The top thing that I'm going to take back to my civilian job is just the interactions and friendships and partnerships that I've built with the Moroccan forces here because I think it tells us that the world is much bigger. It's not about where we sit in Madison, Wisconsin. It's understanding that the world is rich in culture and diversity and taking that back and applying and sharing it with my employees as they go forward in their responsibilities and roles to understand that it's important for us to seek out and understand differences in culture and apply it to our understanding so that we can build a better world.


Welcome to our walkthrough of the Office 365 for Nonprofits Registration process. Today, we're going to walk through signing up and activating your 30-day trial of Office 365. So let's get started. Go to Microsoft's Office 365 for Nonprofits page at www.microsoft.com forward slash Office 365 Nonprofits. Look for the sign up for a trial link and select the Office 365 Enterprise E3 for Nonprofits free trial. Now you need to set up your account. Once you arrive to the main sign up page, you'll be asked to fill in a number of fields. First, select your country or region. Then, type in your first and last name. This will be the name of the primary contact in your account and should be the actual name of someone at your nonprofit organization in order for us to validate your nonprofit status. Next, fill in your email address, which Microsoft will use to send you important account information. The email address you provide should be associated to both the name you entered above and your organization. This email address will be used to contact your nonprofit for validation purposes. Then, fill in your organization's address, city, state, zip code, your organization's phone number, as well as your organization's name. Once you've filled out your personal and organization's information, you'll then create your user ID. You'll use this ID to sign in to Office 365. You'll notice that once you fill in your organization's name above, that text will pre-populate here in the ID field. Feel free to change it. Then come up with a good password, which you'll use to log into the account. Make sure it's secure by using a combination of upper and lowercase characters and numbers. Confirm your password and move to the final step in creating your account, which is to verify your phone number by entering your mobile or landline number for verification and occasionally resetting your password if need be. You can choose to receive your verification code via text or phone call. I'll go ahead and request text message. You'll then be sent a code that you'll then paste into the final field and hit create my account. After creating your account, you'll be asked to verify your eligibility by verifying your domain. This is not a required step to activate your free trial. If you have the expertise to make a DNS change, you can go ahead and make this change now. But otherwise, you can skip it and your domain will be verified later. Welcome to your Office 365 Admin Center. You've now completed setting up your account and you should also receive a confirmation email from Microsoft. From this page, you can access the support section for questions about your account, view your account settings, assign licenses, do product configuration, and access resources. Okay, you're almost done. Your last step is to activate your Office 365 trial account. This will kick off the validation and approval process for your nonprofit. To activate your account, retrieve the email confirmation that was sent to you after setting up your main account. Click on, get started with your trial to kick off your activation. There you go. Now you have an active trial account of Office 365 for nonprofits. Your trial account lasts for 30 days while we validate your nonprofit status. Validation can take up to 20 days and you may receive an email request for additional information. Hope this was helpful. See you next time.


So this video is going to be a bit more nuanced than the rest of the videos because it's going to relate to only a very specific type of person. And if you ever get that feeling, like you need to run away from things.   In this video, I'll explain to you why that happens and how to deal with threats. Whether it be people who are like your critics, people you're running away from, things you're afraid to deal with, drama, maybe people you're scared of. Now, why does this happen? Why does this phenomena happen? Basically, it's a response that we sort of got once we were little. Maybe we escaped from something, maybe we made a lie, and that helps us escape from whatever happened to us. And we sort of adopted this modus operandi of whenever things scare us or don't go the way we want them to go and maybe we have people to deal with, we basically try to evade them and not talk to them and now make contact and escape and just hide, basically, hide ourselves. This obviously goes in complete, full contradiction with the mentality of wanting to get attention, which is the basis of influence. So how do I deal with it? And this took me many years of running away from people to learn. This has been so hard for me to learn, and it took years of just failures and feeling bad and being shamed and running away from people, but I cracked it. I cracked the code to solve it. The way you solve it is by creating reality with the person that you're trying to escape from. Now, what does this mean? Let's say that you're me, okay? You're this famous guy and, you know, I say famous quote-on-quote famous because I get recognized pretty much once a day on the street by people who saw my videos.   And in the past, I would escape from that. I would run away because I would be so afraid of the attention.   I overwhelmed them with attention, so much attention that they start to retreat from me. So the person that retreats can never be the person that's advancing forward. So I learned that the best way to deal with situations where you're facing a retreat situation is to face it head-on with an advanced mentality. So the person you're afraid to call, you want to advance on them. That person that scares you, instead of running away from them and creating resistance, which will give them the power, you want to start advancing towards them and you want to do it as intensively, as humanly possible. I'll give you an example that happened just now. So as you probably see, there's quite a big commotion here. A lot of people. And when I say people recognize me in the streets every day, that's when the streets are not crowded. When the streets are crowded, I get recognized a lot because Israel is fairly small, especially kind of the center cities that's where all the people that watch my videos are at. So I had people, I was coming out of the gym and I had people like, oh, Robbie, you know that guy that made the video, come here, come here.  That they're like, oh, yeah, let's call him here and see if we can make him react or something. So instead of being like, oh, wait, let's not come. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, just come half-heartedly. I'm like, bam, I'm like, yeah, what's up? And then he's like, well, because he was already taking back. He's like, well, the girl here, she thinks she's your fan. I'm like, oh, yeah, you want a picture? You want to take a picture? Let's take a picture. So I basically, I don't want to make this sound aggressive, but I'm over-emphasizing this. How I basically, instead of reacting to them like, oh, you want to show a picture? Yeah, okay, yeah, or anything. I basically overwhelmed them with my presence, like advancing towards them. And this happened to mean so many different areas of life.  I don't know what to do. What is this? Oh no, oh my God, how do I escape? No, oh no, oh no, what are you going to say? Oh no. And basically it puts you in the moment and it allows you to fully advance towards that person, overwhelm them. And usually then they start reacting to you and you actually get so empowered, you feel so good after, because you basically took a situation where you would normally react and you actually turned it into a situation where you were empowered. So anytime in life, we have these kinds of situations, again, sorry for not providing as many examples as I may have wanted to, but anytime you're in this kind of situation, remember to always advance towards the things you're afraid of rather than retreat. Because when you advance, that's when you get empowered and you basically see that you're more powerful than that thing that you're afraid of. You can actually overtake it, nothing will happen to you. We'll give you so much confidence and so much bravery to move on to the next conquest. So I hope this helps. Ask me any questions if you have, subscribe if you haven't, thanks for watching. One last point I wanted to make regarding the whole retreating agenda. Look, just because you feel something, okay? Just because something is, you know, there's an emotion in your body that says something does not mean that this is the reality of the situation and this is how you have to act. Just because you think of your girlfriend and you become jealous does not mean you have to act in a jealous way. Just because something scares you does not mean you have to act scared and run away. You can be scared and do it anyway. You can be, something can feel frightening to you and what frightening means is automatically means you classified it as bad. But it can feel frightening while actually being very, very beneficial. Maybe the person you're scared of could actually be a person that you should meet or maybe just in general, just being scared, it's pointless and if you run away because you're scared you'll never actually find out that there was nothing to be afraid of. So that's kind of the last quick point I wanted to leave you with is that just because you feel something does not mean that is the reality of how it is. You can feel something and the reality be the complete opposite of the way you feel. So you get that by meditation. When you meditate a lot, you start to get sort of an elevated perspective of your mind. So when you feel an emotion, you're less likely to go with it and more likely to kind of separate it. Like, okay, there's me and then there's the emotion. And other than that, just being brave, taking a lot of action. Although again, these could wind up putting you in the wrong direction. So yeah, it's just a matter of having that elevated, that ability to elevate yourself above the situation. You don't have to meditate to do that but that's the best way I know of because there's too many situations.  So yeah, that's pretty much it. Thanks for watching one more video for today and I'm done.


Rick Bissen is running for Mayor of Maui and he's with us today. And we're talking here in Community Matters. I'm Jay Fidel on Sync Tech. Now we're going to explore his background and his platform and so forth. Welcome to the show, Rick Bissen. Thank you very much, Jay. I appreciate you having me. I'm excited to answer your questions and maybe inform your viewers about what's happening here in Maui. Yeah, it's great to have you and I'm excited to talk to you. So tell us about your background that makes you feel you're qualified to be Mayor of Maui. Okay, I'm going to go back a bit. I graduated from St. Anthony High School in Maui where I was the student body president for the college in California, Santa Clara University with a degree in political science. I was also the president there of our Hawaiian club. Went on to the University of Hawaii where I got my law degree and also president of the Hawaiian club there at the university. I became a law clerk here at Maui for a judge. I returned home, I should say, to Maui. I also worked as a prosecutor for 15 years. For eight of those years, I was the county prosecutor under then Mayor Lingo and then Mayor Kimo Apana. So two terms as a county administration, the prosecutor. I then came to Oahu where I moved my family. I was the first deputy attorney general for the state of Hawaii managing 21 divisions that reported to me about 175 lawyers, the largest law firm in the state working under Mark Bennett, the attorney general. I then became the acting director of the Department of Public Safety, the prisons. I had around 2,400 employees, a budget of $200 million, eight facilities, 4,000 inmates, employees on all the major islands. I had almost twice as many employees as the Mayor of the county had in 2004, which is when I ran that department. Then in 2005, I was appointed as a circuit court judge. I returned home to Maui where I served for about the last 17 years. I was the domestic violence judge, the criminal judge. My entire time I started a mental health court in 2013. I was a drug court judge. I became the chief judge in 2019. Just a couple more points here. In 1999, I won the distinguished citizen of the state award from the men's march against violence for the work we did on domestic violence while I was prosecuted on Maui. I started the Maui drug court with Judge Roberto and the public defenders representative in 2000. 2001, I was selected attorney of the year by the Maui county bar association. I was also inducted into my high school's hall of fame for community service. In 2013, I was the first neighbor island graduate of the law school to receive the distinguished alumnus award for community service. And last October, I received the jurors of the year award for the state of Hawaii for the work we did during the pandemic. We were the first circuit of the four circuits to restart in-person jury trials because of the collaboration we had with the public defenders, prosecutors, the bar association on Maui, the department of health, the judiciary. And we were able to bring jurors safely into our courtroom and conduct in-person jury trials, which allowed defendants to have their cases heard, victims to seek their justice, attorneys to have their cases not be backlogged. And it became the model that the rest of the state also used to restart their trials. Wow, I'm glad I asked. That was really helpful for you to go through that. Everybody can do that. So, you know, man, how do you define yourself? What kind of a person are you? What kind of a candidate are you? You know, what kind of a public servant are you?  My cultural values were instilled in me in my home by my native Hawaiian parents. And again, my formal education I received from California and from Honolulu. You know, I think I'm a collaborative candidate. I'm somebody who is used to working with others. I'm a problem solver. You know, I'm used to listening to both sides before making an informed decision. I'm not somebody who rushes to judgment. You know, I don't believe in listening. I believe in accepting the strongest argument, not the loudest voices. And that's just been my training. You know, I feel to mention one more thing that I think is of note. While it took me four years to get my political science degree and three years to get my law degree, this past July, after five and a half years, I received my certification as a whole Pono Pono practitioner, which I thought I was going to do in my retirement. When I signed up in 2016 for this training, I thought it was going to take two years. There were 12 of us, five and a half years later, seven of us were certified. I thought I could combine my Western training with my native Hawaiian healing, you know, training and going in your families. Now that I decided to run for mayor, I think that whole Pono Pono will come into play even more so as executive for the county. But, you know, I think I'm a leader, which is why I described my background. None of those awards I received that I applied for, or did I even know I was nominated for until after I received word that I'd received them. And that's starting back in 1999, right up until this past year. Actually, two weeks ago, I received notice on the White State Bar Association that they awarded me the Golden Gavel Award, which they're going to present to me next month at their annual convention for leadership in our community. But I would just say that I have a history of working well with others, especially within my own community, Maui. And, you know, I rather than retire and put my skills and my experience on a shelf, I decided to offer myself as one of the candidates. And, you know, I think what it really comes down to is that I'm a hard worker. I'm willing to work harder harder than the next person and give my maximum effort. And that's why I've been successful so far. Congratulations on the Golden Gavel. That is very nice. Yeah, I was very surprised. I just learned of it in a letter about two weeks ago. So the whole Pono Pono award really, or the training rather, really interests me. You know, where do you see that fitting in in an administration as mayor of Maui? What needs to be healed? Well, the community needs to come together.  And the other guy's point is not only not important, it's wrong. Pick the topic, whatever you want it to be. And, you know, I think we start with a place of respect with whole Pono Pono, which is to restore relationships. Now, of course, it's designed for families or people with frequent contact like neighbors, coworkers. It's really it's sort of an intimate process. But the way it can be used in the broader community is the approach. And the approach is one of respect. You know, you respect the other person, you respect their views, even if you disagree with them. You know, I run a pretty tight courtroom for 17 years.  I have a level that I expect from folks that they expect from me. So this isn't a hypothetical question for me. And it's the way I operate. And it's the way I have operated. And again, everybody can draw the end conclusions from my educational background, the positions I've held, the awards I've received. Again, I never ever applied for any of those other people dominating thinking, you know, this is something that I would be worthy of. So, you know, I'm grateful. But I just use that as an example of I think how I'm viewed in my community.   How tough were you? I think the word most people would use to describe me would be fair. You know, like I said, I think I've considered all the factors. I'll give you a real quick example. If somebody comes to me and says, this person is guilty of shoplifting or just stealing from a store. And, you know, I can issue a sentence for somebody who steals from a store. Let's say the value is, you know, $250 or whatever it was. But, you know, I'm the person who's going to say, well, what did they steal?  If you're somebody who stole a bottle of vodka or a case of beer and tried to run out of the store, you're going to get a different sentence. So to me, being precise or being mindful is important. I don't think we can just paint everyone with the same brush. That's the lazy way. That's the easy way to do things. You just want to clear a case off the calendar.  You know, sometimes as judges, we send messages. Sometimes we, you know, we want to deter conduct. It's not all about punishment. A lot of it has to do with deterrence. Of course, the number one is protection of our community. And I think public safety is the number one issue. I think that's the number one issue. The mayor's number one job. And I have 35 years to back up my commitment to that. Is there a problem with public safety in Maui? I wouldn't call it a problem. We have a shortage of police officers. We're about 100 police short. So our recruitment, our retention, our ability to attract officers is something that I'd want to go and get in there and help either the union or the chief or the personnel folks with getting. I think we have ongoing recruitment, you know, back in the day when I was a young prosecutor, we just hold, you know, police recruit, you know, so many, you know, once a year, twice a year, whatever the cycle was. I think these days, we know we got to change that a little bit. So I don't know all the reasons why we're having this issue. We have a brand new police chief. He's not quite one year on the job. I think it'll be a year in December, January. And so a lot of people left and some people are still leaving. And so we're losing them faster than we're bringing them in. So you have any ideas on how to fill that gap? Sure. I mean, I'm sure this has been tried already. I mean, can't think that I have the best ideas or no one's thought of, but I think we got to figure out ways to bring back retirees, which means we got to visit, you know, some of the revisit, some of our laws or ordinances, because, you know, of course, there's a police union and then there's the state legislature that probably has to allow, you know, retirees, if they come back into work, they, they could forfeit or lose their retirement and those kinds of benefits. And that's not what we'd want to do. So we'd have to make some kind of an exemption for an emergency. I guess I would say like bringing in the National Guard, if you will, where you basically, you know, assure them that they're not going to lose their retirement, but that they're actually doing the service for us. So I think bringing retirees out of retirement, asking if they would be willing to put in, you know, so many hours a month, but, you know, they'd be paid. We can afford to pay them because we've budgeted the money for our positions. We just haven't built the positions. And then, you know, whenever an emergency, so having kind of be like a set group and, you know, give them certain kind of jobs depending on their age, you know, you don't have to put them out on the front lines or in the field, you can sort of move folks around, send your, send your younger folks out on the street and your more experienced guys have them be admin or something, but just fill the positions.  You know, there's ways. Like I said, we got to either recruit the new folks, retain the guys in there or bring the retirees back to work. Those are just some ideas off the top of my head. Yeah. Okay. Appreciate that. Other problems in Maui that you feel need to be fixed? You know, we could talk about housing and jobs and diversifying and tourism and homeless because those are all the things that people talk about every two and four years in this, what I call the political cycle. But I think to be, you know, totally blunt, what we lack the most on Maui right now is leadership. I think we need leadership from the top. I think we need leadership in management or middle management. I think we can't lead from a position of fear. You know, a lot of times what happens in government, Jay, is that, and I say this as an attorney and as someone who has led both county and state departments. I mean, I was the head of the department. So I was part of these mayor's teams, governance cabinets. So I'm familiar with the back of the house, so to speak. And sometimes we lead because we're risk averse, if that makes sense. The easy thing to do is keep doing it the way you've been doing it because we haven't got sued. And it's sort of a safe bet when sometimes that prevents us from advancing. And sometimes you don't want to change. You don't want to innovate because something might happen. But I think, you know, we shouldn't take unnecessary risks. But I think calculated decisions with the chance of improving and doing so much better is a healthy way to improve our community. And so I think that's sometimes the reason people are afraid to make a mistake. And so they don't want to be bold or think outside of, you know, that proverbial box. I think people want to kind of play it safe. Sometimes you just get by the cycle, get by the two-year, the four-year cycle, get to the next election. And, you know, I think, you asked me this earlier, and I guess I didn't really answer your question about what kind of candidate I am. My way of thinking is two generations ahead. I mean, I think the reason we are where we are now is because we don't think in those ways. You know, 40 years, I'll give you a real quick example. If we were to put our water in the dual water system here on Maui, where we had one water that came into your home just for your sanitation, picked up your toilet water, you picked up your drain from your top, and it was treated and recycled back to your house, only to be used for that purpose.  I think we saved half the water we used is my guess. But we don't do it now because it's hard and it's new and we got enough water or I want to hassle. You know, think of the fire suppression requirement that we have in commercial buildings now. You know, you and I both remember a time where that wasn't required and you just have a building and then we learned lessons like man, if we had fire suppression sprinklers, we could save lives. We could start the suppression before the fire department got there, those kinds of things. So it was a hassle. It was expensive, but it's common now. It's done.  We shouldn't wait until we're on our last gallon of water and say, okay, well maybe now we should run wastewater different. Well, because you know, we're one of the few states, few countries, we flush drinking water down the toilet every day. We flush drinking water down the toilet, not R1 water and not treated water drinking water. Other countries turn their wastewater into drinking water. Now psychologically, we're not there yet. We're not a state or country because they won't drink wastewater, treated water. No, no, no. We want fresh water right from the mountain, right from the spring. Well, we should treat our water as if we live on an island. That's how we should treat our water. And I think that's a number one issue for lots of people here on Maui, Maui County, including Molokai and Lanai. And I think we'd be bold to try to put in some proposals that I'm suggesting, because again, it's a hassle to be expensive. But I think our generations, our grandkids and our great-grandchildren will thank us and we'll be happy that we thought of them and not just of ourselves. And I think if we can get out of that cycle of two and four-year thinking and go two and four generations thinking, because even stuff we're looking at now, we probably say, man, I wish 40 years ago or 50 years ago they would have done this and we wouldn't have had that. But we're not there yet. We're not there yet. And I want us to get there. I want our administration to get there. Can you talk about money for a minute? Can we talk about fiscal policy? Can we talk about changes in the tax law? Can we talk about poverty and how the government can or should help people who are disadvantaged? What are your thoughts about that? And what are your action plans about that? Do you want to pick one of those? Let's talk about fiscal policy. Does Matt have a problem in fiscal policy? Does Matt have enough money? How would you propose to raise the money necessary for the initiatives you have in mind? Well, you can draw your conclusion. We went four years ago from an $800 million budget, which is incredible. That's quite a budget, to a $1.2 billion budget in four years. I wasn't part of the discussion, so I didn't look at the numbers. I didn't track everything. I have a chance to look at the budget that was signed, that was proposed and signed and put in. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we got federal monies that are plus funds. We got other federal monies dumped into Hawaii, into Maui. I think that was part of it. But a huge part is that our home prices jumped up. Again, four years ago, they were in the 700,000s. Now, it's $1.1 million. It's an average cost of a house in Maui. So that's over $400,000 in four years. It has increased. So of course, when home prices go up, tax rates might stay the same or even lower, but the amount of taxes that are collected are the same. I think we made a large part of our income. I think over 50% of our taxes we collect are from real property taxes that come from hotels and short-term vacation rentals. So I think the chatter around the state, when you talk to the other three counties, is, oh, Maui has all this money. I guess that's good that we have the ability, how we spend it, how we prioritize it. Obviously, that's something I would want a hand in with trained experts and professionals who do this kind of work. I don't claim to be that guy. My degree was in political science, not economics or accounting or finance. But I think that, of course, I was kind of told you before we got off the air, the definition of that political science is who gets what, when, where, and how. So that's how policies are made. And that's what I want to hand in. So it's not so much how we make our money. It's how we spend our money, how we save it for the rainy day, funds, how we not raid our funds. Maui's had to resort to a 3% TAT tax since the state decided to keep the entire, whatever, 10%, 10.25% tax, the TAT tax that they keep now, they don't distribute to the rest of the counties that stays with the state. So each of us counties basically added another 3% to that. So I mean, I think I have, I think my way of, I think fristfully speaking, I would be very, very careful in how we spend our money. And if you can tell, you know, for me, it's all about the future. It's all about the next generations. And we shouldn't have them, we shouldn't write the checks today that they got to pay later. Let me ask you about, you know, an issue that's probably statewide is certainly Oahu centric. And that is the diversification of the economy. Can you help us understand the economy in Maui? Is it in balance? Are there entrepreneurs coming into, you know, into the economy? Are they making money? Are they staying? You have a brain drain. How do you deal with that? And as I mentioned before, what about people who are disadvantaged? Are they able to get jobs? So I'm asking in general about the economy. And Rick, I'm asking what you would do, if anything, to tune the economy up in Maui. Great, great. I know I'll do my best. So our vast, our dependence is very heavy on tourism. And I guess I can explain it this way. We like tourism. We don't like tourists, because that's the impact. And that's the, that's where the rubber has met the road where too many tourists impact the infrastructure, the locations that locals go, whether it's blocking the side of the road to Hanna, or whether it's taking up the beach parking at the beach parks, or even taking up space on the beach that, you know, that might get crowded. So I think tourism is our number one source of revenue right now from Maui, for Maui. Now, the jobs that come out of that, well, there are a lot of jobs that they're not the highest paying jobs. A lot of people have to work two or three jobs that work in the business industry. So some ideas we have, our economy, we cannot give up on tourism without having some other drivers, economic drivers. Just to answer your questions first, before I come back to my point is, you know, some small businesses, especially restaurants, were deeply affected by the pandemic, and the loss of customers, the restrictions, and all sorts of things that were happening. And I think some of that is starting to come back. I couldn't tell you numbers, but I know just so sort of anecdotally, we just had a bunch of restaurants open here, fast food restaurants, you know, raising gains, Chick-fil-A, Sonic, those kinds of fast food places that are opening on Maui and hiring employees. You know, I know the big push for Maui is to go into ag, do a lot more ag, more sustainability, we can grow our own food, import, I don't know what the number is, 80 or 85% of our food. And so we want to, we want to try to flip those numbers. So we have a brand new Department of Ag that came online for the county. I think we're the only county that has a Department of Agriculture July 1st that came on, that came live and then it started to just appoint a new director. That's not going to be as regulatory as the state one is. So I think for us, that will be an agency that can help our farmers by applying for grants, getting them grants, making like a co-op where they could share large equipment, right? So these are more micro farms, not large tracts of farms, where people can help get their, you know, distribute their product, get it to, get it to market, store it, you know, get it to storage, other things like that.  And I think that's something that every candidate who ran from here, all eight of us were probably on the same page on this supporting that. In particular, what's different from our plan is we have an idea of artificial intelligence, driverless and electric vehicles. Now, this isn't a hypothetical. Someone who's who's an expert of this, the lives of Maui is actually testing a vehicle right now in Indianapolis, exactly now. And so Gary Passan is his name, and he's been working with students at the University of Hawaii, Maui College, some University of San Diego grad students by putting this together. The vision we have for Maui, how that would impact Maui is to cut back on our traffic, tourists renting, needing to rent vehicles, maybe getting shuttles between the airport and some of our key locations on the island, and then providing these driverless. Think of them like sort of a rental car shuttle, if you will, except small, you can have a two passenger and we could have maybe up to eight or 10 passengers. Just going along the South, if you know South Key, he rode on Maui, a very busy corridor. But driverless is more is more of a safety, is much more safe than, you know, like an Uber or Lyft situation where we they've always, you know, they've had several conflicts between unruly passengers and really drivers. We could eliminate that. And again, no emissions, less cars on the road, more reliable, cleaner energy. We have a high research and technology park on Maui at one time, we had the super computer up there. It's still there, but it's no longer the top computer, obviously, but we have a place that was designed to do this. So we're excited that we could do not just the software, but the hardware and manufacturing of some of these, we think it's possible to do it right here on Maui. Another area besides agriculture, besides artificial intelligence driverless cars is the access to your problem. We have a Maui, I've been talking about this since January. There's so many people call me about this issue. The access to your problem, Jay, is we have about 60,000 head of deer in Maui County. And the managed, the managed rate is 20,000. The managed number is 20,000. And we just can't keep up with this. The reason this is a problem is these, these herds, they'll eat farmers crops, they'll eat ranchers grazing land. We had 171 traffic collisions just last year, 2001. There have been a couple noted ones just happening in our city, in Kahului, the last couple of weeks. We're not talking about up-country Maui now. So they're spreading. But the biggest fear I have is that if they make their way to our watershed and denude our watershed, that's irreparable.  But I'd like this to be a more concerted effort of not just eradication, because that's already in place. We have access to your task force working group. So there's some people doing some good work on it. But that's mostly game management. I want us to go into meat production and marketing. I want us to turn this, this high quality venison into a marketable product. We have, any other product, any other ad, you got to go plant it. You got to tend to it. You got to weed it. You got to water it. The deer feeds itself, waters itself, and is very, very abundant. And so, if we could figure out ways to not just shoot them and eradicate them, but to turn them into a marketing source, we got to develop our processes, our butchers, our marketers. We got to have more slaughterhouses. They actually got to be mobile slaughterhouses that you already have one here. We need to have more USDA inspectors inspecting the meat so they can go to market. Right now, everything's home use. Everybody, whatever they shoot, they give away, they process, they eat. That's fine. That works for us, but it's not an industry. It's a hobby. We got to turn it into an industry where we can... Very visionary idea, I must say. And it leads me to ask about the relationship of the islands. A lot of people feel that every island should have its own identity, and it should, you know, that the islands don't necessarily have to be connected all that much. They have to find their own way individually. And that is somewhat problematic when you talk about undersea cable. It is problematic when you talk about the ferry. And I wonder what your thoughts are about undersea cable for electricity and, of course, the ferry. Your thoughts? So, let me first talk about the undersea cable. You know what you're really talking about is digital equity. When we talk about broadband, this is a subject near and dear to me because I have very strong feelings about this. And especially when you bring up the inequity among the different islands or rural communities. Obviously, we have very rural communities like Maui, Moloka'i, but I am not sure you can get more rural than us, our county. Don't forget the big island, yeah. Well, yeah, I'll let Mitch Roth talk about the big island's capacity and issues. But I would just say that for us, you know, there's a broadband hui, a group of about 400 individuals and organizations that started up right around the time of the start of the pandemic, because they recognize that certain rural communities did not have access to telehealth, did not have access to at-home schooling or virtual schooling, did not have equipment, did not have connection, did not have the access. And so for me, I would like to make this a big focus. There are federal dollars available in grants, right? The infrastructure bill that I think you might have November of 2021 put about $2.3 billion aside for Hawaii. And a big portion of that, excuse me, was for digital and broadband access. So, this is exactly what we need to make it not just safer for people who can't get to, don't have as quick access to the doctors as others, but those who might be denied a valid education because of that. So I'm a strong proponent. And whether it's undersea cable or any other way to connect it, the words I'm going to continue to, the mantra I'm going to continue to say is digital equity. And again, that starts from physical equipment. Like you and I right now, we're on a Zoom call. We kind of take it for granted. We just open our device and press start, and it shows up. There's so many communities and families and places that don't have that. Now, some of it did start to come about a little bit during the pandemic because there were monies that came in. But as I said, I think Maui, we need to apply for our fair share, whether it's a formula grant or a competitive grant from the federal government. But we have so much need. And the big island, by the way, speaking of that, they are way ahead on this discussion. As far as readiness, they are ready to apply for funds and kudos to them because they're ahead of the game. We could do a better job. We will do a better job. For example, on my team, my campaign team, I have representation on the broadband hui, which has regular meetings. And so we can get information about applying for grants and whatever the cutting edge latest technology is. Sorry, you mentioned, I got caught up on that. I know it's treated as radioactive and dead, but I'm wondering if you see any possibility for it. I think that's a state issue, not really a county issue, but I know the county will benefit. I know more people than not were very, very excited, pleased. I thought it was a huge benefit for us to have the ferry system run. Now I realize the pushback on that was the environmental impact statement. So I suppose if the governor, the next governor was willing to restart there from scratch, I think it would be very receptive during this time. It was a convenience. It was an option to airfare and to travel, especially if you wanted to be over a vehicle for camping. Now there were some drawbacks. I would say the one that jumps in my mind, the biggest, we're all a little territorial and depending on your cultural beliefs and just your way of thinking about what's appropriate and what's respectful, there was accusations and of course it became proven that people from other communities would come to Maui and take resources from here back to their place. For example, the one I'm thinking of is river rocks used for Imu stones. They have to be those porous river rocks. Even on Maui, you can't take them. You're only allotted one five-gallon bucket a day for a person if that's what you need for your garden or for most people it's to make an Imu to kalua pig. There was all these accusations that people or a person drove here with their truck, loaded up their truck, drove it on the ferry to the back to Honolulu. I think those issues and the fact that it was so convenient to do that rather than you couldn't have done that on an airplane made people think that the system was broken. But I don't think it was a system. I think it was more the individual who decided they would be opportunistic I guess. But those are the things, just one example of that makes people think, ah, we have the ferry to come and steal all of our resources here and take it to their place because they don't have any more. I don't know the reality to what exactly happened and how and why, but I am generally speaking I think that our community would welcome, especially our small businesses. Because I don't know if you know this, but the Love's Bakery Truck when they were still running drove on to that ferry in the morning, drove off here, delivered their product and drove back on. So we were getting fresh bread on the ferry instead of the instead of the airplane. So I'm sure there I'm sure flower people that had flowers that put them in refrigerated trucks and get them somewhere quicker, drive on, pick up something on the other end, drive off. So on a business perspective, I'm sure it opened up a lot more options for us. Let me, I have one last question before we go. And that is, let me understand this. This is the first time you run for office. I had no plans. No plans are never running for office. It was never in my, this was not on my radar. I thought I would retire as you know, I selected, I selected law. So I got into law that became my, my career. And I thought I would retire, but I've got to tell you, I'm running for three reasons. Yeah, I don't know if I exactly answered this, but their names are La La Kea, Nalu Wahi and Kilinahi. Those are the names of my three grandsons. And I'm worried about whether they're able to afford to stay and live here. I never feared that there's a young boy growing up on Maui thinking that I could never live the place that I'm from. I don't worry about that for my three adult daughters. But I'm very concerned if the next generation can afford to stay here or will they be priced out and not be able to afford to live in our home. Amen to that. So that's why I decided to run. How has it been? How has your campaign been? You know, these are things that you haven't done before. These are experiences you haven't had before. And you're doing pretty well. Can you tell me what the experience is like running for office, running for mayor of Maui? Yes, I'll answer it two different, in two ways.  And so, you know, if you look at us, you don't have the experience, but the energy, the effort, the organization, just the commitment from the team has been incredible. On the flip side or on the personal note, you know, when I used to work at my job, I'd come home after a day of work and tease. It would be just, you know, you spend a lot of time thinking about your decisions, making your decisions. Now, it's very different because I have lots of meetings like this, like this Zoom meeting. This is the first of three that I'll have today. Sometimes I'll have five in a day. I'll address groups, like a group that I'll address tonight in a situation. So, what I find though, is that when I talk to somebody like you or anyone, it's an exchange of energy. It's not a depletion of energy. I get energy from the person that I've been talking to on the campaign trail. And it sort of fills me with, I guess, energy, for lack of a better word. And so, whatever I put out, I'm getting back. And if I'm back three or four people, I'm getting back three or four times that. And that's how I've been able to sustain myself throughout this process. I look forward to it. I signed up for this. I'm not complaining about it. Getting up early, staying up late, going to meetings, meetings, meetings. This is what I signed up for. And this is what I look forward to. Rick Pison, it's great to talk to you. Thank you very much for joining us this morning at Think Tech. We really appreciate it. Good luck on the election. Thank you. Thank you, Jay. It's nice to meet you. Take care. Aloha. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.


Hello there everyone and welcome. This is Melissa Arma with the Stock Swoosh, and I'm doing a Quarantine Gap Options half-annual newsletter special to help people through this time to get on board with the trades. Normally I have a one-year subscription only. I don't have a monthly subscription. I don't have any trials for this letter shown doing a six-month and actually it's a little bit, it's a little bit more than that because I'm giving the bonus for the options class with this as well. But I'm doing a six-month period of time. Normally I have the one year plus you're gonna get the Gap Options class free. So this is a very, very nice special for people, particularly people who have been wanting to join, want to get going, want to start trading and don't have the money yet to spend the $69.99 or $7,000 for the year or if we just want to get started. It's been a very interesting year for 2020. It's been an active year. I don't know why but it's it's been a really active year and the only reason I could think of a why is because of the trades have been there and and I've been very active this year and I've had the time. So it's really very worth people's while to get going and join if you're ready to do so. Email me at Melissa at the Stock Swoosh.com if you have any questions or call me at 929-3200 Gap. Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Skype. So don't forget follow wherever you are in your state if you're supposed to stay inside like in New York. We're inside here at least till May 15th and we'll see where we go from there. You want to stay safe. You want to take care of yourself and your family. I believe that everything's gonna be okay. It's just a matter of taking the necessary precautions and not only that same positive for it. So for me myself I said you know what I want to clean out my closet. There's some books I want to read and catch up on all the shows that I've been taping on my DVR, which I still haven't caught up on actually. I don't know if I'll ever catch up on all my shows in my DVR, but I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm making an effort and I've been cooking. I'm cooking right now. I mean it's hilarious. I made brownies today and I honestly honestly honestly never cook if you know me. I rarely rarely cook anything. So take this time. Stay inside. Do some home projects and again trade if you're interested in trading. Having a teacher makes a huge difference though in your ability to be able to do well because you can learn from the person and follow the person. B.A. Boeing has been so many different nice shorts we've done in this. We've done puts. We've done day trades. Here was one of the many many ones that we've done. This was a put that I called an April 14th dropped fell. This was a quickie because really gave the short short period of time. $5.50 was the cost of it. You could have bought 15 contracts. You could have bought one contract. You could have bought five contracts. It's whatever you can afford based on the size of your cash account. And you can trade options with a margin account or a cash account. Anyways, nice profit. 127% return investment. So if you'd risk $550 bucks you could have made $700. If you risk $8250 you could have made $10,500. And again, this was a beautiful, beautiful call here on the 14th. And it really doesn't even look like much but it went boop. And I love when things go right away. I mean I really, really, really, really do. And that's probably one of the reasons that I prefer to short. And a put is a short for those of you don't know. But during quarantine is a great time to trade. 2020 has been really rocking and rolling with the stock swishes. Have you been thinking about trading? Or if you have time to do it now because you're home or if you're at working and you want to do the options. Trading is one of the best jobs in the world because again it has to do with financial freedom. Working from home, having independence.  So if you want to sign up for the half yearly subscription this is not something that I normally offer. It is not something that I normally do so you know. I'm doing this as a quarantine special. Half yearly subscription is $49.99 for six months. It's going to include the gap options course free. This offer ends April 24th. Again, no trials and no monthly subscription. It's normally one year. So this is a special offer and you get the class free which is normally $2,500. So it's a great way to join and start. And really April, May, May, June, June, July, July to August, August to September, September, October. This will take you well into October. And that's a long time for you to be on the letter and get the trade costs. And if you're interested in learning the system, I teach a class. It's called the Golden Gap course. The class is April 18th and 19th, nine to five Eastern Time. Class of the class is $6,999. It's this weekend. You'd have to sign up deadlines tomorrow. Class is online. Email me if you want to sign up. This is how you will learn the system. Class tuition for the combo is $74.99. The trends class is Tuesday 11 to 3. Anyways, if you're thinking about doing this, if you want to join, if you have questions, email me or call me Melissa at thestockswish.com.


y the Hampshire mall or the Holyoke mall, those areas are considered not charged to the store. Hope that can be helpful. Thank you. You're muted. Yeah, I can't.  For some reason, Mike, can you hear me now? Yes. Okay. Nobody else is raising their hand. All right. Well, I think we're looking at a 918, a little bit after the time we'd like to stop these things. I think we should continue this to the next meeting. Maureen, what do we have for a schedule for the next meeting? Well, on the July 23rd, we have two public hearings for 117 Amity Street and 1-4 offense for 948 East Pleasant Street. So we could squeak Tom in afterwards. We would agree if we could. And I believe everyone is on that panel that's here tonight. I think. July 23rd. Then let's have, we can work with you for the kind of submissions that we need for that date. We'd like to have them a week ahead of time, but of course, and we'll work with the staff to get them so that all the board members can review them and have some time to review them, especially any memos that we have on use would be helpful. All right. I would move that we continue this to July 23rd as the third item on the agenda for that night. Is there, do I have a second to that motion? Seconded. Is there any discussion that this be continued until July 23rd? This would be a roll call vote. I vote aye. Mr. Limesdale. Aye. Ms. O'Meara. Aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. All right. The motion passes. We'll see you on the 23rd. Thank you very much for all your time. We appreciate it. Thank you. We'll talk to you then. Okay, good. Bye. The next order of business tonight is public comment on any matter, not before the board tonight. So the public has the opportunity to speak for three minutes on any matter that is not before the board tonight. Is there any member of the public that wishes to speak? I see none. And there's no other new business that was not anticipated in the last 48 hours. So if I have a motion to adjourn for tonight and resume with our next meeting is when? Is it the 23rd or do we have one before that? The next is the 23rd? My third. Yeah, the 23rd. So we'll resume on. If you all have next week off. Yes. So we'll resume on the 23rd. Do I have a second to that motion for adjournment? Seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? It's a roll call vote. I always have a hard time with this. I vote aye. Mr. Langsdale. Aye. Ms. O'Mara. Aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Well, we're all happy about this ending at this time of night. Well, thank you all for again, thank you all for your work on this, your time you spent. Thank you to the staff. We'll talk next week. And we hope to have more information for you that you can review before the 23rd. Thank you again all. Thank you. Good night. Good night. Good night everybody.


What's up everybody, it's Jayz here for jazzy over jazzy casebricks.com 2019 Bowman draft sapphire baseball one box break number 19 just sold out random players Now I'm gonna show you guys the item page guys just remember this is number 19 I also know number 20 is sold out these two breaks here number 19 that we're doing here and 20 that did sell out that I'm showing you are part of our transcendent giveaway break So you can win a transcendent spot for $450 worth through one of these breaks and again This is number 19. So listen to the sound of my voice number 20 will be coming up in a separate video I'm just showing you guys the item page. I remember 20 total spots The way it works is that we're gonna randomize customer names. We're gonna I Don't even know how to say we're gonna put your name 10 times in a randomizer to make it full 200 spots Randomize your names and randomize these players here from Adley number one all the way down to card number 200 Which is Cooper Johnson, then we'll distribute the hits out of the box then at the end of the break Customers that bought in the original 20 will put them in a separate dice roll and randomizer Randomize them and number one at the end of the randomizer gets a free spot and transcend it number two So here you go. Let's do the break first. Remember this is number 19 Let's roll the dice and it's snake eyes two times. Good luck You go one Two Javier I'm a Matthew and I'll share this Google doc with you guys All right two times now on the players one two twins Player down to MJ Melendez For the Royals All right, let me share this with you guys really quick. I'm gonna show you guys the way it popped out originally and I'm alphabetized it There you go You guys can see that guys. So let me show it to you guys the way it came out All right all the way down here There you go So Bradley here you go. Here's your 10 players from Jeter Downs down to Brett Batty Got Joy Barton there Connor Amonteros down to Hudson Javier Castillo down to Royce Lewis Joseph You got Williamson You got Adley Ruchman in there as well Joseph down to Casey Golden Josh Terang Donna Brandon Lewis Leonard Manoa Donna Hicklin Matthew you have a couple of spots actually so your list is a little longer Starting from Zach Thompson down to a Minzner and then from Minzner Down to MJ Melendez La Dolos in there a Triolo Quintana JJ Goss Oliver You have from Seth Johnson down to Tyler Baum. You have Josh Drung in there Tim Tebow Sictos Sanchez Matthew Lugo Paul Hutchins. Here you go Veerling Josh Wolfe Ryan you have Brandon Malone down to Jake or Jack.  Can't really show you all of them, but from Julio Pablo Martinez All the way down to Kovacco and in there you have Amaya Jose Devers Varshow Blayday Riley Greene CJ Abrams all are in there. All right So there you go guys now I'm gonna Put it back to One through that So I'll sit out nice Again, you guys have access to that page if you guys need it. It's in the chat You gotta do the sapphire break and again all the cards we've kind of sleep in top of it. All right. We got poorly cruise Will Wilson Kirk Letcher first gore Matthew Lugo Williams Although Sean shell shell Martinez Grant McCrae Hamenez Avain no song Lang leaders Brandon Lewis and our first color is Mitchell and Noah song so Cal Mitchell, which is a green 23 out of 50 card number 26 So 26 That'll be Matthew with that one Then know a song out of 99 card number 99 Matthew as well. They go Matthew got both of the numbered cards That's great for you Gomez Henry Swaggerty Wilson Brown James Beard Jefferson Riley Greene Bowman's first Timothy had them Hill Jr. Williamson Jill Kissinger Steele Campbell Penning sleeve all this stuff. All right, so the shipping team will finish top loading them But I just penning see them off for you guys. So there you go. There was a quick one box break Now let's switch scenes and again. We're giving away one spot. Remember. This is number 19 Not number 20 that'll be coming up later and again one spot top name at the end of this dice roll, which is Two and a three five times. We'll get the free spot number one after five times Good luck One two three four and five Boom five times two and a three five Bradley there you go. Congratulations. You just want to spot and transcend it Number two random hit. Appreciate you guys. Jasper's case breaks calm again This is sapphire number 19 number 20 will be coming up soon I appreciate it guys


What up Bicycle Internet, Anthony here for another edition of Pure Cycles Gear Corner. And on this episode, we're going to be talking bar bags. But before we start, I do have to make an admission that when I was a younger man, I thought bar bags were kind of dorky and wouldn't really be caught dead with one on my bike. But times have changed. I've gotten older and bar bags have gotten ratter. So let's get to it and check out the four bar bags that we think are worth checking out. The first bag that we're going to be talking about today is the Roadrunner Burrito Supreme. This is a little bit of a hometown favorite for us. These bags are designed and manufactured here in downtown Los Angeles. The bag overall has a sturdy, well thought out construction and is adjustable to fit just about any type of bike. Some of the key features that we really like on this bag are going to be the 1,000 denier Cordura outer construction. This really kind of beefs up the weatherproof aspect of this bag. One of the other things that we found really appealing is going to be the YKK zipper with the aqua guard. This keeps all of the elements out and everything on the inside relatively dry. The other thing is going to be the adjustable straps on the back. You're going to have a nylon webbing here and then you can move these guys to either fit as wide as you want or as narrow as you want on the back of this bag. Then finally, we really dug these little parachute cords here. It's perfect for a strap that Roadrunner sells on their website. You can just throw it on there and use it as a shoulder bag after you're done. After doing some testing, we gave this particular bag to our camera guy. He went and shredded JPL and the trails up around there and put it through its paces. We felt like it could pretty confidently stand up to the elements. With a 2.5 liter capacity, you can definitely take a burrito out and probably also carry one for your friend as well. For the next bag, we're going to take a little cruise up the California coast up to San Francisco. Or not has long been known for their minimally branded kits. However, in 2016, they jumped into the bag game.  This bag has kind of been an everyday rider for myself. The heavy-duty nylon construction has definitely stood up to the abuse that I've put it through, and the custom prints that Ornot comes out with definitely add a little flavor to the bag game. One of the features that really stood out to a number of us in the office here was the gram holster. That's right, there's a gram holster. Or not put two small pockets on the side of this bag, and these are perfect for carrying any mobile device and keeping it within reach so that you can grab that perfect shot. And with a four-liter capacity, you can carry just about anything you need for your ride in this bag. Unlike the other bags, this one is not quite waterproof or weatherproof.  For the next bag, we're going to stay in the city of San Francisco. The drawcord handlebar bag from Outer Shell is definitely a well-thought-out and unique take on the handlebar bag. The bag itself is a zipperless design, which I guess could be implied by the name drawcord handlebar bag. The exterior storm flap can easily be opened and closed with one hand by way of a simple shotcord loop that hooks around your stem or your head tube. Beneath the flap is an expandable drawcord section, this stuff right here, and that helps keep the nasty weather out and the contents inside dry. I recently had a chance to put this bag to the test during the recent Pavelov Across America ride and on our fourth day, we experienced a pretty gnarly storm, at least for California standards, and at the end of the day when I checked the bag, the contents inside were still relatively dry. Some of the key features that stood out to us were the quality of the build, namely the use of a polyurethane-coated Cordura main fabric and an X-pack fabric inner lining. We also like the fact that you can use this bag in tandem with the Outer Shell Stuff Sack Harness for your longer bikepacking adventures, and with an expandable drawcord section you get about four and a half liters of capacity. Finally, our last bag hails from the Pacific Northwest and is made by the fine folks over at Swift Industries. The Bandito bag uses some of the know-how from some of their other touring style bags that Swift makes and marries it into this little baby right here. The Bandito has some similar characteristics as far as materials go to the Burrito Supreme shown earlier. They use a 1000D Cordura Outer and a pack cloth lining on the inside, as well as a plastic liner to give it strength and structure. However, some of the cool features that set this bag apart from the other alternatives that are out there can be found in the details. This bag uses two leather straps, these guys right here, that you can use to mount around your bars or using the mounting loops for specific saddles so you can mount it to your saddle as well, so you can have both the bar bag or the saddle bag. It also has another leather strap on the back that you can attach to your head tube or to your seat post for stability. That way you prevent any further sway as you're riding along. The other thing that this bar has on the inside is a cool little dowel, you can see that right there. That gives it plenty of structure and long term keeps the bag from looking sad and saggy as you use it and go along. Finally, one of the details that I found the most appealing on this bag is the two elastic loops up front. To me, this is both aesthetically appealing and highly functional.  This bag will have a 3.2 capacity and will definitely be able to carry everything that you need. You're going to need for your next hashtag copy outside meetup. This little bag from Swift Industries, definitely one worth checking out. Finally, the one thing that we found that all of these bags have in common with each other is that passionate people with a love for exploring the world around them by two wheels make them. That love for exploration is directly reflected in the products they make. If you like what you saw today, don't forget to subscribe to the channel and if you have any questions about the products featured in today's episode, feel free to hit us up at Gear Corner at PureCycles.com. Until next time, stay safe out there and keep a rubber side down.


e no binding effect the city is not required to include it in a city wide vote end quote i agree with council bergman we've received hundreds if not thousands of communications from constituents on this item in my estimation our community certainly in my own ward we are more evenly divided um in terms of who is for placing this item on the ballot and who is against it in considering our vote on this item the biggest concern for me is the hundreds of comments we've received and heard from members of our community who are unsettled hurt and afraid that for the third time in two years their city council is taking up a measure that is solely critical of israel here in burlington and around the globe acts of both antisemitism and islamophobia are on the rise our local houses of worship have felt the need to hire security to protect their members including their youngest members our school district recently sent a letter to parents about how our jewish and muslim kids are feeling unsafe and unwelcome in our community we saw tonight that when a young woman bravely spoke and pleaded with this room to not equate what is occurring in gaza to the extermination of six million jews in the holocaust she was widely met with laughter and as i'm making my comments here i continue to hear laughter in the audience and we question why those folks would feel unsettled and unsafe on the city council and in our community i appreciate that most have been able to engage in civil discourse over our differences this is not true for many however and the differences of opinion on this issue are often charged i'm deeply concerned that placing this question on our ballot is more likely to cause further division and harm in our community than it is to solve the tragedies that continue to unfold in the middle east is a voter who is against this measure supposed to feel comfortable publishing an online post speaking out at a public meeting or placing a sign in their front yard encouraging their neighbors to vote no on this measure will they too be told they love racism that they love apartheid that they are pro genocide i hear folks in the audience saying yes well nightmares be wished upon them for the rest of their lives will threats be made against them and their families as city counselors it is our role to put the safety and well-being of our local community first and foremost when we put a question on the ballot burlingtonians must be able to freely state their opinions on this question without having to worry about harm or ridicule being directed their way that is not the case here in coming to my decision on this ballot measure i have also pushed myself to consider the good that may come out of the proposed question i respect that while the question is far from perfect it may spur productive community dialogue and debate to that extent uh to the extent we've been able to have some of that productive debate tonight i agree with the speaker who said that this has been a successful campaign we do not need this ballot question though to keep this discussion going and i would be happy to join councillor hightower in supporting any efforts that foster open and respectful community discussions on this issue and the issues surrounding the proposed referendum thank you thank you so much councillor travers we'll go to councillor king over the past many weeks i've engaged on this complex and sensitive issue attending meetings taking calls having conversations with individuals who hold diverse viewpoints during each interaction i witnessed a deep sense of care compassion and genuine engagement from our community members to the organizers who work diligently to gather the signatures needed for the item today i extend my recognition of the hard work and passion that went into organizing on december 11th i voted in favor of the ceasefire resolution reflecting what i viewed as an as a desire for an immediate end to violence today however we face a different question a question which has been written in a way that is inherently one-sided as one of my constituents phrased it the proper response to inhumanity is to call out all inhumanity i want to echo the sentiments of congresswoman beca ballant who in her statement calling for a true negotiated ceasefire said i understand that many vermonters feel as i do deeply distraught by this conflict we want to see an immediate end to the violence and the realization of palestinian self-governance including economic and physical security her call for a ceasefire coupled with a plea for increased robust humanitarian aid to gaza resonates with the shared values of our community israel as she emphasized has a moral responsibility to protect civilians at all costs even in the midst of war this petition is placed on the town meeting day ballot would increase the division in our community that is being caused by well intentioned community members with diverse viewpoints on the complex issues involved further i've heard from members of our community on all sides of these issues they do not feel safe in berlington even tonight i watched multiple young ward 8 residents present to us in tears literally begging us to do what we can from the council table to protect them i would much prefer that members from groups with differing viewpoints in our community find ways to dialogue with each other in an effort to promote peace rather than further divide our community i actively support putting time and resources towards fostering a dialogue for the community to better understand the conflict and learn about tangible ways to contribute to much needed humanitarian efforts this issue is undeniably painful and complicated i recognize the deep emotions that evokes within our community and truly hope we can find a path forward thank you so much councillor king uh are there any other councillors that wish to speak councillor mickey thank you president paul this room is the most tangible access the people in berlington have to their government whether it's local government us here in the city council the mayor's office the state government or the federal government this is a table where people can have their voice heard and this city has a long history of standing against oppression and apartheid especially those actions that are supported by your own government and with our own tax dollars so i support putting this question on the ballot in march and i recognize how much effort goes into collecting signatures 1600 signatures five percent more than five percent of berlington voters have made their voice heard and said that they think that this city should vote on this issue and i don't think it's our place to stand in the way of that having this debate during an election is exactly what democracy is about we are supposed to have these conversations and we are supposed to disagree and at times it's going to be tense but we owe it to ourselves and to each other to show up and have those conversations in as many venues as we can and unfortunately in the climate that we exist in today with social media and being able to hide behind a keyboard it is much too easy to say hateful things without having to look somebody in the eye and i think we owe it all to ourselves to show up in person as much as we can and find our common humanity in these conversations i say again that this room is the most tangible access to government that berlington residents have and the ballot and the ability to put advisory questions on it is the most direct form of democracy that we all have this council should not stand in the way of the people's right in a democracy to make their voice heard at the ballot box and that's why i'll be supporting this measure tonight thank you thank you so much councillor mickey is there any other councillor who wishes to speak to this councillor carpenter yes thank you um the previous speakers are really very articulate and i don't want to repeat um what what they have said but i i cannot support putting this on the ballot the the vermont tradition that allows advisory non-binding referendums was structured um for our common good and what i have heard and felt and seen from people um this ballot i will not serve the common good of the citizens of vermont i mean i have somebody probably in this room has been to more town meetings i've seen the purpose of that and it it is to um bring back to our citizens the support they need the the pledge itself the first part of the pledge i think many speakers have acknowledged of course i oppose oppression i can affirm that i can affirm most of the stuff in the in the first three stands as of the pledge but i don't know what an apartheid apartheid free city means in terms of my governance what no one's explained that to me how do you implement that it's a statement it's a pledge and i think we need the dialogue that we're all talking about we need to facilitate that i too would agree with um council high tower that um we we ought to facilitate that the final stands that people refer to as being undisputable well it is disputable we've heard a lot and i have to say i've learned a lot about the history of middle east in this conversation and i want to learn more about that but i'm not ready to pick sides and that's what this this feels like we've been acknowledging all of the terror all of the murders all of the war crimes in the world and we need to collectively um not have that but one particular ballot item we'd be balloting every meeting if we picked aside every meeting and i think conversation is the way we do it i grew up in burlington and then we have a strong history of um doing the right thing supporting interfaith activities i those of you in the room are probably too young to remember rabbi max qual bishop robert joce who brought us together in the early um conversations about the vietnam war we do have a tradition but this ballot item is not going to get us um that way it's sitting down i do appreciate the invitation from the jewish voices for peace who reached out to personally talk to me i also appreciate the reach out from the partnership for peace those are the kind of conversations i want those folks in the room to have a conversation and i also want the almost 400 people who emailed me with well cast personal um please to not put this on the bottom it wasn't a it wasn't a you know a form letter it was all of their personal needs quite varied um i would love it if we could take all those emails and sit down and share them with each other and and talk about them and again this ballot item while it has certainly induced conversation doesn't get us where it doesn't get us to the common good that we need to promote peace in our community thank you thank you so much counselor carpenter i would like to remind everyone that is still here uh we're glad that you're here uh we we all listened to everything that all of you had to say and i think we did so respectfully i would ask the same of all of you there doesn't need to be any side comments um this is not a place to judge this is a place for everyone to be able to have the opportunity to speak so let's please keep that in mind are there any other counselors before we go back to counselor bergman on the first round is there any other counselor counselor uh counselor grant and then we'll go to you and then we'll go to you counselor grant thank you um i have a lot of little things they may seem all over the place but i believe that they're relevant uh first of all i do support uh the college students who shared their story um you know uvm in the last couple years uh had a great deal of controversy with regards to the way they um did not react to charges of anti-semitism and part of um president garamela's statement at the time was uvm is a community with a long proud history of inclusiveness we denounce hateful actions and respond briskly and decisively whenever those responsible are identified so i only assume that someone wrote that for him because it's not true and i know this because i as a young black woman was a student at the university of vermont university of ron has a lot of problems had a lot of problems and i just assume he had somebody write that for him because he's only been here for a few years um so shout out to uvm you can still do better now a quote net now whose governments and discriminant bombing is immoral it is in violation of international law and the congress must demand answers about the conduct of this campaign a just cause for war does not excuse atrocities in the conduct of that war uh that was said by bernie sanders as he's been trying to work to have accountability in in what's happening with the the indiscriminate killing that's so indiscriminate that three hostages were killed so we really need to think about this thing we need to think about the fact it's tens of thousands of people mostly innocent women and children and when i look at this ballot item first i take it as a separate concept of the fact that it should go on the ballot it if we want to talk about vibrant democracy there's a lot of emails that said vibrant democracy it would be vibrant democracy to put it on the ballot and then people would make their decision if they're going to vote for it um i would support it because i believe that this special relationship our country has always had with israel and we have sent billions of dollars and we have sent weapons we have not sent billions of dollars and weapons to china to oppress the muslims there it's not an equivalent uh and there were a number of other examples together and they're and they're not the same because we're not sending all that money there that we could use here so there needs to be some accountability uh with regards to fear in the community i'm afraid in the community it's it's nothing new it's nothing new um as i've been doing work for some time now dealing with equity and policing and i can tell you there are many people in this town that do feel fear because they can't count uh from a public safety standpoint that they will get the help they need should they need it and that's been a long-standing problem on regarding discrimination uh bias and racism in our schools it's a terrible terrible problem and has been for some time and i do respect the superintendent i've discussed this with him he he realizes what's going on i believe what we're seeing now with with more discrimination against our muslim students who have had to deal with it for quite some time and our black students have had to deal with it for quite some time now we're seeing this with our jewish students so we clearly within our school schools need to do more education we have to get that education home too because there's a lot of issues with with parents i'm happy to talk to people about apartheid you know the fact that apartheid's not being recognized the occupied territories are occupied right the occupied territories are occupied and there is a system of apartheid whoever dropped off all this like needs to be copied everybody needs to read all of this everyone needs to listen to the um south africa's presentation very very important someone referred to videos earlier in that presentation they were referred to as quote unquote snuff films populating the internet this is a huge issue and to say that it is divisive and hate is being division is already here division in our conversation about public safety and equity and policing and accountability this conversation division is already here we do not treat people the same we are not as progressive as we pretend to be right that's not true we literally have had maga talking points around public safety in our city so i think we need to be real about um some of our discussions i really do thank you thank you uh so we will we will um council uh councilor barlow please go ahead um thank you president paul the hour is late so i'll be really brief but i want to acknowledge that this issue does divide our community and one that makes community members feel unsafe we've heard that tonight um and we've heard it in a lot of the emails we've received as well i spoke at length today with two individuals one supporting the ballot item and one opposing both had heartfelt and reasoned arguments for their position and neither are wrong but one thing's obvious to me and has been obvious to me that the ballot is not a healthy way to continue our community conversation and find some common understanding on this or unity on this really complicated topic um it's really hard to distill this into a yes or no answer um and a ballot question um and i just want to add that i would join councilors high tower and others who said that they would support some council action that would um promote a facilitated community dialogue of some kind on this so thank you thank you so much councilor barlow uh any others who wish to speak on the first round councilor jang yes go ahead thank you president thank you members of the city council and people who brought this petition forward i think it has been very clear that the words that we heard here and we've been hearing about these issues complicated divisive unsafe this is basically the third time in two years the city council is targeting the jewish community which is actually untrue it's inaccurate let's just tell the truth we all members of this community we all love this community at the same time we all understand that what's happening between israel and palestine is completely wrong let's just call it a genocide let's just call it that people are being killed every single day people are finding their babies and putting them in bags because they are in pieces that's a fundamental problem and i also know that many of the jewish community we know that we love you we love each other we know that debates need to happen but at the same time this is not the problem what we have in front of us is not about how we feel about this issue this is about democracy our fundamental role is to provide an environment that respect the human right and the freedom of speech in which people can freely express themselves this is what this ballot item is about this is not about what's in it allow the voters to have a say i urge the community and every single one of to please go back and watch a mayoral debate between the party underscended it's about free speech about democracy please listen to it and you will hear the amount of truth you will hear the level of leadership that the city needs in the next couple of years it was organized by the school the parents i think of the pto's amazing speech please listen to it my heart goes with one person who spoke here i think he's a she's a preschool teacher um and also there was a response i think we are opening the door for more controversy if we don't allow this to go in the ballot we had one opportunity to call for a ceasefire we did not do it this will continue to come back over and over and over again until burlington says enough that's what i just wanted to add this is nothing about against anti-semitism this is not about against jews but this is about democracy allow the people to finally have a say and please i urge you to listen to that debate between the party underscended it for mayor thank you thank you so much i'm not i'm not really sure how many times i have to say that please do not do that okay please do not do that um uh there are just a couple of counselors who haven't spoken in the first round um if they have if they don't wish to then we will go to the second round council bergman uh thank you for indulging me on a second round i there are points that i i feel that i need to to make let's start my timer uh one is that i'm struck by how criticism of israel is conflated with anti-semitism and this is clearly a long standing political tactic but i as a non-zionist jew do not believe that they are the same or that strong criticism of israel is anti-semitic in and of itself regardless of how this vote goes i hope that opponents and supporters of this petition do a much better job of rejecting this false equivalence and i hope that supporters continually make clear the reject their rejection your rejection our rejection of anti-semitism and opponents of the petition reject the conflation that only serves to tie all jews to wrongful acts of the israeli government i understand that the fear that voting on the petition question will increase anti-semitism and threaten jewish people in berlington and elsewhere you know my boys raised here and about 13 years ago my younger son was subjected to anti-semitic taunts on an athletic field with a co-work with a co-player that got into a mess it was really quite ugly 13 years ago this is not new i and other members of this council and the mayor i know have gotten regularly gotten emails from a local not neo-nazi i've gotten them for the last eight years i really believe though that quashing a vote on this question is not going to ant to lessen anti-semitism i dare say that netanyan who's continuing offensive in gaza and the rejection of a palestinian state will spark an awful lot of anti-semitic jewish feelings a lot of anti-jewish feelings especially especially if the identification of the israeli state with all jews is not challenged but let me be very very clear anti-semitism is vile threats and violence against jews are unacceptable and critics of israel and i am one need to be very clear about this reports of increased incidents of anti-semitism and islamophobia in our schools is very troubling and i believe it's essential that supporters of palestinian freedom are very clear that the work to end the occupation requires a rejection of anti-semitism and we really need to do this if we are to end the cycle of hate including teaching our children last point i want to make although it's a maybe a little bit long but i still got a couple minutes a new argument against putting this question on the ballot is that this is just a stalking horse for bts on its face it's just not true but that's really besides the point one of the most successful strategies of the defenders of israeli policies in the west bank in gaza is to delegitimize nonviolent forms of resistance and equate all resistance with violent extremism and this includes bds the delegitimization of bds and other forms of nonviolent resistance pushes people to violence as the only viable means of to resist oppression i'm gonna quote jonathan kutab is an international civil rights lawyer and a palestinian resident of east jerusalem and three days ago i received in his email on the need to reject the appeal of violence he is a pacifist working in the resistance as a palestinian and a member of the you know a resident of east jerusalem and he wrote the problem is that once the decision is made to use violence there are immediate consequences victory at any price becomes the goal not justice liberation reconciliation or peace the enemy must be dehumanized in order to justify their deaths and the destruction and suffering meted out to them in the face of such powerful appeals to violence those of us who believe in nonviolence must redouble our efforts to show that there are effective and worthwhile alternatives that must be considered our rejection of violence cannot be a negative or passive submission to the forces of oppression and evil in fact gondi himself said that if this was his all if his only choices were violence and submission to tyranny he would choose violence when the appeal and temptation to violence is most powerful when the suffering and oppression is greatest when the desire for vengeance is compelling that is when we need to most stand up and say as loudly as we can that violence is not the answer let's try to or must i've got the lessons more must stop occupation must cease the siege must be lifted the struggle for freedom equality and self-determination must continue yes but with different methods and without violence destruction or bloodshed this is an important message for us and i'm sorry for taking an extra minute on that thank you councillor bourbon uh councillor high tower did you want to push the floor back yes and i'll be brief um i just wanted to add because i didn't quite get to what i meant to say last time um which is um but this this language is brought to the community after the council could not find language and you know i was a little bit in between i think i could have supported um with amendments either of the language that was brought to the council but we ultimately were split and we couldn't support it um and i also just want to say um that i'm obviously supporting putting this on the ballot today but i just want to be really clear that i think that do the community forum is great and i don't want to say that i'm proposing that instead of um supporting this tonight um this council is getting a little bit of history of saying we can do things better and we don't and then we can't um either before or after some of the community some of the community initiatives so i'm not saying that we should do a community forum instead of doing this today i'm saying we should do that regardless of what happens tonight um because i just want to put this into the hands of experienced community facilitators and healers to guide this community through a conversation because i think this council is historically very terrible at working through these kinds of issues doesn't matter if they're international or if they're here at home um and then the last thing that i just want to say to um council improvements comments is that for any community member who's afraid if you're Jewish or Muslim Palestinian black queer um know that you are speaking to a group of counselors who have faced backlash personally and because of our identity so we empathize not just in theory but in practice with worried over our own safety homes community centers and that it's not okay no matter your identity um and that i i yeah that we love our community and every and i'll agree every part of it thank you thank you so much uh councilor hightower so um we're on second round is there anyone else who wishes to speak seeing none uh seeing no other counselors i just have one quick thing to say sure i think we all need to think about as a council what's going on and how we've handled issues um to council hightower's point we've not handled certain issues well at all which is what gets this large amount of community engagement right people say we waste time i don't think it's a waste of time to listen to people from the community talk and and tell us what they're thinking i think that's part of what we signed up for but we really have been very ignorant and insensitive about certain issues of equity in our community and if you really want to believe some of the things that you said here you have to figure out a way how you're going to act upon them how you're going to be more empathetic because the lack of empathy is really strong and and how will you you change that so that you can have these conversations with people so you can be invited in these conversations because people aren't gonna invite you in the conversations if they don't trust you trust is really everything and trust is something that a lot of people don't have in our council right now thank you thank you so much uh if there's no one else that wishes to speak uh then we will go to a vote before we do go to a vote um i'd like to caution everyone who's here who's gathered with us in con toys that again the city council is a governmental body and in such if you wish to express support or opposition after this vote i'm going to ask that you please do that outside this room please do not do that inside this room please do not do that inside this room we still have to continue with the meeting and it is impossible for us to do that unless we have a calm and deliberative environment to do that um we this is not the place for any of that activity so with that and trusting that you hear what i'm saying um we will go to a vote on that and um since we do have someone joining us by zoom we'll need to do that by role councilor barlow no councilor bergman yes councilor carpenter no councilor jang yes councilor dority no councilor grant yes councilor hightower yes yes councilor king no councilor mcgee yes councilor shannon no councilor travers no city council president paul no bye bye seven days so the motion fails by a vote of five to seven that brings us to the end of our agenda i would ask if there could be a motion a motion to adjourn so moved thank you councilor mcgee seconded by councilor king all of those although all those in favor all those in favor of the motion to adjourn please say aye aye any opposed we are adjourned please keep in mind our next meeting is next monday january 29th thank you