hello and welcome to channel seven teams town meeting television and another in our live twenty nine thousand candidates forums on tonight show east district candidates for city council running as a democrat we have richard dean and as a progressive jack hanson welcome to you both it's a pleasure sharing the four podium with you want to thank you both for your service and your willingness to serve our great city our form begins with the sixty second candidate opening statement followed by a round robin question and answer the candidates have been provided with the questions ahead of time this is also an opportunity for you our viewing audience to dial in and ask questions of the candidates themselves our phone number is eight six to three six six and now on to our opening statements richard dean will begin with you well thank you very much i really appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight and i also have appreciated the opportunity to serve the residents of ward one and war as your these districts the council over the past two years i have a deep connection to the city i grew up here from my parents moved here in one thousand nine hundred sixty four i went to high school half school middle school as well thank you very much and i've lived in this community for many many many years my family came back here twenty years ago after i had moved to washington c n n germany but drawn back here and that's because this city is such a fantastic place to live i think we all recognize that it's been a city of opportunity for me and for my family my kids now it you v m and someone's son soon to be a champlain and i think the important thing that we have to wrestle with is how to provide that kind of opportunity to people who want to stay here a senior citizens to young families who want to move here to young professionals who want to make a career here and a life here that is really the most important single focusing issue for all of us as we think about how to move forward make the city move forward in the future so i've really focused my two years on those issues as well as dealing with climate change and how to make having some kind of effect on this challenge that's in front of all of us as citizens of the world but certainly here in burlington we have some opportunities to to make a difference in my tent is and if i get another opportunity with another two years to move some of someone issues that i've already started on pearl street and i work at green mountain power helping customers to reduce their fossil fuel use my father grew up in burlington and my parents matt and you know i've been really involved the community as a musician as a community organizer while on campus co founding the renewable energy network and staying engaged since then with groups like sierra club and three fifty from mont and also working on restorative justice justice initiative i was part of the circles of support and accountability program you know help someone who had been incarcerated kind of reintegrate in the community and get back on their feet and reduce the risk of reoffending i've also been really engaged with local issues and local politics here in burlington and and frankly have been disappointed in a number of cases where you know i saw a lot of community members including in our district bring up some very valid concerns with the decision making process themselves from city hall and seeing those those folks being being ignored and being disrespected in many cases so i would like to to really focus on not only the issues that i worked on such as climate change and social justice and afford ability but also focused on the idea of communing gauge men and bringing more folks into this process and i really tried to get that started with with our campaign and with knocking on every door in the district and really having those two way conversation so excited to continue that work and hopefully be able to bring it into the city council very good gentlemen thank you very much for your opening comments our phone tree is lighting up like a christmas tree so we'll go right to our first caller collar we thank you for dialing in your  live with richard dean and jack hansen candidates for the east district city council do you have a question for our candidates curious mr bean what you see as your biggest accomplishment promoting that racial cultural and class justice here in burlington very good it's a direct question to you mr dean your thoughts on your efforts to bring equality well thank you this is a really important question i think we in burlington celebrate the fact that we live in a city where we have an incredibly diverse group and populations that come from many places around around the world jang who you know comes to us from africa it really is and mazing you know wealth that we have here in the community i think the most important thing that we can provide for all the people who are coming to us is a diverse and active economy that allows people to find a job we also have to have an education system that serves the young families that joined us as well going to interrupt you i think he was looking specifically for what you have done what i have done ok so i have supported i think getting back to that point about education it was my voice i think that really was one of the most important in the decision to renew  in high school something that's really important to twenty first century learning and providing access for educational opportunity and future success to everyone who comes to us in this city so if i were to look at and and  say you know support of a strong economy that supports those the people who come to us from other from other nations and other societies and that piece of that piece on the education jackets and your thoughts on  your personal efforts for diversity and inclusion in the city yeah i mean i haven't been on city council but i've certainly worked on the grassroots level with nonprofit organizations and within those organizations really doing what we can to incorporate anti depression into the work that we do you know internally in the way we interact with each other but also terms of how we interact with the community so i think a lot of it has to do with education especially you know for me as a white male if it comes down to being proactive about educating myself about systems of oppression and how i can work against those in terms of the city council and what i would want to bring there i think we have to look at systems that are still in equitable in  burlington such as our you know our outcomes in our school districts and outcomes in the way we police our community we have a long way to go so it's about consistent engagement and really putting in the resources long term to be able to combat those issues from the city level we're good  if my numbers are correct in that when i've looked at terms of my experience managing budgets you know i haven't managed to buzz it budgets of that size but i've definitely managed budgets before as you know co founder and leader of various student really one of the great experiences that i've had i've also you know was the campaign manager for for chris pearson's campaign for state senate in two thousand and sixteen and you know managed relatively healthy budget for that since we had a lot of small the two thousand one thousand fiscal year budget is around two hundred million seventy million of that is is the general fund about another ninety million of that is with our enterprise funds which includes the airport  r burlington electric part which is very very specific successful our water and waste water system as well those are at a price funds so i have been very very attentive to the to the budget budgeting process i've sat through i do go to the to the meetings where we're actually discussing what's what's going on in the budget and what the priorities are so i certainly done that personally i am a business owner part of  a group that manages a firm downtown and we are budgeting every year in terms of our our marketing and our investments in the firm that's something that i've discussed with all of my partners it's something that we deal with on a an annual basis so i have that hopefully that would be two hundred million but it's not it's much less than that but essentially i have the experience through my work at the city council level and on  personal level working as a business person to deal with complex budget issues we're going to we're going to move right on to our next caller caller you're live on the air with district city council candidates what's your question yeah it was i read the tweets and it was it was really disappointing you know having having gotten to know mohamed i was i was surprised to see that and disappointed and i think it's really important that we're having this process of accountability and making it clear that you know those types of statements are completely unacceptable within our community so i think this is an important moment to be able to highlight that and have this conversation in terms of you know what we do from here i think that's going to be partly up to the campaign but i think from a community perspective i would tie it back to a lot of the work i've done around restorative justice and that is that you know if someone has you know committed an offense that has harmed people i think it's important to to bring that person in into the discussion and work with them to to be better going forward and fortunately you know mamma does someone who is really doing that work to to make up for his past actions and try to be better on issues of massage any and of sexism and so it's really important that we keep this dialogue going and also use it as a reminder and it's an opportunity that we need to be proactively dressing these issues as a community richard your thoughts well i have to admit being shocked by hearing and reading some of the massaging istic comments that came  and understood in years past and the younger person someone who you know a couple of years ago was was voicing these things so i think that's something to be said about maturity and about growing up and so i think the candidate will have to think about that what i'm really concerned about though and what really gets me raises questions my mind is the candidate continues to enjoy the endorsement of rights and democracy in the jaffar has addressed those issues directly in our south district candidate forum you are invited to go online and watch that forum and learn his direct response to that question moving on now we've got more brigidine your thoughts on the city trying to change in the wording right so yes i have read that language in fact i've read it many more times than most because i am part of the charter change committee who's charged with understanding what is being proposed so i think i do have a very clear understanding of what's being proposed and i think what we see is an opportunity for us to take a success the church street marketplace that came to us thirty years ago almost forty years ago now and extend that except success from four blocks to forty blocks of the downtown it gives us an opportunity through investments made by the  property owners on the in the downtown to connect to the church street all the way down to the waterfront such at the experience of the downtown safety and hand services a sense of downtown extends all the way from our church marketplace down to the waterfront the opportunity is there it's funded by taxpayers but by the merchants themselves the people who are the business owners and property owners on the marketplace so it's not anything that comes out of the taxpayers pocket i think that's fantastic jack have you read the charter change wording and how has it informed your decision about it yeah so yeah i've read it as well and  oppose this ballot i think this this downtown improvement district first of all the current model to achieve marketplaces is this cause i city entity this new model would be a nonprofit entity so we would be giving up a lot of the ability to control the sun today so i'm not necessarily opposed to expanding out but giving up that control i think is unnecessary and i'm also concerned about how downtown improvement districts have played out in other communities where they have you know driven up  the cost of housing in other communities and in some cases lead to you know harassment of homeless or other marginalized people through you know private security forces so i definitely have concerns with that and i also think that this item was really it was irresponsible to put it on the ballot because there hasn't been a deep enough community engagement and education process you know when i've gone around knocking on folks doors only a couple of people have been aware of what this was and of those people that were aware they either didn't know what to think about it or they opposed it so i haven't met anyone on the doors who actually supports this initiative and i think it was it was rushed to put this on the ballot you know with knowing that we haven't had enough of a discussion downtown that's absolutely not true there are no city assets public assets that are transferred to the new id and there are no governmental responsibilities that are given up to the governing board of the d i d that's just not true and i could read the but i won't there is a piece here that says that absolutely that you know the other point about there being enough time this has been under discussion for many many months i know it's a difficult issue for some there are some nuances but i think we need to realize that this is a successful downtown model that were extending to a larger portion of downtown jack a response yet so so i think you know the govern board as i understand it and again it's been shifting so much that side hard to  keep track but it would be an eleven member board and you know five of those members would be not appointed six of them would be appointed by city councils but five one and so we are giving up part of that governing governing structure and losing control but also as i say you know there's concerns with how this is played out in other communities and the biggest point for me is just the fact that as i said i haven't talked to anyone on the doors who fully understands and supports this we're removing all we've got callers waiting to adalian and ask questions of our east destroyed city councillors collar you're live on the air and you have a question for our candidates yes i have a question for richard my name's carter and recently i myself in a group of young renters living in burlington called you to express our support for keep going to telecom local when i called you you unfortunately hung up on me and told friends of mine will also call but they were just young people so they didn't know what they were talking about and since you since then you've actually reached out to apologize which we all you know very much appreciate it but what have you learned about community engagement from this experience and how can community members like myself trust that you're committed to rip us community engagement even with those who you might disagree with i you know i appreciate your call i do agree that there was a time one phone call that i made or you had with me were at the end of a very very busy day that i did not treat you as well as i should i called you the next day and apologized and i thought you accepted my apology i don't think there are any other cases that you mention past there that are just not the facts at all i think that i have in my candidacy as a city councillor engaged very fully and robustly with the people that i represent they have every opportunity to talk to me we talk about city issue who's that are important i've heard from many people on both progressive sides and the democratic side pacific issues about my neighborhoods and have been an advocate for those dressing those issues in the neighborhoods a very forceful advocate so i think i'm doing very well jack hanson your thoughts on community engagement yeah i mean it's huge for me it's fundamental and that's why as i said we've been we've been knocking so heavily on the doors and really having those two way conversations this is something you know having done two years at  value is being able to learn from people of all walks of life in the community in each of those conversations as an opportunity not only to share ideas but but to get feedback and really learn what people are concerned about and i think when we do that and when we bring in those different voices we are able to get to better policy outcomes as a result so i would i'm living that out on the campaign and if elected would live that out as the city council thurgood removing right on we have another our caller dialing in to ask a question of campaign contributions even the one that you alluded to the other night do you agree or disagree with the line that all corporate campaign contributions should be banned in vermont  do agree that it should be and perhaps i misspoke and didn't understand the question as fully as i should at the the word one more date candidates form i think the point is that the point that i tried to make at the forum is that there are many people who are businesspeople in this community who are they have the right and should have the right to support a candidate that they believe in that that that talks about the issues that are important to them and these are and i mentioned a few you know these are these are great community members people who own the ski rock people who own lunatics people who own sweet waters those are all you know part of the fabric of downtown and i think they should as members of the community be able to have a  voice jack hansan your thoughts on the state senate proposal about campaign contributions and yeah well it's exciting and i'm really glad we've taken that step i think it's a critical one and you know i absolutely support eliminating all corporate campaign contributions and you know won't ever accept any or seek them out and i think yeah of course you know if community if business owners in the community want to contribute as as individuals of course i agree  with certainly but in terms of business entities themself contributing i think that leads to a number of potential problems or at least even the appearance of conflict of interest so i think it's very critical to our democracy that we take th curious for mr dean a lot of your campaign literature has talked about your concern about climate change and for me this is really an important issue because as we've seen from the recent in our governmental power on climate change report we now basically down to twelve years to have transform change our energy system and i'm curious what specifically you've done as a city councillor to reduce emissions in burlington and then for a minister and then a question about what policies and programs would you support to reduce emissions in the city very good saying thank you very much for this question i was hoping we're going to get to this so specific actions that i've taken as a city councillor is as part of a committee that was looking at our new downtown foreign based code i was very supportive of putting in requirements for green buildings in the downtown our downtown buildings must meet a lead gold certification which really helps us i've been supportive of the district energy system that takes waste that will if we can make it work take waste from the waste heat from the mcneil generating plant and use it to the hospital university in downtown buildings and more personally to me is an effort that i have led in the past two years called burlington wild ways where we seeking to take the fifty percent of open and natural lands and twenty five percent of those actually in urban wild lands and connect them together with a trail and share conservation value so that people can connect directly with the beautiful and treasured wild lands that exist in burlington then we don't know very much about that's and it's equitable access to that and it makes people value and understand what it means to have wild lands right here in burlington jack create yeah i'm god i'm god we this question as well and climate change has been really the biggest issue that i've focused on since high school and in my greatest passion and it's what i do for a living is working with with customers green mountain power where i work to drastically reduce their fossil fuel consumption and their greenhouse gas emissions so i would be excited to really bring not once the city council and we've done a lot in burlington and we've come a long way but we still have a really long way to go and it's important to really keep focused and keep pushing to get to net zero by twenty thirty as burlington electric department has discussed and we're going to be getting back you know a report from an economic consulting firm on different pathways to get there and i think this is an opportunity to as i mentioned before open it up to the community basically choose a pathway one of the ideas that i've been really promoting that i'm excited about is shifting you know looking at the fish and seeing buildings and looking at how efficient so inefficient so many of the buildings in our district are because the burden of the heating bill falls on the renter rather than on the landlord and so there's not an incentive for the landlord to make those upgrades i think we need to shift out and look at what was done in boulder colorado where they did actually shift so that's been one of the biggest items that i've been talking about from an affordability perspective and a climate perspective thank you candidates will have one more question here before our closing comments and this question is very personal for us you're a channel seventeen and public access in general throughout the state of vermont the f c c is considering doing away with the regulation that requires cable subscribers to pay a three dollar access fee which actually funds public access if that happens that could be the death knell for public access here in the state of vermont what are your thoughts on the future of permanent funding for public access and jack we'll begin with you yeah well this is great and this is a great community service that we have throughout the state and that we're experiencing right now and i think we're going to need to step up on the state and local level to make sure that funding is there there that's through  pressuring our telecoms to do so or at the state level if we can't do either of those we have to look at what the city can do to make sure that we keep these programs alive that are that are so important to so many of us  you i agree with jack i think that it's clear as i see channel seventeen at the city council meetings late at night covering this for everyone covering the important issues of the day that we need to preserve funding and keep this vailable to our community i think that funding needs to come from the state it's possible if we can convince the feds to continue their funding somehow although i'm skeptical that will happen but i think a point that was made previously is that you know the internet is really where we're headed and that the funding needs to somehow come from there would not my last choice would be to somehow make this come from city taxpayers i feel as though the burdens that we are looking at today are high enough certainly we're facing more in the future so i don't think that's that would be my last choice as to where to go and a good time for closing statements from our candidates and jack hansen will begin with you sixty seconds please great well first of all thank you so much for this opportunity thanks to both of you for gauging in this with me this is this is a great opportunity to really talk about how we can move forward on these issues and you know i'm looking to not only address these key issues and be someone in in the city council that would fight for you but also someone who really would talk to you and engage you on a deep level and you know bring folks into the process early on in diversity of voices and really being proactive so that we can get better outcomes and also i would want to bring it back you know to just my lived experience in the district as as a young person and as a renter trying to make it work here i think one of the biggest things we want to do in burlington is be able to attract and retain young people to lay down roots here moving forward and i think i have the ability to understand what those challenges that we face are and how we can actually do that having seen friends the old leave the community and being priced out and having seen folks that were able to make it work so i think that's a perspective that is really needed on the city council and i would be you know so fortunate to be able to bring that on thanks and richard dean you're off closing comments please and thank you very much and i appreciate the opportunity to be here and to share a podium with jack who i deeply respect i think this is a great dialogue i think we share many of the same values in fact i think we share most of the same values as a candidate's belief in this community  concern about the environment and wanting to make a difference and i think that what i can bring that perhaps jack can't quite bring is not just a few years of lived experience but an entire lifetime of live experience in this community  i am someone who you know has a business here i have my family here and i've made important changes and important improvements in the city as i've worked for the past two years as these district city councilor  committed to having more affordable housing in the city bringing making sure that right landlords are responsible and in providing good housing and opportunities for housing within our communities and i am also committed to having the university of vermont do what they can to bring to take the pressure off our neighborhoods so i would welcome the opportunity to be if you would support me to represent you for another two years and thank you again my thanks to our candidates jack hanson and rich dean it's a pleasure sharing the stage with you tonight best of luck to both of you on election day reminder to you our viewers that early voting has begun you can contact your local town clerk and pick up an early ballot today and reminder to join us for election night coverage beginning at seven pm on town meeting day tuesday march fifth right here on channel seventeen for all of us at c c t v i'm at kelly thank you for watching good night