Hi friends, Janae would be procured with some exciting news. Town meeting day elections for mayor, city council, and more will be using ranked choice voting and all burlington voters get to participate. Unfamiliar with ranked choice voting? Keep watching or visit the link below. Ranked choice voting is a simple way to let voters rank candidates in order of preference. First, second, third, and so on. If your vote can't help your first choice win, it counts to your second choice instead. Here's how it works. If one candidate gets over 50% of everyone's first choice votes, they win and the election is over. However, if no candidate reaches a majority, the candidate with the fewest first choice votes is eliminated and their supporters votes will count towards their second choice. This process continues until one candidate reaches over 50% of the vote. Ranked choice voting is an easy way to give voters more voice, more choice, and makes for a stronger democracy. Learn more about ranked choice or try it out for yourself at betterbellevermont.org-slash-v-tv-2024. Welcome everyone. Thank you so much for being here. This mayoral debate tonight is hosted by Seven Days in Town Meeting TV. My name is Sasha Goldstein. I am a news editor at Seven Days and I'll be moderating tonight. I'll be the host, moderator. So we hosted an in-person mayoral forum in 2018 and then a virtual one in 2021. So we are just thrilled to have everyone here back in person. It's really great to have the community involved and out in person. So thank you all for coming out. The other thing too, we did have some people submit questions in advance, so you might hear a question of yours in the mix tonight. Many thanks as well to Town Meeting TV. They are a great community service. They host and film election forums all month long as well as city council meetings. Really great partners to work with and just an absolutely fantastic community service. So thank you to you folks. I also want to shout out sitting to my right here is Seven Days Ace Burlington reporter Courtney Lambden. I think a lot of people here probably know her and or have read stories by her and she's been here going on five years. We've never had better Burlington coverage. So we really appreciate Courtney and her work. And of course I want to thank our candidates for making the time to come out tonight. We're really excited again to have everyone here. A reminder, city ballots will be mailed to all registered Burlington voters next week. You can also vote, or instead you can vote in person on Tuesday, March 5th, which is Town Meeting Day this year. And this year's mayoral election will use rank choice voting for the first time since 2009. I'm going to avoid getting into the details. But if you have questions about how it works, Seven Days will be publishing an election guide with some details on how it works and there are good resources online as well. We've been playing on the recorded version of this forum, a VPurg explanation of how it works. So that's kind of fun too. Here's the run of show for tonight's debate. Each candidate will have one minute to give an opening statement and then I'll start asking questions and each candidate will have 90 seconds or less to answer. If a candidate is named or referred to in another's answer, that candidate will get 30 seconds to respond and in some cases, at my discretion, I will ask some follow-up questions and on those, we'll give about a minute to respond. Toward the end, we'll have each candidate ask another candidate a question and to wrap up, everyone will have an opportunity to give a one-minute closing statement. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce our four candidates sitting just to my left here is Joan Shannon, a Democrat. Next to her is Emma Mulvaney-Stanek, a Progressive. And then we have two independent candidates, Chris Haseley and Will Emments. So this is the order we're going to start and in this order we're going to trade off who goes first and to start with opening statement, we'll start with Joan Shannon. 60 seconds, thank you. Thank you Sasha and Courtney and Seven Days and Town Meeting TV for having us here tonight. I am Joan Shannon and I'm running for mayor because I believe Burlington is at a pivotal point and I have demonstrated the courage, the leadership, have the record and the experience to help Burlington navigate through these rough waters. While I am not a new union organizer, I'm very proud to have received all three of the city union endorsements that have endorsed so far, including AFSCME, which has 300 members representing all departments of the city. I also have the police and fire union endorsements and the unions know what Burlington needs in their leadership. The unions share concerns about our safety. I want all of us to work together to heal, restore and celebrate our Burlington. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you to the organizers tonight. I'm Emma Mulvaney Stanek.  I live in the Old North End for almost 20 years. My kids go to school in the Old North End and childcare there as well. I'm a small business owner. I'm a former city counselor who sat at this table not too long ago and I'm currently a state legislator representing a portion of Burlington. I'm also a proud former labor organizer for over a decade with the largest labor union in the state, the teacher and support staff union, Vermont NEA. I have a deep love of Burlington. I grew up in central Vermont. This was the vibrant energized city I wanted to move to when I came home from college to the state.  And yet I'm running for mayor because I'm deeply concerned about the health and well-being of our city. There's a divisiveness in our city hall that's permeating into our community. And it is unraveling this community that was so beautifully engaged when I first moved here 20 years ago. So I'm running because I'm uniquely qualified to bring this city back together with my local and state policy experience. And I'm excited to be here tonight. Thank you. Thank you. On to you, Chris. First, I want to say how grateful I am for everybody who signed my petition to help you actually get me on the ballot. It was a sprint to the finish. I'm very grateful for all that hard work. And I wouldn't be sitting here at the table tonight if not for all your support. So thank you to everyone who humped there. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Chris Haisley. I've lived here in Burlington for 25 years. I lived right around on the corner here in downtown. Currently serve on the Church Street Marketplace Commission. Previously served four terms on the school board where I fought for neighborhood schools and livable wages for our support staff. And I'm pleased to say that I received the Outstanding School Commissioner Award from the Burlington Teachers Union. I entered this race because of what was not being talked about. For the better part of the past few months, we've heard a lot about public safety, but the city's facing a number of serious challenges that haven't gotten a lot of attention. We're facing some serious fiscal challenges here. Our credit card is backed out. We're looking at a deficit. We have an aging infrastructure. And we need to hold the line on taxes. There's a number of fiscal challenges. And so far, I'm the only candidate who has pledged to do that. Thanks, Chris. Go ahead there, Will. Hi, my name is Will. Thank you for having me. Like Chris, I excuse me, I went and got my 200 signatures before putting my name on the ballot. I want to thank everybody that signed for me. I was a long time union representative with the American Postal Workers Union throughout the years I ran for three consecutive terms as president. I went around the country training on how to represent workers. And, you know, beyond that, I filed a lot of cases on behalf of my constituents in order for them to get proper representation in wages, hours, and working conditions. I also ran for one term as state president for the state of Vermont. The American Postal Workers Union is a 330,000 member nationwide organization. And our local had a few hundred people. And, you know, after I went, moved on from the union, I also was awarded a full scholarship to Champlain College. And I did a lot of community work with the children in my neighborhoods. And also coached sports, baseball, and basketball. And I recently got my property casualty license. So thank you very much. And I think that the direction that Berlin has gone is there's a lot to be desired. And, you know, I would ask for your vote. Thank you. Thanks, Will. All right. As I said, we're going to move on to the question and answer portion. And we'll start with Emma on this one. Many residents, visitors, business owners, and their employees have said they feel unsafe downtown. As mayor, what would you do to restore that sense of safety for everyone in Burlington? Thank you. Everyone in Burlington deserves to feel and be safe. And as a mom of two small kids, I feel the fear and anxiety of how our community has really changed. And I want to make sure that this community is not only safe for my kids and your kids, but everyone who lives in this community. And I do mean everybody, everyone who also visits. When you call for help in our city, you deserve a timely and appropriate response. And we have to send the right kind of professional who is best prepared to help you in your time of need. And that requires a comprehensive understanding of the complexities facing our city right now. There's a lot of suffering on the streets of Burlington from a lot of complex systems that have failed over many, many years. This has not happened overnight. And my top priority is really going to be community safety. And I use that phrase very specifically because it is bigger than one entity. We need to think about this in a comprehensive way to solve how complicated these issues are. On one hand, we have to get to the root causes. We have to look at gun reform on a state level and how that impacts our community and our sense of safety and violence and preventing and intervening with violence. We also have to look at those failing systems I mentioned before around basic needs, how there's a record number of people who are unhoused in the streets of Burlington, crisis with opioid use and people struggling with substance use disorder, and then, of course, the cracking mental health and health care system in our state. And so, again, not one cause has caused these challenges in Burlington. And I'm almost ending here, so I'm going to say we're going to need a right-sized police department and a comprehensive support that really resources social workers and mental health professionals as well. Thank you. Thank you. Let's go to you there, Chris. I think the first thing we need to remember is that we're dealing with people and we need to make sure that our policies are people-focused. And when I look at the situation here in downtown Burlington, it's something I see and live every day. It's very clear that our system and our approach is not working. And not only has our approach to housing been a profound failure, I would say it's been fundamentally wrong. We wait till people are out on the streets before we offer to give them any help. And that is infinitely more costly and leads to-it doesn't lead to good outcomes for people. So I think, first and foremost, we need to fundamentally re-engineer our approach to housing and move away from trying to solve houselessness and actually trying to prevent houselessness. And I think one of the ways that we can do that is to implement a program to have, like, a supplemental income to help people keep the housing that they already have. One way to do that, although certainly not the only way, would be to explore the possibility of a pilot program for a universal basic income as they've done in Houston and Denver. So that would be the first part. And I think if we can tackle the housing piece and get people housed, that would very much go a long way to dealing with many of the issues that we have. When someone loses their housing, it sets in motion a series of events. Typically they lose housing, then they lose the job. That can lead to mental health issues, which can in turn lead to substance use disorders, and it just becomes a downward spiral. So by fixing the housing problem, we can go a long way to dealing with the public safety challenges. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Will, go ahead. Okay. So as far as public safety goes, if you read my website, which is willforbtv.com, I've outlined staff two and a half plan. It's 112 officers. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I believe that a lot of the concerns and I've gone house to house and business to business, a lot of the concerns are that people that used to feel safe here during the nighttime don't feel safe here during the day. And I think that that's a major concern because, you know, like I said, former union representative, no members, no union, no taxpayers, no mayor. So I think that it's important for the tax payload to not be distributed amongst the people that are left by encouraging new businesses to come back and taxpayers that are leaving to come back. And how do you do that? Well, you do that by providing a environment that exists with public safety. And I think that our police department was defunded. And if you look at what I said during the last mayoral election, as I am the only returning candidate, I also spoke about the citizens and the residents and the police getting sold at the lowest possible level. I think that in order for Burlington to be thriving as it once was, I believe that we need to have a place that's safe for children to walk to school because we don't have school buses in the city. And I think a lot of parents share that concern. So thank you. Thanks. Well, just a reminder, candidates, if you can move the microphone up a little bit, Chris.  Thank you. Thank you. In 2020, I vocally opposed the defunding of the police from 105 to 74 officers, which was led by the Progressive Party. That has led to some of the public safety challenges we have now, not all of them. When you call for help, I think you should get a response. And I think that there is a room for improvement, even with the defunded state we currently have. Today, we only have 21 officers available to patrol Burlington 24, 7, 365, the whole city. My public safety plan starts with deterrence. We need to rebuild our police department. I believe we need more police officers. We also need a diversified police and public safety service. And we've done that in many ways since 2020. We need prevention. As Chris talked about, we need much better mental health support. We need interventions that, in our schools, so that people aren't getting addicted to drugs in the first place. And we need treatment. We don't have access to treatment when people ask for it. I also agree that housing is a very important part of this.  And in the end, we need accountability. When you're openly using and dealing drugs in City Hall Park in our downtown, that is our community living room. And there needs to be intervention and consequences for that action. Thank you. Thank you very much. We're going to start this time with Chris. Do you think Burlington's police oversight system is working? And what do you think the mayor's role should be in reviewing civilian complaints? Process is important. And I think it's the foundation upon which our government and everything else rests. I think the current model with the chief providing discipline works to an extent. But if they were up to me and I could re-engineer the process, what I would do is I would provide the police commission with an opportunity to initiate an investigation if they were not satisfied with the decision of the chief. They would then in turn come to the City Council and make their case. And the City Council would then hear that evidence. And the City Council with Mayor presiding would make a final decision as to what could be done. But whatever we do, we have to protect the due process rights for everyone involved. And that includes the officers who put their lives on the line every day. And being an officer is much like any other job in some ways. In some ways it's very different. But it's similar in the ways that if you're coming home at the end of the day and you're like, why am I doing this? Like people don't appreciate what I'm doing. I don't really feel valued here. It's usually a pretty good indication that it's time to find a better fit elsewhere. And I think that a lot of the challenges we faced here are a result of a culture. It's going to take time to rebuild and to just simply say, oh I'm going to put more police on the street. It's just it's not reasonable because it takes time to get these folks through the pipeline and train going to the academy. So I think it really needs to be a balanced approach that protects the rights of everybody to ensure that everyone gets a fair hearing. Thanks Chris. Let's go to you next, Will. Thanks. Yes. As far as oversight goes, many, about 2017 I was out on a street, it was over what they call it the murder mart. It's a shell station. And I witnessed a guy, I witnessed a guy acting in self-defense and the guy was up around his neck and you know he acted in self-defense and basically knocked the guy out. And yeah, and there was some racism involved and you know then following that the guy was charged as a defendant should have been charged as a victim basically. And so what I did was I made a couple phone calls. I spoke about this during the last election and you know it didn't work out. I spoke to a couple police officers. I spoke to a couple lawyers and I made a couple phone calls to one of them was to Bernie's office. When I didn't get any results and no disrespect to anybody, I went and I wrote the guy's whole case, wrote the witness statement and I hired him a lawyer. And you know I also solicited a couple statements from the store clerk's over at that store. And so as far as oversight goes I do think that there's a time and a place for the community to be able to have a voice in order to maybe get a case resolved because I wouldn't rely on a public defender if I was anybody in this room. I go to Paul Jarvis for everything. So you know basically what I did was I wrote the case and Paul's degree, law degree, got it got the case dismissed. So I definitely think that there's a time and a place for the community to be involved in maybe resolving a case that's unjust. Thank you. Thanks Will.  Thank you. I believe that the police should be held accountable for doing their job according to their trainings and training and directives. I support codifying the changes we made to police oversight in 2020. But when we're talking about police oversight I think it's really important that we are actually working with the police commission who is charged with doing a lot of this oversight at this point as well as the police union to understand how we can fairly supervise and professionally supervise a very difficult job. I really think that we focus too much on punishing officers because at the end of the day we're punishing officers because something went wrong and somebody was impacted and a far better solution is actually to intervene in ways that prevent police officers from going off course, from using bad judgment and we need to help them. We need to have a process of review that intervenes before something goes bad. The number one concern I hear in our community about our police is they don't come when they're called. If we want police to come when they're called we need to hire more police officers. We've had too many cases where somebody is trying to break into a home and somebody calls and the police don't come because we don't have the police to come and while I support diversified services and appropriate response the police are an appropriate response in many of these cases. Thank you. Just if I could stay there for a second. You mentioned dealing with issues before something goes wrong and I obviously there are some of our neighbors in this city who don't trust the police. I think definitely a schism there. How would you address that issue the lack of trust with police officers? Back in 2020 at the same time we defunded the police. We also defunded other community policing efforts. We defunded creamy with a cop. We defunded SROs. By reducing the number of police officers we reduced their ability to engage with the public. We want foot patrols. Well you can't have foot patrols when you only have you know three or four people covering the entire city. So we do need better engagement and we need to you know we need to provide those those opportunities and I support that. Thank you. Next to Emma. Thank you. Both the community and police who work for the city of Burlington deserve a better transparent process of what accountability means in Burlington because we have to do better in this regard and move with a lot more urgency than we have so far on this issue. It's been years and we have to also acknowledge and be honest that harm has happened here in Burlington at the hands of some of the Burlington police and that disproportionately has impacted black and brown folks has disproportionately impacted folks living with mental illness for folks who have young folks young people in their lives who are struggling. It is not a safe place to call when you have had that erosion of trust and we have to be honest about this as leaders we have to have the humility to admit that this is not a perfect system and we have to again move with that level of urgency. As a former labor organizer I'll tell you employees appreciate when there is a clear process and it is not every employee where there is an issue but you have to again have the political courage to say there is something wrong here in Burlington and we deserve to move this forward so people know what's expected of them and finally I was really disappointed we had a compromise and this city government recently failed to move something forward and we're going on four or five years of not having an answer for what police accountability here is here in Burlington means. Yeah, we're going to let Joan have a rebuttal on that. May I have a rebuttal because she also mentioned the progressive party earlier. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. I just wanted to read about because an action of the city council was mentioned failing to take action on police oversight and I just wanted to note that three out of four progressive city counselors voted no on moving that forward. I voted yes on moving it forward but after hearing from the public I voted to refer it to the police commission. Thank you. Thanks. Can I have a rebuttal? Emma, we'll go to you. To me. Yeah. Well I wanted to speak earlier. First of all there's a lot of reasons a yes no vote when you're elected leader is a very binary choice so there's nuance there that people need to understand on this vote and I want to emphasize again it took four years to even get to what was a compromise between Democrats and progressives but to this idea of the staffing that got reshuffled around in 2020 there was a great urgency and a reckoning happening in our country. People were realizing people were being harmed and killed at the hands of police and elected leaders needed to act and we haven't been able to implement over four years what was really needed to have a more comprehensive community safety program in Burlington. Do I get a rebuttal at all? All right we're going to move on. The city made large investments with federal coronavirus aid including the creation of the Elmwood pod shelters and hiring city staff to end homelessness but that funding will soon run out. As mayor would you continue to fund these initiatives and do you foresee needing to increase taxes to do it? We'll start with you Will. Yes and again this is on my website. You know I think that the state of Burlington right now is a disaster. If you if you take a look at what I've written I plan to defund vagrant housing initiatives. Reason being well let's go to let's go to our 27 dropout rate for a second. It's five times the national average. If you take a look at we're spending per pupil $25,000 it's also 10,000 more than the national average and if you take a look at the fact that we're spending approximately 60 to $79,000 per homeless person and then think about what it has done to our city. The fact that our businesses and our taxpayers are leaving we will not have taxes to help anybody soon. So what is the true cost to our city? Is it $79,000 or is it at least twice that? Because every business and every person that I've interviewed has told me that something has to change and I think that those are the hard decisions that somebody has to make and you know it's it's not something it's not a PR stunt I think that a lot of what's happened in the administration leading up in the last nine years has been a PR stunt and a lot of people have told me that they're sick of that as well. So going house to house I developed my own flyer you know it wasn't something I just concocted it was actually something that I took as a review from a lot of different people so there I understand whether you're a progressive Democrat Republican and Libertarian you know I think that those parties are supposed to represent working people and students and families. Thank you. Thanks well. Go to Joan. Thank you. Unfortunately we cannot shelter a large portion of Vermont funded by a regressive property tax here in Burlington. We really need this state to take the responsibility that they have for providing basic shelter but this isn't an issue of just funding. We're losing the sites. We don't have the site where the Elmwood pods are is going to be redeveloped. The VFW that is currently the winter warming shelter that too is going to be redeveloped. So even if we had the funds we could not continue these sites. I do think we need to continue to provide shelter. We need to continue to try and figure this out. The communities that have been making some progress with homelessness it's because they have shelters that have availability even with the pods even with the warming shelter we don't have any available beds. And this is this is a crisis. People are people are suffering on our streets every day and a lot of these people they're they're elderly they're infirm people have walkers who are living intense or just completely out in the rough and we need our state to step up and address this. We did it for COVID. We built we built a hospital at the fairgrounds. That's the level of crisis we have. Thank you. Thank you.  Thanks. Thank you. So the folks who are suffering in the streets of Burlington are Vermonters they're our neighbors and they come from communities up and down the state. And I've actually the one candidate in this race who actually has experience in this exact issue. I led a coalition of Democrats and progressives at the end of the last legislative session on this exact issue because we were sounding the alarm with the abrupt end of the Motel Emergency Housing Program that exactly what has happened in Burlington would happen. And while we were able to put some compromises on the table through a lot of hard work we still did not we were not able to house everyone in that program. It is an imperfect program but it shows that when you start to actually work together in collaboration and realize the urgency of the matter that there is literally nowhere else for people to go. Many of these folks are employed. Many of these folks some of these folks have families with children. Some of these folks are living with disabilities. We have to provide the level of dignity and understanding of the complexities of what it takes to house people. So that's also why we need a diversity of options that we need to be developing instead of just the short term high cost solutions. And it's yet another example of how we need elected mayor with state experience and local experience because this is a Vermont challenge in the streets of Burlington and we cannot be alone in trying to solve these issues or fund it because that's not fair to Burlingtonians and there's great opportunity to continue to do more and be more effective in the state house. We have not been effective as a state delegation and I would change that as mayor. Thank you.  Thank you. Can you guys hear me now? Usually I get trouble for being too loud. So the pods are in my view a half measure and when you look at can you guys hear me now? Is this better? Kiss the mic. There we go. Get some slack here. Can I reset the clock at least since I'm having some technical difficulties? Yeah so the pods are a half measure and when you look at the population that they're serving a number of these folks are struggling with substance use issue. That is a medical condition. That requires medical treatment. Putting people in a pod, putting them up in a hotel at I think was it $3,800 per person per month I read? You know we're treating the symptoms. We're not treating the cause of this. What we really need to do is have a conversation about building a new state hospital. Maybe a hundred beds. Something that will focus on substance use disorder and mental health conditions. But I'd say part of the reason we're in this situation is because our legislature is failing us. They have not done their work to get us up there. We need medical treatment for people and this approach is just not working. What I would like to see in its place would be something I'll look in like a three or four story dormitory style housing, single room occupancy, shared living quarters or shared kitchen, shared facilities to get people moving forward. But I believe that if someone has a medical condition we need to give them medical treatment and we're not simply not doing that. We put them up in the hotel. We pat ourselves on the back and say look what we've done. We can feel good that we've kept them off the streets and kept them from dying from exposure. But in the reality what that really says is we're not willing to spend the real money that's required to actually get these people well. So again, I think we need to have a serious conversation about focusing on a new state hospital. Thanks, Chris. We're going to stay on the housing theme here. How do you plan how do you plan to address Burlington's housing shortage including creating permanently affordable housing? And we'll start with you, Joan, 90 seconds. Thank you. As many people know I am in the housing business in sorts and I really believe that home ownership is a way to build wealth. Too many people in our community and beyond have been denied access to home ownership and in our own community 60 to 70 percent of Burlingtonians are living in rented housing. Much of that where rents can continue to escalate year after year. Being able to buy your own home stabilizes your family finances and the housing we're building now is generally rental housing. We need to find ways to build condominiums so that people can own their apartments. We need to work on condo conversions where people are currently renting. Could buy the apartment that they're living in. That's something I'm working on now on the city council. There is funding from the federal government as people exit offices. Offices, there's lots of office space. There's not enough housing and there's federal money available to convert offices to housing that we need to access. We need to continue to work with both non-profit and for-profit developers. We need more units and we need more affordable units. And we need to help our developers to access those federal funds. Ultimately in our rental market we need to achieve a five percent vacancy. And I've worked on several initiatives on the council with the Southend Innovation District and Neighborhood Code. Thank you. Thanks.  Thank you. So I'm very concerned about affordability. It's one of the reasons I ran for mayor. We're at the risk and we've already started to lose the economic diversity that makes Burlington so vibrant.  It's not that tiny but tiny-ish in the Old North End on a small lot. And that's with two very decent Vermont incomes. And so we have to recognize that there's a lot at stake when we talk about understanding the affordability crisis. It's not only about building more housing because we've been decades behind with creating more housing for folks to move into but it's also keeping housing here in Vermont in Burlington in particular actually affordable. So a few ways to think about that is for homeowners looking at how we do our tax system on a local level and making sure there's an income sensitized option for folks to be able to who have fixed incomes or folks who are working families be able to stay in their homes and keep up with property taxes much like our state system. I also think we should expand the grand list and that will happen as we continue to do the up zoning process to allow more dense dense housing development to happen in the city. And we have to make sure that's affordable and I want to look at our inclusionary zoning ordinance because we're at a risk of having that ordinance not be strong enough to make sure actual affordable units are built instead of just a fund a contribution given to our housing trust fund. We don't want to turn into Boulder, Colorado where that has happened because the cost of development is so high. So this one I'm going to be laser focused on because I'm feeling the heat myself. Thank you. Thank you. Go to Chris. Must be nice to own your own home. I can't afford it. I work in the IT sector my wife's a middle school teacher and we make good income we cannot afford half a million dollars for a home here in Burlington it's simply unaffordable. I talked to our young people sorry I I talked to our young people and they tell me well you know I have to look in Moncton or Jericho or Underhill or Fairfax you know to get out of the city to find the zone of affordability. You have a family in the old North end and a two rented two bedroom apartment you know they've got a three and a five year old they want to have a house with a backyard to kick the soccer ball around they can't afford that here in Burlington. And part of the reason that we have this is because we have a university who keeps increasing its enrollment of out of state students and there's a reason for that too. And that reason is is because they the university are not getting adequate support from our legislature to provide the kind of quality education that we would have for Vermonters. And at one time UVM was the school of choice destination for Vermont students but not so much anymore. And so that's another area where we need to address. Another factor that contributes to our housing affordability is the tax increases.  And so every time we raise taxes property taxes specifically that hurts renters and as someone who's been renting for 25 years I understand that all too well. And I believe in the American dream and I believe that one of the things we need to do in this city particularly if we want to accomplish our goals regarding equity and inclusion is to promote single family home ownership for posts that have been traditionally marginalized through practices such as redlining. Single family home ownership will allow the creation of generational wealth. Generational wealth is the number one way to move people out of poverty. So I think we need to find a better balance and we need to get back to a situation where the city is 50% renters and 50% homeowners. Thanks guys.  Yes and that's that's a nice thought. I'm not sure if we can get to that point but you know I would say to people take a good look around you you know forget about politics I think if I think if this was what if the current state of Burlington is what politics would like was like I don't think anybody in this room would want to be a politician. You know and that's definitely one of the reasons that I'm running. You know I was the owner of a low-income unit on Blodgett Street and you know I like many other people couldn't afford the taxes in this town and you know as far as building housing goes you know Champlain Housing Trust like I said in the last debate I was in has a great first time homebuyer program that I would suggest for anybody who's trying to get a home at an affordable rate and you know but our infrastructure in Burlington needs to catch up to housing. I read a questionnaire that was sent to me the other day about how all the surrounding towns which by the way are all booming in this local homeless problem where we're soliciting people from across the country to creativecrisis.com we actually are not able to keep up with Williston in places like Hinesburg because they're developing on open land. They're putting water and street infrastructure and sidewalk infrastructure all places we need to catch up at and many homeowners have complained about and that is the place where Burlington can't develop at that same rate because we have to catch up on infrastructure. Look at us we're one of the biggest polluters of the lake and I think that's that's major concern for infrastructure and you know keep your infrastructure in production with your housing production. Thank you. Thanks Will. I do want to stay on the housing issue and Chris brought up UVM and I want to go there. Do you think and this is Emma we're going to start with you. Do you think UVM should cap enrollment as a condition of being allowed to up zone their land? Yes because we'll never solve this issue if they continue to increase student enrollment which is the evidence. I'm an evidence-based decision maker and the evidence shows of the last 10 years when they've increased housing on campus they've increased student enrollment so the math just frankly doesn't work and even in my portion of the old north end we now see students being pushed into our neighborhood and I love students but the rents that they're being charged the babysitter we had across the street and not a very healthy looking building being charged two plus thousand dollars for a three-bedroom which is probably not a real three-bedroom. So UVM needs to be a partner in our with the city and a good working relationship is one where both sides understand that their mutual success is dependent on each other. If Burlington is suffering and there is a housing impossibility we'll never retain or recruit or a smart student is never going to stay and put their roots down in Burlington because they simply cannot afford it and we also have to understand there's even more we can be doing beyond housing with institutions like UVM when we actually think about and slow down the process to think about what is our community need what is our benefit that we need and one thing for example with UVM I would want to reopen the conversation around the closed child care facility that they closed about three or four years ago that has a dramatic impact on working families and so we can be imaginative we can be creative and we can have a much stronger relationship with these institutions instead of just narrow topics of just housing. Thank you. Thanks Emma Go to you Chris. I think it's a conversation worth having but again the reason that UVM is admitting more students is because they're not getting the support that they need from the legislature as a publicly funded as a publicly funded institution. So yeah I think we can have that conversation. Thank you. Will. Okay so UVM and housing was a question. So I thought I thought I just answered this one. No this is a different one this is do you think UVM should cap their enrollment as a condition of being allowed to up zone their land? Okay so so I answered this in the last debate as well. You know I mentioned in UVM Champlain College and any other college that exists in the city of Burlington. You know hiring an employee with no job for that employee that's the same thing as getting a student in house without housing. So as far as up zoning goes you know I wrote an essay in college on collectivism and in that essay I spoke about you know a person a wise person you know I believe that person I used as an example was the deceased president it was it was George Bush senior and whether you love or hate him a wise person that knows how to change in zoning can can impact the outlook of a neighborhood over a 10-year period. You know I think working with the colleges you know in an effort to make whatever they do in the best interests of Burlington and the Burlington taxpayers you know is always something that's got to be number one on the agenda. Thank you. Thanks Will.  Thank you. Building housing to add more freshmen and sophomores on college campus only to then have those same freshmen and sophomores move off campus junior and senior year is the only kind of housing we could build that would actually make our housing problem worse. I I believe that there needs there needs to be some guarantee if we're going to give them the zoning that they want we need some some reasonable guarantee that this isn't going to happen. We also have to look not only at the undergraduates but what is happening with the graduate students. We're being told that the you know we're not agreeing to a cap but we're going to keep the enrollment at 3,000 students per year. But what about the graduate students I understand that's where the growth is happening. I'd like to have some discussion about that. I'd like to have some discussion about public safety needs and other impacts. I also want to recognize that we're very lucky to have the university. We want it to be successful. We want them to thrive because we are interdependent on one another. So I know I'm kind of taking a hard line and I've taken a hard line on this MOU issue but I do think we should continue to negotiate with UVM. I would like to see them build housing because I would like to see them you know help students find affordable housing on campus and leave the off-campus housing for the professors that can't find housing at UVM. Thanks. Thank you. We're going to start with you here Chris. What should be done with Memorial Auditorium and how would you pay for it? How would the city pay for it? I don't expect you to pay for it. Those are certainly some good questions there Sasha. So if you saw my previous debate I think you all know what my economic development strategy is. Burlington needs a new Civic Center and while I had hoped that we might be able to refurbish Memorial it's my understanding that the structural issues there are just it's so far gone that it's become a case of demolition by neglect but as the largest city in Burlington 45,000 or largest city in Vermont 45,000 people we absolutely need a new Civic Center and I think the Civic Center would be a community asset that we could use to hold community events we could hold youth events there provide a new home for the now displaced 242 Main which was has been shuttered now for several years and I think that we could anchor it with a minor league ice hockey team and I would like to think that we could have it be community owned like the Green Bay Packers so that it will perpetually remain here in Burlington and will bring people into the city on the weekend during the winter months when there's not a lot going on so that's my approach to that I think in terms of a design I would put up three one that would maybe evoke the look and feel of the current Memorial Auditorium is kind of a nod to the tradition there maybe another one that Richard Sony and Romanesque is one of my favorite styles and then maybe a more modern structure that would complement the existing downtown so I'm not sure really that much can be done with it but I do think that we have a very clear need for a community space great thank you same question to you there Will I think that the Memorial Auditorium is a staple of this community I think that I think Burlington residents a long time brilliant to residents just stand up and fight for that building to stick around for one historical preservation for two how many concerts have you seen in that building I used to have my freshman basketball practices in that building when I was on the BHS freshman team my mother has seen numerous concerts at that building including Bob Marley Peter Tosch and who else Ma in any case you know I watched my brother get his kneecap kicked up his thigh in that building on his first MMA fight I spoke to Julio Fernandez earlier today he said he hosted 14 events at that building through Vermont Brazilian jujitsu how many kids has that building kept off drugs how many kids has that building kept out of violence and you know organized golden gloves organized mixed martial arts numerous concerts basketball practices that building is a staple of this community I did my interview with WCAX at that building this morning you know they asked me where my campaign office was I said the Memorial Auditorium I rest thanks Will try to top that thank you Will nope nope I'm not going to try to top that I think we all have the kind of experiences that Will is just talking about I know that I do I when I started on the city council I actually was the president of preservation Burlington and there is nothing I would like more than to save Memorial Auditorium I guess this is an all-hands-on-deck moment if anybody here has a way to save Memorial Auditorium come forward now because time is out I want to save Memorial Auditorium I want to save it as a community space that we all have have loved and celebrated but the reality is we do not have the money in the city to do it and the voters have said no many times since the 1990s it's been shuttered since 2018 it can't continue the way it is I may not get what I want we have to do something and most likely we're going to have to do it with private funds unless somebody comes forward real soon with a way to pay for keeping this the public asset that I think we all want but can we afford how do we pay for it I don't have a way to pay for it and keep it a public asset if I could find a way to do it I would do it thank you excuse me can I rebut that she mentioned my name I'd like to rebut that citizens of Burlington that building is easily refurbishable I mean come on now we just we just watched our high school get stolen from us and I think a lot of people are very passionate about that at every door that I'm going door to door at north Burlington south end and you know the rest of the city that I'm attending to and you know to try to the city's the strategy that we've seen for the last several years and the reason why Burlington citizens need to stand up for that building is because the strategy has been to let a building become vacant let that you know let the citizens keep banging their heads off the wall thinking oh we got to get this building refurbished no we can't do it we can't get it done oh it's impossible how are we going to get this done and then we're just going to knock it down and put a big high rise residential unit in its footprint you guys got to say no to that thank you Emma we'll go to you okay thank you 90 seconds thanks so I think there's a lot of lessons that we have to understand in the issue of what we're doing with Memorial Auditorium and when I look at these issues I think about what does the community need today and in the future I think about meaningful emphasis on meaningful community engagement and where the city has done that well or not so well I also think about the the obligation as city leaders to protect public assets those are the framework that I look at when I look at Memorial or anything else for the city and so Memorial it is at this point I sat at this table 12 years ago as a city counselor and Memorial was falling apart then and it was a failure of our city to really know how to prioritize and fiscally plan to make sure we can maintain these these gems of our city and so one of the things we need to start to do is figure out how to prioritize how to fiscally plan looking far in the future and have all of you have a meaningful engagement to tell the city in a sustainably fiscal way what are our priorities and if it is Memorial then it is Memorial but there's more on that block that we should also be keeping in mind the health of our library the health of the fire department that's on that block and then a whole host of other city assets I would bring more meaningful engagement to this bigger discussion about capital and our public assets in the city and we'd make sure there'd be a participatory system that felt good for all of you to make sure that we were saving the things that are critical and being honest about the things that we can't save thank you thanks okay yeah give me 30 seconds thank you I just wanted to say I think that we had we had one of our really better public engagement processes around Memorial Auditorium we know a lot about what people really value what are what are the community benefits that they want in that building and we went through a lot of process and we did a lot of analysis about what it costs and the bottom line was even with a public private partnership where we'd had some private activity but retaining the public piece of it that we weren't able to pass the bond to get that done so thank you all right we're gonna move on and I want to ask a hypothetical here so the hypothetical and I can repeat this if anyone wants in the middle but so we're gonna start with you will the city gets permission to open an overdose prevention site and the proposal is to put it in your neighborhood would you support opening such a site and what would you say to neighbors who are apprehensive about having a facility such a facility next door no I would not and I think that this is an issue that a lot of people feel a lot of different ways about and you know like I said you know in developing kind of like the way I plan to go about it I spoke to a lot of people and you know what we've done in Burlington is solicitacrisis.com 10 years ago three four years ago excuse me three years ago when I ran for mayor I spoke about bringing new sand to the beach despite how many rappers tell you not to bring sand to the beach I spoke about bringing sand to North Beach and raking it on a daily basis with the machinery that we actually have existing in a city that's being neglected because of the risk of a kid stepping on a needle or a college kid stepping on a needle or a parent stepping on a needle and now that's a daily occurrence and the answer is not to to invite more drug addiction to our neighborhoods by opening open injection sites the answer is to stop it from happening and you know I grew up in low-income neighborhoods I grew up the neighborhoods I've been canvassing is Northgate the trailer park you know I'm hitting South Meadow next I can't even I can't even call it I've that's those are the neighborhoods I'm focusing on and so I've seen people with needle needle addiction problems growing up and some of them got clean and some of them did not you know but at the end of the day I think it's the city's responsibility to support children working people families you know what I mean the the community fabric that we once had and I think that's destroying it so no I'm against it thank you Joan same question to you thank you I do I do support overdose prevention sites because I think that they will save lives and they provide a pathway to treatment at the same time I think we need to look carefully at how they there's a pilot program proposed that I I think is likely to pass but we need to look carefully at how it works in our community the examples that we have are in communities very different from Burlington I think anybody would be apprehensive if they were informed that an overdose prevent prevention site was going into their neighborhood and we would need to be you know, have some honest conversations about that there is there was a study done at Brown University by former chief Brandon Del Pozzo that showed that there was not an increase of crime around the overdose prevention sites nonetheless I think people would be apprehensive I think one of the other concerns is the evidence that we have and the data that we have are based on our heroin epidemic and we've now moved on to to fentanyl and xylazine and other drugs are they as effective is there a difference so we need we do need more data when we run this pilot I think it's important to be thoughtful about the data that we're collecting to evaluate it thank you go to you Emma me okay thank you I've I proudly supported this pilot overdose prevention bill that passed through the house about three weeks ago because it literally saves lives and we are beyond the point where this need to have being a tool in our toolkit in Vermont and I would advocate as mayor in Burlington for it not only be located in Burlington but to work with stakeholders that includes medical professionals because substance use disorder is a medical disorder and we have to start thinking about it that way and treating people with respect and dignity that indicates that this isn't at the end of the day a medical disorder and so working with medical providers working with professionals in the recovery community and in the treatment world I would work with them to figure out what the best placement placement would be for an overdose prevention center in Burlington and because we want to make sure people are able to access it we need to look at public transportation we have to look at where folks can most easily access it based on the day of the week etc because at the end of the day I want to make sure we're saving lives so people can get into recovery get on the path to find treatment work with the state obviously to get even more treatment beds in existence in Vermont but at the end of the day make sure that we're focusing on those folks safety and well-being and as a secondary part it will help with the quality life issues of needles on the streets and folks having to have the trauma of seeing people struggling with addiction on the streets as well thank you thanks go to you there Chris thank you Sasha so I think the first step to solving any problems is to acknowledge that there is a problem and as a downtown resident I see I see the struggles that folks are facing every day and it's just not right and people say well you know I really don't need to see people openly injecting out in public and it's like well you know there's a reason for that there they're on house they have nowhere else to go so I think one providing an overdose prevention center not only would it provide better outcomes for people and save lives but it would also solve these other ancillary issue that folks and the business community have been very very concerned about the other thing we need to acknowledge here too with the problem it's like well you know people are camping in the city and we had the big discussion there well newsflash they're camping here whether we like it or not and so I think with the way we address that is to embrace it and when I look at the situation here I'm like well you know we have this wonderful facility just a little bit up the avenue it's you know designed for camping it's got power it's got electricity water showers and you know it seems to me that it's vacant nine months out of the year seem to me like that'd be a good place to have people go camp you know and maybe bring services there so you know I'd like to see that these things happen and while we're on the topic of harm reduction I think we need to deal with the folks that are service resistant the folks who are overdosing and requiring Narcan multiple times a day and for those folks I think we need to have a very serious conversation as a community about establishing a compulsory program for compassionate custodial care thank you thanks Chris we're gonna go to another question starting with Joan how would your administration balance the need for a National Guard partnership with constituents concerns about the F-35 jets and did you support the basing of the jets here in the first place thank you I'm not a fan of the F-35 and several years ago when the basing decision was made we had a ballot question that asked people if they would like us to request a different mission and the answer was yes I wrote the resolution to ask for a different mission followed up with the secretary of the Air Force and made sure we got an answer and the answer was there was not another mission that we could have so my preference would be to have something quieter than the F-35 that is not an option so I have to deal with the options that we have and the by having the military at our airport they pay for the fire services at the airport which are about three million dollars I believe we have a fabulous airport here in Burlington and one of the reasons we have that fabulous airport and the air service that our economy depends on is because of all that the military pays for at that airport I value the airport I value beta technologies I value the health of our economy as a whole and that's the sacrifice that we have to make is the F-35 thank you to you Emma thank you I have always been opposed to the F-35s I was raised by a two-piece activist who live in central Vermont still and it's always been a a value space decision to me around what F-35s actually represent and then of course now that they're here the negative quality of life and the public health issue that they raise by being flying over our heads on a daily basis it's also the climate impact and really get again being honest and transparent around the emissions that these large planes put into our community on a daily basis so I think we had a lost opportunity when the lease reopened with the National Guard a few weeks ago now to not ask slow down that process again and ask deeper questions about what is possible I spent about two minutes on Google when that came out because I was already a candidate and other communities handled that so differently with the what was possible with that back and forth with the Guard now we're locked into a lease of 50 years my kids will be long long adults at that point and I think we have to be looking at these big moments with a very different lens around accountability to our community our health and our need of our community as well as making sure that we're pushing where we can about more appropriate missions for the National Guard we can be creative but it takes leaders actually having imagination and doing research about what else is possible and even when I've met with the Adjun general there at the National Guard and there are other missions out there that can be located here that can be still a job space program but we have to be imaginative we have to be courageous to put different options on the table and not just give up and roll over a lease thank you Chris so while we're on the topic of the military first and foremost I would like to thank our veterans for their service for the men, women and non-binary persons who put on that uniform to carry out the duty and carry out the foreign policies that are set by our leaders I think it's important to note that the folks who serve in the military they don't set the policies but they carry it out and they do so sometimes a great personal sacrifice and great hardship some of them paying the ultimate sacrifice and I think it's important that we acknowledge that as well I'd also like to say that as for the F-35 again as folks have observed I think the opportunity to address that has passed my personal preference would have been to try to get a mission that is more consistent with Vermont values I think that maybe bringing some C-130 Hercules here in a medical airlift mission would be appropriate perhaps fire suppression transport and maybe there's an opportunity to continue that conversation down the line but at this point I think we missed the boat on that one Thanks Chris Will I would echo what Chris just said about the veterans you know thank you for your service you know one of my one of my closest friends is a lieutenant and he was in the Vermont National Guard I believe he transferred actually just sold his house in the city of Burlington and was telling me that the taxes were ridiculous around here and what can we do about it encourage me to run for mayor you know and flew Medevac Helicopters out of that very airport that we're talking about you know I would I would just remind the citizens of Burlington that we have so much heritage in Burlington the green mountain boys are from this area so you know as far as F-35 I'm not a disputer of it I support it and you know I support that I support our police and I think that Burlington the main problem in Burlington is public safety and education you know I think that those are the things that I would hammer home here infrastructure education policing safety you know what I mean you walk outside your house right now what do you see what does it look like to me it looks like a war zone well the military is actually there to protect us from something like that but how do we protect ourselves from ourselves you know I think that that's where where I'm looking right now I'm looking within myself and trying to figure out how I can be the best person I can be and how I can make Burlington the exact best that it possibly can be and the fabric of community that we once had and restoring that and remembering you know to always try to put the best foot forward especially if you're a nine-year-old walking to school thank you thanks Will Emma we'll start with you here can you tell us about a time you changed your opinion on a policy issue after receiving new information I would point so I serve on the house commerce and economic development committee in the Vermont house this is my fourth year on that in that committee and it is a pretty moderate committee it is comprised it's led by Northeast Kingdom Republican as the chair and so my first my first year on that committee also was COVID and it was all online so I'd never met these people before but we were coming out of COVID and there was a dramatic use of unemployment probably many people in this room probably experienced that themselves and so when we depleted this unemployment when so many people use unemployment it depletes the fund and so the policy solution is what we had to come up with an employer tax relief because it would have required a huge tax increase the next year to refill that fund essentially and so at first I was resistant to that because I was worried about the workers and focusing on on the workers who needed more support as well coming just out of that economic crisis and so through a lot of deliberation and conversation and understanding how important it was for the employer side of it to make sure that they could make sure that their bottom lines were were able to be restored after COVID I understood about the balance of doing something for both sides of the ledger if you will both the claimants the folks who are unemployed trying to get back to work as well as a tax relief for employers to make sure that we were handling that fairly and having a steady hand as we return the Vermont economy workers and employers back to some sort of normalcy after COVID thank you Chris Universal basic income when I first heard about UBI I was like wow this this seems kind of pie in the sky kind of thing but as I've seen the data from places like Denver Houston Sacramento Houston Denver usually I'm told to tone it down yeah universal basic income when I first heard about it I was kind of skeptical but as I've seen the data come and it's really had a very positive effect and we've seen cities like Houston Denver I think Sacramento some places in Canada have adopted it and it's had a very profound and positive effect on bringing people out of poverty folks are using these supplemental funds for rent for food some folks are able to start saving for a house or for their children's education and so I think that again this ties in very well with the strategy of instead of fixing homelessness let's try to prevent it in the first place while I still have 35 seconds here I'm going to pivot a little bit to talk about education because my wife's a teacher and I'm a former school commissioner and there is another crisis here that we haven't really heard a whole heck of a lot about and that's the crisis of literacy and while these issues typically fall within the purview of the school board good schools are the heart of Burlington and we need to support our schools and as mayor my approach would simply be to go to the school board and say what can we do to better support you on these initiatives to help improve graduation rates and to make sure that our kids have the background and skills that they need to be successful in today's world Will? Yeah I got to echo what Chris just said there you know schools and I got to hammer this one home again 27% dropout rate and you know I was speaking along the way I spoke to a guy who told me that his son had reported to him that there is an ever growing group of students in that Macy's project that are either at risk of or becoming suicidal and you know because of the dire situation down there and it's not just in the schools we heard this during the first debate which actually on Martin Luther King day I was told I was not going to be able to participate in imagine the irony in that because Martin Luther King stood for participation human rights, unionism, etc all my history as a matter of fact and so you know during that first debate we heard moderators talking about kids having meltdowns in school well guess what guys they're walking out their door they're seeing overdose deaths people foaming out the mouth needles all over the place the guy shooting up with his pants down nodding out with the needle still in his hand these are what our ninth grade kids are seeing walking to BHS not to mention the other kids in the Edmunds school system you know I as a parent care a lot you know I care enough that I pulled my son out of the Edmunds school district and sent him to the state of New Jersey because I had better economic services for him down there and I say economic services I mean basic public school you know with the with the 27% dropout rate we are well below Vermont's 93.5% dropout rate I mean excuse me a graduation rate so it needs to improve and you know housing I think is something that's being solicited people from across the country being solicited to this city and it's actually causing us a major controversy thanks solicitor crisis.com just got to stop guys okay Joan on to you pull it in thank you Joan an issue that I changed my mind on I think was the question yes can you tell us about a time you changed your opinion on a policy issue after receiving new information okay thank you I would say safe injection sites that was not something that you know when I first heard about them I didn't think it was a good idea to set up house for for people to illegally shoot up drugs that definitely wasn't something that I thought would be helpful to our community but I listened to a lot of people I listened to experts that had a lot of data we have an organization called Comstat in the city and there's a lot of discussion definitely about safe injection sites and other things around the opiate crisis and I worried a lot about really the question that you asked you know how do you feel when this comes into your neighborhood I think the information that was provided by Brandon del pozo in the study that he did at brown looking at the impact on communities gave me more hope I also talked to a lot of families who have loved ones who were either in recovery still in the throes of addictions have lost have lost their loved ones and and I think one of the more common themes I mean there's a lot of different situations I hear a lot of different things but I would say a more common theme is that there's a feeling that we do need boundaries but that safe injection sites are helpful to keep somebody alive and get them into treatment thank you thank you Chris we'll start with you here what does diversity mean to you and how would you reflect that in your administration diversity means ensuring equality of opportunity for everyone for folks that have not always had that and I think it's very clear that the way that our system here in the United States has set up is that some folks have been very much at a disadvantage from day one and to the question about equality I think again we need to go back to housing we need to promote a single family home ownership as a way to bring people out of poverty particularly folks that have been marginalized and cut off and we've seen in a lot of BIPOC communities throughout the years that they're not able to simply get ahead because they're not able to build generational wealth so I think that that's a key piece there I also think that when building out a team you look first for people you look first for character and then you look at values and then you look at skills second and the first thing I would try to do is to build out a team that reflects the diversity of our community so that all voices are heard and so that the decisions being made are robust and truly reflective of the community here in Burlington and I think based on what I've seen I still think there's a fair amount of work to be done in that regard and I look forward to doing that work Thank you Will, same question to you Yes, diversity and you know I've heard the name a couple of times tonight Del Pozo that was the exact reason I had to get somebody a lawyer in 2017 you know last night checked he got ran out of this town I wouldn't trust a stat that came out under his name especially the one about how to racial profile so how does how does diversity look in this city well take a look at the pictures you see the mayor digging a hole at the pit see any black people in that picture me neither I would check some of these pictures because if people keep talking about diversity and nothing ever comes to fruition that something is wrong take it from me take a look on my website take a look at the people that I grew up with diversity has existed in the city of Burlington and different courses over the course of my history when I was young it was Bosnians and Vietnamese we all played basketball you know and then you know my best friend was Romanian you know but his best friend was was from from Yonkers or something like that you know so we consistently built on that and I think that if if if if your officer if your mayor if your if your president if whoever is really cares about diversity then you're gonna see it in the photos around him you know and I think that that's what's been lacking in Burlington and again you know what what I was saying about look around you the streets of Burlington take a look at the walls take a look at everything does it does it look like we're not in crisis to you does it not look like a war zone to you because if you can't see in the pictures any diversity then something's wrong because we've been talking about that since 2014 thank you thanks well Joan same question to you thank you when we're talking about diversity generally we're talking about racial diversity in the city though I think it can mean a lot of different things it can mean a diversity of opinion it can mean a diversity of economic class it can mean a diversity of you know where you come came from but in terms of the racial diversity that you know we have a long history of not having the racial diverse not having representation in our community that we need and we see that we see that in city hall I think we need to be cognizant of it I think that we need to create systems that help us get the diversity that we need we need to reach out to communities we can't expect that it's simply going to happen naturally if we keep doing what we're doing because it's not we have systemic racism in our community we need data and analysis to determine how we overcome the you know why don't we have the diversity that we want we need to better understand that and we need professionals within our city to address that thank you same question to you Emma thank you in order to create a livable and safe community we have to acknowledge the role of diversity and looking at marginalized communities who exist here in Burlington and who will come to Burlington hopefully but the way that we do that is to make sure that folks who are marginalized and hold marginalized identities be it racial identity or a gender identity or another marginalized identity that they truly feel they can belong here and that they are truly valued and the way that you do that is that the city needs to do a better job of seeking council and involvement of marginalized communities that goes back to what I talk about before as a former organizer of engaging the most impact to people those were the best ideas come from those were the truth will be told about how folks are experiencing our city who are not in those dominant culture identities which have been represented in these halls of city hall for way too long I think we also have to understand this takes conscious action by the city to make sure that we are sending our resources and prioritizing things like the racial equity inclusion and belonging office which was started with a lot of COVID federal dollars and making sure that if that's a priority and a conscious act by the city we have to continue to see that as the resource that it is for the city I've benefited from the office of racial equity as a legislator because it is is a meaningful part of state government to point out where there are structural barriers where there's harms being done and the policy that we're making so Burlington can do a lot better in this space but it has to be one where we build relationships and trust with marginalized communities because they have been harmed in many cases here in the city and leaders need to have again have the humility and understanding of how to repair that harm to move forward thank you all right we might have time for one more question before we get into the questions for each other so Burlington will soon have 13 cannabis stores including a large cluster within blocks of each other around the church church street marketplace do you think there needs to be more regulation around where and how many of these stores can open in a specific area why or why not will you know I would say that as a kid it was it was something that you couldn't do on the streets you'd get arrested for that then in 2012 I went to Los Angeles on business and I I saw a dude ripping a blunt right in front of a cop I was like are you insane and he was like don't worry about it they do that out here and then and then so years later I came back to Vermont right Dave Dave's my right hand man and he's on my left today but in any case I came back to Vermont and you know same old same and then so over the years I've seen the evolution you know of of the marijuana industry and you know if it's bringing back banked and bring more stores if it's not then don't you know but uh but uh you know like I think our entire economy is uh is is is in is in a disaster situation right now and so you know cannabis stores does it does it bother me that you can go buy uh pay taxes to the state of Vermont by buying a joint at a shop no not at all actually I don't even care if somebody rips a blunt on the street I'm more worried about somebody shooting up in public and uh and you know that problem that's being solicited to this community again hammering home public safety education and shooting up on the street needles on the ground the risk to public health emergency that is needles on the ground you know but as far as cannabis stores that bothers me none if they have to build more and and that's you know going to help our community and it's going to benefit the state of Vermont taxes and the city of Burlington taxes which is in fact dying right now then so be it thanks well to you Jim thank you I'm actually chair of the cannabis control board and have dealt with this issue from that perspective when we first started giving licenses from the cannabis control board we were told we didn't even have the addresses there is so much protection around these places all the information was redacted and we weren't we were told we weren't allowed to vote no on them it seemed like the most ridiculous process I have experienced on the city council so we I think we should have some control over whether we say yes or whether we say no or how many we have I'm not sure why we have so many cannabis stores unlike liquor stores I guess the liquor stores I don't I probably don't know enough about this but it seems like we have a one liquor store around or a couple liquor stores in town and yet we have all of these cannabis stores so I think we should be able to I mean I supported legalizing it and I support having them but I think we should also have a little more control over them than than we do thanks thank you to you Emma thank you well one of the things that that is a that want to name in this process of legalizing and allowing cannabis to be sold as it is is that there was a really good social equity component of this legislation that became law in Vermont that allowed folks who've been harmed by the drug um the drug system and criminal justice these are BIPOC owned BIPOC folks it is folks who've been involved in the criminal justice system for marijuana possession et cetera that was consciously built into this law and that's something Vermont should be really proud of so while we talk about the number of stores let's remember who are owning these stores it's predominantly women owned BIPOC owned folks who've been somehow involved in the incarceration system so with that said I want to make sure those folks are set up for success and we think about how to create the economic vibrancy for them to be successful wherever they locate so I think it's a balance of making sure this process continues to get tweaked so towns have the information they need but it's balance with preventing nimbyism to make sure that towns also can't completely just say no to the location of of these businesses again knowing who right now the first wave primarily again are folks who've been marginalized from this Warren drugs drugs field system thank you thank you Chris to you nice learning you know I think that you know I believe in my body my choice and I think what people do with their body is their choice when it comes to cannabis it's definitely growth industry we've seen a number of jobs created here as a result of that and I think that at the end of the day so long as someone wants to open a business if they meet the legal requirements to do so and they go through the process and get permitted and open a store I think at that point well let the market decide so since I have another minute here I'm gonna pivot once again let's talk more about infrastructure because it's not just more a lot of Torium we have some other serious issues that once again are not being talked about here our sewer plants our water treatment plants are facing end of life the church street marketplace garage is 50 years old end of life 20 million dollar price tag now and could cost as much as 30 million by the time we actually get around to replacing it we saw what happened with the school district once again that was a case where the legislature just decided then we're gonna start funding school construction anymore that worked out so well for our high school and then I look around at the rest of the school buildings our elementary schools and our middle schools a lot of them were built in the 50s and 60s and at some point we're going to have to have that conversation so we probably ought to start that now and right now there doesn't really seem to be any kind of plan for how we're going to deal with our aging infrastructure thanks Chris all right as promised we will let the candidates ask another candidate a question so on this round we will start with Joan Sasha can you clarify that so each candidate gets one question only or one question for each of the other candidates one question for one candidate for one other candidate okay I have a question for Emma you're shocked really? yeah for several years we had an encampment at Sears Lane where we failed to remove people from public space and it increased in size to about 30 to 40 people essentially it was a sanctioned encampment we provided dumpsters the city provided dumpsters a portallette and in that encampment camper was blown up there was rampant drug use drug dealing theft violence and other criminal activity often directed at neighbors and passersby you I believe you're on the record supporting camping on public lands and when I I wondered where you would allow people to camp in Burlington thank you a minute and a half okay thank you for the question councillor Shannon so I'm supportive of people camping on public lands because number one it's public land but number two we are living in a severe housing emergency where there is literally nowhere else for people to go so we have to look at this with a with a commitment to understanding that reality and a commitment to understanding our own economic privileges for those of us who are housed right now and we also have to build a safer community and that includes folks who are housed who are most people would not actively choose to live in a tent in the middle of the winter in Vermont but that is the sad reality that we are living in right now so I would have I would want us to look at building a more transparent and reliable and consistent camping policy acknowledging the emergency that we're living in right now where people are locating for camping purposes they're engaging with different parts of city government it's not consistent that's not a place to build relationships in the trust that's needed to help transition people into the kind of services they need and ideally the kind of housing they need to be set up for success and I think we could do a whole lot better there but again fundamentally acknowledging these are vermonters these are folks who deserve respect these are folks who have been suffering and I would offer an open hand to make sure that we're finding a compassionate route for them to live in more safe housing I know you just had to speak but now it's your turn Mike back I love this okay that's great the Leo in me loves the mic okay here we go so Councillor Shannon I have a question for you you ready okay shocker all right throughout the campaign I have spoken about the need for a comprehensive community safety solution that uses evidence-based approaches that includes police social workers and substance and mental health providers Councillor Shannon you have shared that you believe in a phrase that you used treatment first a phrase you've used is treatment first approach which includes short periods of incarceration what evidence have you used to formulate this approach given the lack of current treatment beds and a backlog of cases in our court system how will you actually implement this approach on day one thank you for the opportunity to clarify that because I don't think that that's what I said at all what I have said in terms of in terms of housing is that I support what I call a housing first a hybrid housing first treatment first approach and what I mean by that is that for most people housing first works we need to get people into housing so that they can get the other wraparound services that they need but what I hear from people providing this housing is that some people don't do well in this type of housing because they need more supportive care sometimes it's it's an addiction that's too far gone or a mental health illness that is that makes them incompatible in that living environment and they they need treatment so that they can be successful in that housing environment that comes actually from the housing providers that I have talked to I have not actually said that people people being incarcerated is only part of my public safety plan it's really not part of my public safety plan what's part of my public safety plan is that people need treatment we need to improve treatment and it is true that this isn't something that we can do as a municipality we need the state to do that we need to better use the Medicaid funds that are available to us we need to use them more effectively we're only giving people two weeks at Valley Vista where other states give them four thank you Thank you Chris I'd like to ask a question of Emma I know that you've been a champion of diversity equity and inclusion yet some of the organizations sponsoring these debates seem to have not gotten that memo so my question to you is will you agree to boycott any future debates that do not include all four candidates? Well I think there's two separate questions there because one is around access for candidates and the other is around a whole separate topic of diversity because when I talked earlier about diversity diversity to me is a simple yes or no will suffice you don't need to interrupt me Chris thank you I appreciate that I think that we I'm glad that we have ranked choice voting and I think we should be allowing all candidates to have an ability to get in front of voters I don't think you answered the question I answered the question okay thanks Will I don't think the definition of equality changes from conversation to conversation I'd love that in any case seven towns surrounding us are booming guys I don't see some of these crises of the seven towns surrounding us that are booming and soaking up our businesses I just wanted y'all to know that before I ask this question okay so we've talked a lot about drug crisis tonight now in 2008 there was a drug dealer he was on the run I believe he was on the run from police if not he was on the run from police just after this happened my sister was mowed down and she had to have reconstructive surgeries on her face she was on the UVM cycling team and you know my question is for Emma you know I want to know because this guy was on the run I guess he had apocryphal oxycontins or something like that you know now when the police did their job and they tracked him down because he swapped the plates off his car and you know when they tracked him down through an investigation he initially pled not guilty and she made a full recovery and she is going on to cure cancer or something like that super super genius but in any case I want to know you know a lot of the conversations that we've been having have been surrounding a person not being penalized for you know using drugs or I want to know if this happened today person gets hit by a car reconstructive surgery guys on the run bunch of drugs involved do you think that a person using drugs should jump behind the wheel in that situation and you think that's happening in this crisis that we're soliciting here and also do you think that the three years that he got was enough or not enough being that a person's face got reconstructed in this thank you well thank you for the question Will I'm glad that your sister seems to be doing better I'm sorry that she was harmed in that situation one of the most important things in any sort of criminal matters not to forget the fact that there are victims of crimes who need to have a comprehensive comprehensive response to not to not forget them in this in the impacts of crime I'm not a lawyer I don't know the ins and outs of that case I will say that our criminal justice system right now here in Vermont and here in Burlington is is severely backlogged they're under resource we do not have enough judges to actually even clear the dockets from back and during COVID which is not helping so if we're going to have more accountability we have to go into the eyes wide open around the fact that our current court system is not working and I also think that we have to tease out folks who are repeat offenders because those folks are creating the most harm in our community and deserve our our laser focus on making sure that we hold them accountable but also ultimately make our community safer and again not forget the victims who are who are impacted by this one last thing I'll say is just two weeks ago T-Rugs had a hostage situation I was outside on North Street when that was actively happening trying to pick up my kid at sustainability academy there was a lockdown happening I had no information it was highly alarming my four-year-old was a block closer to the incident there are many people who are impacted by this not just the folks in the immediate harm but we have to make sure that we're resourcing all of the comprehensive responses so that we can heal our community and support the ripple effects of harm that happens thank you thank you so we are now going to go to closing it seems like the mic keeps I know you don't get to take catch a breath but I'm going to drink some water though yes take my union brace please yeah ready I am okay great yes all right thank you all for coming tonight thank you to the organizers I want to put together I want I am putting forward a vision for Burlington one that is actually based on what where we need to head in terms of building back a community and bringing our community back to each other I've been concerned about the health and well-being of our city this is why I turned from the state house back to Burlington to offer my leadership my approach and my vision for Burlington we deserve a safer community for everyone we deserve a community where people are we value and prioritize the economic diversity that keeps our city healthy and vibrant and we have a lot of big challenges that require a unique set of skills to solve these challenges we need to elect an organizer we need to elect someone who has the local and policy experience that I offer and we need someone with the compassion and drive to make sure we can bring a collaborative spirit back to Burlington so that your voices are not only heard and listened to but acted upon thank you On to you there Chris An Olympic hockey coach once said great moments are born from great opportunity and that's what we have here in Burlington a chance to come together and move this city forward and do great things every one of us deserves to feel safe no matter who we are or where we came from and every one of us deserves an opportunity to relax and dream the question is do we continue looking over our shoulder or do we look forward to a better future Burlington's greatest strength is its people we have all of the expertise we need right here in this city but we need a better process a process that respects diversity provides ordinary residents with a meaningful opportunity to participate and be heard a process designed to bring out the best in each and every one of us so that we can move this city forward together as one Burlington I'm tired of hearing about all of Burlington's problems and how the city is in decline we have the power to change that each and every one of us one vote at a time the end Burlington wins with people not with politicians it's time for something new now get out there and vote thanks Chris Will thank you guys for having me tonight you know I think I would echo what Chris just said you know community remember if you grew up here or if you just showed up last year just remember the sense of community and collectivism that we once had and the fabric that intertwines you know whether you're a low-income housing person or you live in a mansion up on the hill you know we all met downtown that was our place the towns surrounding us are soaking up the businesses that are leaving like just today a couple more got announced and you know that's just never something that I've witnessed as long as I live here I never thought I would see it and how do we build our way out of that well first and foremost you do have to acknowledge that there is an issue and then secondly you know you have to vote for change and I think that at this point in time I think that I would ask for the citizens most of you hopefully will vote for me I just ask for you to rank me number one instead of number four okay and you know um just consider voting for not just the same party different suit try to remember how we got here and remember how you want to get us out of it because you know me will I was a coach over at Lime and Sea Hunt I was a coach over at the Boys and Girls Club you know wherever my basketball team at that's where I showed up at and that's how I got to know a lot of the parents in this town thanks and you know thank you for having me tonight thanks Will last but not least John thank you I ask for your support as mayor of Burlington if you agree with my vision to improve public safety by rebuilding our police department and diversifying safety services to build more housing to bring partners to the table to address community health needs and to remember and celebrate all that is absolutely fabulous about this city that we all love our strength is in our community I agree I am the candidate who has the proven support and confidence of all three city unions and have endorsed that have endorsed so far in this race our city workers are united in their concerns about public safety functional governance leadership that listens and the health and well-being of our staff and community thank you all for your participation here tonight and please go spend your money downtown and let's celebrate what we have here thank you so with that that concludes our forum thank you all so much for coming out let's give a hand for our candidates thank you so much and don't forget to vote again ballots are coming next week so you have a chance to vote mail-in