You think voting matters I come from a background of being an immigrant to the United States and I think with that perspective and not being able to vote for a long time until I became a citizen it's really important to have your say it's it's your voice in your community if you don't like it shut up and get out or vote well it's democracy it's how we run the country the state and the city so it's important to weigh in it's the people's voice and it really depends on who we elect and whatnot and who runs in the future things matter things matter in general what what is happening in our city matters all these decisions that are being made during this election will affect our lives in a number of different ways I think that where we can have the most actionable impact is in our community and what's closest to us and then it really fractals out from there so how are we showing up for the people who are around us and for for our community that should be the place where we start think voting is important because the right hasn't always been available for all populations so I think it's a real civic responsibility that we have the right to vote and we can use it and it's a way that every person can have a voice especially in local elections individual votes matter especially in Burlington and I think it's important because these are the people who form the policies that affect our lives and I also feel like if you don't vote then you shouldn't complain about what's going on in the government even on a local level it's not only important it's a great privilege and right to be United States citizen and vote notice I said United States citizen now I see where there's some people want to allow non-citizens to vote and that to me is wrong vote early vote often as they say so I always go to the primaries I always go to the local elections and I could go to the November elections every every time I get the chance to vote it's it's a right and a duty so I do it it's one potential way to sort of level the playing field and ensure everybody has a seat at the table with a say about the community and the laws that govern us here because it's part of being part of your community rather than part of being not part of your community and we all need more neighborly rather than this division that we have far too much of I mean you gotta you gotta let your voice be heard you know I mean like we have we live in democratic society right so like not everybody has that privilege or opportunity to like make their voice count and you know have a say in what goes on in their local government it's my civic duty and I feel like I can't really complain if I don't cast my ballot and vote for the issues can you just share why you came out today well partly it's these guys and I was trying to explain to them that it's just taking part in how our community makes decisions and there's cool stickers but beyond that it's you know democracy in action and all the little decisions that we make create the world we live in so that's mainly it I always come out to vote I love voting well it's town meeting day I think Vermont is one of the most unique states in that front that you know we get to decide what happens with our town or cities and just like with our neighbors so I felt like it was appropriate for me to come and decide voting is a habit with me it's important stuff so I voted I I had a long I came from World Southern Vermont New England traditional New England town meeting I miss it but I certainly gotten a habit of being a participant it's our civic duty the same reason I attended my first ever town meeting and it was actually the last one until when we had last night because of COVID and now here I am involved in local local governance and I think everybody should reach out find a position to volunteer for a committee or a commission and be involved in their community thank you to all of our exit voices teams for going out to the polls this morning and braving the cold so we can hear what community members feel why it's important for them to vote welcome everyone to town meeting TV's annual live election results show for town meeting day 2023 I'm Emily Brewer and I'm joined by Shay taught taught in thanks for being here tonight with us thanks Emily good to be here together we'll be bringing you results from six Chittenden County municipalities Burlington South Burlington Wenuski Williston Essex and Colchester now for each of those towns we'll walk you through the ballot provide analysis and also with results for all of the elections and ballot items we'll also have clips from our coverage and forum series as well as interviews with candidates coming into the studio live throughout the night to talk about their elections and town meeting is happening around the state as I'm sure many of you know there are community members from Brattleboro to St. Albans excuse me public access stations from Brattleboro to St. Albans that have been covering providing providing live stream support for all of the town meetings around the state so thank you to them as well as a quick shout out to VCTV Vermont community community television for airing tonight's election results show on their channel that's Comcast channel 1070 you can check them out for more public contest at public access content throughout the state so it's a little after 7 p.m. at this point the polls have just closed our results team will pursue me in touch with town and ward clerks to get those results straight from each location and we will bring those to you as they come in in the meantime we'll take a look at the races and questions that voters saw on their ballot and we'll speak with a few candidates who are already here in studio you can follow along with our results throughout the night at bit.ly slash town meeting 23 results that's bit.ly slash town meeting 2023 results with that being said Shay it's shaping up to be a busy night it is a busy night and it could be a long night you know we've already heard that there could be some it could be some longer times and tallying all the ballots a lot of absentee ballots in Burlington so we're hearing that we could so we might not have results as early as we normally do but we'll see we'll hope that won't be the case but yeah but speaking of Burlington that's really I think a lot of people are going to pay attention to there was eight ballot items plus the school budget along with four with four four contested races and one uncontested race for city council so that's we're going to be seeing that could really sort of determine the balance of power it's been sort of fluctuating back and forth between Democrats and progressives Democrats are hoping to pick up at least one more seat to hold a plurality progressives are hoping to regain the sort of the advantage they had pre-pandemic but we also have contested races we've already we heard if you folks were here earlier we heard from one of the candidates in South Burlington we'll hear another from another candidate soon but they have contested city council races in South Burlington there's a contested race for select board in Williston there's a contested race for school counselor in Winooski and then we've got budget items up and down the ballot across across across the county some real big tech items in South Burlington along with the like I said the Burlington school budget as well as other items in Williston and Winooski and Colchester which we're all going to get into later but you know and I think we'll talk a little bit more about what these budget increases mean for people as well yeah there's definitely a lot to unpack here tonight and it's it's it's shaping up to be an exciting night so we're going to toss it over to Studio B where we're going to be hearing from candidates directly Bobby Lucia is standing by for live interviews and at the moment we have Lydia Diamond here in the studio with Bobby Lydia is running for the contested two-year city council seat in South Burlington so let's turn things over to Bobby and hear from the both of them all right thank you Emily and Shay as Emily mentioned I'll be here in Studio B throughout the night to interview some of the candidates that voters waited on earlier today and I'm joined right now by Lydia Diamond who's running for the South Burlington City Council seat Lydia thank you so much for joining us thank you for having me so Lydia what drove you to run in in this in this race and what do you hope to accomplish on the on the South Burlington City Council well when I learned I was informed that no person of color had ever stepped up to run in South Burlington and so I went to the clerk city clerk's office and I asked what were the requirements and she said you had to be a registered voter and a resident and I said wow that's it she said that's it I said can I see something in print so she printed it out for me and lo and behold I found out I needed 30 signatures to get on the ballot and with a little help from my friends I did it yay so I made history just being on the ballot and I am happy thank you Lydia hope too I would like to have a chamberlain committee in my neighborhood so that more folks could get involved other BIPOC residents can see there's nothing to fear and I hope they will you know step up to the plate and help all of us the entire community because those f-35s are atrocious what did you hear from the people of South Burlington during your campaign well um one lady told me that they're not going to vote for you they're not going to like you and I said well thank you and I kept on going but I did get some my neighbors because I'm a renter my neighbors cheered me on completely yes Lydia yes that would be great for you we need you and so I did it with the help of my neighbors and friends and I want to help my community be better and grow and I want others who look like me to step up and represent what do you see as some of the biggest challenges facing South Burlington and how do you hope to address them well one of the things I'd like to see in South Burlington is folks not being evicted during the winter I don't I think that's unfair I think it's uh traumatic and um as well as the f-35s I feel like the f-35s have traumatized our children in the community and no I'm a grandma and f-35s traumatized my grandchildren so they visit you know they visit less but the they are so loud that you can't do anything but just hold on to something until it's over and I just feel like those type of airplanes in our community hurt more than they help so thank you so much Lydia I appreciate you being here uh running for South Burlington City Council I'll pass it back to Emily and Shae in Studio A thank you so much Bobby and Lydia and thank you Lydia for joining us in the studio tonight looking forward to hearing more from you Bobby as the night goes on so now now that we've heard a little bit about the South Burlington race let's let's um unpack that a little bit what are some some of uh things that voters in South Burlington saw on their ballot today and sure yeah I mean aside from the city council races of which Lydia is running for one of them there was another contested race um two people running for for another seat uh Andrew uh Chalmick and Jimmy Lease um f-35s are being issued and that one Jimmy Lease has long been an opponent and was leading some of the opposition to that out of South Burlington um but really I think what a lot of folks in South Burlington probably saw at least what I was curious about like from the outside not living in South Burlington living in Burlington um is that there's a lot of budget items in the South Burlington ballot this year a lot of city items are related not just to the budget but also related to um the Tiff District and bonding to do more infrastructure work for the for the their downtown area they want to build um also for a major infrastructure bill uh bonds as well as more sort of infrastructure bonds that would include this new sort of bike pedestrian walkway over 89 which I think everyone is sort of probably excited about especially if you've young college student wants to get to Target or the mall like it's an easier way to walk going over that way than trying to try to go over that very narrow walkway that's there now so little little little safer so it'll be interesting that in the school district itself had not only an increased school budget but also had a separate bond item to do some renovations in school so they they split that out of their budget so um yeah I'm really curious to sort of to see how South Burlington voters um go I mean they've been they're usually pretty supportive of their school district and they have you know the the teachers are paid well in South Burlington I think it's pretty well known fact or some of the highest paid you know teachers and South Burlington sort of prides itself on in schools so we'll see if that continues the at the ballot at them at the ballot box when they have all these other budget items about on the city side of things to kind of continue to develop its its downtown and to continue to um you know handle the influx of new residents coming in to the community and that's definitely a through line that we'll discuss throughout the rest of the show is this development throughout all of these communities and just creation of things such as a city center and and other things that these bonds will go towards right yeah we saw that in the select board race for in Williston that was definitely a top issue for both candidates running for the contestancy there was development and you know in the zoning codes for for Taft Corners and trying to infill some of that development more to make it more of a more seem like a city center or a downtown area as opposed to sort of just you know big box stores connected by through roads exactly and we'll definitely be keeping our eyes on the South Burlington ballot items and how voters weigh in on those issues and in the meantime what are some of the main storylines and that Burlington voters will see yeah well talking about it Burlington voters had a lot of ballot items to to weed through there's a lot of a lot of words there as you know is practically a short story you know just like how long it was because um it was a lot and I think um and I think that the biggest one that a lot of people have focused on um is the police accountability board um that is being that voters are being asked to approve which we can talk about a little bit more in a bit um but there's also uh bringing up expanding the ability for people who are not u.s citizens but are legal residents of Burlington to vote in local elections this is something that two other communities in Vermont have already passed um Manuski and Montpelier and you know we're seeing you know new folks vote in those elections and have voted already without any major complications um there's also ballot items around redistricting uh changing some of the ward boundaries some other minor election election fixes as well as um Prop Zero which is is another resolution that would allow more direct um getting things on the ballot and making charter changes a little bit more coming direct from voters as opposed to having to go through rounds and rounds of discussions in the city council um so yeah I mean it's you know there's there's a there's a lot in Burlington and um you know oh Renrank Choice Voting is back um you know after years of it not being and this is just for the to add it to the mayor's to for the to account for mayor the mayor's race because the city council for those who were voting today in Burlington you probably saw that there was Renk Choice Voting for city council they're now want to expand that back out to mayor which is something that Burlington had years ago and then it was repealed um after some after some consternation over over how it was used um largely sent it around a candidate to one who people didn't think should have won but anyway well we'll see if voters have changed their minds and um in the years since as results come in for Burlington later in the night and um we actually so we actually have um Gary Golden the East District um contestant for um school commissioner in the Burlington um excuse me Burlington's East District here in the studio with Bobby um so uh let's see what they have to say who's running an uncontested race for the an uncontested race for uh to serve on the Burlington school board Gary so thanks so much for joining us tonight oh thanks for the invite yeah so can you just share a little bit about why you ran and what you hope to accomplish on the school board sure um coming from a couple different directions I have a daughter 23 child of color who came through the district all 13 years with sort of a mixed bag of experiences uh that she was debriefing me on this afternoon as we were I was prepping for tonight um the other is I was employee of the district for eight years back in the 2000s and early 2010s so knew the district uh still have contact with teachers and um former students who have siblings still in the district so just my heart being tugged a couple different ways to to really get involved and particularly when Kathy decided to step down and no one really stepped up felt like all right put the you know money where mouth is and and step forward and really you know commit to helping where I can you mentioned that you'll bring a new perspective to the school board um you'll be it sounds like maybe the only new member of the school board after this election so can you tell us a little bit about what perspective you bring to that work and and how it might inform the the the work of of the board well I think having been an insider um I know some of the workings of the district um I've worked in several schools because I was on a grant that had me moving around so I I think I come in probably the best informed um member they've had other than if you know had children go through multiple schools in the district so that was one part the other part is you know I've always had a passion for the kids who didn't fit probably was one myself as a student so wanted to you know I'm not alone on the board just conversations I've had that many are there because they want our students to be our students and they want everyone to succeed and have opportunities and that's really what I'm coming with the other part is I've been in a lot of similar districts in the in the state as an employee and I've seen what they're doing and how they work and we're surprisingly not offering some of the same programming particularly high school that and middle school that they are so I'm hoping to be an advocate for some new ways to to meet student needs because we have many students who inevitably fall through the cracks but I think we are a little more prone to because of our diversity and and how you know many of our students are coming some from such different backgrounds that um those of us I mean I'm from the south I understand you know my limited experience as a student does not match up with you know a new american student who started out in camps and you know and really sometimes awful situation so you know really trying to broaden what we do and do it better. You mentioned a couple of programs and services that you would like to see Burlington school district adopt can you speak a little bit more to any of those if there's any in particular that you'd like to see move forward? Several um I know mostly central Vermont and northwestern Vermont for schools and there are some amazing programs out of U-32 and Montpelier that take advantage of they've been doing it for 20 years in some cases but Act 77 was a law that came through that really promoted alternative pathways to graduation um how to receive credit based on proficiencies and not seat time um and really promoting alternatives like internships paid employment if there's skill development from that um our tech center is wonderful but there's not a for example heating ventilation program in the county you know neither school has one why not I mean that's a growing can build without that so that could be done through internships and on the job experience for example so um that would be some of the ones I'm also formerly doing programs for students with behavioral challenges and there are tech based middle and high school programs that other districts are doing that I think we could do and really serve the our county better just briefly you're you're coming on to the school board at a time when uh the new high school is being planned and and and will be constructed so can you just speak a little bit about the role of the school board and moving forward that project and ensuring its success well it falls to the school board and the we are primarily responsible for hiring and supporting the superintendent and that person really monitors the function of the district so we're really there to support him but also through the programming that um in this case he is um supporting we then turn around and we support the protocols in the budget that back him up so we really become the front people and with along with our parents um come again in December January develop a budget and then promote it based on what we learn from the community so that's the high school is going to be our challenge for the foreseeable future paying off the bond you know um had a conversation beforehand about the monsanto lawsuit you know i would be hopeful that they have lost on this case before so hopefully there's some information out there that we can use to promote our so part of it is paying for the school my other role is let's make it a 21st century high school use tech share tech and classes with other high schools so that you know we have chinese here there's not another chinese program in the state why aren't we sharing that with other schools and then they can share their specialties with us so that's what i'm after great awesome thank you so much gary for joining us tonight yeah and uh i think we're gonna throw it back to studio a for some more uh check-ins and analysis on some of the results thank you very much bobby and gary for giving us some insight into your role on the burlington school board and speaking of school and school budgets um town meeting tv hosted several budget and ballot presentations um in prior to town meeting day for folks to get an idea of how um what would be on the ballot but also how it would impact them if budgets are passed so we're gonna um roll a quick um clip of some of our forums from those school budget presentations um our priorities really needed to focus on academic growth and belonging we know that we also have to look outside of teaching and learning and take into take into consideration identity connection direction and proficiency this is how we got from from a little over an 89 million dollar budget to a just a little over a 96 million dollar budget tax rate is about 1.2 percent below the statewide average for spending per equalized pupil and about 1 percent below the statewide average for spending increase there was significant inflation about seven percent for energy goods and services the mandated health health insurance increase of about 12.7 percent and then um the competitive labor market driving salary well needed salary increases across all positions our estimated tax rates you can see them with cla applied in the in the center column from that a dollar 30 base rate they've all gone up you know 20 to 40s almost 40 cents um even though our tax rates are they seem they are significant this year they would be even higher if we were still a supervisory union the voters in burlington uh we'll see a question about question about the fiscal year 24 budget um we have to always be mindful of spending and we also need particularly now over the past couple years it it's been challenging for many people in our community and so we uh and we just passed a school the voters of burlington citizens of burlington voted uh 76 percent in favor of a school bond question so that we can build a new high school and here's where you get to sort of the numbers you can see the tax estimates it's education spending and equalized pupil count the homestead dollar yield and the common level appraisal these these four kind of combined together to create the tax impact and so the overall tax impact uh in the budget that we're asking voters to consider on town meeting day is a includes a 4.03 percent property tax increase on people whose homes are valued at three hundred and seventy thousand dollars that's a typical number we use to do the tax to to calculate the tax impact my name is violet nickles i'm the superintendent of the south burlington school district we're excited to have the opportunity this evening to continue engaging with the community about the budget and the bond that will be brought forward to voters on march 7th so some of the the main factors here um is affordability we want to ensure that our community can stand behind this budget that they can afford it and that we're really supporting students that's the goal ultimately this has produced a 7.17 increase with a 3.93 percent on residential homestead tax you will see compared to many districts within the state this is below the anticipated eight and a half percent average we worked very hard to get to this number prioritizing a bond this year we know that we have significant deferred maintenance and we needed these zero energy modulars eminently for space i think that we need to have the facilities keep pace with the modern way of providing educational services my name is kamal the hull i am a wienersky school district board member and i am joined today uh by my fellow board member dr alexian this and a statement it has been the vision driving the work of our board since then all the students will graduate from the wienersky school district college and career ready at a cost supported by a majority of wienersky community wienersky school district students will lead healthy productive and successful lives and engage with their local and global community so the budget in fiscal year 2023 was as you can see here 21 million 287 921 and that has increased to 25 447 670 which is a 20 increase like we mentioned before how much property taxes do i pay like we recommend that they go do this website to kind of learn but it it's hard if you're below 90 000 then you do the income if you're between 90 000 your household income if you're between 90 000 and 134 000 and 800 it's between your house it is a mixture of your house and your income and if you're above 134 it's totally based on your house what does this mean so say you have a house cold income at 90 000 in fi 23 we had a 2.3 percent kind of increase so you are paying 2100 and six dollars with our current proposed budget it's now going to increase to 2358 a difference of 12 percent and but an increase overall in dollar amount 252 and a big thank you to megano rourke for putting those clips together and for helping viewers understand how these budgets will impact them and shay so it seems like school budgets keep passing year after year do you think that that will continue to be the case or do you think voters will change their minds that's the perennial question you know is and i think we're going to see whether or not the inflationary pressures that have been on household budgets that are that are being reflected in a lot of school municipal budgets in terms of tax increases and overall increases whether or not those two are going to collide and you know i have a feel i mean south bro has always tended to be supportive of their school budgets and you know it's there hasn't been a lot of anger towards school districts like sometimes every year like you get these there's like there's a real sort of heavy drumbeat on on tax increases especially property tax increases but since a lot of that is now governed through montpellier and through the statewide tax rate and there's less pressure on municipal budgets or municipalities and school districts to kind of set that there seems to be less pressure on them to do that and so i have a feeling we're probably going to see them just sort of go through because i think people understand the understand inflation much more clearly now than they did maybe before after after a year of it and most of the budgets are within the inflation like within the range of inflation too so they're not i guess six percent increase in past years might be seen as a lot but when national inflation is like almost seven percent if you come in at six percent that's better than inflation so you know i think i think school budgets tend to understand it they mostly tend to understand that too and try to keep things pretty lean well we'll definitely keep our eye on that and see how voters weigh in as results come in which results have started to come in we'll get into that soon but now we're let's do a quick overview of the races that or elections rather that voters in burlington saw on their ballot right so there's a there's a lot of open seats a lot of contested races in burlington for city council this year so we're going to welcome at least three potentially four new members of the city council tonight depending on how things go in the south district but we've had all four of the district races which in burlington there are four districts and eight council seats or eight ward council seats so and they alternate now so like not everybody is up at the same time so this year it was the district this year is the district seats that were up and so we have contested races in in the central district milo grant uh avery moose car uh in the south district we had a three-way race with jones shannon um billy and will Anderson and uh and freed uh freed munch moose had it before um anyway i'll i'll get back to that one um and then um and then there was also a special race in ward eight along with east district which was uh jack hanson who resigned from the east district and so timothy doherty and um is running along with uh with jake shuman you can see on the screen so we'll see so right now really the balance of power on the city council is fairly evenly split and i think this is the year where i think either the democrats or the progressives and here we also the special race in ward eight progressive ali ali house had stepped down hannah king democrat and ron allison a progressive um king did lose to ali house last time so this is the second time for hannah to run this time uh and then ron allison is a current uvm student running for for council seats so it's interesting because ward eight is largely combined of the uvm campus and nearby uvm student housing so um and that's been something that's relatively new to brovington over the number over the past number of years and so having that kind of voice in the council especially in a very student renter heavy city like brovington um you know that's that seems to be you know the case now we have like that's where the usually youngest counselors are coming out of ward eight on the city council so we'll see if we'll see if the progressives can hold that seat um and i think what they're hoping to do is at least maybe regain some of the ground that they lost over the pandemic great and and we will be keeping an eye on those results if you want to follow along with us you can find that at bit.ly slash town meeting 2023 results and um that'll be our interactive election module where you can see in real time as our results room um puts those results in um before we get while we wait for some more results to come in um let's take a closer look at some of those ballot items that um brovington voters before we do that though it looks it does look like um we can say um it looks like from the sheet that i have here that um in ward or in the central district so wards two and three in brovington um milo grant the progressive looks like has has won by a fairly comfortable margin sixty seven percent thirty three percent over a remote scar so an independent uh supported by democrats so you know that looks does look like that milo is the is the winner in that and interesting result also just came in that hannah king was declared um the winner for the ward eight election i mean we're just talking about that one so like hannah had won had run previously lost raised the progressive democrats now regain ward eight so let's talk a little bit more about that balance of power now that we know that um a progressive and a democrat have been elected yeah so now we're really coming it's going to be coming down to whatever happens um in the south district um jones shannon the democrat um you know has has very strong support in that in that part of the city so it's likely that she will be reelected as the democrats hold that seat so then the race will really come down to the east district really between between timothy doherty and jake shuman so i think that's really where probably the balance of power might might shift at this point um so we'll that's you know the thing is like if they if they evenly split you know because there are five dems and five progs because there's there's there's still two independents um and mark barlow who is up for re-election is uncontested he's no one's running he's unopposed he's running in the north district and then ali jang who's the ward seven city councilors the other independent on the council there's two independents and so both progressive democrats will try to sort of woo them on some of these critical sort of votes surely the mayor if he wants to get anything passed is going to need the support of more than just his his own democrats that's right and and we'll be keeping an eye on those two races very closely tonight um and the south district uh races is particularly interesting because that's the only um one at least in this election where ranked choice voting will actually come into effect because there's more than two people running right and then so and then if it does if it does get too close to call at if no one gets a 50 plus one and they have to rerun them they go to city hall through your list that could be a little bit later um but yeah but free free free menarsha and then uh bill angersen and in john shannon I mean you know that'll be interesting because you know free did run uh in the progressive caucus and uh bill angersen one it was like very small turnout but it was like one by like one vote or it was like elected by like the council like you know another council uh committee um so it'll be interesting to sort of see again whether or not john shannon can hold off two challengers and if ranked choice voting has an effect in this case because I feel like that'll be the we'll see it we'll see if it happens and if you know but I think because that's gonna be the only one yeah all the other ones ranked choice voting doesn't it it doesn't matter there's only two people so at least there's one where we can see if if you know see if see how it exactly so we'll be keeping an eye on on that as well as all the other races and in the meantime um let's let's dive back into those burlington ballad items sure well the top one is is really the one um that I think a lot of people have been focused on and really the most money has been spent the most long signs have been put out um you know some of the most some of the most uh volatile but really some of the most um a lot of the back and forth in my front porch formerly has really been around the police accountability issue and and whether or not this this sort of community control board um should be should be put into place and I think that's going to be we'll see some of the early tolls so far I think it's going to be um I was just going to dive into that a little bit to sort of see how how those have been faring so far um but it's not looking it's not looking great yet for that I would think it's like it's it's a losing by a failure by a 60 to 40 margin with the wards that we have so far that I've reported in such two three four and I think what else do we have eight and seven so we have those in so far and and so it's probably not going to pass so I think the issue will be like what happens next right and so there has been some discussion on the city council in fact it was a resolution that was drafted and put out there that said like look if it goes down we will like vote or the people who were opposed to it said if you vote this down we will move forward some other issues um because you know people have to remember like this issue of police accountability has been something that's been had that's been discussed in rowington for years it predates it predates the battery park movement it predates you know the killing of george floyd and the national sort of focus on on um on how you know how aggressive policing you know is affecting you know minority community minoritized communities people with disabilities and so rowington was having some of those discussions long before that settling lawsuits for you know for you know for people for community members who are in mental health crisis who have been killed at the hands of police officers other lawsuits for aggressive policing so this was not something new and so we've been discussing this for a while and so it'll be I think depending on how how wide the margin is on this vote it's still going to set it single that a sizable portion of rowington wants to see some action taken to have more more accountability measures put in place over its police department and whether or not the council and the mayor and the police department heed that I think remains to be seen and so we could be back to having some of these very contentious discussions the city council over this um who who think that the current system is fine and I think as you're seeing from some of the results so far a pretty good portion of the city does not think it's totally fine and we will definitely be keeping our eye on that and as we move forward with with the results and we will we will bring those to you as soon as we get them in the meantime we'll we'll dive back into that issue a little bit more we've got a clip we can show you from some of our coverage on that article but before we get to that we have uh charles judge and brinn oakleaf here um from winooski both running uncontested for winooski city council so bobby let's let's hear from you there was a very light turnout well that gives us time to like we can continue to we can go back just have that clip and then we can yeah it looks like that all right so um we're gonna take a peek at our module right now um if you'd like to follow us along again it's at bit.ly slash town meeting 2023 results and um yeah so for burlington we'll we'll um we've got six out of eight wards reporting right now which is more than we expected for for this time of night with the issues that they're having with those absentee ballots so that's good to know um so far um article one approving the school budget for fiscal year 2024 um that has received 4915 votes for yes so with six out of eight wards reporting that's trending towards um it's looking like it's going to pass yeah especially because i mean if you think about the the wards that have largely not been supportive of the school budget are four and seven the new north end so with those wards and along with the old north end ward one and ward yeah and ward eight i think it's in pretty good shape because five and six tend to be fairly supportive of the school budget so i feel like that's a pretty pretty safe bet great and next we have article number two carbon pollution impact fee for construction of buildings 50 000 square feet or larger again this has with six out of eight wards reporting this has received 4825 yes votes um uh is this a surprise to you um you know the margin is a little surprising because there was a lot of there were there was opposition to this because of the way in which what was defined as renewable energy in in the in the uh in the in this this charter there's not this charter change but in this in this um valid item um some people felt that some of what it was being in there like um the power from McNeil so you know burning uh you know wood to fuel electricity was not renewable and shouldn't be considered sort of green energy and so there was the the oppositions that was largely focused on sort of how we define renewable energy or it's truly renewable um in terms of like whether it's large-scale hydro etc so yeah i was actually surprised it was because there was i mean at least in my frontport form um there's there was a lot of pushback against against this for that specific reason well we'll continue to um see how that trends as the the remaining two wards come in for results um article number three for burlington charter change reward boundaries this has so far received 4,763 votes for yes um and you know redistricting has been a very very hot topic in the past couple of months yeah i mean it always is i mean every 10 years i mean like because everybody wants to make sure that they're not going to get their polling place moved and um and they like the way things are and you know and some wards i mean the concern is always like to some what wards lose power if they you know in terms of you know voting power on the school in the city council if enough people move to a different part of the city um i think they what i've seen so far is the boundaries are shifting a little bit to kind of help immediately sort of change the way in which ward 8 is configured to make it less student heavy and have more downtown residents including long-term residents not just students included in ward 8 so it's not surprising that this is passed because i mean we have to do it right i mean it's by law we have to redistrict based on based on the census data every 10 years so you know that the next one which is like being able to sort of change the qualifications of voters and setting up polling places which is sort of like a housekeeping sort of item to sort of like making sure that polling places you know even if they're outside the war still be used and making it making voting more accessible for for voters exactly right so that that doesn't um for article number four the um in berlington the charter change about legal resident voting this has received 4936 yes votes um with six out of eight wars reporting is that a surprise not really i i feel like you know i feel like this time around you know i think one of the last time we tried to put it on the ballot i think there's a lot of concern about brollington being first and i think there's some people who get tired brollington being the first to do something well when uski and montpelier's you know went you know went first before um you know and they changed their they changed their charters to allow this um they the governor vetoed that legislation the legislature overrode the vetoes and then the republican national committee like sued montpelier and when uski um to to to stop them from putting in the remorse supreme court said no they can by state law they can allow to do it so it's not surprising because brollington's not the first community to do this and other communities have already done that including our neighbors and when uski and it's worked relatively smoothly for them so well speaking of when uski um we do have charles judge and brinn oakleaf in our studio with bobby a little bit technical difficulty there but we're back so um let's hear let's hear what they have to say okay uh try this again we just make sure that the microphone is working yeah not working okay back to cda all right um well we're gonna be bringing you those interviews with um candidates as soon as we get that mic fixed in the meantime let's let's continue looking at our module here with um let's stick right on brollington uh article number five which is what you mentioned it's the charter change qualifications of voters and siding of polling places which essentially um like you already mentioned allows allows voters to use polling places that are technically outside of ward boundaries right right so that that charter change has received um 5,160 votes for yes with six out of eight wards reporting and um that will probably continue to trend um towards the yes that's one of those yeah this that one's that one's that one's that one's a yes yes it's it's gonna pass um next we have um article number six the charter change about the rank choice voting making that for mayor or election school commissioners and ward election officers so far that has received 4,690 votes for yes and i'm surprised it's not a little lower to be honest with you because i mean brollington you know brollington has had a history of of opposing rank choice voting after approving it um but it's you know i think people now are more maybe more accustomed to sort of seeing how other people use it and seeing how and understanding how it works and understanding how it works and maybe we'll see how it works tonight in the city council ways that would be exciting so um next is that article we've been talking about that um citizen lead charter change for the creation of an independent community control board just a reminder that six out of eight polls have report or wards have reported at the moment um with uh we've we've got results from ward one ward two or three and more four um and so so far this we've got no trending with 4,335 votes for no so we'll keep our eye on this and dive a little bit deeper into this topic as the night goes on absolutely yeah and i'm going to be spending a little time to sort of break down like which wards were the ones who who if there are wards that supported it versus opposed it and um for article number eight the charter change um this is that proposition zero charter change um so far this has 3,767 votes for yes any surprises here no no i i mean i think this was a little i think i think most people i talked to didn't understand it as much as they did the other ones and so but i think the folks who who supported it did a good job at explaining what it meant and and uh so it's it's close which i think is pretty much tracks on sort of uh how i've been seeing even even on the forums on on you know here on tammany tv you know pretty good reason to arguments for either absolutely and um so now we're going to move on to um our results for some of the elections that burlington saw um we have results for the central district so in the central district for city council um milo grant has been elected um to the the seat for central district with uh one thousand four hundred and thirteen votes to avery music cars 706 votes so that means milo will be joining the city council right and the progressives hold that seat that's a seat that was that was held by perry freeman also a progressive um who decided not to run for reelection that's right and um also in the central district a uncontested race for school commissioner gene waltz has received seven hundred and thirty three votes and will continue to serve as school commissioner for burlington we um we also have results for the north district north district both races here were uncontested so mark barlow will continue to serve on the burlington city council he received two thousand nine hundred and fifty votes as well as um kinder sours another incumbent who will be continuing to serve for another uh two years for um burlington school commissioner in that north district we we also have um east district um results so that that was one of those races that we were keeping our eye on there that's right um so for east district it this was a closer race it it looks like um timothy dorty um the democrat in this race um has been elected um with 53 percent of the votes that's 747 votes to jake shuman's 643 about a 100 vote difference there this is the democrats holding on to that holding on to that seat after mayor brant uh won and then decided not to continue not to run again um and that's also the that's also the race that's also the district that jack hanson had held previously a progressive so this is sort of now gone for progressive democrat back to democrat again so that's right and um also in the east district we have um gary golden who we spoke to earlier in the night real or elected to the school commission with 782 votes so since east district votes are in that means ward city ward eight we already mentioned this but hannah king um has been elected another democrat on the city council with 228 votes to ron allison's 187 votes that is a very small uh voter turnout in ward eight there yeah ward eight tends to be one of the smaller turnouts especially especially in town meaning non-presidential election year which is one yes younger sort of students often come out to vote is the presidential election years that's that's when you see bigger bigger push this look these local elections they're harder it's harder to get out folks that's very true and um so it's it's impressive that um that many people actually did go and vote considering you know i mean we do what we do our best here at town meeting tv to get the word out about local elections but you know when you're young like that sometimes it's it's a matter of multiple different factors so um just a reminder if you wanted to check out our election results module you can tune you can see that at uh bit.ly slash town meeting 23 uh 2023 results and now finally we will hear from charles judge and brent oakleaf who have been elected to um when newskies city council bobby let's let's hear from you we're trying our best here to get those interviews out to you um and uh you know we really want to thank those candidates as well as um christine lot and alexian for coming in we will hear from them soon um but in the meantime um maybe we can take a peek at when new ski results um so for when new ski it looks like um it's for city article two um approving the um f y 24 city budget um so far has received um 72 percent of the votes with 588 votes for yes um so that's um that's for the city budget and in when new ski city article three accepting funds from non-property tax sources and we can talk about these a little bit more as we go through and what they mean but for this one in particular um 92 percent of voters uh 755 votes were for yes here um and um we will we'll catch back up with those when new ski results um but we're gonna try again here shay we're gonna we're gonna toss it over to um not only charles judge and brine oak leaf but also mayor christine lot and outgoing um school board trustee alexian for a quick interview okay emily we're gonna try this one more time and see if we can get this microphone to work um okay wow so excited to bring you uh some perspectives from when new ski tonight from studio b uh we have a couple of city counselors uh who have just been elected as well as mayor christine lot and alexander yin uh who has just finished a term on the school board so i'm going to pass this microphone down the line and just hear from each of you a little bit about um the city council race today and what you hope to accomplish moving forward as well as what else you're looking out for tonight in terms of results great thank you so much um i just want to thank all the voters for coming out today and for voting uh re-electing me to city council thank you so much um i think this coming year and uh for this coming term for me i really want to lean into equitability through the language access plan make sure we continue to focus on affordability for our taxpayers and to continue to move forward with our capital improvement projects make sure those stay on time thanks brinn um i too just want to say thanks to the winewski constituents um you know they're taking a chance on someone they've probably never heard of or heard very little about um and i'm just really looking forward to bringing a renters perspective and a working class persons perspective to the city council um i think that there's a lot of good work going on and my goal is to just be an ally to the people that are already on council that are pushing those um agenda items forward well congratulations to you both i'm looking forward to working with you over the coming years um i would share some similar perspectives as council oakleaf here we have been focused on carrying forward some pretty big projects that voters have supported over recent years um and trying to shift now towards bringing affordability and equity focus into our work um i think the team up here is is interested in doing that as well so very excited to look forward to what is coming to the city um also we'll note that the voter petition just cause eviction passed a charter change and so we'll see what happens with that in the state house and finally i want to congratulate alexian for many successful years of service six i believe uh on our wanouski school board thank you mayor lot and um i also wanted to just say thank you to the city wanouski for passing this budget it was a great way to end my uh six years of service it also like i know it was tough on the voters but like we are now set up for really helping the education really building the school to be the heart of our city and really have it grow together i mean there are so many exciting things that are going on we have the capital project now going now we're starting to pay for that we have the education funding format to really help make the cost more equitable for our people um we're going to have a new superintendent coming up and stuff so there are just a lot of exciting times and i just want to thank the residents of wanouski for giving me this opportunity for trusting me in the last six years and um i hope i did you all proud but i now can take a little bit longer naps in the next um couple years and stuff awesome alex christine charlie and brun thank you so much for joining us tonight and for sticking around while we figured out a couple of technical difficulties we'll pass it to you back in studio a well thank you so much bobby as well as christine alex charles and brinn for joining us here in the studio and bearing with us for all those those technical difficulties there um we're going to stay with studio b um for a bit here and um we will hear from um milo grant who um before we jump over there um she um has just been elected for the central district representative on the city council uh berlington city council and just a reminder for folks watching that um the central district is comprised of wards two and three in berlington right and the old north end also known as the old north end um and so uh that now has the progressive um representative for for them right and um we um that continues to be the progressive stronghold in berlington because they already they already have uh progressives in both the wards two and three um and ward one and then now they'll have uh now milo grant will join them that was also that central district she was held by a progressive perry freeman who decided not to run for reelection so yes but it's been a good night for democrats in berlington um they have you know picked up you know maintained the hold of the seat in an east district and they picked up a seat in ward eight and we'll see what happens in the south district if jones shannon can hold on to her seat that would give the democrats you know more of a true plurality on the on the council and we'll definitely keep our eye on that um going forward but before we get there um we've got we do have milo grant here in the studio um and bobby is over in studio b with her and let's see what they have to say awesome thank you so much emily i'm joined by milo grant who's just won her race for the central district city councilor in berlington uh milo thank you so much for joining us and uh tell us a little bit about your campaign and and what you heard from voters oh my god it's been really amazing i had kind of a running joke that it was the grassroots of grassroots because i never run for anything i never campus for anything i never door knock for anything and i just have been so concerned about some things that have been happening in berlington and how they've been affecting the part of the city that i live in that i just was like this is what i have to do and i'm just really thankful for people who stepped up for me i'm thank uh my campaign manager my campaign mother as i called her rachel uh really amazing really amazing and just the people that came out of nowhere that i that knew of me and believed in me but i didn't know them but i just tears in my eyes at times tears in my eyes and then door knocking and and the response from people so i'm really thankful congratulations i'm really um i'm feeling it i think i'm going to feel it more tomorrow morning think a little tired been a little chilly today but uh yeah i'm really pleased i'm ready i'm ready can can you share a little bit about so you're uh jumping on to the council at a moment when it's a little bit divided there's uh you know there are there's about half democrats half progressives and the rhetoric that we've seen especially this election cycle has been a little bit divisive can you talk a little bit about what you hope to accomplish and how you hope to kind of bridge some of those divides and in the different perspectives on the council right now so i think there it needs to be quite frankly um a reality check there is uh when we look at question seven question seven basically passed in the central district because it is a great concern accountability and oversight of our police department and people in the central district they understand the things that are happening that are not okay and are affecting their neighbors and friends and people within their community so we really have to be real about that um i am really uh council president paul was at the police commission meeting last week and pledged to start working on something that's really just been hanging around since 2021 which is codifying what the police commission could be doing so seven has done its job in that it's gotten people off there right so something's going to move forward in that and it has to move forward and people well meaning people who really don't understand what's happening in the city have to wake up they have to wake up we have some of the same issues that are happening across this country and we have to deal with them these issues are not going away unless they are dealt with honestly and openly so people say oh we have to have the hard conversations but as soon as you're there to have them then everyone's like so and the propaganda and uh you know the mailing and the packed and you're like why if you if you want to attack a policy or the ballot item attack it on its merits you know don't lie to people that's not okay and people see through that I believe and I think the number showing that it it did better than anticipated um means a lot means a lot yeah yeah Milo thank you so much and congratulations and thank you thank you and I want a state of emergency for the drug crisis in this city thank you Milo yeah uh Milo Grant central district city counselor for Burlington uh back to you in studio a thank you Bobby and thank you so much Milo for coming in and speaking with us tonight congratulations on winning and now we're gonna we have received all results for South Burlington so we're gonna quickly run through our module with the South Burlington results um so in South Burlington their city article number two approving their fiscal year 24 city budget has passed with 73 percent of the votes 2,440 people have voted yes for that next is the article number three that general obligation bond for the Bartlett Bay waste waste water treatment facility this has passed with 86.9 percent of the votes the next article here we have city center tax fine increment financing or that tiff district bond for the downtown um this has passed with 69 of the votes 1,775 people voted yes on that one and for the school article approving their school budget um is has also passed that that received 68.4 percent of the votes with 2,288 people weighing in on that one for yes and finally on those articles the school article three capital improvement bond for school and facilities renovations this has also passed with 67.1 percent of the votes and moving on to the city council and school board elections Andrew Chalek um for the South Burlington city council three-year seat has um has won with 2,436 votes that's 83.8 percent to jimmy lease who received 16.1 percent of the votes and that two-year city council seat um we spoke with Tyler Barnes and Lydia Diamond uh it's Tyler Barnes has been elected um to the two-year city council seat in south Burlington with 48.1 percent of the votes to Paul Engels 41.4 percent and Lydia diamonds 10.4 percent and for school director this is a three-year position um Alex McHenry uh the incumbent there versus Lisa Hickey Alex uh will continue to serve as school director in south Burlington as they received 55.6 percent of the votes and uh next for um school director this two-year seat um this one is this one is very close here we've got um sitting um school director um chair Travia Childs um receiving 49.5 percent of the votes 1,453 to Brian Companion's 50.4 percent that's 1,481 votes so that's a pretty narrow margin the closest closest election we've seen so far tonight yeah so so that's um that's an interesting race there in south Burlington and um continuing on with the south Burlington um races here we do have Andrew Chalnic who has just been elected to south Burlington City Council for the next three years here in Studio B with Bobby so let's hear from them great thank you I'm going to uh the south Burlington City Council how's it feel how's it feeling tonight Andrew oh my god it's it's just um an amazing feeling uh campaigning is a lot of work um and I'm just I'm humbled and and grateful for the support of of the community I said when I started this race I love this community I love I love the neighborhood and I have had so many terrific conversations with people all around the neighborhood and I'm just I'm so ready to get to work for this community so this seat was opened up because a couple of big leaders in south Burlington stepped down from the council Thomas Chittenden and Matt Coda so what does the council lose with uh with their leadership stepping down what are the game with with your new perspective on the council maybe we should focus on continuity um I have a lot of respect for Tom and Matt um they both listen respectfully um you know engage in good civil dialogue good civic discourse and I hope to continue that I'll bring my own perspectives I may not vote in everything the same way they would have but um I think there's there's more continuity than difference this this is a great city people people talk about the issues um people try hard to find common ground and I want to continue that tradition Andrew thank you so much for joining us south south Burlington's uh newest city counselor thanks for joining us tonight thank you so much awesome back to studio A and Andrew for joining us here in the studio congratulations on winning your election so we do have all results in for Burlington's south district yes and this was that race we were keeping our eye on because the winner needed to get more than 50% in order for it to to go through and so in the south district for city council uh incumbent Joan Shannon has been reelected with 73.8% of the votes that's 2,243 people voting for Joan um to Billy Anderson who received 449 votes and Farid Minarsia who received um 344 percent or 344 votes so 73.8% is well over the margin Joan needed to be declared the winner absolutely absolutely and this this gives now the Democrats if my math is correct and viewers can correct me if it's wrong but by doing the tally with the pickup in wart eight which had been held by a progressive and holding that seat there um the the Democrats now have six of the 12 seats on the city council progressives have four and there's two independents so it'll be it'll be interesting to see how that um makeup plays out in the next couple of years exactly and we do have Joan Shannon here in the studio with us so um we're going to turn it over to Bobby and here um here from Joe great thank you Emily I'm joined by Joan Shannon who's won the south district of Burlington City Council race uh uh Jones thank you so much for joining us tonight thank you Bobby I'm glad to be here right um so you can talk a little bit about what you learned in your campaign this year and also what you're looking uh what you're keeping an eye on tonight in terms of the results of the ballot items that that were on the ballot in Burlington uh I definitely heard a lot about public safety on the campaign and there was a lot of discussions particularly about ballot questions seven and eight which were the police control board and the um referendums proposition zero on question eight and I think that uh people in the city clearly um I really appreciate that when people read the actual ballot um language the the language of the charter changes that were being proposed they seem to have rejected them handily right and so there there is a it sounds like the majority of the folks who voted voted against that uh that ballot item number seven and there was a big chunk of Burlington's constituents that did vote in favor of that and we're looking for um that form of police accountability can you talk a little bit about what the city council might do instead of that uh that method of of of establishing accountability for the police department that you hope the city council will take up moving forward I think that when you put before the voter something called community control of police that you know a lot of people um reading that and reading the short form question it sounds uh sounds like a great idea and so a lot of people will vote yes on that but when they were presented with the actual language people said no no you know they were not supportive of the idea creating a new department of the city in the city with an investigative office a nine member paid board all to supervise what we now have is about 29 officers on patrol does that mean that they don't want us to dig deeper into police accountability I I don't think that is what that means um but there are a lot of directions that we could go in um some people want the uh some people want the commission to have more um more oversight of the police department um other people want to look at other models I think boulder has a good model we also have to figure out something that is scaled to burlington appropriately and I really think we should be looking for state oversight because truth be told every community in this state should have appropriate police oversight and it should be consistent across the state it should not vary from community to community so I think that we should be looking to that um and it's also a good way to get independences to take it from outside the city outside the department um to a professional oversight board which is how every other profession in the city is regulated uh Joan just briefly as you're uh reelected the city council what do you see is the council's top priorities right now and what do you expect your work will be moving forward um we have well in the south end especially we have uh new zoning being proposed in the south end that I think is going to get a lot of attention um public safety continues to be the number one issue people are really upset about um about conditions in the city right now and they expect change um last summer was really rough and the people in our community that are really hurting and they need help uh and we really need need help from the state and the federal government there's there's uh you know a certain level of social problems that cannot be solved by municipalities alone you know we are we are doing our best but you know there's a fire hose coming against us and uh we need we need a public safety net thank you so much Joan for joining us tonight and congratulations on your win in the south district uh we're going to pass back over to studio a thank you very much Bobby and Joan thank you for coming in and congratulations on your reelection to Burlington city council that being said let's get let's get on back over to our election module if you want to follow along that's bit.ly slash town meeting 23 results and in Burlington article number one approving the fiscal year school budget of 104 million dollars has passed with 68.4 of the votes that's 700 and 7191 votes with all wards contributing here article number two uh excuse me carbon pollution impact fee for the construction of buildings 550,000 square feet or larger this has also passed this received 67.2 of the votes or 7046 total votes article number three this has to do with the uh redistricting and ward boundaries this has passed with 72.5 of the votes 7,000 and 76 people voting for that article number four charter change about legal resident voting this has also passed with 67.9 percent of the votes 7,143 people voting yes on this item article five this is that charter change about the qualifications of voters and citing of polling places this has also passed with 76.4 percent of the votes 7,623 people article six this is that ranked choice voting charter change for mayor school commissioners and ward election officers this has passed with 64.4 percent of the votes and onto those citizen charter changes uh article seven that one we were talking about a lot earlier for the creation of independent community control board this has not passed this has been voted down with 63.2 percent of voters in berlington voting no on this item and finally article number eight the charter change for proposition zero this has also been voted down with 52.8 percent of berlington voters voting no that's 5,366 votes to 4,787 votes so any surprises there well it was interesting because i think we the earlier results we had without not all ward reporting is the the final item prop eight the the ballot item eight pop zero was passing right and so the later wards that came in clearly turned the direction of the way not surprised about the about article seven the police oversight uh board there's been a lot of opposition to that a lot of the mayor was opposed to it you know union members were opposed to it so that was the one that had the most funding uh spending against it to pass so not as surprising there and we will be hearing from uh current city councilor jean bergman a proponent of that um charter change later on but for now we're going to go through our um sx results we've received results for the town of sx and article one adopting that fiscal year 24 budget of 15.4 million dollars has passed with 68.4 percent of the votes the next article here is increasing capital reserve by one cent on on the tax rate this has passed with 62.9 percent of the votes 604 people voting yes here the next article um reorganizing the town charter which a lot of these articles had to do with the separation of sx town from sx junction right um this has passed with 82.6 percent of the votes right the city of sx junction is actually going through the same thing but they're actually having to reorganize their charter as well so and we'll bring you coverage from their town meeting which happens later in april um sx town uh the next article here um the charter change about regulating license fees this has passed with 79.1 percent of votes and this is that charter change in in sx that wanouski also saw in their ballots about enacting residential just cause eviction this is a bit of a closer one here with um it's still it did pass with uh 59.8 percent of the votes 570 people voting yes on this so it'll be interesting um later on to see how wanouski um voted on that one as well and um the next town article here the charter change uh uh regarding the recall of select board members has passed this received 71.4 percent of votes and finally this town article here the charter change about creating a development review board which would replace the zoning board of adjustment by um 2025 this has passed with 81.3 percent of sx voters voting yes and um for the elections in sx um really not very um remarkable no no contested races here right so um so both incumbents andy watz and ethan lorence will serve another three years on the sx select board exactly and moving on we've got wilson wilson has an interesting contested race here which we'll get to in just a moment uh town article five which was authorizing town the budget for fiscal year 24 of 13.9 million dollars this this was um passed with uh 69 percent of voters turn out to say yesterday at the polls the next article here proving a g o bond um to uh balance to purchase a solar array this has passed with 77.4 percent of votes finally article seven uh another another g o bond uh to purchase a new ambulance um this has also passed unsurprisingly with 78.4 percent of votes and so two uncontested races in wilson uh gene jensen and terry mckay will both serve on the wilson select board terry being the current select board chair and here's the interesting one that contested select board race in um wilson between mike isham and ellie becket now mike isham received 50.1 percent of the votes 772 people voting for mike to ellie's uh 49.8 percent that's 768 votes it's a four vote margin a four vote margin that's that is really close so that is definitely our the closest race for tonight that and um you know i i'm personally not surprised considering they both have um pretty prominent roots in that wilson community they do they're both they're both they're both well known um they both have you know actively served in some capacity or their families you know are well known to everybody in the community so it wasn't surprising it was that that's that's really close that's really close that is that is significantly close yes so um mike isham um at the moment has been elected um to the wilson select board even though it's a four vote margin he um will serve on the wilson select board for one out of three uh year term and um we'll we'll get to some of those other results soon um for those other towns but in the meantime we do have uh current city councilor uh gene bergman representative of ward two here um to speak with bobby about the um independent um oversight board charter change great okay thanks so much emily i'm joined by gene bergman ward two city councilor is that correct gene yes it is and uh gene you were an advocate for a pretty loud advocate for the passage of article seven across burlington and it looks like that did not pass tonight so can you just share a little bit about what you think the the voters of burlington uh said tonight with their with with the results here uh well i was not only allowed but a very proud uh supporter of that and i actually think that considering the opposition um the fact that we got almost 37 percent of the vote means that there are a significant significant number of people in burlington who are dissatisfied with the status quo so while i'm disappointed i'm actually heartened that folks um rejected what i i had major problems with the with the with the opposition campaign um and i don't need to go into them and i don't want i want to move forward on this so um my my hope is that as the council starts and the mayor start to uh to move forward and we get a chance to take a look at this issue that um we're going to one recognize that even the opposition said that there needed to be improvements significant improvements to police oversight and two that 37 percent of burlington voters rejected the no um and the opposition uh to to what was proposed so i i think and in my word actually it won uh two to one so i i i i feel heartened by that um but there's a lot of work that we need to do and as a community the most important thing is that we come together and we build consensus i do think that actually this vote the campaign gives us an opportunity to do that and i'll look to work with people to to make that happen so jean uh back in 2020 progressives across the city ran pretty successful campaigns and we're able to enact some progressive uh ordinances for the city and since then it seems like uh it's it looks like this the council will have a democratic majority possibly a democratic supermajority after tonight so uh what do you think has changed in burlington that has caused voters to shift in that direction and uh how does your work change as a progressive city councilor now that there are more democrats on the council several questions there so i i actually think that if you look at the the numbers and where the votes have changed you'll see that it's in wards one and eight redistricting will change dynamics so it's hard to project in the future but the election in ward one was decided by like a hundred votes that's not a big shift and it's always been a swing district ward eight i think was 40 votes right so we're not looking at this huge rejection in my mind um and i think that like with the police oversight people draw that conclusion um at their own risk and and i think it also is to the detriment of the city if we believe that we are a small p progressive city that democrats and independence and big p progressives are in line with whoop i there it is there's something there oh it sounds like it sounds like we're sorry jean it sounds like we're gonna throw to the mayor we have the mayor and well of course i can't compete with the mayor okay so we're gonna throw to the mayor and halvorsons of the democrats sorry jean uh we'll hear from the mayor in a minute thank you what a great room to walk into what a great night it's probably the democrats have had has been a great two weeks david thank you for stepping up and and serving in this role for the party i also want to thank jim dandana who is serving as the executive director for the party and who made a commitment to to be fully engaged both in the special election back in december and then again tonight jim was around here somewhere where you go jim thank you i uh there's a few other um democratic leaders here i also want to want to recognize i think i saw our brand new state treasurer mike pia check in the back thanks for coming over the river being with us tonight um i also want to thank justin for everything you did in both both cycles it it makes a huge difference to have you out there working on the ground and being at the so many doors every every door in the key the key key races where we're very grateful justin city council president karin paul is is here karin wasn't on the ballot tonight but it's been a huge part of the last year with the leadership she's brought to to the city council and her long commitment to the city um we're going to bring each candidate up up here uh in in a moment and so we'll say a little bit about each of them as as they come up um i do also want to make sure though that we recognize tonight adam roof for his leadership that we have adam took over the party and in a challenging time has had to lead us through multiple pandemic era caucuses and has had to figure out issues that no chairs ever had to work on before and has also been there on the ground in more city council races than anyone else in the city for for years now and and tonight it showed and you deserve a lot of credit for tonight's tonight's all right thank you very much to both gene bergman and uh mayor morrow wine burger as well as all of our um our team who's over at helverson's getting those interviews from the democratic party that's going on there so thank you to both of them for speaking with us and next we have um mark barlow who was just re-elected to berlington's north district here with us in studio b to speak with bobby great thank you emily i'm joined by mark barlow who's uh won the uncontested race for the north district uh south berlington city council race thanks so much i'm sorry berlington the the north district for the berlington city council race um mark congratulations and uh how is your how's your day today how's your uh how did you feel about your campaign this year well um my campaign was easier than my previous three for sure but i spent a lot of time trying to educate voters on the ballot items specifically um ballot item seven and ballot item eight and so i spent even today doing doing that and continuing that work right what were the conversations with voters like about those two ballot items um generally um i thought that voters were against at least in words four and seven against and i think that proved out i didn't see the tape from seven but i know it went down by almost three to one and word four so um that sort of was borne out by the anecdotes that i was hearing from voters today and question eight was a harder one because it was just a little bit more complicated to explain to voters but ultimately the idea of putting ordinances on the ballot um once you could explain that and how it would circumvent uh some of the public process around ordinance creation that i think that um that helped convince voters of that question right or that any of the other i know there are a couple other ballot questions out there today for berlington voters any others that you're keeping an eye on that you're looking at the results for tonight um well i'm interested to know how legal resident voting went and and how um i believe right choice voting passed right is that true do you know that sounds right to me but i'm not i'm not sure either i came here from from the polls so yeah um great and so you're an independent on the council mark and there's been some pretty divisive rhetoric especially in this election cycle around some of those ballot items so what do you see is your responsibility to kind of move the council's work forward and work across difference to mend some of that some of that division and sort of collaborate for for the get of the city well i think it's important one of the reasons i consider myself an independent because i think the party labels limit you in some ways and um i've always gone made it a priority of mind to you know try to work with people on issues other counselors and even when i was on the school board on things that we agree upon you know we may disagree on things but there are always things we agree on and the other point i'd make is everybody who's in this work is in it because they're trying to do good and whether or not we agree on what the right policies are is a whole different matter so i think there's always there's always room to find common ground with folks you know so i'm going to continue to be collegial and look for opportunity with all council members mark barlow north district city councillor for berlington thank you so much for joining us tonight mark well thanks you have me on thanks back to you in studio a thank you bobby and thank you to mark for joining us in the studio tonight congratulations on being reelected to berlington city council for the north district and for folks either that have been here with us all night or you're just tuning in we do have all of the results in for elections in berlington south berlington asex winewski willison and colchester we'll get to those momentarily but in the meantime if you want to check out and see how your town city ward voted check out our election module you can find it at bit.ly slash town meeting 2023 results and um yeah definitely go ahead and check those out and we'll be going over those soon and uh before we move on to our next uh guest in the studio i just want to say thank you to all of the folks who have made this election live results show possible i mean from our exit voices teams who went out bright and early this morning at seven a.m when the polls opened um to all of the folks that are making this show happen at the moment right now it really it wouldn't happen without them and um we're very thankful joe you can't see it but it's extremely busy it's very i wish we had like a behind the scenes live can because you would see everybody working their butts off to get um this show out to you folks so um just thank you everyone thank you everyone for tuning in and powering local democracy and um again if you want to check out those results before we get to them that's at bit.ly slash town meeting 2023 results so now um we have jimmy lease here in the studio jimmy was running up against andrew childnick who um we heard from earlier and um bobby let's hear from you guys awesome thanks emily i'm joined by jimmy lease who is a candidate in south burlington for the city council uh jimmy can you tell us a little bit about your campaign and what you heard from voters this year and what you accomplished on the campaign trail sure but first i'd like to congratulate my opponent uh andrew childnick who ran a very good campaign i'd also like to thank um uh my volunteers they were wonderful and i'd also like to thank all the people who voted for me they really registered by doing so they registered opposition to this f35 uh that's causing enormous suffering in the burlington area particularly in the chamberland neighborhood of south burlington uh so what i learned is that there is opposite there's a there's enormous feeling of feelings because of this f35 there's intense suffering it's causing pain injury and trauma to people and it has to stop it's wrong to have it in a city and it's unsafe and it's illegal under the military zone regulations so this is something that i'm going to continue to work on uh i started a substack we've already put out a hundred articles describing all aspects of the f35 it's free for people who want to subscribe and um the election campaign was just another way of bringing the issue forward we're going to continue to find ways to bring it forward on whether it's the noise or the emissions or the um all the other just the targeting of burlington that it brings that uh it makes the city a target because it's a nuclear bomb delivery vehicle so there's all these issues that have to be addressed you're not allowed to put such dangerous military equipment in a populated area every military person is trained that way we can stop this we have the one of the things i learned recently is that the city and the state have the power to halt the f35 training under our federal system the training of of the national guard is a state function so the state has the power and the state has delegated power to the cities towns and villages to protect public health safety and welfare from vehicles of every kind and by regulating those vehicles and so we have the power we should use it and i'm going to be working as much as possible with the city council or the city council including andrew uh i think we can eventually it's not just one election campaign that's going to do it this is one of the many things that has to be done to build a campaign to to prevent this from continuing and i think that uh eventually we will win thank you so much jimmy lees from south brilington thanks for joining us thank you very much for having awesome back to you as studio a thank you so much bobby and jimmy for coming in and speaking with us tonight in studio b so now since we have all the results in if you want to check those out those are on our website ch17.tv you can find them right there on the home page um let's move on over to colchester we haven't we haven't really spoken about colchester much but um there was a hot ticket ballot item um here which um we'll get to in a moment but uh their town article approving the fiscal year 24 municipal services budget has passed with 73.6 percent of votes next this is that article we were talking about this is that recreation center that folks have been weighing in on for the past couple of months here so geo bonds for town recreation center which would be six point nine million dollars has passed with 57.2 percent of votes a little closer than the other than the other votes but but it passed exactly yeah and uh finally the school article for colchester approving their fiscal year 24 school budget of 52.4 million dollars has passed with 73.3 percent of votes and for colchester on their select board and school board races all are uncontested um so the two-year seat for colchester select board jackie murphy uh an incumbent has been reelected and will continue to serve next another incumbent marine p dakin um this is a three-year seat that she has been reelected to and for the school board a two-year seat ben uc hinds a incumbent for uh the school board uh will continue to serve another two years on that colchester school board and um also for the school board uh three-year position lindsay cox another uncontested incumbent uh incumbent um will also serve um on the school just your school board so um you know when uski that was one of the ones we were speaking about earlier with the just cause um eviction so let's take a peek at results coming out of when uski if you're with us earlier we heard from a slew of a whole array of people from elected officials exactly so that was that was um thank you for them for to them for coming in um city article two approving their fiscal year twenty four city budget of nine point two million dollars has passed with seventy two point seven percent of voters um voting for for yes and the next article here in article three accepting funds from non-property tax sources this has passed with a resounding yes 92 voters don't don't want to have something coming from not from property tax right right yes so that that is that where am i that has passed with 92.1 percent of votes and this is that charter change we kept bringing up the just cause eviction this has passed in when uski 73.1 percent of voters passed in s6 as well so there's two of the three i haven't checked to see a bridle or a pass there's but um but yeah so we'll see uh we'll see if if this um passes the legislature because as we know with charter changes yes they actually have to go to the legislature to get approval and signed by the governor that's right and it's not something the governor does approve of and he did veto the one from burlington before and the legislature could not override it so it could go it could be another contentious issue it's not done yet we'll see yeah we'll see we'll see how that um what the legislators legislature thinks of it and how that goes through the during this next session um and continuing on in when uski here the school article six accepting federal funds of four million dollars has passed with 90.7 percent of voters voting yes school article seven approving their fiscal year 24 budget of 25.4 million dollars has passed with 72.7 percent of the votes and city council here we've got um two seats both uncontested we we heard from both brinn and charles earlier in the night um both of them uh have been elected uh to to serve on the city council brinn being an incumbent and charles a newcomer when uski um school trustees we've got um a three-year seat here alison burlock who's an incumbent will continue to serve for another three years and this is that one contested race in when uski um robert miller has um won this election with 58.2 percent of votes to jordan that's 41.7 percent so robert got 401 votes and jordan received 288 votes and um you know like i mentioned earlier and like folks saw earlier in the program we had a lot of teams out at the polls this morning speaking with voters and having them weigh in on ballot item initiatives candidates and so um now we're going to take a peek at how some when uski voters felt about these ballot items and candidates anything on the ballot that really brought you out today that you're excited to vote on i think the just just cost eviction uh piece on the ballot is really important we're in a very difficult time with our housing crisis and you know matters like that should be taken up for people to decide and i felt like it was appropriate for me to vote on that and uh today it looks like the city when uski has the chance to elect uh the state's first all lgbtq uh city council of how are you how are you feeling about that was that a factor at all in your in your decision to vote today yeah definitely getting a lot of news and recognizing that that's a huge step i mean it's super important especially with the trends that we're seeing at the national level to send a message that there really is an opportunity for cities to take ownership and lean into the idea of no hate and that representation really does matter so it's really cool i think can you just share why you voted today uh this why uh why you voted today uh support this one um school or this one uh housing very very good this are very very uh property very very uh helping very good well no one thing i'm concerned i mean i'm in the landlord in town and i'm pretty concerned about the wording of the just cause eviction uh article so i voted against that but otherwise no it's fairly normal i mean all the all the school budgets are high this year so it isn't just when uski but that hurts too but i did support it um i voted because i think it's important to vote for local elections important to vote to expand school budgets and this year especially voting for an all lgbtq ia uh school board or uh city council yeah uh just cause eviction um i think that i am not a fan of just cause eviction i think that we should have more protections for tenants and tenants rights yeah i voted um because i i i believe that tenants need a little bit more power um in especially in the renters market that we're in right now it's incredibly difficult to find a place to live especially a place to live that is anywhere near nice um and when you find something nice it's incredibly expensive and then you're still at the whim of of the landlord um and that can be really scary and i think a lot of people experience that myself and my friend who i came to vote with today so i think that i'm hoping that just cause evictions um will be voted in and that there's more power to the renters thank you and thank you to our exit voices team out in wanouski for um getting those interviews with voters at the polls it's always interesting to see how people weigh in when they're out there absolutely you know and and why it's important you know why people value being able to have their have their voice to see what's important to them you know hearing from renters who think that just cause eviction is you know is necessary in this kind of market and landlords who are concerned about it i mean right well we're we're getting to the close of our show here we're going to run through all of the results that we have in from our six municipalities that we've been covering throughout the night um starting with burlington approving article one for the approving the school budget this has passed with 68.4 percent of the votes article two this is that carbon pollution impact fee this has passed with 67.2 percent of votes the charter changed uh about ward boundaries this has passed in burlington with 72.5 percent of the votes article number four uh the charter changed for legal resident voting this has passed with 67.9 percent of the votes article five the charter change uh about uh citing polling places has passed with 76.4 percent of votes article six this is that ranks choice voting charter change for mayor school commissioners and ward election officers this has passed with 64.4 percent of votes article seven the charter these are these next two articles of the citizen created charter changes the creation of the independent community control board um did not pass and received 6653 votes for no that's 63.2 percent of votes and finally for burlington article number eight charter change proposition zero this has also um been voted down with 52.8 percent of voters voting no and in the east district for school commissioner gary golden who we saw earlier um will serve there on the school commission still in the east district for the city council uh race uh timothy dority um will um join the city council with uh after receiving 53.7 percent of the votes word eight the special election we've got here um for uh between hannah king and ron allison hannah king will now serve on the city council and she received 54.9 percent of votes moving on to the central district for school commissioner gene waltz has been reelected to serve another two years on that school board and staying in the central district milo grant has been elected to burlington city council or city council with 66.6 percent of votes next we've got the self-district for school commissioner jeff wick has been reelected and will continue to serve another two another two years and for city counselor in that south district jones shannon the incumbent has um received 73.8 percent of votes like i mentioned earlier well above the margin with that ranked choice voting for her to be uh elected um onto the city council and in the north district two uncontested races we've got kendra sowers an incumbent uh who will serve another two years uh on the school board and uh mark barlow another incumbent an uncontested race here has been reelected to city council for the next two years moving right on to s6 article number one adopting fiscal year 24 town budget of 15.4 million dollars this has passed with 68.4 percent of votes the next article here increasing capital reserve by one cent on the tax rate has passed with 62.9 of the votes continuing on reorganizing the town charter has also passed with 82.6 percent of votes the charter change about regulating license fees again has passed with 79.1 percent of votes this is that charter change about uh enacting residential just cause eviction like we saw in winewski this has passed in s6 with 59.8 percent of votes and the next article here we have the charter change for the recall of select board members which has passed with 71.4 percent of votes and finally for the charter changes here the charter changed to create a development review board which would replace the zoning board of adjustment by 2025 has passed with 81.3 percent of votes and the select board here two uncontested races both andy watz and ethmore's current select board members will serve on the select board in s6 for another three years moving right along to south burlington their city article for approving the fiscal year 24 city budget of 55.2 million dollars has passed with 73 percent of the votes the geobond for Bartlett Bay wastewater treatment facility this has passed with 86.9 percent of votes next article here city sax tax city center tax increment financing or tiff district bond has passed with 69.7 percent of the votes next for those school articles in south burlington approving the school budget for the next fiscal year has passed with 68.4 percent of votes and capital improvement bonds for school and facilities renovation this has also passed with 67.1 percent of votes and for those the city council uh that city council race in south burlington we heard from both andrew chalnick and jimmy lease andrew chalnick has been elected to um serve on the south burlington city council for the next three years and he received 81.9 percent of votes moving right along here south burlington city council two-year seat here um this is a three-way excuse me three-way race between tyler barns paul engels and lydia diamond tyler barns has been elected with 48.1 percent of the votes and we'll serve for the next two years now school director for south burlington this this is a three-year seat alex mcconnery the incumbent versus lisa hickey alex mcconnery will continue to serve with 55.6 percent of votes going his way and school director for the two-year position here in south burlington another close race with incumbent travia childs um losing reelection to brian companion who received 50.4 percent of votes and will now serve for two years as a south burlington school director and the uncontested school director positioned two years of remaining three year term laura williams uncontested will serve for those two years and jumping over to winewski city article two approving their fiscal year 24 city budget of nine point two million dollars this has passed with 72.7 percent of the votes now accepting funds from non-property tax sources this has vote this has passed with a resounding yes 92.1 percent of voters saying yes there's that charter change about just cause eviction we've been mentioning frequently throughout the show um this has passed with 73.1 percent of the votes and school article six accepting federal funds of four million dollars has passed with 90.7 percent of votes proving the school budget for fiscal year 24 of 25.4 million dollars has passed with 72.7 of the votes here's that uncontested uh city council race two seats here brian oakleaf and charles judge have both been elected brian being the incumbent and they will both serve for two years next we've got school trustee for winewski um allison burlock an incumbent will continue to serve and um this is that contested race in winewski two-year seat versus robert malar versus jordan matt robert malar will serve on as a school trustee after receiving 58.2 percent of the votes and now moving on to williston article number five authorizing their town budget for fiscal year 24 of 13.9 million dollars this has passed with 69 percent of the votes next up approving the g.o. bond balance to purchase a solar array this has passed with 77.4 percent of the votes and the g.o. bond for purchasing a new ambulance has also passed with 78.4 percent of votes uncontested race here in willison um select board terry mckay the current select board chair will continue to serve for another three years another uncontested race here um this is a two-year seat on the willson select board gene jensen uh will now serve and the contested race in willson the the closest race of the night uh the the serving one year of a three-year term um mike isham has been elected with 50.1 percent of the votes 772 votes to 768 votes finally in colchester we've got um article six approving their fiscal year 24 municipal services budget of 15 million dollars which has passed with 73.6 percent of votes article seven g.o. bonds for town recreation center this was that hot ticket item in uh colchester this has passed with 57.2 percent of votes and the school article here approving the fiscal year 24 school budget of 52.4 million dollars has passed with 73.3 percent of votes on the select board jackie murphy will has been re-elected and will serve for two years as will marine dakin who will serve for three years and for the colchester school board then u.c. hines um uh incumbent will serve another two years as well as lindy cox who will serve three years on the colchester school board so that's it for our results we we rolled right through them and it was quite the exciting show um you know thank you shea for co-hosting with me tonight and being the knowledgeable person that you are really appreciated that you're welcome thanks you did a great job thank you it was a great town meeting show i i really had fun and you know this wasn't this couldn't be possible without um you know all of our amazing and dedicated staff and volunteers and interns um who you know you know without their support this wouldn't be possible here they are thank you sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of their hard work and dedication um for making this happen we've been working hard really hard for the past couple of months and i want to thank our underwriters as well for their really generous support of local democracy and um again this couldn't be possible without um all of our wonderful staff volunteers and interns as well as all the folks watching at home who support town meeting tv and our mission to power local democracy so thank you so much for tuning into our 2023 town meeting results show and we hope to see you next year