good evening and welcome so glad to have you join us here for continuing coverage of general election twenty eighteen here at channel seventeen we're wrapping up a month of debates with legislative candidates and we are here with three candidates in burlington's new north and it is district six one which actually covers a couple different words words four and seven so tonight we have carol already who is an incumbent and she's running as a democrat bob cooper who is a challenger and you are running as an independent democrat the democrat yes ok we should have that right and then we have curt right who is an incumbent running as a republican we're happy to take your calls we already have the slimmest ringing we have two calls from the outside world but we are going to begin with opening statements carol already would you tell us why you are running and what qualifies you for the position in the house of representatives in vermont ok well as i go door to door i hear that the economy taxes and vermont's quality of life continue to be your priorities and we're making progress on those things i voted for legislation to help with taxes and help the montana me grow i co sponsored a bill to make property taxes fairer by requiring a study of the education tax formula to take into account burlington student population i also co sponsored and and although the bill didn't go as far as it was intended to it eliminated for months income tax on social security for those filing singly with up to forty five thousand dollars yearly income and for those filing jointly with up to sixty five thousand dollars yearly income i voted to increase funding for lake cham plain cleanup and i voted for legislation to improve health care quality entered his costs by passing a law to allow vermont to design a wholesale prescription drug importation program at the feds give us a waiver my experience prepare me because i've had two years now experience in the state house on the house natural resources fish and wildlife committee i've been ten years on the school board in burlington seven as chair i was appointed by governor howard dean to the state board of education was on that for six years and chaired that for a year i've been on one family center board united way allocations you v m alumni council i've raised an enormous amount of money for remote legal aid through the vermont bar foundation i'm a former teacher and i'm a lawyer and i was elected by my fellow lawyers and shipman county to be on the bar foundation board and i worked with banking credit union presidents to raise funds for the foundation and the major donor grantee is vermont legal aid and  after just one year in the legislature i was recognized as a toll fellow went to a whole training for that in kentucky it's a nonpartisan group and i was recognized for our outstanding rising state government of ten seconds a the question was why am i running and i'm going to read this because i don't want to miss anything and after that it will be rather extemporaneous i'm running a server to try to make it a better place to live work and enjoy i think it's important that we recognize a significant p and not to continue to the significance of that position and not to get here the continuous promises every two years that things are going to change these seats are important and it's it's really incumbent upon the people who do the voting to recognize we were the first state in the union to outlaw slavery we were the first state to give women the right to choose history has passed and now we're the first state to have done civil unions and marriage equality and our own version of net  neutrality these things are important and it leads the country in a lot of ways we have to send serious people who have serious agendas down to one pill year to get things done by experience i have thirty years of working with the state as a child protection and probation officer i've been a small business owner i'm a veteran of our armed services i served as the elected president of one of our largest state employee organizations in that role i worked extensively to introduce and pass legislation that benefited working people i'm the chair of the burlington retirement board i was to lek to twice to the school board i serve on the board of the vermont veterans home supporting veterans around our state and i'm the strategic planning committee there i was appointed by governor scott i continue to sit on the vermont pension investment committee which is where we manage the four point five billion dollars worth of investments that the state has in  retirement funds for the teachers the state employees and minister workers and i am also recently appointed by the state treasurer to the green mountain secure retirement plan which is a private entity for increasing retirement investment of the citizens our state and i know government i know investments i know legislative process and i know how to get to the point of bringing people together where they can reach consensus and a deal i'm not the guy that's going to format incredible service to the people who brought in the people of our district in the north and in district six when and thank you too bob and also thank you carol already i certainly will not have anything bad to say about my opponents i don't even view them as opponents we have three think i should be reelected or why i qualified i tended a vent at the heidelberg senior center today and i just want to say congratulations to all the ninety year old residents a high number of senior center they had a party for those people today and it was great seeing old friends there and congratulations to all the folks there today great it was a great event i am running and i have served a new offense for a number of years in different capacities it's been an honor to have served in the north and the city council i've been elected as president by the only republican on the city council but i've been elected president which is an honor to me it shows i think that i work with her across party lines i've been supported by progressive democrats independents but i have i've made as a small business i've been a real it's are a number of things but i've also been involved in the community for many years even when i was on sabbatical from the city council i stayed involved i went to the n p a meetings which i served on the steering committee in the past i worked on a number of issues even when i was an elected position i never went away and i think people really respected and liked that but but i further i will get into the issues but i like so many new northlanders a middle taxpayer and i know the struggle that middle class taxpayers have in the north and and i worked on that will continue to work on that if we elected for two more years thank you since we have five calls waiting i'm going to just take their questions and then we'll get to governor and why we're you know how they came up to that choice thank you very much all right we're going to go to the next question hi there do you have a question for the candidates yes my question is what progress has been made with cleaning up lake cha chess ok thank you very much and do you have a question for the candidates yes mike my question if taxes and we do support program spending increases actually bring in less revenue if just one high income family left the state to avoid the new tax all right thank you very much we appreciate your calls good to hear from you and do you hope question for the candidates hi there all right that ok so why don't we just start with bob why don't we start with you who are you supporting for governor and why i'm supporting christina hoff west i'm a democrat i'm tending to support democrats i've known phil scott for decades great guy i don't necessarily think that he's moving vermont in the direction he necessarily should be i think that the pledge of not moving raising any taxes or fees effectively and in an economy where inflation is raise rising is effectively cutting services and funds available for government i think kennedy to how close has great ideas on what we need to do to move the state forward in areas of technology certainly faces challenges that not many of us have faced in terms of social agenda items like the positions that she's take much kurt wright who are you supporting for them and i will be supporting governor scott's reelection i'll go back to what i was finishing my opening statement with which is the affordability issue there is nothing that i hear more about when i go door to door nothing there's plenty of issues i hear about hear about lake champlain i hear about the potted plants downtown i hear about all kinds of things but the issue that continues to be first in people's mind whether it's senior citizens whether he is young families or  what have you is the affordability and the tough nature of living in this great state that we love and i think that the governor has focused on that like oh you know hasn't had a laser focus on that so i have great respect for his opponent and i certainly know job that our current governors are doing and i think we're lucky that we have two such good candidates who are willing to to rise to the challenge of serving as governor or two halves who have served as governor i think  she wants to connect her mont to the internet and be able to grow communities and is very concerned about the lake which is cleaning up lake champlain which is extremely important to the people in our area and certainly understands how to run a business and the vermont electorate cooperated for years and brought it from a from a an organization that was not doing well at all financially to one that is nationally recognized thank you very much so let's go into the question about cleaning up lake champlain in effect i would like to expand that to the waterways of vermont and starting with you curt how what progress have we made and how we're going to finance the cleaning up  supported that will deal with the infrastructure in burlington but then we have the algae bloom issue and other issues in lake champlain and other waterways of course as you mention lake champlain is of course near and dear to us here as one of our crown jewels but i supported  funding mechanism one of the one of them was a sheet it's called and that is the unclaimed bottle deposits that which brings in a few million dollars we have we also it was proposed in my committee the ways and means committee the ro meals tax i am not a big proponent of that the treasurer has a huge report here the clean water report which he has a ton of proposals for funding and we are going to need to settle on a funny proposal next two years i did vote for s to sixty with funding proposals in it on the floor it did get funding did get taken out in the senate so that was disappointing but i hope that we are all committed to as i said to this critical to the economy of burlington tourism if we let that lake go we begin to lose the tourist industry which is vital to the success of our city so in so many ways lake champlain is a lot with a bike path one of the  we need to protect and nurture the way thank you very much carol ot i supported and the legislature passed a budget that included fifty million dollars bonded money for the on return bottle deposits is going to hopefully bring in maybe six to seven million dollars a year and that's a non tax revenue source of funding that can go on for however many years it's study does give a long list of places that we might look to for funding sources one of those that we voted on this year was but it didn't go through was a two dollar increase in the r when people are sleeping overnight in a room that would really have raised millions of dollars and we are going to have to make it to us tough decision about how we're going to raise the money for lake cleanup because we need about twenty five to thirty five million dollars a year over twenty years and the state of vermont agreed in a memo of understanding with the federal government the e p a that we would clean up the lake and if we do it our way that will allow us to use the waterways of remark i had conversations with the treasurer first while the process was going on i fully support the angles that she lays out i think it's it's a mistake to only look at this is an issue of  lake agricultural ties in runoff all kinds of other things but i think we need to view the problem as one that is not isolated just to clean up the leak itself i propose doing a lot of environmental stuff that basically funds from everyday use of say single use plastic items where nobody's going to take them away from you if you want to use them as with many jurisdictions you pay a little extra for the privilege it's a behavior change issue i think a lot of the things that are ending up in has problems with a leak or human behavior change quite frankly for our city to have allowed our sewage problem to get to the point that it is is sad minimum we need to as a city address our contribution to that problem but as with a lot of problems i think when we look at them in isolation we don't necessarily take the best approach of solving them all right i'm going to keep going i thought all right i'm going to just take it away to circle back if you have a question for the candidates thanks for holding  injections right in ramallah what if any of the candidates support legislation to implement safe injection sites in vermont would they campaign ok so we're going to go back to our questions on state support for the high school expansion and carol you're the answer or first answer or if you could also tell us do you support the bond issue general obligation bond to expand the high school and do you think there's an opportunity to get some state funds for that project i do support the bond i think that as i go door to door i hear people saying that  aren't that they they understand that the building really does need work and that not enthusiasm for having a tax increase for but an understanding that needs to be  done i did introduce legislation last year that would have asked that asked the state to match some of the dollars that that cities and towns might have might need to do building projects like this but it did not make it anywhere and i would look forward to being sure that in seeing what i could do to introduce a bill that would allow thank you very much bob cooper your support for the bond issue for the high school and do you think there is some support from the state we could generate for that project i have you know unflinching support for the bond issue i took a tour of the high school recently and even though i used to be in and out of it a lot when i was working it was amazing how far it had gone downhill and i think i think i took a different perspective on the whole high school perspective  some at some in our community will put it that way i think that this is solely a local issue and i really strongly disagree with that and i put it in the context of so many of the things that we're going to talk about excellent questions that you've come up with by the way where so many of the tentacles of the problems we're talking about touch into the economic development arena and the example i give you is if you take any of your large businesses  that are there if you're half in here i b m digital mosque decides to put a battery plant here they send advance teams in your community they look at the resources that are available to look at the infrastructure and one of the things they would do would be walk into burlington high school and look around it if any the ten people that came to look at the high school had a mobility impaired child or knew somebody who was they would be moving to portland oregon to look at their next really quickly so our infrastructure is very important in terms of addressing the affordability of vermont because you get jobs in your community when you have support for those jobs and the high school as it sits now is an educational embarrassment even  teaching staff turns out the best and the brightest as an institution it really needs help but it's an economic development impediment and i think that's something that we have to recognize it would be nice if the building had been kept at a serviceable level for a long time but similar to memorial auditorium got it thank you very much current right so lauren there's been a freeze on state schools construction in the uphill year for some time i would like to see that lifted or eased somewhat so that there could be help for these type of things right now it's not it's on the seventy million dollars will be voted on on november but i will say that i was the lone no vote on the city council to put this on the ballot in november the reason is not because the high school doesn't need a major renovation i also went on the tour and i knew before even going on a tour that it's in just in desperate need of a major renovation however i mean this is a an issue of the magnitude of seventy million dollars to me needed more vetting more public input that's what i've heard going door to door not that people don't support it or think that there is an need for major renovation but this was awfully quick to come out in late summer time i know there's been work done on it for a while but  like this is in the public domain in the public sphere people really don't know that and people most citizens don't know what the plan really is and with two weeks left really now almost less than two weeks left in the campaign to november i think w have been much more better served to wait until march take the extra time get more public input and on a number of fronts do a better job here i again great work by the school board members i totally get the s s ability issue it was not an easy vo i had friends in the audience who had children with disabilities but on principle i had to vote that way because i believe that march is the better time to have an issue of that magnitude and take the time and do it right it's got to last for a generation but there's no question assess ability needs to be increased improved security safety and classroom size and it's just a matter of i think we would have been better served to have waited until march and make sure this is going right programs spending for the state budget and the question had to do with the millionaires surcharge tax it's out something you think is going to generate a significant urge to shift sufficient amount of money for the work we need to do and what's your overall approach and program spending what are your priorities for a program well it's hard to basically carve out one particular area to talk about generally taxation i think under this administration has been not applied in the best way i think that if you take into consideration something like the school tax the property tax there's a proposal floating around now where  goes completely over to income which i don't necessarily agree with one hundred percent but so many of the people that like two thirds of the citizens who want pay based in time wise now when you get to the final analysis and your income is adjusted the upper wage earners though in that card still basically don't pay the same amount it's a regressive tax at this point so as far as program  spending i think that at minimum program spending should go up at the rate of inflation otherwise you're decreasing budgets for things there are immediate needs in certain programs like environmental child protection child care great need for child care in the state those sort of things i think we need to look at independently you send people to montpellier to make decisions based upon need and their judgment for somebody to sit here today and say i'm not going to do this i'm not going to do that it lends you to the fact that the just aren't willing to give consideration to the changing environment that might happen down the road oil prices could double tomorrow or prices could go in half tomorrow thank you thank you to the caller i always start out every session by sort of clearing my mind and having an open mind on every single issue i have and i've had people say this at their doors to me that they are glad to see the changes in attitudes and ideas but on the actual tax issue i do not think there are enough millionaires to make a big difference and in fact we have to be very careful because i could give you example example after example of people i will mention the names on the air but that are hearing that out door to door now that are becoming florida residents or south residents six months and a day residence because if the taxation gets too burdensome that's what happens on the school finance system i will say that the  system that we have now is too complex to convoluted and confusing to explain to people there's a total disconnect in who pays we need to we got very close in the ways and means committee this year to a really bold proposal  so i think that we're getting closer kudos to my chair janet asshole who put forth a really bold proposal we worked on that for as long as we could but we ended up sending a somewhat pared down proposal to the senate i was very disappointed that the senate actually took everything basically out of that and sent back just a basic tax proposal without much of any reform at all which to me said the senate i don't know if the senate gets it that there needs to be serious significant reform and change in the property tax ot your view on program priorities for spending and the million or surcharge tax childcare is something that if we invest in that will be able to keep working families  workforce and we increase that spending by two point five million dollars this year but it's there's still not enough support to help working families the i think what that this tax that's being referred to is something an aged nine eleven which was our which was education funding changed and and a charitable tax change yes well there are a number of changes in that bell but the one where it was going to be a surcharge for education and then that it was going to make the property taxes go in half but get rid of all income sensitivity and then put a surcharge on the income and i thought that was  a very risky thing to do i didn't want people not to have their income sensitivity and i i thought if you something we have to ask ourselves is if you if you raise income taxes and want to area and you and you lower but you you start that tax and you lower the property tax both taxes can still prefer and so i think the more we have to get to the root of why the property taxes are going up the way they are for schools and to take human services needs out of the education budget and take some other things out of the education budget which we did do this year taking that off the backs of property tax payers and  i think that's what i do thank you well you know i think we would probably agree that this is one of the primary areas that we've been getting conversation with wouldn't mind doing another round on that subject  question more discussion all you want and same question i want to get through the questions from the people we have so little time i'm not sure we will but kurt this next question has to do with what's your comment on the state of the budget the state budget that's been passed over the past two years which may actually get to what bob is saying so it's a pretty global yeah if you want anyone to go when i go anywhere with ok i mean i think that the state budget has been solid i think that the governor has laid out his parameters for what he wants which is frankly that he doesn't want the taxes or fees increases and i think that our appropriations committee did a really good job kitty  tall i think that a good job with with the entire committee and working through that and for the last two years i think it's been done a good job in keeping taxes under control i will say going back to the previous issue since this is a global question that i grew system so that anything that's in there is strictly what should be for education funding and i do think i've talked to some people about this door to door and other experts at cetera who as we said i think human services we should look at that that is a huge hit on  budget in schools so i agree i think that is another thing that we should look at i do think that in regard to the income sensitivity issue i would want to do away with income sensitivity without making sure and that was one of the holdup proposal that we couldn't quite get over but i want to make sure that that people were protected and that the overall decrease was enough to make up for that in there because the the overall decrease in property taxes was going to be something like fifty percent but we couldn't quite get over the hump on that i think we i wish we had kept working on it because we were getting close and i think and we we basically as my committee chair said because of the crossover deadline for the senate we we went away from that it turned out the senate didn't want to do anything with it anyway on the on the charitable issue i know that's an issue near and dear to your heart and i actually moved for doubling of that tax credit for church herbal donations that even that wasn't enough so thank you thank you carol the state of the past two years i think we've done a great job we kept the rate of the budget growth in the past year to half of one percent and in both years to under what the governor asked us to increase spending by some we kept it to left them what was asked  invested in pension funds to save taxpayers money over time we filled our reserves guarding against inflation any coming recession and the changes in federal law and to keep our bond rating strong which helps  our state and local governments when they are doing any borrowing we have federal tax cuts came to us as a result of the federal tax changes that would have resulted in thirty million dollars more revenue to the state and we decided rather than do that we would simplify vermont's tax code and help working families and we did that by lowering all personal income taxes income tax rates by point two percent and collapsing  top two brackets we created of vermont personal exemption equal to forty one hundred fifty dollars per exemption vermont standard deduction of six thousand dollars for personal filers and twelve thousand for married couples and we expanded the vermont earned income tax credit from thirty two percent to thirty five percent of the federal and earned income tax credit and that is helps with the benefits cliff and is known as an excellent poverty reduction program it gives a credit against taxes to people lower incomes thank you palpable i agree with carol also i i actually think when you walk into a school when you see the number of of people that are there for ancillary services as opposed to education it gives you an indication of how much of other budgets are buried in the school budget mental health is an excellent example a lot of money flows through school budget into mental health services for kids necessary services mandatory services but  the state is sort of putting a little mask on them when they pay through them for a different through different budget means i think it would be more honest for vermonters period if the budget was laid out really clearly  this year's budget was good and i have really little indication as to why people went along with scott's veto it it did good things for residential property tax it i intended to do good things for renters and everybody else in terms of keeping things pretty stable it we put money on obligations that aren't in future going to be costing us more paying down the debt on the teachers retirement fund see if they saw a lot of money and we would have been better off to put money into that then cutting property tax for corporations and quite frankly landowners rich folk so on the whole pretty happy with the budget the shenanigan that that happened with the veto questionable and quite frankly somewhat illogical if you with the governor's veto i did why because i think that the governor again there was a question about taxation it was a big issue it was a tax on commercial business landlords which would have gone to followed both sides the governor didn't have an clear endgame to me and some of these proposals come out too late at the same time we should have stuck to the normal process for a veto it had a veto session and got down to business immediately what the governor's problem was what the governors issue was and they go she did instead legislate leadership said we're going to a special session and which they controlled the the agenda each day that we went up there and i spoke about this publicly as on record saying when are we going to get down to business and deal with the issue at hand and stop spinning our wheels which we were doing and we were we were wasting taxpayer dollars by doing that and so again the problem was that we didn't get down to business legislative leadership did not set up a process that that had to do that very any follow up to that well that's i've heard numbers as high as three hundred fifty thousand dollars that that veto in the subsequent endorsement of the vetoes cost  taxpayers i don't know where that money came from i know that every time i saw governor scott say i'm vetoing the budget it was curtailed right over his shoulder and it wasn't spinning his wheels spinning wheels there was an actually a lot of other legislative business got done during that period which if it had only been a veto session would not have happened ok so legislative leadership i don't think is  carol do you have any follow up on the budget veto session now follow that every spot of that in a sense that there is no question i was in the committee where we were dealing with it that we did not get down to business the legislative leadership and make clear that we're going to follow normal legislative process that is a link the link the process this was the normal legislative process on steroids and we did not get down to the business of dealing with the issue at hand and that we needed to deal with that is what kept us there too long i mean there there were problems on both sides and we had solutions at the end that there was a great disappointment we had a compromise that sort of fell apart but there are problems there are problems from both sides of us and that there and that's and we have to  not to put it all on one side is simply not being fair we have five minutes i'd just like a quick answer starting with you carol on would you sponsor or support a legislation on safe injection sites being available in vermont while i have read that they can save lives but i would have to know more about it haven't you bob i'd be really interested in the parameters the thing that we have in burlington now needle exchange program uncontrolled lot of a lot of my corrections friends are out moaning grass in the cemeteries in place and picking up boxes and needles all over the place it would have to be tightly controlled but i agree with carol it's a great lifesaver in terms of making sure people are doing something clean something safe in an environment where i would support thank you how about you kurt no i would not i think it's an incredible we have a limited finite resources and i think are better strategies than to have this is done nowhere else in the united states of america right now it is our attorney general has talked about and debates about the fact that it is illegal in the federal government is made clear that they were coming in criminally prosecute that's enough to stop us there we have other strategies that work far better than a controversial proposal to create and spend significant money in burlington or elsewhere that would be in burlington where we allow people to come in and do hardcore illegal drugs there are significantly better strategies that are being worked on the governor's opioid counsel has made clear now that this is not a good strategy not in terms of the resources that we have there are better strategies that are being worked out in that those who continue to be worked cameral as tonight you've probably heard very little in terms of debate because we've just been answering questions there are distinct differences between people who are sitting in these chairs tonight trying to get your vote i run as a strong democrat i stand behind the principles i disagree with the occurred on a lot of issues i agree with carol on a lot of issues that's just the party structure i think that the big thing  that needs to be said is when you send divided representation down there are some representation so that you might get a better deal and it's i make the analogy that when you're on the field playing baseball you  where the game goes when you're sitting in the bleachers you don't it's it's finish it's it's time that we move forward this business of veto stop veto stop does not serve us well it's an all your support it's been the honor of a lifetime to have represented you in the house of representatives i hope that what you want is what i have brought to the table for a number of years now which is a person who does not care about party party is not on my m all there's a clear record of that over and over again i have i supported the guns gun legislation when only a tiny number of republicans did i supported same sex marriage when only a tiny number of republicans did i was the only republican to vote against the governor's proposal on education to move the town the town meeting to elections for schools from march to may i don't think about party politics at all i hope what you still want is a legislator who does what they think is right for you for favorite part of campaigning is going door to door i love meeting people at their doors and hearing about how much they love their neighborhoods and vermont and we have three neighbors running for two seats out in the new north and  working hard for every single vote and if you support me i ask that you play go out and vote and whether or not you vote and no matter how you vote if i'm re elected i'll continue to represent you listen to your concerns and work very hard for you i want to thank you all very much for joining us evening there are a lot of questions some we didn't get to but we really appreciate the involvement i think the district six one gets the public involvement a word so thank you very much  following our continuing coverage here on channel seven to television don't forget to tune into live election results on november sixth and if you like the collection program feel free to give us a contribution to continue to provide the services by going to c c t v dot org donate thank you so much for watching