can be that bridge. And that can be informal. That can be community leaders. That can be, it could be more formal. It could be hiring translators. I'm committed to do whatever I need to do to be directly communicating with everybody. It's not enough that our city has translated materials. That's an important step, but we need to go much further than, you know, we need to be connecting as neighbors. I think that there can be a lot of wonderful opportunities to do that. I think maybe the NPA can be a place where we can start, you know, bridging the gap between cultures and maybe get some translators in here. I think that could be a great starting place. But yes, I am committed to representing everybody. Thanks, Vicki. Maybe the seniors can follow the school district in the school district. We hire multiple things on the ASONs who help families understand what is going on in school. So they're sort of translators. They help translate school material as well as help these families apply for driver's licenses and what have you, like all kinds of life functions that you need to know for. Thank you. Thank you for that responsibility. We do have a question online that I'm gonna go to first and then I see you in the back. You'll be following that person up. Oh, is that me? Yes, Colin, go ahead. Cool, yeah. I had a question for both city council candidates that are present. There's been a lot of discussion in this campaign about coordinating more support with Montpelier, with our state delegation there. And I think I'd just like to hear more about when it comes to the housing crisis, what do you think is within the city council's purview and what do you think we need? We're gonna go ahead to you for now and then we'll come back to Colin so that we can have answered online. Oh. Did they not hear me? I think it's a cool one. Oh-ho. That one's just for online. Okay. Here she comes. Hi, my name's Ray Ward-Seven. My question is, and I missed her name because I was out of the room. Yes, Monica, thank you for serving. Serving a long time on the school board. Yeah. I'd like to know what you're gonna do different to change the direction of our student performance levels throughout Burlington. I could say the whole state, but I'm curious about Burlington. Our performance levels have been going down since I've been living here for 17 years. What can we do to change the direction so our students can succeed? Thank you for that question. What was your name? Ray. Ray. I think especially during the pandemic, students were not connected to schools. There was not a lot of learning or the learning was difficult. Students were disconnected. And so a lot of the sports went downhill, but we do have a strategic plan that focuses on this. Well, the first point of the strategic plan is making sure the kids feel like they're belonging and well-being. So we wanna make sure that the kids feel safe at schools and that they're well-trained. And that's how we will accomplish learning. We also have, we wanna get all the kids by third grade to make sure that their reading levels are at par. And so to do that last school year, the K through six, K through five grade teachers had training, professional learning training from the ARC, American Reading Company. And so these teachers learned a different way to teach reading by the use of phonics, I believe. And so we believe that this, they're using these methods in our schools and hopefully slowly we'll be seeing improvements in scores. We're also interested in improving math scores. Thank you, Vicki. So hopefully that gives you some of an answer for what you're asking, but we are aware of the most forms. And so... Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, folks. I'm gonna try one more time for our friends online to see to make sure they're not muted. Colin, if you can hear me online. Can you hear me? No, nothing? Yeah, I am muted. I hope you can put your question into the chat and we can read it there because we're not able to hear you, unfortunately. Okay. Colin, I can hear you. I'm not sure what's going on in the room there, but their speakers might not be working. Sorry about the technical difficulties, but we'll pick up our question here. And then was there anyone else who had their hand up and back there and over here? One, two, three. Thank you. This question is in regards to Evan. I know he's been in the classroom for a long time. Evan, I know he couldn't really join us tonight, but I'm hoping maybe his representative here can help us out. So recently allegations have been made that regarding his candidacy, he's running in Ward 7 and apparently said, quote, a hard art, any word involved in such a super racist manner acting like he was black and vocally. Just so you felt a little bit is not his representative. There's nobody who could answer that question.  My apologies. I'm not. Yeah, but we can provide his email for you. He can ask the question. The candidate's not here is their problem. He deserves to ask his question. Yeah, I'm just letting him know that I can't. My apologies for assuming you were his representative. That's on my apologies. Where was it?  I asked candidates here tonight, is this sort of behavior acceptable for our representatives? And how can we possibly hope to foster a community free of hate? But these are the people who represent us. And who said that? Evan. Evan. You said it's an allegation. It's an allegation. It's an allegation. I don't want to say that I come here with a hard evidence of such a thing. I don't know what this means. Yeah, but what happens? You're excited? Yeah. Thank you for the question. And as we said, although Evan's not here, he does have forms of communication that we can reach out to him if you'd like to take that. I'm gonna pass. Next question. Who's here? But he asked the candidate the question. I'm not answering. All of you. Are there any candidates who would like to respond? The question was, sorry, I can just repeat the question which was, is this type of behavior acceptable to build a world of peace? And what would you do to mitigate hate? Is that the second part? What will you do to mitigate hate if you are elected or in your current positions? And how much time do we have for these candidates to respond? 90 seconds. It's kind of hard to understand what exactly the accusation is. In fact, I don't really understand, but if I'm getting a sense of the innuendo, so the first part of the question was, is this acceptable? I think when I'm gathering, obviously no, if that accusation is true and how to mitigate hate. Now, in the broader community, I'm running for school board, so I will respond within the school's accountability. Kids need to be held accountable for that kind of speech. Thanks.  Do things like that happen sometimes, but we, as a model for the community, as many of you know, the city council itself has been bombarded with very hateful trolls in our city council meeting.  Thank you, Councillor Paul. We had at least 12 people that we had to shut off with very cruel anti-Semitic talk. Some of you saw it a few weeks ago.  And so it is so frustrating to me that this is going on to the community and we really got to stand up for it. Thank you for the question. I mean, I think it's a pretty simple concept that it is, it's never acceptable for a white person to say the end would, we'll stop. So as far as what I would do to mitigate hate, I think my record on that is clear. I am a staunch advocate for trans people of which I am a very proud trans person. The most effective, thank you, thank you. The most effective form of resistance will always be joy and whatever joy that is. So my resistance is trans joy. I'm happy, I'm successful. A lot of people have a problem with that that I keep pushing. And reference to the BIPOC community, I, the proof is there too. I for years, I have worked very hard with the BIPOC community, educating myself, deconstructing my own whiteness and learning what it is to be a good ally. If you Google search me, you will see. I have put my money where my mouth is. I put my freedom on the line to stand up for BIPOC people. I won that court case to just Google me, you'll be able to find it. Probably already heard about it. Yeah, so I think my record is clear. Thank you for that question. I think that kind of behavior is not acceptable, especially for our elected officials and for anybody as neighbors and people that respect each other no matter what our political beliefs are or religious beliefs. And I think we need to be examples for each other, good behavior to point out when we hear hateful speech and like I said in my introductory talk, when things like that happen, perhaps use restorative practices or the community justice system to resolve these issues. But when you're talking about this, it reminds me of an incident that happened a few years back, maybe three years ago on the bike path, right by Lenny Park, there were some young teenagers that hackled some older people and that word spread through Front Forge Forum. And my city counselor, Ali Zhang took it onto himself to go seek out those teenagers. He figured out who they were and he made sure that there was restorative sessions that happened with these kids. And I would hope that any elected official would be willing to go to that extent to get rid of hate in our community. So only love will outdo hate. Thank you for those responses. I'm gonna jump on our stack to grab our folks online, Colin's question to the council candidates, kind of a two-part question here. Where do you think the state's help is necessary when it comes to our housing crisis and where do you think the city council can act? So I will pass the song. Thanks. I mean, the big problem we have with the unhoused, they don't have housing. How do you produce housing? You build it. How do you make it affordable to be built? You need significant governmental subsidies. There's really very little affordable housing that doesn't come with a governmental subsidy. It's really in my opinion the role of the state and federal government to provide that. The city of Burlington cannot do that through property taxes and local option taxes. That's the only, what we can do is facilitate the creation of housing and we need to be very aggressive about it. I think we have turned it high. Some of the things I just mentioned, the South End District, the neighborhood code, the city place, Memorial Auditorium, and there's a whole level. So we really gotta look at ourselves. Are we doing anything to prevent housing? And if the answer is yes, we've gotta undo it or change it and be willing to change it. And I think we're at question among ourselves. It's okay, the built environment's okay. It's okay to have a new building next door to you. It's okay that you might be able to have a window to window. That's the goal of living in a city. If you don't want that, Burlington is a different place. And if you want, you're not going to get in the room. So as neighbors, and the city's role to facilitate the creation of that building. Well, I think step number one, if you're looking at how do we create more affordable housing, step one is definitely talk to Sarah Carpenter. She is an affordable housing guru. So that is absolutely step one. So yeah, I think I kind of saw this in process. And it was about a year ago, I'm not sure when Sarah would know the date. The city council, there was a presentation about a temporary shelter that could utilize a vacant office building on Cherry Street. And I believe that this would have overnight housed like 50 people. And during the daytime, it could have been a day station. The governor rejected that. And the reason he gave was that our need in Burlington isn't good enough. So don't know how he could really contemplate that. So for me, I'm a solutions person. So I use my position as vice chair on the parks commission to invite the governor to come walk with me. I periodically walk around city hall park at different times to assess the public safety crisis going on down there. I invited the governor to please come with me on one of my walks. I've invited him several times. I'm gonna keep inviting him. Hopefully when I am your city counselor, I'll have a little more weight to that invite. I am determined to get the governor to walk with me and share my story, explain exactly what it takes to get out of houseness. I've done it myself. And the help we are providing, we are not there folks. It is not enough. And I know a lot of you understand that. So I will advocate my best and consult with experts like Sarah Carpenter here. I think we had a few more questions in the crowd. I'm gonna start back there. Yep. Oh, thank you. That's me. This is for Monica. So I have a question. What is the school board going to do about bullying situations that are going on in the school right now? That no one's being held accountable. Children are being left behind. They're being denied an education. They're being put in a room by themselves. No teacher, no nobody. How are they learning? And the bullies are not being held accountable. They're being sheltered, but the bully, the kid that's being bullied isn't getting any services. They're leaving him out. They don't like, there's no education. We've reported it. Police have been involved. We've been to the schools. We've had meetings. Nothing is done. The bully's parents are never brought in. The bully just keeps bullying, but they don't do anything. But the child that's being left behind doesn't have an education. And this has been going on now for three years. Three years. This child has not been in a classroom people for three years. At what school?  This bully literally will chase this child down the street. Don't even have to be on school hours. They know this. The police know this. They chase this boy down. They chase them with knives. They chase them into Ethan Allen Park. We go to the school. We let them know what's going on. We ask questions. We call the police. The bullies are still never held accountable, but this child gets an idea of the education. So I'm confused. Thank you for that question. I'm gonna hand the mic over to see if you can have a question. Three years. Thank you for that question. And I'm sorry that you've had that experience. I believe there has been some leadership issues at Hunt, the school here. But this year we've put in better leaders. And I think that I would like to talk with you more personally about your issue because our Office of Equity is set up to deal with issues like that and deal with bullies.  For sure. So... That's not fair that the kid that's bullying and the school knows about it. And I think that's the worst part. School is like, oh, we know. Okay. So I'd like to support you in that. So please make sure that I get your contact information before this meeting is over. Okay. Yeah. Thank you for all of these questions. Yeah, unfortunately, we don't have much time for any more questions for our candidates. We do have a presentation from the, regarding the school budget. And I know that's some questions with the school commission. Yes, yes, I'm gonna hand off so that folks can definitely be in touch for all the other questions. Cause I know being in touch is important for all of these candidates. I can be contacted through the website of the BTV GOP. There's a small card in the back with my telephone number and my email. So please contact me to go directly. I also didn't tell you my website, which is Sarah with an H for BTV.coms and you can contact. Any three of those ways. And I'll stick around for a few minutes at the end as well, if you have questions. All right. Well, thanks folks. Thank you. Be more again. I am your ward seven nominee for city council. You can reach me through my website at Lee4Berlington.com. You can reach me at Lee4Berlington.com. My phone number is 802-238-6. And I will also be here after the meeting. Please ask me questions, connect with me. Let's get coffee, come see my dogs. All right. And my name is Monika Ivancic. You can find my contact information on the Burlington school board page bsdbt.org. Look under school board. My contact is there and my phone number is 540-0830. Thank you. Hi everyone. I'm sorry we didn't have enough time to cover everyone's questions this evening. But as you heard, stay in touch. Also wanted to just give a quick thank you for anybody who brought food for the food pantry. I know that was kind of a last minute addition to our agenda, but we got some great donations here. So just wanted to say thank you before we get to our next agenda item, which is a presentation from the Burlington school district. 25 years. About 10 minutes, right? I guess 10 minutes, yes. Going on. And then 10. And in a way, people need to talk to each other. You know, to talk to each other. Yeah, and we'll be, you know, a forum. Every year, I'm sorry to say this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Come on. We can a way. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry for losing everyone. Good evening, everyone. It's great to see you all this evening. Thank you for. Thank you for sticking sticking through. To stick around with us, I should say for this next presentation, I think we're about 10 minutes to explain where we are with the budgeting process for fiscal year 25, which is the next year. I'm Tom plan again. I'm the superintendent in Burlington and this is named library or executive director of operations and finance. We'll take different parts of the presentations and then leave space for questions at 10 minutes presentation. 10 minutes. Perfect. We're also going to be passing around a one danger that includes some of the information about the budget this year. And I don't know if I have to, but I'm going to apologize for my attire. I just came from the girls varsity hockey game where we'd be Essex six nothing. Heading to lindenville on Saturday. Everyone wants to travel out there from the semis finals and the state championships boys tomorrow night boys basketball are in the state championships against rice. Hopefully take down Samarily. And we'll see. I'm sure. Yeah, we have. But anyway, that's the wrong. Anyway, great to see you all this evening. We're going to talk to you about the budget process again. So that our job is really making that you're fully informed about the budgeting process. And so that's we're here to do. So first part of the budgeting process is the assumptions that are built into the budget and to how we develop. And so there are some big assumptions here. We called these assumptions because they, they are what we are assuming as we move into the budget process. These are more than assumptions at this point. These are much more realities. So couple really it's a complex budgeting cycle. I don't know if you've seen how much you've seen about the budgeting process statewide this year. Our school board did really amazing work as a part of a coalition of school districts. That included other rural districts, our district, a couple other districts that were in equitably funded.  And students in secondary schools, students in small schools, and students living students, well, by a free reduced lunch. So Act 127 changed the funding formula that and it's now research based and aligned to a set of research that showed how we should equitably fund our school districts. Act 127 is in its first year this year, and it's causing lots of lots of questions and just raising a lot of issues across the state. And we're also hearing from wealthy districts who are losing some of their weighted pupils or some of their taxing capacity that they get through the budgeting process that that it's that it's harming them. So I do feel sorry for Stowe and other districts, but we need to make sure that we have the right equitable funding. Our school board went out and did that. So that's number 1. That's leading to a lot of the questions and a lot of the stuff that you're seeing in the newspaper about the budget this year. So 1 of the things that we know, these are some of the other things that really impact our budget here in Burlington. Number 1, wages and benefits are generally around 5%. We've sort of settled with our, our union partners across across the multiple unions that we have. And we're about 5%. So wages and benefits is 5%. Health insurance premiums we the state moved to statewide bargaining of health insurance. That number is a huge number. And it's, it's really not in our control. And so there's some deep work I think to do there around the round those health insurance premiums. But that's worth for the legislature and not necessarily. DHS and BTC bonding. This is the 1st year that we are that we are feeling the impact of the bond for Burlington High School and Burlington Technical Center. So 76% of voters voted in favor of the new high school and a bond for the new high school. Now this is the 1st year that is impacting our, our taxes. And it's also the by far, the biggest year. And we'll get into that a little bit more later, but 9.5 million in debt service. Due to the funding. So that's really the big, big pressure this year. And then lastly, that's our funds. So we've, we've, we received funding from the American rescue plan, federal funding for recovery. And funds lasted for 3 years. They were about $26 million for our district. Over 3 years and we are spending those down at the end of this year, but those expire at the end of this school year. So that's and that is happening across the state. And so that is putting pressure on the ed fund across the state, which hurts our, our overall view of the ed fund and all of our, our budgets across the state are connected. So when the ed fund is in trouble, every district feels that. And so that's part of what we're feeling in, in our, in our budgeting process this year, but the big takeaway is borrowing on the bond is happening for the 1st time this year. And this is the big increase. This is the big year of borrowing. And we've got the, the other pieces that so this is this talks about the stroke shows the impact of the bond. We did we have borrowed $130 million already of the $165 million. We believe the, the borrowing we've done the money is making making money itself. We, we have promised to not borrow beyond $165 million and to make sure that we do everything in our power to not borrow the full 165 million. If we borrow an, in addition to the 130 million, we would still need to borrow 35 million. But that would have overall a 2.8% 2.8% tax increase over the next 2 or 3 years. So this is really the big year for that borrowing. And again, we are really working hard to make sure we don't have to borrow the whole 165 million. We've brought 16 million in PCB funding already brought 20 million in other funding sources to this project. And we're going to continue to do that work. We have a lawsuit against Monsanto that should bring, I think should should bring us funding down the line, but that's, that's further down. Next up. One more. This shows you the, the sort of the pie of these taxing. It's hard to see this is bonding. So this shows you the increase. Overall, it's a 15.6% tax increase for fiscal year 25. The last majority of that, as you can see is in the bond here and in wages and benefits here. We do have operating leases, operating and leases. A lot of the leases are a result of us needing to move out of the high school and we had to, we had to rent and at Cherry street and to Gregory out of Williston. At downtown BHS at Macy. So we've had to, we've had to spend on that renting and that will need to continue for the next couple of years. So that shows you sort of the, the pie and where the general funding is going. The last piece before I pass it over to neighbors that are our budget itself. So we're not adding anything new to the budget programmatically beyond the bonding and the, and wages and benefits that we're not offsetting with reductions. So we're, we have, we have built in some new spending. Priority area work, but it's been offset by reductions. And so we've been really mindful about the impact of the tax increases this year for this. So we provided a level service to develop the level service budget. As a result of that. And the last thing that's really important to know, and our school board weighed a number of different options and they've weighed sort of the middle pack option is that because of the factors that are playing in the budget this year around the common level of appraisal. And the, and Ed fund yield. These are two of the, of the impact of the, of the drivers of the overall budget. We are, we are just making sure that our spending is, is not is just taking that into account. We didn't contemplate major, major staffing changes to get the tax increase significantly down because to get below or get to a percent would require a reduction of 50 full time employees. And that's just because of the way the budget is working this year know that we can't do what we need to do with 50 viewer full time educators. And so we decided a level service budget. And, and then these are the fact are the drivers of this budget here. But I think that's what she's by. All right, I'm going to keep it super short. We can come back for questions on some of these slides. And if you haven't had a chance to check out our budget presentations that are on the website. It's even a more in depth presentation than this. So there's plenty of other information out there. I don't spend a lot of time on here, but just to address something that you may have heard of at one point when we started the budget process. There was a cap in Vermont law and what tax rates would be in the legislature subsequently removed that cap. Fortunately, we in our budget development process anticipated the likelihood of that. So the difference between being in a situation where our budget is subject to a tax cap and not cap is pretty small. It's a half percentage points difference in the tax rate by no longer being captain. We think that when the dust settles in Montpelier that number will probably be even a little bit lower. So cap going away wasn't great for us, but it's not a major difference from what we are. Next slide please. Welcome to the neighborhood. You may have heard a lot about the common level of appraisal from your neighbors in Burlington or even other places in Chittenden County because this is hitting almost every town in Chittenden County. In short, the common level of appraisal is the way that the state of Vermont ensures that every property taxpayer in the state of Vermont is paying on the market's value of their property when they're paying their education taxes. So in the case of Burlington and our other neighboring communities property values have risen substantially over the past couple of years. And as a result, the state increases our tax rate to offset the fact that they consider the property values on our tax bills to be lower than the market value. So we can dive into that later if people want to or you can talk to me after, but just understand that if you're hearing about what the CLA is and you're probably hearing that it's impacting a lot of our neighboring communities as well. It's not a Burlington phenomenon alone, but it is a major driver on the increase in the tax rate that you're seeing on your bill and it has nothing to do with school choices about spending or staffing levels or anything like that. It's all about the relative value of our property. So next slide please. Okay, really high level. If you already seen your ballot, you have seen some of these numbers, but we're increasing the budget 15.4 million dollars that produces a tax rate before the CLA of about six and a half percent. Then the impact of that CLA on top of it pushes that number all the way up without the cap to about 15.6% and that's on a total budget of 119.6 million dollars. Okay, we're just about there next slide please. I won't stick to these, but know that in the presentation, we can come back to them. We provided a couple hypothetical scenarios to illustrate the impact of people who pay their taxes, both based on the value of their property, or if they have an income adjustment. So there's a couple slides to that that we can come back to their questions about it later. And then we end with just showing people what the ballot question is, which is proving the 119.6 million dollar school budget. We'll wrap it up there and take questions. Thank you. Thank you for that presentation. Any questions quickly? We have a question. We have one question. Thanks for coming in presenting. So maybe this is a simplistic question, but what happens if this gets voted down? Good question. It's a question that's on the minds of lots of people across the state as the name mentioned, this is the CLA is impacting and the Ed fund and all that is really impacting school districts around Tinden and around the state. So that's why you're seeing the press about it. If a budget doesn't pass, then we go back and rework what we presented and we come back to the community again. If it doesn't pass it, we exist on this current year's budget. And so that has really massive impacts on our on our operations. Because of you saw the 5% generally and increases in ways and benefits. There's no way to not have a massive and disruptive impact. If it doesn't pass. We're going to take one more question so that we then have time for my friend. Thanks for yourself. Thanks for trying to communicate what seems extremely complicated to the rest of us. And my question is related to that before I feel I have no way to understand this. I'm just one of a newcomer here, but also it's complicated. So real concisely, how does one learn how to understand this can be three resources or methods, resources and methods. We'll stick around afterwards. So we want to talk, we can talk through it. He has a lot of experience over the years with the budget. I don't understand it deeply. So he's able to explain it to you. You can get a little walkie, but usually people understand it. It's it's an ultra complicated system. It is meant to provide that for me this idea of a common level appraisal and the yield is meant to not favor districts who have higher valued homes and more capacity. But it's a really complicated and complex system. And when we, when we did when the legislature adopted act 127, they were facing it on. People see it happen five or six years ago. And they, that research but they were asked at that point was not how do you create the most equitable budget or best best budget was how do you fix the budget that exists. So there are, there are questions like long term down the line, what should be shouldn't look like. And then we have a whole budget section on our, on our webpage too. And so that includes school school board discussions that we've had about this topic. The other thing is we've just been on the annual report. So the annual report talks about our, our plan, our, our budget. This fiscal year that speaks to the next fiscal year. So I would say us first, the one major second and then on the webpage on the budget. I have one more thing to add, and I'll try to find it for you all and I can put it on our word for and seven page. There's this great tutorial from BSBA, which is the Vermont school board's association and when I was new to the board and I was like, what are all these variables that go into this funding formula, which I think you're trying to wrap your head around. It's just great. It's a simple PowerPoint, and I watched it three times through, but it was really helpful to show you the four variables, what they mean, you know, where they from the state level, are they local. So I will try to find that and I'm happy to put that on our page just if people are interested to better understand the education funding formula in general. And then for our specifics of our numbers, our pages, so then you can understand that. Sounds like we're going to be helpful. That's true. It's true. Yeah. And like anybody who's spoken tonight, it sounds like if you can get in touch with them directly, everyone is really happy to talk more. We can only do so much in two hours here together. Unfortunately, we don't have any more time to ask these five people questions. I do want to leave some space for any announcements from the neighborhood. I believe that's our last agenda item. I believe that's our last agenda item. We had one announcement from Ivan. Did you have an announcement as well, Sarah? Okay. I just want to vote in on March 5th, right. A lot of us got our ballots late. Please don't put them in the mail. Take them to one of the drop boxes. There's one here at the Miller Center. There's one at the number two board of fire station city hall and or even though you have it in the mail, you can bring it to St. Mark's or here on the fifth. It will be too late to enter the city if you mail it. So please, please return it and make sure you put it in one of the boxes or come to the polls. Thank you for that announcement. Anybody else have an announcement. Well, we were on there to talk about the bylaws committee. And we don't have any time to talk about it. All right, everyone who wants to help update and work on the bylaws with the steering committee to join us on March 6th. Here at five. Love to have your ball. I just wanted to follow up on both of you. You don't have to have a ballot to vote. You can come to the ward and vote in person. You can register to the day of the election. There is also resident voting. So if you live in Burlington and you're a resident here and you're, you may register to vote also. This is the first election in Burlington where we're doing that. And I'd be happy to talk to anyone. Only the city ballot in on resident, the non citizen residents, not on the presidential primary. Correct. And Helen and people who are working in the word clerks will be managing that and they all know that. For non US citizens, where do we get info on what type of visa because I work with a lot of residents, but they're on F1 student visas. And town hall told one of them that they don't know what to do with the F1 visa. Anybody here know. I call city hall. Call Sarah Montgomery and, and if it's, if you can't get an answer by Friday, I can try to follow up, but I would call Sarah directly. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I'm on the voter board. So I'm happy to also facilitate that and give you the answer, but Sarah is the person. Yeah. I'm sorry, what good question. I believe, believe it or not, I have ever hardly talked to my postman. My came nine days. I asked him specifically. He just, and he said one of the reasons in my neighborhood, the regular carry was on vacation and they didn't have a substitute. So there was not a particularly good answer. They, they were all know about the same time and it came at different times to get me up and batches. So, but thank you for that note to please drop them off at a drop box or here, because although they're late, if you do have them, that's your ballot. And I will say, you can get another one. Yeah, you can get another one, but I'm just saying you can get a ballot. If you have it at home and it's a sealed envelope, and they'll only take it seal. I wouldn't be afraid to give it to a neighbor either and it's not like we can rip it open and change it, but, you know, so if anybody is really stuck. I as a candidate and I'm surely as a candidate we'll get, we'll figure out how they join us. Yes. You are unable to go to the polls for whatever reason, like a health reason or physical barrier. The justice this contact the city clerk's office, and they will send a justice of the piece to pick up your ballot. Just be mindful city call closes at noon on Monday so. Do you have any more announcement from Ivan. Hi everybody. My name is Ivan clips done my friends call me Ivy so some of you might know me by that name I'm also a recent arrival in the north end, due to the affordable housing crisis and it's a long story and there's a lot of long stories. I'll spare you that part, but I'm a local working artists and also early art education person, and I have this calendar which some of you might have already been exposed to the everyday neighbors multi lingual illustrated community calendar. So I started an initiative that active upon myself. Partnering also with BCA and be one arts and others. And basically we have succeeded in getting more than 1000 of these, about 1100 of these for free out into the community. In small businesses and new American, what kind of working people of all faith. And one of the way we've been able to support the production and distribution of these has been through kind of a parallel solidarity coffee sale. So he's something that can buy these at 25 bucks. So out of the 250 that we printed and distributed, we're down to about the last few dozen. So anybody would like once they want to support the project. I'm here with some and now accepting all the modern and old fashioned. It's really nice to be not at your. Yeah, very. Attention. That's pay out. I don't know about. Look at the government. So you look down here. Maybe not just a quick thing that what you're free library, the new north end, it's having an open house tomorrow, four to 530. If you want to come check out the space. Awesome. By the hand. Great.