time i ran and there was like it was my kid's like full snowsuits you know like snow everywhere and you know i'm like yeah that's cher yeah well plus the i don't know if you're having this exposure  good evening and welcome to channel seventeen town meeting television we have a full night of candidate forums for you tonight for the burlington city council and we will be starting off the night with ward five i have  two candidates here with me jesse warren progressive and chip mason the incumbent and a democrat please do give us a call if you have questions for the candidates the number is eight zero two eight six two three nine six six we'd love to hear from you and we're going to get things started with opening statements jesse go ahead ok well first of all thank you morgan for hosting tonight and channel seven hundred for putting this show on  and the voters of ward five who are being so involved in this democratic process and to me in tonight and watching this on the internet later so i think it's you know good to start off with why i decided to run in this race  d the the most fundamental level what got me involved in this is my own experience growing up as a kid who moved around a lot and the reason for that was mostly about money and it was about trying to find an affordable place to live and i did experience firsthand how that really impacted my development as a kid my brother and sister the impact that had on our family were very powerful and so i want to talk to families across the south and who are going through similar things who you know are being forced to move in the middle of the school year at some point because they can't afford the house or living in i think about my own experience where i struggled in school as a result of those sorts of things  i'm most basic level it's about seeing that that's happening in burlington and want to do something about it because i lived through that myself you know i think it's also important to talk about the benefits though that that experience gave me which is that it really taught me to it forced me to have to understand the people in my community and have to listen to people that i may disagree with but just to try to find the common ground between us that was something that was instilled in me as a result of growing up like that and so that's something i think that we could use more of across the city on every issue and something i want to bring to the city council as as your city council for five all right thank you very much had the privilege and honor of serving as a city councillor for the last six years i was born and raised in burlington i grew up in the north and attended burlington public schools as well as the university of vermont i lived in the south and in particular on scarff avenue for over twenty years with my spouse and two children who were both in the public schools i faithfully serve the community as a coach volunteer nonprofit boards and in various  offices we have for the city over the last twenty years in part because of you know how passionate i feel about the city of burlington and trying to make it better i have tremendously enjoyed service the last six years it has been a privilege to represent the constituents in addressing some of the legal and financial issues that we were grappling with i'm proud of the work that we've done in turning the city's finances around restoring the city's credit rating working collaboratively with the unions to tackle the unfunded pension liability opening up bike lanes and making our streets you know more walk bike friendly adopting form based code that we believe will incentivize infill development in the downtown and add to our our grand list which is required knocking on doors the last couple weeks i think jesse and i will sort of we're hearing the same thing affordability is a huge issue and although it's not necessarily a city council issue the schools are a major source of tension and confusion and concern in the community if if i am fortunate enough to be reelected these are issues that you know i hope to work very collaboratively with the administration and the council to address and i'm sure we're going to touch council could you tell us about someone you know who is a renter using food stamps having trouble paying medical bills or who makes less than fifteen dollars an hour and how that relationship will inform her that experience or talking to people about that you know how that will inform your time on the council if you're elected and chip will start with you sure big question and i'll try to break down into parts i'm part of the community of course you know there are many people that i know that are struggling to exist in the city of burlington it's an issue every door i knock on you know you hear about questions about affordability it's an also an issue you know we grapple with not as just as a matter of policy on the council but i'm also the chair of the board of tax appeals and i hear you know all the very hard cases of residents of burlington who can't afford to pay their taxes and it's an issue we struggle with in terms of compassion but also trying to figure out you know what can we do as a city in terms of informing what that will do as we've touched on i think affordability is of housing in particular is an issue that we are going to have to deal with as a city we are dealing with that i would say but we obviously have not solved it it remains a huge challenge for many people to live in burlington and i think the risk and the concern that many have is we become you know stratified you know such that you have really just two classes you have those who you know high net worth individuals who can afford to live in burlington and then you know the other tier being people who are receiving social services or you know are getting some assistance to live here and the gap or the hole in the you know the critical part of what makes you know those are you know the middle income families who are putting their kids into the school and are heavily involved and i think as the rest of the council is very concerned about that missing little piece jesse yeah  well in answer the first original question about you know the experience of people i know or who have been struggling with these issues like i said in my opening statement this is something that i've been through in my own life in my own family growing up  so i certainly bring that to the that's going to in many ways inform my perspective on this further i mean again the same thing talking to families all across the south and who are going through these these these difficult issues surrounding affordability surrounding the ripple effects of that but i've lived it myself it sounds like we're sort of this question we can sort of answer the affordability question and you know when we talk about affordability  you know i do think market rate housing is part of the solution but it's only part of the solution and it's not going to lift up the quarter burlington who are living in poverty as as confirmation alluded to to a degree and  know it's we have to be doing more so i think i think that's when we talk about you know affordable housing you know i think that's what people are are saying is we have to be doing more for those people who are really struggling again as councilman was pointing out  i think i think we also have to be looking at this issue though talking about the systemic issues underlying you for debility crisis because another one of the questions you know we might talk about tonight is is people that are don't have enough food in burlington or people who who you know about whey just in burlington and all these issues are connected and i want to see us get to the root of them and talk about that we do need to be doing things like you know talking about building more affordable housing and all these things but we also need to be focused on the deeper issues underlying it which is connected to issues of education it's connected to it's connected to you know our political process and making sure everyone feels represented so that the decisions we're making are adding up in a way that's going to  representative of their needs as renters as homeowners whatever it is i guess we'll talk more about talk more about that with the next couple questions but yeah well and staying in that vein let's move on to housing specifically what  what are the solutions you would propose for the housing issues that erling today is facing especially generating housing that's attainable for minimum wage workers and if you would like to in your answer touch on either  recent housing reports either the twenty fourteen one that was about housing broadly or the more recent report on burlington's inclusionary zoning ordinance again that's something that requires large developments to have affordable housing at least as defined in city statute we have we built close to eight hundred total units and two hundred seventy of those were inclusionary zoning inclusionary units affordable units that is good but i think we can do better i think i think we have to remember too that the issue of affordable housing is also about our entire economy as a city because when people have don't have any money to spend going out to eat at you know at a restaurant or anything or they don't have enough money to go buy something at one of our great local shops that's going to hurt our economy because they're spending all their money on rent so we have to be looking at this more holistically we also have to look at how housing is connected to wages and how we can raise wages for people we have to do that  based on sound policy based on effective solutions but we do have to talk about that you know we can talk about little things again on housing although i think another thing we need to do is maximize the full potential of our current housing stock i think i think you know when we talk about you know building housing that's good but we have a lot of units in homes that could be accessory units that are not  being brought up to code because you know people it's hard to deal with code or it's hard to you know they don't have the money but i think we could talk about a grant program where people could we could provide a grant to bring up for example a basement the windows they need build the second entrance they need and then in exchange for that grant offer that as you know of affordable housing and i think we should be looking into how that would how many units we could build across the city  housing i know we you know there has been disagreement among the council and among some of the political candidates over you know whether the economics support that or don't but from my perspective we are not going to solve the housing crisis unless we build more housing and i don't mean you know high end housing i mean housing across the board both inclusionary units affordable units as well as high end units there is a demand and really you know from my perspective that's one of the only ways that we're going to bend the curve affordabil has also become a major problem because of you know the increases in school you know school funding is or school taxes are driving in part you know those taxes don't get absorbed by landlords they get passed through to tenets so working with the school board to try and identify ways to keep their budget in check is one way to solve the affordability crisis if i'm reelected i'm hoping to you know kick back off we had a cost control committee that was convened four years ago that was  to work collaboratively with the school board in order to identify ways that we could save dollars it doesn't make sense that we have a parks and rec department that most heels and the school district have their own people that have all the same fields they plow driveways we plow driveways these may not be millions of dollars of savings but we can sort of believe in one and feeling we could save half a million dollars no problem that effort went nowhere because the school district couldn't be bothered to send someone they were in such disarray they're not in that position now you know i have already spoken with many of the board members as well as the superintendent and they feel that's a good idea so to me that seems like low hanging fruit to address you know that the tax increases that keep coming through on a year after year basis there's the state piece which is  work on that those are just some of the ideas we also have to revisit you know potentially workforce one and amending our ordinances in order to require that as well it's not as simple as just raising them as we know from developers there's a limit to talk about food policy and specifically burlington had set a goal for itself of producing ten percent of its food within the city what do you think burlington burning into its current food policy to the extent that it has one and then also what more could be done to eliminate hunger and give equal access to nutritious food for all residents well growing our local economy and chip starting with you sure i'll be honest when i saw that question i mean it has not come up in the six years on the council so i had to go back and actually look at what our food policy was it has not been a hot button issue or somewhat a reactionary body and this is not an issue that has come up but in sort of thinking about this question you know i think the interval center has you know of this hidden jewel in the city and i think you know continuing to support the mission of the interval center and doing what we can as a city to foster both community gardens and others certainly working with the school which has a wonderful program of warning you know free meals to anyone no questions asked i think those are the best you know from from a city perspective it has not been a priority of the city thus far and i you know i don't see that changing in the upcoming administration but i think working with our partners that are already you know making you know doing well in those areas ok thanks jesse yeah i think first of all we should be taking the approach that when we invest in our local farms we're really investing in our local  economy and thinking about the fact that those dollars we spend on our farm specially in a state like vermont in a city like burlington are going to pay dividends in terms of how much food we can provide for people as a result so i think that's the first approach to  right now wasted because it maybe is bruised and it's not quite fit to be at city market or go to one of the restaurants but it still is really good food food that could be feed a lot of hungry people and i think we can invest in programs that are just support those efforts as well  foster in burlington if you are elected or reelected what do you plan to do to address systemic racism in burlington and how can bring to do a better job of weaving together a community of diverse backgrounds and interests starting with you jesse yeah well this is you know i think everyone in this country has been thinking a lot about this issue especially the past couple years and really had to question whether we should be doing more  what else we can be doing no matter what color you are or what background we have you know i think no discussion about race can begin without talking about the mural and i know that mural is a really controversial topic is and how much we can impact anyone who looks at that image whether they live here whether they are visiting here and whether they are thinking about moving here whether they just moved here from another country and i don't think i think this is an opportunity to unite our country  city our city together and talk about and listen to the voices of the people who right now or are not are being a little bit left out i think infinite that is one issue that infinites campaign has really been supporting all of our campaigns  have but but i do think that that's a really important issue so i would like to see us talk about first of all bringing the community together to talk about what image can go there that is not going to show us who we've been but is going to show us who we could be as a community bringing input from everybody every every member of our of every community in our city i think that's the direction to go and i think by the way it's just my opinion this can be something that we do with goodwill and it doesn't have to be we don't have to independent candidate for mayor will be on the ballot along with these folks in march and chip your thoughts sure thank you so the question was about community culture you know what can we do to address systemic racism  think at a minimum we started down this path was to continue the work with the council in terms of implicit bias training councillor siegel one of you know formally on the council was one who insisted on it you know we did go through the council they go through that  training and we're due for yet another training we also have talked and i think it's a good idea to require that training at the commission level as well because all commissions you know commissioners interact with the public on a regular basis we've also continued our efforts in terms of expanding specifically expanded the police and other commissions you know to a larger group in order to pull in people from different cultures to address the miro which is sort of the hot button topic i think there's universal acknowledgement at least on the council that the mural something needs to be done within europe i don't know that there's any maybe one or two who feel the mural should stay exactly as it is i'm not in that camp we someone asked for a report from the you know rather than tear it down which was the initial take it down the initial proposal because it was a complex legal issue you know it's not clear to the city attorney nor to the council of the time if we you know who owns the building that the murals on who actually owns the piece of art and what rights if any does the city have to  potentially modify the mural so we are expecting back and i envision there will be public process and a community discussion about what to do with the mural once we have the facts back from the city attorney in terms of what we can and cannot do with the mural thank you a be ok well thank you for the call and i would just amend that to say what are what are your views on progress so far and you know how can we actually move the dial on that is  you know all permits are in hand the project has improved dramatically since i joined the council you know it has gone on in its forty year history from a four lane highway you know down to a very limited two lane walk bike friendly you know dedicated bike path lit bike lanes traffic cutouts flashing beacons it is a very different project not withstanding that i still here you know i live in the edition which is you know a part of the south and where there is significant traffic at five o'clock or any time there's back up on pine street and what i'm hearing is build it now there is not in the state has made clear there will not and should not be any changes to the design you know timeline or cost or state and feds are not going to go along with that so i appreciate there may be dispute you know there are some in the public who would like pine street not to and or other changes to be made but unfortunately the time has passed for those changes the city has made clear and we've the state has acknowledged if the city wants to revisit that and reopen pine street after the champlain parkway is done they will allow us to do that but now is not the time to talk about additional changes to the parkway  yes so i you know the parkway is something that and i agree not on doors in the edition the attitude really is get the parkway built and i do agree that we shouldn't kick the can down the road in terms of some of the very specific parts of the parkway in terms of paving pine street in terms of getting more connectivity walk by connectivity and i do think the hardware project has improved a lot i also talked a lot of people who i think need to have their concerns addressed about you know how traffic is going to be affected across the whole war and look this is something that's going to change it's going to impact the entire ward and change the face of the ward in a lot of ways so i do think i do think we need to move forward on on on the parkway but i do think we need to do with more addressing the concerns of the people who still have very serious concerns on the parkway i think we can do that their narrative is that nothing can change and i'm not i don't intend to slow down the process if that is if that is what's happening i haven't had a chance to talk to the state about it i will do that as soon as you know if i do make it on the council and see where we stand for myself but but i do think we need to address those issues that the addition is having i do think we need to pay pin street i do think we need more connectivity but i think we can we can still move forward in a way that addresses the concerns of everyone in the community and that's that's what i will work to do member the council thank you i think everyone in the city can agree that we need to pave pine street just sort i mean not a rebuttal we're actually just going to i'm not sure how we're doing on time so we're going to short of closing statements and well i just i mean i don't think it's a kind of first one minute one minute yeah no i mean i hear the very same concerns that jesse does and i think the second piece of this which was not part of my response to the time limitations is the railyard enterprise project which is a separate project you know that will basically create a new route from pine street behind the hardware store directly to batter the concerns that we have all heard you know from those who live in the king maple neighborhood who don't want all that traffic i think you know and we're moving full speed ahead on the rail yard enterprise project you know in terms of scoping so the hope is we hear the concerns too a great well we'll move to closing statements now two minutes each and jesse let's start with you ok so i guess you know i first of all want to say thank you chip it's been a very  worthy opponent and we've got a very positive campaign and i think both of us appreciate that that's the direction we've been both taking this campaign i also want to say you know i've never done anything like this before in terms of running for office in terms of going out and knocking on doors and near sub zero weather and and and there a lot of times when you are out there and you're like why am i doing this you know this is this is really hard people are you know a lot of times you know don't want to talk to you they're a little you know i get it it's late on a weeknight they don't want to talk but then you get to somebody who is really really excited to talk to you brings you inside tells you about their concerns they're going through of concerns they have the things they're going through and really gives you the inspiration keep moving forward and i just want to say to all those people who have done that on this campaign i thank you for that because i am continuing to do this because of the inspiration you've given me and to the rest of the war i want to say i do hope i get the chance to meet all of you before election day and and one of this is what i want the voters of we're five most importantly to know i believe in making progress and i do believe in moving forward my my first instinct is to fight for the working class in that progress my first instinct is to fight for the people who are getting left behind while we're making that progress  and that is what i hope to do but i am i do have a disposition for taking action and for moving forward i think there is a way to move forward though that is going to involve every member of our community and the different communities we have across the board across the city and i actually think that's the way we're going to make more progress as a city is when we involve all of those groups that's how we're actually going to make burlington going to reach its full potential that's the kind of counselor i want to be someone who's going to listen try to understand ever constituents who you know are taking the time to educate themselves on the issues you know that we're discussing also who you know are willing to open their door let you you know come in sit down and talk to you about what's important to them campaigning you  know it's as much as it is time consuming it's also a great opportunity to sort of pull out from the we you know you're so deep in the weeds as a counselor and get a good sense of what's going on we didn't you know unfortunately we didn't really get to touch on something that i you know most excited about and hope to carry forward in the next two years which is plan b t v south and you know not a huge city issue but certainly critically important to the south and i would say i would argue to the city as a whole development you know hasn't stopped just because plan b t v hasn't been finalized it's continuing but it's in an odd haphazard manner i had the privilege of you know going to generator earlier today and learning about all the wonderful work you know that they're doing and have a discussion about how generator and you know fit in the plan b t v south and in terms of sort of preserving the funky arts you know that exist in the south then and also working on you know mixed use housing which is a little bit of a third rail you know in the south end but if i'm reelected which i ask for your vote those are the issues that i hope to carry forward you know most passionately over the next two years and thank you very well thank you both and thank you to our viewers here on channel seventeen town meeting television we really appreciate you being with us tonight and make sure to vote early at city hall and if you can't do that make sure to get out to the polls on march sixth it's been great having you and stay tuned for some more city council forums thanks a into the camera with the light on two minutes for an answer all rotate who goes first start with opening statements and it's causing savings obviously will get realigned many come on more again let's be let's be a little more creative tha good evening and welcome back to channel seventeen town meeting television we are here with our second city council form of the night and we have three candidates for the ward six seat and we will be speaking with all of them in a moment so i'd like to introduce them now we have charles simpson a progressive we have incumbent city counselor karen paul a democrat and we have joel fitzgerald a republican thank you all for being here and  will start off with opening statements and charles i'm going to kick it to you two minutes sure roe thank you very much cheryl seventeen and thank you my colleagues here for this opportunity to discuss some of the issues i've been a resident of burlington for about twenty years and got involved in activism in twenty two thousand and four when we have a helped organize a poets for peace conference at contours and been very active in things ever since i am a retired professor of sociology in urban affairs at the state university of new york in and one of what i've seen really is a city which is prioritizing needs the developers and the tourist industry over the needs a residence i'll give you a couple of quick examples  look at the case of the redesign of city hall park instead of putting a toddler play area a bathroom a place for seniors to play chess and to congregate what the city is  chosen to do and spend three million dollars to do it is to build a garish lighted pulsating fountain in the middle of it paving a third of the park cutting down perhaps thirty empty theater the whole idea really is to lure tarus into the city and not to meet the needs of residents second is the demolition of two hundred homes around the city's airport which unfortunately the incumbent karen paul to my right was instrumental in crafting that is to say a plan which opens a gate to military aircraft of very loud  generating very loud noises which has cause which is made to one of the homes on livable and now we're moving on to a new aircraft which is going to make three thousand more homes arrival thank you karen it's your turn next so you can use your time to respond or you can just give us your opening statement go ahead well i think i i would hope that i might be able to do both a little bit of both i'll try to end the two minutes that i have so my name is karen paul i am the incumbent city councillor for more it's six i was born in burlington born in word sex and both my mother and my grandmother were also born in burlington my husband mark and i have three children andrew adam an caroline who have all attended or are continuing to attend schools it's an honor and a privilege to serve the residents of ward six as your city councillor i'll focus on three things that i  to the office and what i feel qualifies me to serve and that is experience leadership and passion i bring significant and effective experience in government even prior to serving on the city council professional experience and expertise as a c p a and with a career in finance and experience in the nonprofit sector advocating for children seniors and tackling social challenges that we have in our community  believe these experience show a track record of proven leadership and civic involvement in this in the community i've led on issues ranging from quality of life economic development and fiscal stability and perhaps even more important than both of those i bring passion to the role passion in a proven record of listening to residents and a deep broad and long connection with the residents that i serve  am always available and very responsive to people's needs and in communicating with residents all the time my philosophy is just simply fiscal responsibility and stability i believe it is from that posture that we can keep our taxes as low as possible and take care of many of the social needs that we have in this community and because your opponent did invoke you in his opening statement i give you a minute to respond to what was said ok well thank you i appreciate that so unfortunately this is sort of part of the pattern that charles seems to like doing which is to say things that are not factually correct on the issue of the airport and the two hundred homes that have been destroyed was actually started long long before i was a city councilor was actually started under the sanders administration was the f a a by by home by program if if anyone including either one of my opponents would like to check the board of finance meeting minute meetings and minutes as well as the tapes that are all available they would know that over the past several years i have been a leading proponent in stopping the home by program so to say that i crafted it is is is not true and i really really wish that through this debate that we would stick with the facts and in just be honest thank you in a deep propelled me to run for the current opening seat i believe i have a lot of skills and knowledge to offer the residents of ward six and i would like the opportunity to be a greater service to my community if elected i promised to see people as people in my party thank you all right great and we are seeing the phone lines light up which is excellent if you'd like to ask a question of any the candidates the number is eight zero two eight six two three nine six six  he referred to in terms of two cows we've you know i think that that did happen after the brilliance in telecom decision was made on i'm not sure and i'm not sure i understand what the question is what is this a general question it sounds like yes i mean for our purposes it's a general question well i think we you know we all the city council is try to do our due diligence on each in our own way you know i know for myself i use the skills that i have as an accountant to to look  at the pro forma as that were given to us and with the in the case of surest being that it was a privately traded private a private company not a publicly traded company and i actually did go and ask to sign a confidentiality agreement to be able to view their audited financials that's how i have gone about vetting that and i've also looked to other city councillors who go about their due diligence in other ways in learning from them as well ok choose yourself on the night of the vote that did surprise me and in i did speak of it that it does surprise a lot of our neighbors and and i think it put i put everything i think it put a lot of things that risk and i just think that we didn't do a great job there you know with with any of the companies that were involved with the betting process ok karen one minute to respond thank you very much so in the city charter article forty six section one thirty three  if you want to take a look at it is the information regarding conflicts of interest the city charter asked that if you if you have a conflict of interest that at the earliest opportunity that you should disclose that i did disclose that the charter actually doesn't require that you disclose what the nature of the conflict of interest is but i did do that i went that additional step and let people know that i had a professional conflict of interest it was through the employer that i had over the weekend before that vote and the appearance of a conflict of interest to come to my attention and work that i was doing and i brought that to the councils and to the public knowledge as soon as i was absolutely possible absolutely able to do so ok thank you charles your response on the general question of how you might handle the burlington telecom sale or how generally you would approach the sale of city assets in vetting potential buyers so i would have taken very seriously this principal criteria which was to keep ownership and control local and i certainly would not have participated in a midnight deal to to approve the sale of the asset which is very important to our economic well being we need broadband we need inexpensive broadband but it would have approved its sale without any written documents beyond midnight after the public had left you know this is behind the scenes shenanigans and i would not have participated in this nor would i have said we have to sell it now i would have waited for due deliberation and a rational analysis of the new bid that came up at that time all right well thank you for that and we have more callers so we're go stay with them hello you're on the air welcome to town meeting television sorry your connection is not great try one more time can you hear me yes now we can because you know i'm really sorry but the connection is just i don't think good enough for the air we do appreciate you calling but we're going to take our next call sorry about that hello you're on the air welcome to town meeting television describe how long you've lived in ward six and each of you i guess will own your home in ward six and just go into a little bit of what specifically kind of attracted you to live in ward six and why do you feel you're better qualified to represent your neighbors in our ward than your opponent is a great question thank you very much and we will get right to it joy your first go ahead ok so i moved towards s x actually i moved there because i worked there and my daughter went to school there and it was a possibly my wife that actually made me move there because of my job and my child's school  i decided that it would be a place for me when i grew up and was able to afford a home so when i when i went to look for a home i did move to burlington and then i did move towards six about ten years ago i think  why i believe why i would better serve my ward over the other candidates is is i'm just a regular guy i'm a regular working guy you know we pay taxes and we work hard and we're just a regular class people just like my neighbors and i think i fit in well with my neighbors in i just think that gives me an advantage over everybody else i'm involved in the neighborhood every issue with with i'm with my family my mother in law needed places to live and her and her husband and so we were able to build a house that had been in laura partment something that i very much in favor of and  that was one of the last few empty lots in the city and we were able to purchase it and build a house there and also fit in with the educational needs of my daughter because it was more of a diversity of educational facilities years very active in religious activities and i have been very active in all sorts of social improvement groups everything from the pine street coalition to the  coalition for a livable city to the open space group so on that basis i think i'm qualified care thank you so that's a great question and in my case it's easy for me to figure out how long i've lived there because it's pretty much my whole life i did go to college out of state and spent one year right after college working in new york but rather quickly came back and i you know i think going away for a couple of years got me to understand really the beauty of burlington the beauty of the landscape that we have in this queen city and the beauty of our ward you know i like the closest to downtown  walking to school my children went to the same schools that i went to was as a child and when i walked the streets of war at six it's like being in my own backyard so i have a long history in ward six a long record of service in wars six and in burlington and what i believe qualifies me to represent my neighbors more than my opponents is my deep understanding over many many years of what is on the minds of people in wars six i've lived in one section of ward six i've lived in another i've lived near the institutions i've lived farther away the experience that i have can't be duplicated by running for office it's something that comes from within and it's something that is gathered many years and many in decades of getting to know the people who live in war at six and i will be honored to continue to serve great thank you all for that and we're going to stay with the phones because they are blowing up thank you viewers it's eight  two eight six two three nine six six if you have a question for the candidates so here we go hello you're on the air welcome to town meeting television yes thank you very much you know part of the job of a city councillor is communicating with their constituents and controlling good quality of life in those areas i just like to know from you know what they would do to communicate with us if you live here and how will be able to get a hold of them if  u ok great and i believe we're starting with karen on this one sure go ahead happy to so that's a wonderful question because you're absolutely right the caller's absolutely correct the  communicating with your constituents is really job number one being able to it's really the only way that you know what's on their minds is if you're communicating with them since i was elected in two thousand and eight i have been in front porch form with a preview of every council meeting and i haven't missed one and people have told me that that makes them feel extremely dialed into what is going on in city government and i have since since being elected i've had a blue newsletter that has gone out to constituents several times a year for those people who perhaps may not be on social media and i am also can communicate as often as i can in as well as during to connect with constituents in that way that is one of the best parts of the job of being a city councilor is being able to interact with your neighbors and hear what's on their minds ok great job so talk to them about the issues talk about them what's going on or they can come to my house i make a pretty decent cup of coffee and they can just come to my house and we'll talk about it yeah when last night i was going through the mails at eleven thirty last frustrated by is the fact that we have a city council that gives two minutes for the public to make a speech and city council too often has its mind made up ahead of time so what i would like us to do is something we did in in the academic world we had office hours and if we had offices and places in city hall where the council could meet it was set times i think that would be enormously useful and of course yes i have social social media and yes i i would certainly answer the phone of someone call and i would certainly go out and visit people but i think we need to do this more structurally i think the council needs much more resources in terms of office space and staff help and we need with the infrastructure so we applaud them for that as far as the housing the issues that we've been dealing with for years we are actually i believe that we're getting closer with conversations to give choices of housing whether it be students being on campus or off campus i believe that's a great move forward my experience working with both is actually i live and work in both so i pas the experience for me is always been positive because i work charles yeah i think let's be frank the city has not cut a very good deal with you at all there's no solution to our high rent problem unless we can convince you v m to get three thousand off campus students back on to the trinity campus and if they did that with student cooperatives they could cut the cost of room and board for students by half instead of that you b m looks about housing and food service as a cash cow and the city simply goes along with this for example the latest deal we have a centrally passes the control of the university parkway to the to the university and and the city pays almost all our great part of the improvement costs for that so i think we just are not standing up to you am you b m has defied is it does divined its own interests to its administration has not really  benefited the students or i think unfortunately the wider community so i would be much tougher in our dealing with you via we're actually cut our pilots be over the last couple of years we're actually getting less in pilot funds from the universities pilot funds being payments in lieu of tax made by major tax exempt institutions in the city to you council thank you i'm so first i just wanted to create a correcting again i think it's i think it's important that people the voters have actually have the facts and the fact is that charles just said that virtually all of the expenses are being paid by the city that  is actually not true we are sharing the expenses for some of the work that's going to be done on university place with the university we are not financing it and that is not coming out of taxpayer dollars  so that's that i just wanted to mention first as far as you know i think this sort of brings to light approaches that work and the approach that works the best with the institutions is that they are valued neighbors and the way that  the best way to work with value neighbors is collaboratively i have a long history of working collaboratively with the institutions and particularly addressing quality of life issues i have participated in foot patrols the neighborhoods to deal with late night noise and walk by noise i have been calling landlord since two thousand and nine to deal with noises incidences have worked with the university on they have a heart campaign have advocated for the university to actually pay for foot patrols which they have agreed they have done they're under no obligation to but they have done it because we've work collaboratively with them and i guess the only other thing i did want a single bed a new a new student bet on campus which you have em has committed itself to not a single one and yet the university place issue was a source of leverage for the city it could have gotten much  green well thank you for that we're going to move on now to look at some issues surrounding the airport and so the first question i have on that is do you believe that burlington airport which is located in south burlington operated by the city of burlington do you think that there should be a transition to a regional governance model what should that look like and should surrounding communities have more say in key decisions at the airport that are now made in burlington and first to you charles oh ok well thank you very much you know this is a big issue i worked very hard to to get the item six on to the ballot which gives citizens finally a say in port policy and the incumbent on fortunately seems to want to both ways she wants to say she's was co chair of the strategic planning committee on the airport but at the same time does not want to take any responsibility for a decision to bring eight hundred thirty  five's to the airport which as i say will increase the noise umbrella the city of burlington has unfortunately a colonial relationship with south burlington it calls all the shots and south burlington has to pay the penalty pays a penalty in terms of housing loss in terms of tax shrunken tax base and this is something that we simply have to end and we have to end it with a regionalization of our airport the airport is is fairly well run within it i think is quite an attractive airport but its relationship with the pentagon with the air force has been a disaster for the city we don't even take one dime of lease payment we get more money from skinny strategic planning committee for the burlington international airport a few years ago and we grappled with many issues to do with with the airport one thing that a lot of people don't know is that the f a a has only been around about half event in existence only about half of the time that the pearlington international airport has been in existence and prior to the f a a the taxpayers of burlington invested millions of dollars in the airport another little known fact is that the burlington department of public works actually installed the first runway at the airport you know if we're going to make a change in governance i think what we have to do the first question that we should be asking is what is what is it that we hope to solve by making this change i think we need to define that first and from the committee when we did discuss this we know that there are others who want to see that the table burlington taxpayers have spent have invested millions of dollars in the airport and one of the members of the airport strategic planning committee was the former c e o of u s airways edwin collide in a very appropriately said that those who want a seat at the table you know need to have skin in the game if that is the case and there are communities in our region who want a seat at the table and are prepared to come with skin in the game i think we should have that conversation and i would be happy to work with anyone on on having that conversation you have some additional time do you want to respond to anything that charles said sure that would be great so the first thing is that it's been said that the air force does not contribute a dime well that is not true are they spend about two dollars providing the airport with fire protection and i think that's a lot more than a dime it's a lot of money and it's a commitment that the guard has to the city of burlington and for that matter to the city of south burlington the other issue that someone that one of my opponents of just simply said has said was that there is a strong can tax space this is the airport pays property taxes and there's a place over to tax to burlington to south burlington because it is in south burlington so there is a payment to the city of south burlington a rather substantial one thank you joy your perspective on regional governance at the airport i think the calm i think the conversation of issues should be open i think we should be receptive but i don't think we should give anyone thank you for that and i wanted to because we're talking about the airport and because we touched you guys touched on it in your responses wanted to talk about one of the advisory questions on the ballot  which charles mentioned that's question six and asks shall the voters of burlington request the cancellation of the placement of the f thirty five brilliant international airport and request instead low noise level equipment with proven safety records inappropriate for a densely populated area and starting with you counselor paul go ahead sure i just wanted to just just for the record that's not exactly what the question is it's going to appear on the ballot i think that's sort of a synopsis on the question that's going to appear on the ballot is all is a lot longer so you know when the there were a number of citizens who worked very hard charles among them to get signatures to be able to bring this to the council and ask us to put it on the ballot i have a great deal of respect for people who stand outside in the cold weather and get signatures and because of that even though i i do think that the ballot question is misleading i did vote in favor of putting the ballot question which was legal and have the approval approval of our city attorney i did agree or did vote in favor of putting it on the ballot as i is and you know it's an advisory question if the if the ballot item is successful and it is certain is successful in wars six then if reelected i would certainly advocate to take action on that advisory question could you say anything you have more time to say think about what that means well the question you know the question is a little bit convoluted it says that it's talks about support for the guard and support for the mission of the guard which is protecting the citizens and then it asks as as you were just mentioned about the about the basing of the f thirty five looking for alternative low noise equipment in its place i guess do you support the basing of the i thirty five l i don't agree with the way that the council voted i think it opened up a lot of issues for votes coming i do support ok i do support the basics of the f thirty destroyed two hundred homes the value of those homes for tax purposes is gone so that's what south burlington has lost in terms of the of the ballot item it's important to realize that a citizen initiative while only advisory is a sharp rebuke to city council for not taking a stewardship role in this very important area where they could be protecting children against cognitive impairment from loud noises and they could be heck they could have protected a viable community with its own private with its own primary school where children were able to walk where adults were hoping to to maintain their homes into into old age they didn't do that and so it took three thousand citizens to sign a petition to get this on to the ballot these planes of course one hundred fifty million dollars each the eighteen will cost two point seven  million two point seven billion dollars if burlington sends a yes message science says yes on this ballot i'm six this will send a national message that we have different criteria we have different values than simply the militar entire society thank you thank you and i apologize that we're not going be able to get to all of the callers that we have but we are short on time so i would like to go to closing statements and  two minutes for each of you this is your opportunity to address the voters of ward six one final time and tell them why they should vote for you we will start with joe ok if if elected i will do my best to work with you on these and other city issues to them in the most transparent and collaborative way i can i will see can listen to the collaborative voice of my ward and bring that  every council meeting thank you all right thank you charles go ahead yeah i think we really need a change in both the city government across the board and also in ward six  one of the issues that we didn't quite get to but i heard it discussed in the ward five discussion was the champlain parkway and it's a good example of how the city gets it wrong and how the council supports a city getting it wrong what this highway will do one hundred fifty foot wide swath will go right through the middle of our preciously small industrial area precluding small new small businesses jobs and tax revenue from that area because it will have simply taken over much of the center of that industrial district this is just short sighted just because we're reaching for maybe thirty nine million dollars of federal funds we will end up damaging ourselves so it's one thing after another with the city has gone for something big often subsidizing it as the case with the downtown mall subsidizing it to the tune of almost twenty two million dollars this is not what we need what we need rather is to put the citizens first and we need a livable city as a criteria for our all of our decisions and one way to conversation before the decisions are made at the beginning of things such as the memorial auditorium discussion not afterwards thank you thank you and counselor party you so thank you and thank you thank you to channel seventeen and thank you morgan you get a lot of credit here thank you for moderating and doing a great show so over the last month or month or so i've been to over eight hundred homes in ward six and have spent a lot of time talking with voters and i am so heartened by the kindness and the warmth and the welcome that so many voters have given me at their door the way that they've opened their door have spoken with me have shared with me their thoughts their dreams their hopes and what's on their mind one of the best parts about being a city councilor is the door to door experience and i learned so much from you when i do that i'm grateful to the many people who are supporting my  reelection including the now well over two hundred voters in ward six who have agreed to endorse me with their name on my website and that number is growing daily these are people from all parties all points of view have agreed with me on some issues have disagreed with me on some issues but on balance i feel that i am the most qualified person to lead them for the next two years i believe that i bring a record of experience a proven leadership and  passion a lot of passion that i bring to this role and which which i believe are the reasons why the voters of ward six should should realize to me it's been an honor to serve and i ask for your vote on march sixth so that i can continue to serve the sward and the city as your city councilor you inspire me every day look forward to seeing you at the polls thank you all right and thank you to all three of our candidates again that's progressive charles simpson incumbent democrat karen paul and republican joe fitzgerald we really appreciate our viewers for turning in for to for tuning in and also for their calls really helped inform this debate again you're watching channel seventeen town meeting television this has been our ward six candidate forum thank you all and stay tuned because we've got a couple more coming right at you thanks a lot if you're going to say thank you  good evening and welcome back to channel seventeen town meeting television i'm morgan true and i'm here with the candidates for ward seven city councilor we have another candidate forum for you here so you can f yourself with the candidates and their positions we have incumbent democrat progressive all the jang and independent james lupe the third and we're going to go ahead and get started here with all right james hi my name is james soup and i'm running for ward seven city council i own a couple small businesses locally in north avenue and i work with my partner at a real estate office in downtown burlington so i feel that i have a lot of experience with housing also managing budgets in business so i'm really looking forward to bring that experience to i can also help seniors in our community transition into retirement and bring some of those tragedies that i worked with them to the council great and a reminder to our viewers if you have questions for either of the candidates give us a call at eight zero two eight six two three nine six six and to kick things off your we are going to go to the phones because we have  represent my question goes back about like days at a city council meeting days ago there was an issue brought up about a burlington basically investing into burlington telecom and no i would like a candidate for ward seven to it or his reason for voting no and the other candidate to answer how he would have voted on  issue thank you for that question they are and they're both candidates all these the incumbent and current city councillor and james we will start with you how would you have voted on the issue so i would have voted yes  basically what the resolution was is to whether we could reinvest those funds and in order to do that we need to go to the public utility commission  to see if that was an option for burlington to reinvest some of those proceeds from the sale of brawling to telecom and that was basically the question so i think that's something we want to keep  moving forward with seeing if that's a good option i think we definitely want to see if that carried interest if there's any risks involved and it's a good option but i think it's worth asking the question so i would have voted yes yes so i mean thank you so much for your question and these again i will make sure that everyone will and is in my position on that and my position  specifically has been always that it needs to come to me to make sure that we leave a legacy to our children by making sure that burlington telecom is operated  one board member at the seat doesn't make any sense in my own sense to me with everything that is going on in this country everything that is going on in the state in specifically around burlington telecom we need to cash out to take what we sold it let's gas out and then with that money we would be able to invest it in something else that's a greater and that has more investor return for the  reason why no i knew that doesn't matter my vote yes or no it went bust so i wanted to do this again say that the whole process since it started it has not been very well that it it has not been great process and the best option for bloomington is to move forward by cashing out and then with that money we will be able to locate in all the things that we need such as having a library at the new north and having a community health center of the new north and thank you again for your question and those are the reasons why i did not vote yes on that and thank you both and we're going to stay with the phones as we what question all right thank you and we'll bring that to the counselor's again this is a question that broadly asks whether residents support cancelling the placement of the f thirty five and instead requesting some noise mitigation stuff or another mission another air force mission to be brought to burlington instead of the f thirty five again there has been some controversy around the wording of that and so we will start with you counselor jane what are your thoughts thank you so basically asking about the ballot question i don't question that's number six and it is an advisory of the basing dirty five in the burlington international airport so as we all know that very moment national guard the military has recently classified that no jobs will be lost if the f thirty five at a base somewhere else right the process is very far along but our neighbors continue have already expressed their opposition on the basing of the f thirty five in the building to an international i've been door knocking and asking a lot of the community what they think on this issue i've gotten a lot of feedback from friends and neighbors and i think overwhelmingly what i've heard in word seven is they support guard we really haven't heard another mission i've heard a lot of people talk about an alternative mission an alternative plane but what really concerns me is there's a leaven hundred jobs that the guard supplies to the area and i think that's critical we want to keep those jobs all three members of the vermont delegation fought to bring the thirty five's to  vermont i know there's concerns over the noise level i know part of our politicians have gone down to florida listen to the noise i don't think there's been an opportunity in burlington to really hear the noise and that's a concern but overwhelmingly i think what seven supports the guard and i'm also a little upset about the language and i've heard from  it's a little misleading and there's a lot of concerns and i think on the council level i would have voted to change that wording and that means maybe the petitioners would have gone to court and i think that's ok but i would have liked it to move further and the language been really clear on the ballot so the voters can make a really clear decision so just to clarify i'll be all right thank you both and again we have a nother caller on the line so we're going to stay with that hello and welcome to town meeting television you're on the air agree with  heard from a lot of words seven residents and it's certainly one of the reasons why i'm running i talked to leave about a couple votes  and was disappointed and when i gave them the opportunity later to discuss it i felt like you i was brushed off so i think that's why i felt passionate to get  involved to make sure that we're seven voice was heard and i will continue to work to make sure warts evans views her and i also think it's really important that you work with the council as a whole and i'm running as an independent because i feel passionately that bipartisanship is really important on the council and we want to keep moving forward all right great ali yeah so i mean during my camping six months ago i made made it very clear that what we want to do in this city is to promote healthy active lifestyle that of all not be happening with having four lanes and those porter lanes would not safe and also the north avenue were not is not welcoming now it is very welcoming now it is also responding to safety needs and also concern that so many resident people expressing about now when you tell me that i told a couple of people that i would be voting on what the new north end is one i am telling what i trust either dog knocking and a leader that i will be quoting the moment healthy lifestyles for every single resident in britain thank you both and we are going to stay with the phones we got another caller here please keep them coming if you'd like to ask a question of the candidates the number is eight zero two eight six two three nine six six give us a shout hello and welcome to tommy in television you're on the air i want to just two things if i could one is as the word seven voters say that i i know change comes hard to a lot of people but i think the bike lane changes a good one and people will grow to really like it  question mr loop if i could please direct a question that both candidates could answer if that's possible ok ok so i guess i would say what are your three top needs that you see in the ward in terms of services that you would work to bring or improve and that would be my question because i have two little thing so let's stick it and shared it was what seven so knew north and has been from that informed very long time and that's one to improve the communication the second thing we have over two thousand what seven resident that  community health centers and they all drive so much longer time to get there and sometimes they seek to spread the germs we need a specific area where we can have a community health center over two thousand and she had to drive back to her house with the books we need a specific area they needed area where we can have a community level it in a third item that's the third item the first one to improve the communication the second one is to bring knocking is affordability i think there's a broad spectrum of not only seniors but the middle class are really disappointed in that maybe and i hear that maybe they may have to move so i think we need to look at sustainability i mean the city with the budgets i think we're on track we're doing much better when just a few years ago there was a thirty one million dollar lawsuit against the city and we're struggling with the bond rating so i think we're on the right track it's improving but i still think there's a lot to do on the housing front i think we can do a lot to make it more affordable and bring more transportation to services we already have by adding services to the new north and i'm worried about what kind of tax burden that would already put on our city so i think improving access to the library and definitely to the community health centers and float around is critical to seniors and also what i've heard from residents is that their kids need better access to parks so i'd love to see maybe a free loop to help them access those services great let's stay in that vein of  ability and just talk about the perspective that you bring to the city council and i'm wondering if you could both tell us about someone who you know that is a renter or on food stamps having trouble paying medical bills making less than fifteen dollars an hour and how knowing that person having that relationship or even experiences you may have had in your personal life how that will inform your role on the council should you be elected and james we'll start with you so i have a lot of people come in to pamper pat and we chat a lot of the time when they're dropping off their docs and i look forward to it at least once a week and if i can't do it every week i do it every couple weeks and just to see what's going on or maybe stop in the bay of a bakery and all chart for a little bit to see what's going on the community so and i think there's a lot of people that are making affordable wages and i hear the struggles they're going through so i think when i'm getting that feedback and when i'm on the council i'll turn to them and ask what can we do better what are we what  successes what are we not doing well right now and how we can improve so i think by partnering and having that access to the community now so people can call me and they've been doing that the last two weeks so thank you very much  so that feedback is critical to going to the council and having that to hopefully improve our community thank you and all the what relationships are experiences with people who may be that i know people i witnessed people being evicted people apply for childcare subsidies help them apply for food stamps i help them apply for housing assistance specific reason with many people at the council may not have an understanding of what those struggles are i'm also a person with lived experiences as a new american interact every single day was the most notable in our real many people who don't understand them won't be able to address it i think all right we're going to do one more call in and then move to closing statements and so here we go welcome to town meeting television you're on the air what's your question for our ward seven candidates thank you for my question about the question of well either candidate make it a priority if elected to the council to bring  of enforcement the bike that right or wherever they feel like it and they think they can take over this city is there i know the police department division on that it basically no interest so it would be nice to know if either candidate support one type of enforcement before we do have a tragedy the other question is more to it only actually if you don't have a question for both candidates would just stick with the one that you had but thank you for that it's a great question and i will put it to the candidates now so james bike traffic violation in foresman is that a priority for you and do you think the city should be doing more of that i think public safety is always a priority i think enforcement can be tough if you're on a bike i know i think we could talk to the police department more i think they're a great partner so i think that's one way i look at it but i i agree it's a concern and it's both for the bikers and for the drivers so enforcement i think something needs to be done whether i don't know if tickets are the answer but i think a dialogue definitely needs to be opened up maybe some meetings and maybe as a small steering committee how to talk about that issue so i think public safety that's definitely an issue we want to look into an j yeah thank you and i think it is a very good and important question because there are so many e mail exchanges between me and also some of the constitution who raise this concern and i'm glad bike safety does make a very big sense but we know that by clint's yes we put them on but they are it's not a done deal yet they need a lot of improvement and i think that would help the second thing is when we talk about those food patrols that we had during the summer we get our own group of people who would be doing whose role would be to just look into ways in making sure that bike is safe and also drivers committee and we're going to go to closing statements now ali i'll start with you two minutes and thank you so much and i mean i've been on the console maybe six months now and my presence  felt and greatly i received so many great feedback from my constitution because i'm for it presenting them to the best of my abilities not only to improve the communication but also to making sure that their voices are being heard and respected we have been doing so many things in this city with a proper processes you know the way we do things need to be change and i think with the burling p w they doing that include people job engaging more of the community and i want to bring more ideas to that i also want to look into ways that we prioritize safety as well as education because we want to raise a building a brighter future but i hope that you all would join me on march sixth to get me to get elected again to be your voice at the council and also to making sure only for short weeks ago and i got involved by going to a few council meetings and also on a passion in me just to get involved and also i think i was talking to neighbors and i felt maybe our voices weren't being heard and some of the issues that weren't seven was facing really needed more attention and brought to the council's attention and i also feel a lot of collaboration needs to happen with other counselors and across the aisle i don't always agree with curtain dave on issues but when a neighbor is right on the other side of north avenue the issues are close to both me and my neighbor so i feel like that collaboration needs to happen i'm really passionate about it and because i think that's going to make the new north and stronger because these issues can really get solved so i think that needs to happen and i would like to see that happen during the next two years so i hope you'll vote for me on our six great thank you to both of our candidates and for our newer viewers kirton dave our city councilor curt write in city councilor dave hartnett both representing the new north and morgan truth thank you for tuning into town meeting television this is been the ward seven candidates form thank you to both of our candidates excellent form and we really appreciate all the calls that we got  stay tuned we have one more forum for you that's the ward eight form if you have questions for those candidates given a few minutes then give us a call eight zero to eight six to three nine six six thanks a lot and be back with you shortly hello and welcome back to town meeting television here on channel seventeen morgan true your host for the evening and we have one final candidate form i'm here with the candidates for ward eight city council we have incumbent independent but endorsed by the democrats adam roof and also j f carter new buys are a progressive thank you both for being here and we will go ahead and dive right in with opening statements two minutes my name is adam roof i am the current city council representing ward eight i live on pearl street just down the street here from channel seventeen and i am seeking reelection this time in day on march sixth quickly about myself i've lived in the ward eight slash ward one neighborhood area for about ten years now and i came to burlington as many young people do to go to you v m i was a first generation college graduate while at the v m i served in  various community leadership roles and eventually graduated with degrees in political science english and vermont studies to give you a sense of my workload and less i think my experience over the last three years as your city  councillor i want to go over some of the some of the committee work that i've done in the new initiative work that i've done some the committees that i've served on have been the community development and neighborhood revitalization committee of which i'm currently chair the public safety committee which i'm also the chair the license committee the local control subcommittee the human resources committee in the institutions committee that's a heavy workload for a new city councilor but i want to take that on i'm also the council appointed member of the downtown improvement district advisory board the vehicle for hire licensing board as well as the parlow justice commission in addition to my committee work of led to major policy initiatives the first out of my out of the public safety committee  initiative supporting burlington homeless community and out of my license committee and public safety committee so i'm going along on preventing sexual assault so to close i think i have a track record of getting things done and taking a collaborative approach to public  i'm looking forward to the next few weeks and watch a day coming up thanks carter your opening statement yeah thank you very much my name's carter newbie's or i'm running for city council in ward eight you know i'm running because i've talked to a lot of students and a lot of permanent residents who are just tired of status quo establishment politics and economics you know when we talk about the affordable housing crisis that our community find itself finds itself in and ward eight the the housing crisis is pretty  acute you know there are really two distinct visions one that's being by my opponent in the mayor's office is you know we could just build our way out of this problem continue to build more and more market rate housing continue to put the interests of wealthy developers a lot of times from out of burlington you know ahead of the interests of seniors of working class folks of students and i fundamentally disagree with that so you know what we're proposing is that you know if you're a student if you're a senior if you're a young person trying to come into burlington you should be able to afford to live in the city you should be able to you know be making minimum wage and still for rent and still have some money left over to save you know we think this is a complicated issue obviously affordable housing affordability but we have you know really a ray of options in terms of solving this problem so one thing we're proposing is investing in more affordable co op housing and getting you b m to really invest in  co op student housing because i can tell you from my conversations and from a lot of my experiences as a current student you know people want affordable co op housing that really does increase quality of life and it would go a long way to reducing rent prices downtown second we need to strengthen our inclusionary zoning laws that has been a success and we need to build upon that progress third we need to hold landlords accountable because when we talk about you know for ability it is the prices but it's also the quality of housing so more aggressive enforcement of our housing code and then the last two are just you know we need to raise wages in the city that's you know you know essential to the last quarter billet yes the last thing i apologize and going over  need to build on you know the success that we've already had with the land trust model that's been something that you know arco for decades has supported and we need to continue supporting carter and because you did invoke your opponent in your response i'll give adam a minute now to respond to that yeah i can probably go point by point pretty quickly so the minute yes ok great you know first the notion that there's some unified approach from the cabal of the mayor and city council is handing down whole housing policy from from high above as is just a roni a city baseless it's a deviation from the truth and i've been consistent on kind of rebutting that each time affordable housing and co op housing student called housing start was when they had buildings and property gifted to them and they are first to admit that starting from scratch in that model is really difficult and so it would probably take community partners coming together that would take some experience to make happen and i'm actually going to go to the phones now and get we have the phone lines blowing up like to ask a question it's eight zero to eight six to three nine six six hello you're on the air welcome to town meeting television what's your question for the candidates go ahead yes so i am in support of our city's inclusionary zoning laws i do think that we need to be increasing the percentage of new developments coming into the city to you know hold landlords accountable hold developers accountable and say you know if you're going to put money in here you're going to make a profit off our housing market that you need to be you know building real affordable units i'm not against in principal them all development that happened a few months ago the problem is that what is being labeled affordable development isn't affordable for working class you know working class folks for students for seniors me so you know when we talk about affordability we actually have to find define affordability and that has to mean that if you're living in the city if you're a working class resident you  you know how do you get there is it takes experience with working in this policy environment the way that you get to it's really easy to say we need to define it well this is how you define it you have to shift how we measure area median income which is handed down to us from housing and urban development federal hud establishes that standard right now it's not burlington specific and county wide include some of the islands in franklin county as well we need to be redefining that based on those terms we also have to be realistic and consistent with our with our narrative and how we talk about affordable formal housing development in burlington if you're supporter of the inclusionary zoning ordinance you must also then be in some way shape or form a supporter of new housing development at market rate levels because i see doesn't kick in unless we're developing more than in most parts of the city four units at a time in one development so that would be in really short terms how you can improve the inclusionary zoning ordinance i think if you're going to improve increase the percentage of any development that's going to be affordable you need to take into account the competitive marketplace of capital with and chicken county because developers will decide to go elsewhere and yes they will make a profit but they can go elsewhere and their their their dollar will go much further just over an imaginary line that does not have this on them so you have to be able to broker the broker those relationships and those economic terms thanks and we're going to stay with the phones we have a ton of callers here thank you worked at the national center for campus public safety on delivering sexual assault training to campuses all across the country and now as a city councilor i've been leading like i said in my opening an initiative on preventing sexual assault in the of the nightlife environment we know that instances of sexual assault happen disproportionately to those aged eighteen to twenty four in most in most cases alcohol is involved as a former bartender which i was just four or so years ago and know how impactful that sort of intervention can be in those environments so this training which actually kicks off this week or other next week paula apologize will go for the next eighteen months will measure that success and then hopefully bake it into the city licensing policy which will require all city licenses to furnish alcohol to be providing this training to their staff carter your views on what the city could be doing to address campus sexual so yes so i just want take a moment in politics we often are divided on a lot of issues and i want to thank adam as my representative and as a student for making progress on this issue so many acknowledge that that being said there's a lot there's a whole lot we still have to do most college sexual assaults for students happened on campus versus off campus and so you know we had this really nice training when i was a freshman coming into the n around sexual assault and it was actually really effective and got to you know got to a lot of you know white dudes like myself who you know when we're talking about sexual assault we have to pair it with a conversation about white supremacy in our society and with systematic oppression of women and of people of color so that's something that we really have to bring to the conversation that being said i think that you know you v m really does have to do more and you know what we're proposing as a campaign is that we take that sexual assault training that we get freshman year and then keep that conversation going and have a continuous conversation around this issue and have them you know require mandatory training every year for all grades because we have this great conversation and then you know as a student we just hear nothing about it for four more years so we have to do more on campus and that's really an important issue for our campaign  you and we're going to stay with the phones again if you have a question for our candidates it's eight zero to six two three nine six six zero you're on there what is your question for our ward eight candidates i'm just curious what experience do you both have been managing a budget and i'm could you tell me how big the early budget is right now all right thank you for that this one is carter first awesome yes so the brilliant city budget it's you know it depends what you're talking about when you're talking about the size of it right now it's roughly seventy to eighty million dollars a year you know we do have experience i mean the general fund yes that is your that's the general fund yes  we do i do have experience and i'm and i'm getting experience in managing a budget right now through the campaign in addition you know when we talk about experience it is great to have experience in city council and i don't fall out i'm for that but experience can be learned versus values are really inherent in the politician running we think that we are running a strong values campaign and we're excited to get to work for the people of burlington yeah the general fund is it seventy three million dollars in both seventy three million three hundred thousand dollars and change it to general fund we also have our special revenue funds as well as our enterprise funds and that's about another is a special revenue rather than a prize fund to sixty three million dollars budget a year twelve and a half million coming out of course our special revenue by district our church the marketplace million dollar budget for church the marketplace all under standards of political ideology just to be clear i consider myself socially liberal but but fiscally i consider myself just responsible millennia who lived through the great recession and i take my dollars pretty seriously and i've seen them on my dollar take tack tax dollars and so i think that card and i share a lot of those ideologies i think that i have the experience in in translating those into action and policy and really in this case the road to the budget all right thanks and we are going to stick with the phones as they continue to light up thank you for your calls again if you have a question for either of our candid it's two eight six to six six here we go welcome you're on the air what's your question for our war advisory board the athletic council it was really there that i started to get a sense of what leadership wasn't really translated into politics yet i've studied political science i had helped manage campaigns democratic progressive candidates in boston which is i guess my first touch of conventional or total politics but it wasn't until two thousand and fourteen when this opportunity to run for city council sort of by default sort of kind of fell into my lap after someone who was running dropped out and it was then that i first experience with electoral politics was bernie's historic twenty sixteen campaign and you know he really spoke to my values as a young person and was the first candidate i saw on the national stage that i could really feel comfortable you know i put in hundreds of hours of organiz phone banking while being a full time student while having two part time jobs and he really inspired me and what i kind of took from that even though we lost the campaign is that we as citizens and as we you know as young people and as activists need to be constantly involved you have to be you know not everybody has twenty four hours seven days a week to be committing to the political process but we have to be involved somehow and so you know after bernie's campaign i did a couple of different you know small just activist non pa projects i worked for her going to really fell in love with vermont because i got to go to all these different homes and talk to people all across the state who i don't necessarily agree with but nonetheless you know there were burning supporters trump supporters hillary supporters all who were just genuinely nice invited me  fed me dinner want to hear my life story and just had an honest conversation and so that was a really really formative experience for me politically you know the reason i jumped into this race specifically is because there's a really big gap that's really a queue in the warty specifically and that's the gap between students and more permanent residents in our community you know what i've learned going around talking to both groups is that there's really a breakdown in communication between those two groups and unfortunately you know when there's a breakdown of community communication there's a lot of misunderstanding but when you speak to issues about affordability and real affordability when you speak to issues about climate when you speak to issues about racial justice and you know breaking down systematic oppression most people our society or in our community in ward eight agree with those issues and so it's our job as a campaign as the elected officials to bring people together around shared progressive values thank you both and we have one caller here one last caller but if you have a question for our years but again the question was about retaining young people in the workforce so yeah this is something near and dear to my heart because it's something that's affected me quite personally over these last few years the vast majority of folks that i graduated with have have left burlington most of them have left the state to pursue opportunities whether it be in d c or new york or somewhere and that is i think maybe one o the one of the bigger problems that our economy needs to over come in the next few years there's a few ways to do it first i think we need to be it a lot of this stuff goes back to housing and we need to be developing housing and building opportunities for people to frankly find upward mobility in their housing options because right now like myself i can i'm still renting because there's nothing for sale in there you know when you when you're someone who doesn't who is not required to live in need to be of raising the minimum wage and all of them on state senate took action on that this week but from a local perspective we need to be building jobs that can support the levels of income that are necessary for for  recent graduates and professionals to find so they can again find that upward mobility great carter to you yes so just quickly yes i do consider bringing to my home and i will be staying here regardless of this election or going forward or if i win or five you know server two year term three year term i consider this place you know my home and so why i'm running and why i'm so involved and i to get young people involved is because i think that you know we contribute so much as young people to this whether it be the music scene the art scene financially we contribute quite a bit in terms of you know room and board costs and housing costs once we can walk campus so you know when we talk about retaining young people there's kind of this thought out there in the community that you know we had to fight for the right to vote for college students and things like that so we have a huge huge opportunity as a state and as you know a city of burlington with champlain and you the m to retain young people and that's good for everybody whether you're progressive conservative independent left wing far right whatever it may be you want young people putting down roots here and it starts with being able to afford a house and it starts with being able to afford rent and it starts with being able to find a job where you know you're not just scraping by and you can start to save up and really invest in the  community a lot of people who are my age feel like we are invested in a community like this is home and we just want to fight to make it is you know as equitable and sustainable community as we can and thanks for that and i forgot to press you on this adam any plans to move in the next two years no as those part of the question all right cool well moving on we've exhausted our callers and so i would like to ask a question on the food policy we've actually had some incumbents say that they had not been as aware of burlington's food policy or what it is currently but at one point burlington had the goal of producing ten percent of its food within the city what do you think of that goal and what else c done to eliminate hunger in this community well also giving equitable access to quality nutritious food and also using that as a way to grow the economy to you adam so yeah i think that's a great goal be really curious to find out what currently the percentage is what are we sourcing within the city i think it's a little bit off the mark though too often in municipal politics especially in places like vermont or in the northeast of america we think in terms of municipalities or cities were really the systems that we're talking about are more suited for more than just one city more regional or in this case the bigger county so i think you'd want to look at both of those metrics a big thing for me that we need to we need to start working on and i've been working on some of this through my involvement on the the downtown improvement district advisory board is finding a way to facilitate or to attract a more affordable grocery store in our downtown  we love city market they do great things for the community but the fact of the matter is that folks who can't quite afford it are finding themselves having to travel to reprise proper of what might be so as we look forward to a develop newly developed a future of downtown and as part of that conversation this expanding of the of what's called the did a downtown improvement district which will businesses are funding it's the downtown improvement district another big another big conversation a key priority of that needs to be bringing more affordable food options into the downtown where where folks can be purchasing those goods carter yes a food policy something i'm really passionate about right now we have a mandate coming down from the state house in act one forty eight and basically that's saying that you know we can't be sending food waste to the landfill anymore that we have to properly composite sorry we have to properly compost that food as a community and so i think with this new mandate coming down from the state house there's a real opportunity to set up a network with restaurants and grocery stores and really to fill some gaps that are currently  within our system so for example you know if a restaurant has an excess food it just goes in the dumps so as we're going to create a network to properly compose that food we could say hey is there any food that you know we can get to people who need it and help to solve some of the food insecurity issues that we have in the city and we could actually and i you know i like adam's idea of getting a more affordable grocery store obviously city market isn't something that's you know perfect for a lot of working class residents or students but i think a big thing in the biggest opportunity we have going forward in terms of food policy is actually this mandate for completely composing our our food waste and then hopefully getting some food that you know doesn't need to just be thrown out but people be given to people in  know who are who are suffering from food insecurity and that's a lot of folks in our community and a lot of folks are struggling right now so we have to recognize that and we really do have to speak to their concerns and we are going to move to closing statements two minutes carter will start with you go ahead yes so i just want to say that i this is this entire process has been really humbling win or lose i feel like i've really talked to a lot of folks in the community who just genuinely are fighting for a better life for themselves for their families and that's been a really humbling process you know i do think that there are really two distinct visions for how we solve for debility in the city one is more of this you know trickle down housing economics that just doesn't work and there's been decades in our community on the national scale to show that you know just playing to the interests of the wealthy of the economic and political elite in burlington aren't you know isn't really going to do anything for working class folks for students for seniors struggling with affordability so i humbly ask you you know on march sixth to to give me your support and and you know i together i think we're going to create a more equitable sustainable one and it's the simple fact that i that i really do love this community and i'm invested in it one hundred percent it's a place that has given me a lot of opportunity and it's given me a place to grow and to be successful in a lot of different ways and my service on the city council really is nothing more to me than a way to give back for everything the city has given to me so far and i plan to be here to receive from it true and thank you to channel seventeen for having these forums it's real community asset and so yeah everyone get out there and vote you can vote early it takes very little time you can do it city hall it's quick and easy also if you can manage to get there before get there on march sixth we really really appreciate you tuning in these were our ward eight candidates incumbent independent adam roof was been endorsed by the democrat by the democrats there's more than one of them in burlington and carter new buys or who is been endorsed by the progressives in self a member of the progressive party thank you to you both excellent for an excellent evening forms thank you everyone for tuning in and yeah we appreciate it have a great night