welcome to our continuing coverage of general election twenty eighteen we're here at channel seventeen town meeting television with don turner and lieutenant governor david zuckerman and we will take your questions for the race for lieutenant governor which is coming up on the sixth of november thank you both for joining us thank you very much as well i feel to mention that you are a representative so right yes yes so you're both presently serving in the legislature and we're going to start with opening statements we have some questions that we provided to the candidates but we also are very happy to take any questions that you have eight six two three nine six six all right david stockman please tell us why you're running well qualifies you for the position of lieutenant governor well sure thank you  first it's been a pleasure an honor to serve for these past three years i think vermonters for giving me that opportunity i had served in the legislature for fourteen years in the house and four years in the senate including serving on the natural resources and energy committee the education committee the ways and means committee and the agriculture committee at different times in those arenas so i've worked in the legislature on a wide range of issues and really understand how the process works as we tend to govern i have had the honor and privilege to preside over the and it worked very hard to preside in that room much like local town meetings as a moderator making sure that the process does not get in the way of good policy making you have to make sure that the process flows that everybody's heard that the different ideas are presented fairly and it's been a real honor to do that on top of that i've worked to be face going to the basket around the state for the process of democracy reaching out to particularly young people but rotary's as well because right now we're in a challenging time with respect to  sentiment people have with what's going on in washington and to remind people how lucky we are in vermont to really have folks who are good from different perspectives that are cordial and respectful as we have been in this campaign and i hope to get two more years to do it again thank you very much fire department for thirty six years serving the last fourteen years as for chief but i also have served thirteen years in the legislature and the last seven years i've been the house republican leader in the north the leader in the house you know vermont is a great  place we'll choose to live here and i'm very grateful that i live here but too often i hear and i've heard for the last three election cycles that it's too expensive to live in vermont so even though it's a great state we've got to make it more affordable so i'm running to bring question that's not on the list that comes to mind given that affordability is a concern do you support the a the governor's position in this room and b how he's worked with the legislature i have supported the governor i believe the governor  took a firm stance when he was elected and he was he ran in was elected on it cost too much to live here he refers to it as affordability i fully support that and i've worked closely with him throughout the last two years to sustain budget  vetoes to work with them on ways to make thing make vermont more affordable so i do support the governor and i will work closely with the governor should i be elected to this position david where do you fall on this question of affordability what does that mean to you and is that a relevant issue in this case it's an absolutely relevant issue and the reality is most people are struggling to pay their bills there's a for ways to look at that equation from the role of government one is sort of sell by politics of no new taxes or has half of the budget last year when all that fourteen republicans voted for the first time around their governor vetoed the bill in order to put thirty or fifty dollars for a one time into people's pockets by reducing property taxes when i would argue raising minimum wage which was another bill the governor vetoed and my opponent helps sustain that veto as well fifty cents an hour fifty cents an hour be a thousand dollars a year in the average vermonters pocket so if you work forty hours a week i thing you'd be far better off  a thousand more dollars in your pocket if it doesn't outlaw than this one time thirty or fifty dollars property tax relief so i think it's important to hear these sound bites that feel good to really look at what they mean fundamentally the vast majority of  support raising the minimum wage the vast majority of the minor support paid family leave these are the family values issues that i think are relevant to that affordability discussion you know and we and we do i do support raising the minimum wage and i three years ago i did support that  and everyone will get a fifty cent per hour raise this year if they're receiving minimum wage so i believe that we should have a minimum wage and that every vermont of that is making minimum wage will get a raise i just want your factually i think this year it just goes back to a cola because not fifty cents has been fifty cent has been in this and what we now have is a cola so that where you're struggling now is where you will continue to struggle going forward your cost of living will go up and the way to grow up at the same rate the idea behind the minimum wage discussion was since working people have been falling farther and farther behind over the years many of us feel that we should give a little bit more than cola going forward and i think that we should reduce the cost of living and amount of money people are making will go further if they government live lives within its means then the miners will have more money in their pockets and they will feel the benefit of lower proselyting so david are you bullish on the vermont economy what do you think about our economy and what do you think needs to be done to make a sustainable future for our children no doubt it's a real struggle out there for a lot of folks and i think one of the things that's important to talk about is context vermont's a rural state and rural counties in this country whether they're red or blue are struggling and we're right in that mix we don't have the big i am bullish on our future is that we are in close proximity to incredible markets to our south southern new england new york new jersey we could where in vermont milk and get a better price for a product for our dairy farmers we could expand broadband into rural areas and people would have good paying jobs work with clients down in the southern new england area where you could meet with them every few weeks for a couple days but live in vermont raise your children in a safe environment some of the best rural schools in the country we've historically heard a lot of beating up on our schools when in fact we have better schools than most anywhere else in the country and so i think if we sell what we have good schools safe clean environment safe environment for our families and the opportunity if we invest in broadband and in our rural agricultural economy they've got a very strong future ahead of us don what's your view on the economic prospects of vermont and what do you what's your approach to sustainable future so so i agree i mean vermont i think there's a bright future in vermont but but if people keep believing because they can't afford to live here it makes it much more difficult in you know i believe that we need to expand economic growth and david i think touched on it that you know vermont is very different i mean there's fourteen counties in there are very different what's good here in burlington doesn't necessarily work in chelsea or down in dover or any other you know remote rural place so we've got to we've got to define our economy in a way that will work in different parts of the state so i don't think that we can just sit in my pill year and say this is the way it's going to be for everybody because what's happening is is chipping county greater broke than is thriving there's a lot of growth here a lot of potential here but we have to focus on regulation regulatory reform in a way that doesn't stifle growth in other parts of the state you know i believe act to fifty's it is a good law but we are stifling growth because people are using it to hijack the process you know that doesn't work we've got to create affordable housing all around the state not just in one part of the state you know and we also have to have health care competition we need affordable twitchin both on higher education and we bill people have to be able to afford child care which is struggling people are struggling to pay their child care so my approach is that one one bill doesn't work for the whole state so we've got to start looking at different parts of the state and look and regulate them in that manner can you give an example of when the activity process was hijacked sure i can tell a good one that i'm sure more many vermonters are aware of it is the wal mart store and  this took twenty years and you know the process you know that they get to a certain point that it would be stalled because it be opponents and the whole reason that was being a opposed was it was going to kill downtown st helens well today it was in beautiful today because wal mart came and it allowed the economy in that area to grow it creates traffic for the downtown stores we're seeing a prosperous st albans as a result of that project development there are other reasons that  prosperous well i would say there's a number of reasons there was a great effort at revitalizing the downtown with road and sidewalk work with investing in the community businesses that are in that main drag and frankly the proximity to burlington if you look at other communities that have had similar scenarios to just simply a wal mart being the savior of the day i really hasn't occurred in some of the other communities around the state does walmart help some people with low cost products no doubt but i don't think it's really fair to say that wal mart is somewhat revitalized franklin county i would say a lot of investment center lady deserves some credit for in a lot of border jobs up into that region of the state as well so i think it's like most things it's a combination of things it's not always sort of a simplistic answer that is that  leads to these kinds of solutions or strong communities particularly the people of a community small businesses of the community and the partnership between local and state government and businesses and non profits that really revitalize a community and you need if you don't have traffic you're not going to grow that that small downtown businesses and i didn't intend to mean it to say that wal mart saves in all of us i just think it's been prospering as a result of part of that i will give you another example we have  industrial park in milton we had a project developer come in wanted to build a truck sales with city he came in with through the town process we're open for business we have the capacity in water sewer and all that and the land he's a he goes through the whole perming process ready to get his permit the neighbor says i don't like your i don't like you next to my house appeal's the permit takes him six more months we're at the end he finally had to buy the house his only way he was going to get the land owner to stop appealing was to buy the house he ended up buying the house to get the project through which the town wanted it was in this it was in the regional plan it was it was a great project for a community in our tax base and yet here's an example where the fifty process didn't work i mean it doesn't it wasn't intended for that in my opinion i want i just want to get back to this question about vital small centers population centers like the scene all been mean you've both traveled around this state and maybe don you could say i mean if you don't have a wal mart in your town i understand your point of travel but what would you say to you know white river junction which is starting revitalization or springfield or these places you know what advice would you give them having been in franklin county and seeing what happen you know you know it's a difficult question that you ask i don't have all the answers but i have been to some really neat places around vermont this during this whole campaign and brought over as an example i think that that's really moving forward you know with the closing of vermont  yankee you know a few years ago remember the legislature was very dire what's going to happen to that part of the state when her money closes and what's happened is there's been an a t a partnership i think with lots of agencies lots of stating he se senators have helped out but they're working on ways to bring kids tying businesses to kids earlier in school they're using buildings they've been abandoned for incubator space so i think there is hope around the state but we're going to have to get creative and we're going to have to use or tax dollars wisely invest in public partner public private partnerships that's what it's going to take and you see that wilmington i was there i never i don't think it ever been a woman to me for and that's a neat little downtown and it's just great to see those little downtowns but i don't think there's one answer for all i think what you've got to do is look at him district by district by district and then have a plan that's a regulation that's adaptable to maybe brought over over says a river junction versus say all bins or even the northeast kingdom when you're on the connecticut river and you're competing with the hampshire it's much more difficult than say seeing all bids so i think we have to be very open to doing things differently in different parts of the state you agree with a fair number of those points however as a stay law you can't sort of cherry picking of the law affects different people different parts of the state differently that's where the both benefits and challenges of state laws i think where we can have some more different and targeted efforts is in our economic development resources and use those in those various ways and i think don talked about the investment of the state and local communities in brattleboro and in other places so that's pretty important but i would say for a town that you mention for instance springfield or right we're junction those are exactly the communities i was talking about earlier with respect to if you had really good broadband look what's happening right there are a junction with innovative creative creative ideas where there's the cartooning institute there that's really brought some energy to that community broadband jobs if they're based in springfield that you've been in springfield beautiful old buildings from sort of the industrial age most of them are empty because they're brown fields we need to invest  doing the studies to find out what would it cost to retrofit those buildings because the owners don't want to go near well first let's find out what the issues may be second if we have resources to help with those brownfield cleanups that would be an incredible place to live you could you know if stuck shops on the first floor commercial centers or maker space on the second floor and residences on the third or fourth floors you'd add affordable housing you rebuild of vibrant town and you'd be close to the to the interstates where again you could meet with those clients and customers out of state into the south so i think there's a lot of opportunity the last thing i would say is our schools are rural schools are phenomenal relative to other schools around the country and rural areas and we need to make sure that they stay open that they thrive and i know there's a lot of challenges around that forty six but a lot of the law was created to help save money on the overhead side so we can keep those schools open and i would add that what i think really need to dig into is not just writing on a piece of paper a line of what taxes should be or what ratio should be because every unique town is different that's up to the local school boards but look at what's driving the cost of education and that social services are we doing a lot of duplication of effort there between the agency of education and the agency of human services and i went to the governor and asked him about can we work together to save that money reduce duplications and create a better flow of service so those kids in those families can do better can i just say what i mean i think david's point i was in springfield last wednesday and meeting with the economic development authority they love to do what they would saying unfortunately the people are leaving so to try to to refurbish those old buildings is going to be challenging and a lot of more brownfields so it's going to take some work within the state in the federal government but if we don't make it where people can afford to live here position on public education how do you think we're doing and what when you address the affordability of public education i do i think we have strong schools in vermont i do my concern is though that the way we fund schools today it doesn't work for the students doesn't work for the teachers and it's not working for the taxpayers you know we've we see students today the students are getting less in the taxpayers are paying more we can't continue to do that so we need to you know we did do a better job spending our education dollars starting with kids younger and going maybe into higher education we start doing that a little bit but we spend one point seven billion dollars on essentially k through twelve we need to spread that out more and that's my belief i mean up to college looking at how we spend we spend very little on our higher education institutions and students in vermont compared to other states but my concern is the outcomes that our students get a are getting for those high cost per student dollars the education but our cost per pupil is very high you know like number one and number two depending on which poll research you know where you get the information so how do we do a better job doing that and keep our schools because we all know our schools are the heart and of our communities we know that and we don't want to see schools closing but we want to make sure students get good outcomes that's what i want i want to can i just ask your question yeah why do you think a mass corps a good outcome like do you think the outcomes we use for education should be examined well i think yes and the answer is yes but i'm talking about the student the whole student experience in the you know we can do test scores and all that and they don't look well but we've got in the state some schools that have five or six maybe eight kids you know that's that student is not in the same experience that a student may go to rowing to or even milton with the number of opportunities that are offered to those children those are the things that i'm talking about you know we need to find ways in our education system for efficiencies i think that we could keep more of these smaller schools open if we shared resources using technology have a teacher in one school but be teaching students all around maybe around the district those are things that i'm looking at and the other thing is when students when we have a small district and they're losing kids we should have the agency of education go in and work with that school to determine how we're going to continue to move forward so the student has a great outcome experience and it's affordable we do a lot with technology and i think for specialized programming we should do that i don't think for the everyday classrooms we should move in that direction we've had a lot of discussions in the research about school safety the number one proven scenario for making school safer is having connections between teachers and students so they can really see face to face and watch as kids become more withdrawn or other issues that are happening in school so i want to over  technology to have the kids in the five or a class five kids class not have a teacher in the room and have a screen off into them it would be one of those if i may to me those schools that i also have to point out some factual differences here vermont is in the middle of the pack when you compare from on to other schools all across the country with those metrics in those scores whether people believe in them or not that's where we are but when you say we're not doing better for the  money that's actually inaccurate because rural communities cost more to educate and we don't have the urban area that other states have that average out their cost per pupil scenario so when you compare actually apples to apples we are getting more for our money than most of those other rural communities are having better outcomes so the idea of just simply saying i'm going to find efficiencies up being overly specific that means either cutting teachers which most schools and most parents and most people in the community have said don't do that they vote for their budgets we need to support the local communities who are voting for their schools voting for their community centers and keep those schools open you know one thing i would say is that we have some incredible independent schools and stuff around the state i think that we have to focus a lot on school choice and that should be part of the that could be done that i think might fit the question so why don't we start with that don ok so i think it's there's a lot of education that needs to happen around that i did support a bill that we passed this year on racism  i also have been working in my local community melton as i said i'm the town manager last year in milton there was some real issues in the schools school district so the school district work together with the milton inclusive diversity initiative a group local group and they are started offering a called build a coalition which i as a tell me injure police chief librarian in director took part in because we know we need to educate this is not a school problem this is a community problem so i worked with that committee all last winter we brought in an educator to educate our staff and we will continue to do that on a regular basis going forward i am now meeting and we will continue meeting with the school the nonprofit and the town to go forward to start educating our community as a whole so i think education is the first step and there's going be a long process well a number of things as attorney governor is already done a number of steps from our movie series showing movie thirteenth which talks a lot about the thirteenth a member of the constitution and moved slavery you know ended slavery but also said you could basically have  indentured workforce in your prisons and what have we done with our military or the military the prison industrial complex that we now have in this country and we have an overpopulated incarceration rate particular people community of color in our state and also now exploding all the way to mississippi which is wrong so we have issues of criminal injustice that need to be addressed we have as don mentioned education is a huge piece but if you actually really look at it we need to survey our teachers and administrators in our schools all across the state and work with them to improve the conditions in our schools because it really starts when we are young and we have a very high rate of detentions and suspensions disproportionate for the community of color so we have to look at why is that happening why do we already have these built in bias sees whether it's in education whether it's in law enforcement and in each of ourselves as as white men we are privileged in our society that's the bottom line and not all the same but we have to be looking internally at what language we use and we have to model appropriately as well so it's everything from surveys and policies to individual actions that need to be addressed so we're we have about six minutes left so i'm going to let you both ask each other a question that you've just been dying to ask you know for plus years as a fire and rescue chief you're faced with all kinds of things the only way you do anything is to build partnerships i've in my time in the legislature in the last seven years as a leader have built relationships all through that body and i can continue to do that and i will focus on the issue and not not the party line i have not in my role as the house republican leader it was my job to bring the caucus together and to focus on issues the goals that they said so on and i did that i think i the team says that i've done ok and i worked hard on that but when you're in the position of being presiding over the senate you focus on the issue build a team around that and then preside and go forward question for  bill million in transaction costs plus another eight million in italy if decreased performance question yeah you can do you support the fiscally responsible to divest our state pension or do you stand with democrat treasurer beth peers and the  thirty million dollars to put into pensions that again you could push to get the budget on but i do support the discussion of diversity and from fossil fuel companies there have been actually many other studies that show and many investment firms and companies who have shown much greater return having divested over those last ten years more recently there may have been a shift in the last year or two because i have not heard that numbers that must be a more recent number with our president who has fully gall whole hog for fossil fuels and you've also received corporate contributions from fossil fuels so i can see why that all fits together for you but we actually have to look at addressing climate change we have to look at our individual actions our state policies how we can invest in our rural economy and how our pensions could be invested and make more money as well as moving away from supporting the fossil fuel industry so i do support that covers so what's the best idea that you hadn't thought of that you heard on the campaign trail well our i've heard from a number of people about affordable housing still being a great challenge and obviously the legislature was a part of this move forward to the major housing bond issue but i think there's still a tremendous short coming and shortfall in the resources to be put into affordable housing for the monitor's so one piece is to care where the name of it but basically to offer ten or even twenty thousand dollars to give folks a zero interest loan that you pay back when you sell the house for perpetual affordability to help with the down payment to get people into homes i would also add to that policies we have in place that actually were implemented while i was in the legislature around town centers and village centers and city centers that have reduced permitting for affordable housing and we could expand that to really encourage growth in our town centers and more formal housing thank you got it a minute know  know it's in brattleboro it's happening right now one of the things i've been talking about on the campaign is the lack of students people going into the trades for you know plumbing that plumbers electricians and so on was very excited to hear and  that they have a program that's introducing kids into the trades in the benefits of taking up a trade maybe beside going to college and they're injured and they're introducing them to employers at younger ages so six seventh and eighth grade versus waiting to they get to high school i think that's a great program i'm very excited about that if i'm elected i will be trying to bring that all around the state so i want to thank you both so much for joining us obviously vermont is a very intricate system and there are many ways that we can help improve the well being of the people in the state and we have two gentlemen here who are intent on doing that lieutenant governor david zuckerman who's running for reelection and don turner who is a representative from milton there's a manager town manager and also is