two three nine six six the ground rules for tonight's form are that the candidates will make opening statements up to two minutes each followed by pretty prepared questions also for two minutes with a possible one minute rebuttal tonight i'm joined by the two candidates erick and christine thank you both so much for coming up i think we are going to start with opening statements eric's going to start us off and tell us eric why you're running and what qualifies you for the position well thank you so much for having us here tonight and also a big thanks to all the c c t v folks who are behind the cameras and in the control room and we all do such amazing work promoting access to local democracy and for transparency so it's hugely appreciated i also want to thank my opponent for being here tonight and for your interest and a running the serve our city which we both share right now i think when you see is that a really pivotal point the decisions we make now we're going to have an impact for five ten twenty five years and even longer down the road what i think when you s really needs in america somebody who will be a strong voice and an advocate for our city you know even if it's something as simple as doing the bridge repair with burlington or discussions that we're getting in on a regional or statewide basis when the legislature is making decisions that come back and have a huge impact on our community i'm the candidate who has the experience and the skill set to really get things done for when you ski right now i work as chief of staff for over my secretary of state jim condos and i think that experience that i have in those statewide and regional legislative and policy settings and the network that i've built as a result of those work experiences that i've had make me to meekly qualified to be able to really be a strong advocate for the needs our city and ensure that the decisions that are being made that impact our quality of life and when you ski are done in a way that is conscious of those needs so i appreciate the discussion we're going to have tonight and look forward to continued discussion on doors with person thanks so much to christine tell us what qualifies you for the position of mayor thank you i also feel like this is a really exciting time to be in when you see we have a lot of big projects and a lot of work ahead of us and i think we need leadership that is really going to focus on the implementation while looking at the bigger picture and the long term impacts so ensuring that the decisions we make now are financially sustainable that we have resources available to address needs throughout our community  my participation in council and previously on our housing commission has given me a good understanding of the work that's ahead of us and my day job as a business analyst at a nonprofit organization has prepared me to bring that like systems level focus to this work i work on project implementation i look at budgets i look for sustainability and efficiency in the work i do and that's the kind of i want to bring to this role i think we need someone who's really focused on details and also takes a very collaborative approach to the work we have a lot of great organizations great residents great businesses that we need to be talking to throughout all of our decision making process so that we are making decisions with our residents and not for them and that process focuses what i want to bring to this role and to our city green thank you both you both quick speakers ok when you're going to do a lot of questions tonight this will be great more content that's right exactly exactly great so i see both talked about these important decisions that are going to be made when you ski soon that will impact the future so tell me what your top three issues are that you going to work on if you're elected and we're going to start christine sure so like i said my focus is really heavily on process and long term sustainability we have main street and poor placement projects that voters are expecting action on and particular with the poor rapidly so i want to make sure that we start implementation we get that work underway but that we are also considering throughout the process the impacts on the resources that we have for other needs in the community second that we are also considering the impacts on  affordability so affordability is a concern throughout the country throughout the states and we need to make sure that we keep new ski affordable for all residents across the entire income spectrum and the decisions we make with our infrastructure can certainly impact that the third thing i really want to focus on is the public process in general part of our strategic vision is that we will foster relationships within when you ski and we need to do more as the leadership body to do outreach to do community engagement to connect with these existing groups businesses and residents to make sure that they are part of the decision making process and that we're bringing in as many voices as we can great eric tell us your top three great well i  think the top three issues that i would be focused on are primarily governance affordability and sustainability so when we're diving into thinking about governance i think it's important people understand what the role of the mayor is and what the role of the council is and that's really as a strategic policy vision setting body really there's going to be a lot of attention right now that's paid to the mayor's race but equally important we're going to have a brand new body of prime you know they'll be three brand new councillors that are on with that brings a lot of challenges and i think that's one of the things that i am highly concerned about a lot of these discussions about implementation and operations i don't think are the appropriate discussions for the mayor of the body to be ha g we have a city manager a strong form of government for a reason we have amazing paid professionals that are much greater experts in their issue areas than we are and it's really the job of the mayor and the council to set that higher level strategic policy we write the destination and it's our staff job to write the roadmap for how we get there i think it's also really important that the mayor focus on how the body actually governance and really that needs to be done by ensuring that everybody at the table has the information that they need to be able to move forward confidently and get to a point where they're able to make a decision as a body so i think governance and how the mayor is actually operating within the council is incredibly important i think my opponent touched on a little bit but affordability is the number one issue in our city right now and many of our longtime residents people who live in our city are starting to feel that pinch point so i think we need a strong focus on policy that ensures that as we develop we're doing so in a way that preserves affordability for residents so that we don't go through the process of starting to price people out and then last this is sustainability you know if you look at our infrastructure we have pipes underground that are one hundred years old and we have serious infrastructure investment needs that we're dealing with now and that will be dealing with into the future what we need is a strong plan to address those needs in a sustainable way and to also ensure that we're building in and not underfunding maintenance on projects or continued work on individual projects from a year to year basis so that we don't end up in this position where then we need to sink a lot of money into extensive repairs because we have underfunded those ongoing operational maintenance needs thank you you both talked about affordability so i'm going to i'm going to jump ahead to different question  absolutely on the right track and i think we made a lot of progress when we're talking about development on our there are core doors which are those three major roads that lead into our downtown by the circulator so you know well it's bath main street in east allen and i think we got that form based code that zoning ordinance to you know ninety ninety five percent there we're almost at the finish line but we need to run those last few yards to get across and i think what's really missing there is those guardrails to have been in place that ensure we have the resources and means to encourage and incentivize affordable housing development within our city i think we also need to look broader at the city as a whole and why we are actually doing with arizona policy and how that is either helping develop what type of development that is helping encourage within our neighborhoods and how we can ensure that we're supporting growth within our city without taking away those unique qualities of our city that make it such a special place to live i do also think that the municipal master plan that will be the first major action that the new body will be taking and that's something that there has been a considerable amount of work that has been put in by local regional partners community volunteers are amazing experts on staff it is a fantastic document that can really that really sets out the vision for how we can sustainably move towards the when you see we want to see in the future and it's a fantastic document but i also think as we're looking to do with say the main street revitalization project we need to look at accessi you know how our members of our community are able to travel our sidewalks and streets one of the things i would look to do as mayor is to establish an accessibility advisory council or exists ability advisory committee a group of individuals who are directly impacted by mobility issues to be able to talk to us as a city and say what their needs are or what challenges they face when it comes to navigation in our city ok christine talking about economic development  developing affordable housing i think that we need to be mindful of the big picture of housing and that we have a diverse housing market that supports everyone who wants to be here we had a housing needs assessment done for us a while back i think twenty fifteen that said that we needed to focus on maintaining and improving our existing affordable housing it showed that we actually have a pinch point in housing for middle income folks so i want to make sure that we don't get so focused on affordable housing for low income that we're ignoring and and progressing that pinch point on middle income and then we have folks who as they're moving up in life they're not able to find a place to stay here we need to also think about the decisions you're making and how they impact homeownership that's something we absolutely want to encourage and it's difficult to do and where we don't really have space to build new single family homes i would like to keep that top of mind because i'm invested in active community is really one of the things that keeps people that makes people want to be and when you ski i think the municipal plan does a good job of getting at that supportive environment one thing that i feel is left out is really that we need collaborate more with our school district schools are very important to the people who move to a new school the people who live here and there's more we can do to work with them and to bring up the perception of the schools to make sure that we are supporting each other and the folks have an understanding of what it is i've heard plenty of concern in the community about young families moving away because of this misperception about the schools performance level and i think that's a critical thing we need to address ok great things we have to phone calls while so we're going to jump to that hi there you're on the air oh welcome yes my name is alice i'm calling in about the when you skip school committee they've done a wonderful job fundraising and come up with a public process i did not support the original design of the pool i wanted to see a scaled back version that was more more in line with what we used to have and really consider of long term financing that said we came to a compromise on the council and through the support of voters to a slightly scaled back design where the fine work fundraising committee who is working very hard is going to cover some of the the pieces that were removed by coun i absolutely support moving forward with that what was supported by the voters that vision is where we're at we're already past the halfway point on engineering design there's really no turning back at this point anyway the next step of the pool process you know so voters supported that bond vote they supported that design the next step is them supporting our new fiscal budget that actually funds that and so i look forward to seeing voters reinforce their decision there this is the design they want they want to fund this i as an heir would absolutely be supporting moving forward with that work ok great eric the pool design and fundraising committee unequivocal yes i think the pool is such a valuable important resource that's been missing from our community since it's been shut down i think if you look there's significant data that shows if kids have healthy outdoor recreation opportunities it stems substance use it stems crime  youth and there is a significant need in our community for those types of recreational opportunities and programs for our kids if you go spend any time at our o'brian community center after school hours or during the course of that weekend there are a number of our community residents and youth that don't have those places to go so providing a pool and providing that safe space for our whole community to congregate would be such an incredible asset for our community i think scaling back on the pool  is a major mistake i think that if we're going to invest in the significant community resource and spend a lot of money no matter what let's build it and let's build it right and by scaling back and value engineering down component quality of the pool we might still be spending a lot of money for a municipal owned asset that won't last nearly as long so i'm an incredibly huge supporter of the pool i look forward to seeing it move forward and believe that it's a significant investment for our community not just in what we're offering to residents but for quality of life for the whole region i would like a shorter bottle you can have a sugar bowl please your references value engineering when the council came the decision to move for the value engineering we ensured and confirmed with the engineers that are working on this project that the pieces that were value engineered out did not have an impact on long term sustainability and operations so i am comfortable with it up further so we can have more time for the community to weigh in ok so probably not till then next the next town meeting would that be like another year in the determine exactly it could be  we're going to start with the police so i absolutely support what i call resident voting and i was the one that had initially brought it forward to council for consideration right now we have a number of our community members who live in our neighborhoods may own homes pay taxes either through their home ownership or through their rent send their kids to our schools but then have zero say in how their local tax dollars are being spent on their kids education or on the same cracked sidewalks that they and i walk together i think one really important way we can engage all of our community in these important discussions around the future of our city is making sure that everybody has a seat at the table and sometimes that means growing the table so i was absolutely in support of moving noncitizen voting forward and putting it on the ballot for when you see voters to consider because ultimately it's a multi step process first voters would need to approve it and that's after the process by which it gets on to the ballot once when you see voters approve it would go to the legislature and then the legislature would ultimately be able to decide whether or not they approve our charter change that we send to them so in the discussions we were having as a council when it came there were a group of three of us myself and christine included that were in support of moving it forward up until the final vote to actually put it to voters so that when you see voters could one way or another whether they're in support or not could decide whether or not to send that charter change to the legislature and on that final vote it was actually just myself and representative colson who we just heard from that supported moving it forward i think that that's really unfortunate monthly or did move forward and pass it on the ballot that they had in front of voters in november so they're in the legislature and as the most diverse community in from of i do feel a little bit ashamed that as a city we weren't there with them ok christine we're talking about non citizens voting and putting it on the or federal level as eric mentioned i have supported this i have supported this expansion of voting of having more voices of the table when we came to the point of deciding whether or not support on the ballot what we discovered is that we had not done our due diligence we had not engage the stakeholders who would be impacted we didn't speak with new americans we didn't speak with nearly enough people in the community to find out what their you know what supports will they need what concerns you they have i go back to my point about public process being the most important part of this role that we need to do this right and make sure that decisions are happening with people and we're not doing them to them as someone sitting on the coun making that decision i felt like it was something i was doing to these people without actually engaging then and that's not something i want to be a part of i absolutely support fostering the committee that we have a stir i wish to carry that forward so there's a resident driven committee spending the time to do the thorough investigation of what needs are going to arise and doing the outreach to make sure we're engaging all of our communities all of our community members and really understanding how we can implement this in the future and takes really quickly to reflect back we heard you know i know of at least six individuals who were non citizens directly impacted by this non citizen when you see residents that either spoke out at our public hearing as we were considering this issue or reached out to the whole council individually to say i am an individual who is directly impacted by this and i support moving it forward and i think that it's a shame to discount the stories of those individuals who are the people who are directly impacted by this and did reach out and express their concerns and within that process that we would have passed and put it on the november ballot there was a significant public input component of that including multiple public hearings by which the public engagement in this process could shape the final language that ends up on the ballot to undocumented sure i do not discount the stories of those six folks who reached out to us but i want to acknowledge that we didn't reach out to anyone ourselves and that's not the way to go about decision making as this city council we we can't make big decisions for the city in like a three month time period that time we spent working on the pool you know that's twenty sixteen i believe when it closed down the time that's gone into for me it's code and the main street project the fact that we weren't spending the same amount of time and effort in putting the same energy into this very important issue that really touches people in the heart i think is a shame and i'm pleased that we are moving forward in a way that does dedicate the appropriate amount of time in the appropriate amount of public engagement to that decision ok well you know let's follow up with that and let's talk a little bit about how the city is supporting new americans and undocumented residents curious to hear you know what are the things you you would like to see happen i think you've referenced some of them already but let's talk about a little bit more detail it seems like start sure  city resolution back in twenty sixteen and have already been kind of guiding some of our policy with that so that we are making decisions we want people to access for all residents to access resources in the city without being afraid we have made some steps on fair and impartial policing policy you know our police department is not going to use their limited resources to enforce immigration law they have other things to do at a local level that are very important i think that expanding beyond that i would go back to taking a collaborative approach their local organizations like migrant justice that are already connected to these communities and already understand the needs that are out there those are folks we should be connecting with so that we can make sure we have that understanding and we understand where we can plug in and where we can be of more help so that when we make a decision that this is how we want to support this group in our community that we've actually heard from them forward and i had noticed and worked with individuals worked with migrant justice and worked with other directly impacted community members and organizations to identify there were still a few areas of vulnerability within that policy opportunities where we wouldn't have been offering the best protections available for our immigrant community members and worked to shore up the vulnerabilities in that policy and i'm really proud that that policy i brought forward to council we were able to pass unanimously and now we have what is one of if not the strongest fair and impartial policing policy or sanctuary city policy in the entire country i think that that's incredibly important not just for the protections it offers to those community members but also for general public safety because if even so i am a citizen if a non citizen neighbor of mine notices that somebody is breaking into my house and they're wary that if they call our police department to alert them and act as a witness for that break in that they might end up being funneled through a police department into immigration control and force meant that there would be retribution on there and so they would might be disincentive eyes to call and that public safety for all of us living in when you ski so i'm incredibly proud that i brought that policy forward in that we were able to pass them porton protection and i think this conversation circles back around to the discussion we were just having a non citizen voting we need to ensure that people have a voice at the table and you know i think this is a conversation we have been having in our community for years and years and years and was at a point where some members of our community were ready to vote on and move forward and lastly i think we need to ensure we have appropriate translation services available one of the i asked that our last council meeting is that we gauge the secretary of state's office in a proactive conversation about translation services at the polls so that those members of our community who are coming to vote on who may not be strong english speakers have the resources available to be able to participate in our civic process so i think that's an incredibly important discussion but it also extends to important city communications that we're putting out there we need to work with organizations that will help us appropriately translate documents for residence so that we're communicating information to all members of our community in a way that they can that is accessible for them and i believe we're not we're  community and our city has really come such a long way and i think that it's important to recognize that vital history and how we've grown and developed to be an incredibly special and amazing community that so many people want to live in and have a strong connection to but i do think that we have some significant challenges ahead of us as we think through a lot of these discussions around long term sustainability and affordability i am really excited that we're  in this discussion that our whole community is so interested in the direction of our city and you see that our public process is where we're having discussions around main street community dinners around the pool wherever it might be i think that as mayor i would bring a significant asset to the community given my professional experience working as sheaf of staff for a secretary of state to really be a strong and effective advocate for our city and that comes down to so many different factors whether it's legislation that's being passed that impacts our community in a huge way or ways by which we can grow go out and seek funding or discussions we're having about incentivizing investment or development within our community so i really look forward to the conversation we're going to have over the next month i want to thank you first being willing to step up it's been a real pleasure to serve the on the time that you've been on council i hope that regardless of the outcome on march fifth that we still are able mayor dot com this information about my issues ways to get involved with the campaign a list of the many community leaders and neighbors who have stepped up to support my campaign and i hope that i can count on your see ten years ago i spent most of last ten years here i guess i'm here over movie i own a home there i have family there i am deeply invested in the future of when you ski it's where my future is going to be and i want to make sure that we have a big picture long term view and keeping that sustainable keeping it affordable i want to make sure that as  we are approaching the decision making process in a really engaging way where we're making decisions with our residents i do not bring my own agenda of policy issues to this role i want to work with the rest of the members of council work with additional organizations in the community and residents to find out what the best steps are and the best decisions that we need to make to get to our shared vision i look forward to talking to more residents if i haven't been severe door already you're in the minority so i hope to see you and if you want to reach out to me i believe my email is being posted on the screen yes i would love to hear from everyone out there and i look forward to march fifth as well greene super thank you so much both for coming out and good luck on town meeting day and i should let everybody know course to stay tuned because we're going to have more forums presentations on ballot items municipal budgets so we hope you'll keep checking in on our very busy schedule for the month of february and importantly of course to vote on tuesday march fifth and also join us and tell me to night because we'll have live our life results show why don't we just say where folks can go and what the times is seven to seven