org we have our in your report we also have our appointed budget books so people at home want to see some of these numbers in greater detail please encourage them to go on to the website check out those resources so we get that site up so you can you can see that website and the e mail address  think we're just about wound up thank you both so much for joining me tonight that was a lot of information in a short period of time so you always was aware that i was it will be i'll be available online so thanks again appreciate it thank you  good evening and welcome i'm diane meyerhoff host for tonight's discussion with a new scheme mayor seth leonard who is running unopposed for another three year term as mayor tonight show is being aired live on channel seventeen and streamed live on the channel seventeen website we welcome your comments and  so i think it's only fitting because really the first time i ran i know a lot of viruses because one of the main platforms was really the fact that our community was at a tremendous place and we'd built this wonderful foundation but it was really time were at a point three years ago where we had cleaned a lot of things up and we had kind of gotten a new ski at this place where the kinetic energy and the potential energy were such that we had leaps and bounds to grow in an opportunity to really run as a community but we at that point in time i felt strongly needed a really clear vision and somebody who was not scared to define the community by taking feedback from our base  and really starting to craft it into a vision that's both coherent and actionable so to me the last three years have been an amazing experience really creating that narrative and that identity for the community and where you get to see it play out and where you get to measure success is when you go into a meeting like our down the street or excuse me our main street revitalization project meeting where we're having this huge conversation about really transforming the city in a way that will change the entire course of history in the entire course of what development along that really important critical corridor will look like and will change the way that every person who passes through our community perceives the city it's huge project that we're talking about transformational not just transactional and when you set in the room and looked around at the seventy or so residents who showed up to give their feedback and opinions we weren't arguing or having discussions about whether the project was a good idea or whether the things that were going to be cost by the projects were going to be good for the community we had already had those conversations in our planning process for the last three years we were talking about where the bike path should be and that's  that's a really to me inspiring moment of understanding that the community has sort of coal west around the vision and cost around an identity and has embraced that and is moving towards that you could add to the situations like the pol last year where we walked away with i believe got a seventy two percent approval of the budget which i think from a municipal standpoint not not in my memory has there been a better one so we've worked really hard on that vision into me really the next standpoint and the economic standpoint we've tried to sort of been where our focus is have been you know to put them in i should say silo them but also keep them really are connected towards a joint vision and those conversations have led  just to sort of fluffy ideas but they've read to real lead to real action on behalf of staff in terms of initiatives and they've led to a council that's really i think laser focused on we know what we're working towards we know what we're going towards and now it's really putting those projects together that creates the community that miscue residents have given this feedback they want to say give me some concrete examples because i think you have something certainly that maybe once you're most proud of yeah i'm out of that process and then people working toward making that a reality yeah absolutely so from for example when we talk about economic vitality and vibrancy we had been a community that went through the state's largest redevelopment project in history totally transform is going to make it is going to happen and some people point to the economy turning around i can tell you're working economic development around the state there are a lot of communities that have that potential that have not turned around as a result of the sort of the economy changing right we took really concrete action we invested in economic development hired economic development director we've hired communications we've invested in that again and we're seeing the support from the businesses pay huge dividends we brought hundreds of thousands of dollars not just for its planning initiatives but toward supporting businesses and getting things like tax credit utilizing really critical programs like that we've designed a small business loan fund that's up and functioning so from an economic development standpoint i think we're seeing the outcome from that type of investment from the housing perspective first year in my term we underwent the city's first housing needs assessment and that's led to the more actionable items and we can keep up with  but primarily the first focus has been creating a housing commission to help us really digest and then come back with policy recommendations and goals towards housing you know there's a lot of development taking place and when you ski the city can't be  passive bystander in that development we have to have an understanding of what it looks like or we can wake up in ten or twenty years and this could be a completely different looking community and most assuredly it will but it should be a community that the people who live here have an opportunity to get feedback into what where it's headed and how we're going towards that vision and the housing commission to me is a huge piece of that because it's helping us determine do we need to tweak anything you know we rewrote zoning this huge project the zoning was older than i was when i came into  seven percent homeownership in the state of vermont were about you know a little over thirty percent in the city of new skete so we look a lot different should always look like that should that make so explicit so in addition that they've got some really long term projects to talk about like  inclusionary zoning and how we use our city's housing loan fund which is basically a housing trust fund from a safe happy healthy connected people standpoint that's that's the one that people love the most right because it sound so happy they always say you know what i'm really excited about it i think we logged about forty two hundred volunteer hours through the city last year the engagement has been through the roof the the commission system that we set out for about four years ago has worked in we've focused on it and it's developing future leaders in the community it's increasing the platform that people have for for feedback and to be involved and it's given us better ideas and then from an infrastructure standpoint you're seeing this conversations about main street as you're also seeing us really take a long term view about what our neighborhoods are going to look like to an investment in those areas as well so we're supporting the growth in seeing a really large coal essence around this idea that we need to build a sustainable future through a really sustainable infrastructure and we're making plans for that so that those kind of big pillars as for that we focus on i think we've taken action steps on each of them made some real progress and the big thing that we're also doing is measuring ourself against that if you watch a city council meeting really does one go by that we're not having a report brought to us to say what progress have we made on this vision step this year or talking about how those how division comes into the budget and we don't we don't hear that often i do a lot of these you know i sit with folks all the time and it's really interesting to have that brought in to help you make some of those decisions that are hard they're always hard decisions right i mean for any town an d and it was it was great to hear that well we really put it up against our vision and our pillars and said ok well what do we that was i thought that was really awesome to to hear yeah and when we approached the visioning process where you know we were left in the situation a lot of communities are in this way i talked a lot about three years ago we were a community that had a municipal plan a book right right that's supposed to do that's exactly right and that's the way we have treated it over the years is this is something that from  we have to do what we've done this time movie said no let's make something that tells us not just where the communities you know focus is are going to be from a how do we get state funding perspective were these really high level charges we're talking about how the investment guide for ourselves really an investment playbook where it's not a mystery to staff it's not a mystery to the taxpayers in our community how we're investing in what we're investing towards and again that goes back to that understanding of who we are that understanding of our identity as a community and to me in this position that's the most important part of this job is ensuring that you're taking all the feedback you're taking all of the ideas in the community in cola saying it into a vision that people can really grab hold of understand believe in and hopefully support and follow it doesn't mean that everybody across the board is going to believe in every investment you made or every tax increase that comes across the table but at least they should be able to follow color steps and how we got here and what our vision is and what we're trying to accomplish if you want to get involved in the conversation to change the way that that looks great but from a governmental standpoint our highest priority is to make sure that we're cheating that for people giving them the vision giving an opportunity feed into the vision and then showing them how are executing and the budget is is the way we carry that forward and you mentioned jesse and i tell you the most important part of this job that i've done over the last three years is hire a new city manager because that's the person who's in the lead the boots on the ground in leading that conversation was a tremendous pleasure and we did really well there in terms of what were we brought in from your professional skills and ability in the city to are very excited about where that's at it and we always wondered about that before you were mayor that's right now tell me so you talked about your vision process that happened three years ago when is that to be done again i mean are you already making plans for thinking about what the next one looks like yes sure so i think every number one every budget conversation is an especially an opportunity to recalibrate with the community about how are investing and what that looks like however we're at a stage right now folks who watch the budget presents a great job of explaining where we're acknowledging we have some it's really supported primarily by that infrastructure right sure we provide the campus the community makes the paying that's that's a really key part of government the thing that you have to understand first is it's it's about doing that and structure is a big part about how we do that expensive it's extremely expensive and you know when we have conversations with state and federal funders that's a that's a big critical piece with having those relationships you know one thing that we talked a lot about coming into last election two was that when he was going to take its regional place and i'm confident that we've done that over the last three years a great example of that for for folks at home is around the airport we're closer to a formal standing with decision making process in the airport point in history and i can promise that within the next three years we will have some sort of formal standing in the way decisions are made there and that's not something i think we could have said a few years ago and that's really important the city's history but that's looking at us as being really central to the entire region's economy and transportation infrastructure somebody talked a lot about three years ago and we've got embrace that and not be scared of our voice we've got something really strong to bring the table it's really cool now when you go to the hill you're in people don't have conversations like how can we help when you ski the question is what if you guys been doing to make that successful how has that how has what you've done there  what's that resulted and what have you seen and those are great conversations to have and ones that we shouldn't shy away from and ones who should be proud of so you brought up the reason reason was in discussion so i'll just ask you we have a few minutes left to talk about the budget and the ballot items and i assume you're supporting them but you know tell us about that yeah absolutely well again we have tried very hard last year a point nine percent increase year before i believe about one point seven percent increase this year we're proposing a two percent increase but essentially for the budget spending raised only one point one percent so we've stayed below cost of living adjustment on the spending side of things we've done that very mindfully that again we feel like there are some larger ask coming forward for folks so i i think i think i'm very confident the folks in the community if they dive into the decisions we made around that budget are going to find we try to be very prudent so hopefully folks will support they're asking for support  on that so i'll leave out the details but safe say we're investing in long term infrastructure there with those funds and it's budget neutral and similarly we've reached out with other communities and this is a nother place where i'm proud to say we've played a i think a really leading role around regional dispatch engine in county especially we have a real opportunity from an economies scale standpoint to work together as communities into look to each other for joint mutual a great story not a great story from an overall standpoint but we've got the situation there's a fire at uva i'm in we're a smaller community in the scale of our surrounding neighbors large fire trucks from an apparatuses from other community showed up it was a little when you see a truck that could get into specific parts of the oh that's right that's what mutual aid is about you know and we've had a great relationship with those partners in joint dispatch is the next step in that that's going to improve the call time for folks on the ground so  good evening and welcome i'm diane meyerhoff posts for tonight's when you see city council candidate forum tonight show is being aired live on channel seventeen and streamed live on the channel seventeen website we welcome your comments and questions please join the conversation at eight six to three nine six six tonight's ground rules for our form or that the candidates will make opening statements of up to two minutes each and they will answer prepared questions also for two minutes with a possible one minute rebuttal tonight i'm joined by two candidates colston following the forum will have a pre taped interview with a third candidate christine lot who was unable to come tonight there are two open seats on the news the city council and three candidates colston is the write in candidate so thank you both so much for i want to express the fact that people should share in the development of the vision i also want to it to join because  you save spaces i think that there should be more places for you to go and to be able to have fun and to be able to study and get help in their studies affordable housing and small house construction and i also would love safe and assessable public transportation fresh and affordable food markets nontraditional loans for when new skins who want to start small environmentally friendly businesses more opportunity to mesh together as a diverse community looking forward to your role ok thank you how to commit great i'm running because i want to support a budget that makes when you see the best place to live i also want to advocate and engage so that all of our citizens are involved in our democratic process to strengthen our community and i want to promote diversity and inclusive because we're new ski is a very diverse place and i want to see this as an asset so that we can have positive growth and development why am i qualified i'm a servant leader i've volunteered thousands of hours common good i serve on the when new ski community service commission and the news key repaired of board and i want to make this a better place to live for all and i want to take it to another level and i want to be the representative for all people on the city council my political philosophy is not about us without us diversity is a business imperative and we will be our best community when we can hear all of the voices and have them at the table we need to make sure that all of our committee members who are experiencing disparities and need to be at the table to help us figure out the solutions thank you very much i think both of you so let's go on to some the priorities that these budget this budget puts puts forward how we'll start with you two minutes yes i hope i approve of the budget and i support it i believe it's a lean modest increase and i really like that the budget is developed through in terms of dates of dziedzic vision of the city there's a lot of work that goes into the budget there's a lot of behind the scenes work through the commissions that make the budget happen and i really applaud and the regional public safety dispatch so tell us on how do you support those as well i support both of those measures it's really an investment in our future and when you really understand the need for those  initiatives it only makes sense to support them where we're working in an old fashioned way in terms of our processing of our waste water stream and to modernize it and make it more efficient makes total sense to me and public safety public safety is is clearly an important priority and if we can economize how we process our incoming calls the nine one one system it makes it more efficient for our our city  and our budget to process that so to be in that collaborative process with other communities makes total sense ok and the need to bonhams our bell items i had works project and public dispatch  families in the community drink it safe water and so i support that i also support public safety but my my thing is while we're thinking about these initiatives we also need to think about including people of color and to the mix as we're hiring more people to as we are contracting with more people to do construction or to be a part of these it initiatives we you i definitely think democracy and when you see is healthy when i first started it when i first moved to a new skill as a small business owner i was pleasantly surprised we've made a we had you know a lot of good opportunity to connect in a way that we probably wouldn't have if we weren't small business owners in the same area and i would like to see more of that there's ski who are students doctors lawyers new americans coming from all over the place and i think that we have a good opportunity to really create a model city for the public participation in the decision process that takes place i think people of color are historically under represented in commissions and boards in our state as well as our community and i want to inspire people to get involved and to  be willing to step up and to participate in our democratic process you know when you see people of color now about seventeen percent of our population so we need to do better by including more people into the process i believe our democracy is healthy and i think it's moving in the right direction and i think we have leaders that listen and want to be stretched and i think it's important that we have leaders that are able to be stretched because otherwise we maintain the status quo  the viewers know that we love phone calls we love to hear from constituents we have two candidates for city council we'd love to hear your questions and comments eight six to three nine six six so let's talk about since you're both running for city council what the people who live in the community and then there's the local government i would like to see the local government to actually be what it was intended to be which is to represent all the diversity that is a part of the city there were a couple of years where the city board was all male and then we started getting women to sit on city council and now it's time if not now when it's time to have even more diversity than that where it's time to have a black woman be able to sit on city council and still be able to represent the entire population of a new ski thank and in twenty years i imagine when new ski being a city that will have increased small businesses that cater to the needs of our growing diverse community i would want to inspire solicit and support our community members to be involved and be participants into this growth as we look to a place where we will be a special place for vermonters to know that living in a very diverse but i'm willing to do it so i want to go a little longer feel for you feel free to do that let's talk a little bit about housing the mayor earlier talked about the housing needs assessment and housing commission do you think the city council in the administration what do you think they should pursue in the next years knowing what you've seen in that that housing on assessment twelve let's see that and then you start well i'm actually across the street from development this is the and main street area and it's exciting to have to finally have some focus on her main street area and i am doing that i want to just make sure that housing the housing that that's being created established it remains affordable for people who for when new skins who are living here and that when you skins aren't moved out of the city because they can't afford it many when you skins are saying are talking about possible fear over dint of occasion we don't want to see really good people leave our city because that's what makes our city great we want to have available and not just affordable apartments we want to have affordable homes so people can start investing in every early investing in a city and in their school systems and in their families  a lot of people use their homes as opportunity to send their kids to school so there's options out there now they're smaller homes maybe people can afford three hundred thousand but maybe they can afford seventy thousand or ninety thousand but yeah we need to start being more creative and how we create our community and keep our community happy and the city how housing well i think housing has been really of vibrant growing part of our community lots of new apartment buildings have gone up but i think we must keep an eye on preserving and rehabilitating our current stock and i agree i think we have to be very very cautious about gentrification you know justification really is attracted to a vibrant culture which we have in our community but we need to make sure that we have a mix of housing so that people can afford at different levels to either rent or own a home and i feel that that's why our community is such a rich community so we must guard on a lot more about that and i'm just wondering if you all have some ideas on how we might make homeownership more available to a wider group of people so just a couple minutes if you don't mind i mean sure well i know and the black community it's very historical to not be able to have home ownership or experience home on the ship and i think that it's something for you know either if you're coming from a low economic status or you know just a place where your credit isn't good it's really hard to establish yourself in that way and it's like a domino effect and we really need to start being more contract would contractors who want to build smaller homes we have a we live in a state where there's more cows than people so there should be no reason why we can't build some small homes and you know have children be able to play in their own backyards and have their own barbecues you know that american dream so i'm i mean there's a lot of options there's a lot of solutions for being able to have our own home ownership it just takes leadership to believe in the people and believe that they're invested in this city and that they're not going anywhere so it support them thanks well hell we're talking about how to support  ownership and wednesday years ago i served on the board of the burlington community land trusts which is now champlain housing trust and i really believe that we need to be a proactive partner and collaborate with that organization which has a long tradition of creating affordable housing and homeownership for first time homeowners so i think we have certainly the resources that we can tap into and i believe we have the leadership  in our community that that knows dedication is not the right way to go and i believe working at a relationship with champlain housing trust makes a lot of sense thank you both let's talk about education what is your assessment of the job that the when his d c school district is doing and we're going to start with tell well i served on the partnership for change for the past five years as director and our main goal has been to support the community of new ski in burlington to help their school system shift into a student center proficiency base learning system and i think with new ski has done an excellent job and  transitioning into that model i think a great asset when you ski is it's human scale you have one building with all those schools and the administration under one roof there is there's a sense of family and and  connection i think that you'll find there and not so much and larger school districts when you see it done a great job for transitioning into this twenty first century education model which is providing our arts students with  the soft skills that they need in order to be successful in community college or career and we're talking about you know being able to be a strong communicator collaborator a critical thinker and problem solver being connected to community and to have a sense of wellness and wellbeing so i think we're doing a great job and they're i think it's really this foundation is its board its board has transition into a policy governance structure and i think it's came out with a of a process to have a and statement and where we want to go and allow the administration in the superintendent and his staff to get there also worked for to vermont department of education and as a advocation consultant and during that time it was no secret that when you see was one of the worst school choice districts and that reputation seemed to have lived on for many many years we need to change that we need to make when a new scheme or if it reflect the in within its leadership and within the staff and faculty that  you know it's to reflect the diversity that the students have there we need to have more teachers of color we need to have more teachers with disabilities we need to have  more people of color on the school board i say more there traditionally there's been none and that's a problem because that means that all voices aren't being heard so we need to get it together and we need to get motivated to provide diversity training on a very consistent and ongoing basis so that children feel comfortable with going to school and when i talked to many parents of color many youth and they don't always tend to feel comfortable going to school and i also talk to some parents improve on math and we can make more programs available for e s l learners your in learners we can make more opportunity for people kids that need special help right now i  and with that to be able to get to the vision that we have as a city we need to sometimes we need to move things around i've gone to a couple of the meetings and  i'm pretty excited about the vision and so to me this is just something that a part of the process how we're talking about form based code but i think foreign based code has really brought a lot of clarity to how we develop and grow our community there are ten goals that we're set out through through the process and i think we're doing a great job in meeting some of the goals in terms of housing and economic growth and a nother asset that we can point to so i fully support the initiative and i think it's really accomplishing what is intended to do great thank you let's talk about statewide issue do you support the governor's no new taxes or fee position what are the issues that you would bring to your legislator as a city council members and how you go for sure well i don't agree and i think a budget is a moral document and it should really speak to the values and the important goals that citizens put forth and if it if a budget doesn't accomplish that then i think it fails and falls short so i think if if we can improve we need to figure out a better way to fund our schools i think our current system is falling short education is essential for having a thriving community and if we think education the expensive than then try ignorance so i think we really need to  invest in our educational system and just willy nilly cutting our budget really falls short of accomplishing those goals ok ebony governors no fees no increased taxes how do you feel about that what would you do as to start looking at mass so much by per budget but more so by what the people needs are from region to region i think that when we talk about state wide different regions have different needs and we can't just look at it through one lens we have to look at it through many lents like for instance the  education we need to make sure that all of our teachers have the as a former teacher all of our teachers have to tools that they need to really take our students to the next level one point for my it used to be  known as one of the top states when it came to education and math not the case anymore and that's because it seems like we're giving more money and more attention to projects like a mag a prison then schools let's work on our education system let's work on fixing math i don't think that any more money should be raised until we figure out what our priorities should be as a people of the state and like i said last stop funding programs that enslave people like prison complex system let's fund education less find opportunities for more senior housing let's care about seniors it we don't hear a lot of people talk about seniors or people with disabilities and so i think we need our priorities straight we have gone through all our prepared for city council member and you have lived here for eight years and have not run up into this time so i'm just really curious as to a real sincere reason  honest reason as to why you decided to write it now well actually i've been asked for many years to consider running for either city council or the legislature and i've always felt that i could get more accomplished on the sidelines in the work that i've done over the years but this time when i was asked by a couple of people who i hold dear to my heart and love i pause because i realized well you know what that same reason doesn't fit i'm actually working sixty percent full time equivalent with my current position which sunsets on june thirtieth so i now am in a position where i have time and after i pondered that i decided so ebony i know you've been involved with black lives matter and i certainly have respected your passion for the work and can you just tell me more about your leadership  and what leadership would you bring to the council well one thing i've decided to do as a person who's lived in for mont for over twenty years and who's been an activist  the community for twenty years i didn't get to the region my resume but trust me i have i have experience what you would get from me being on the city council is someone who can work as a team player someone who is not able to who doesn't compromise when it comes to the truth and when it comes to the people i want their voice to be available and i want younger women i want women of color to see that you have a part to play to in local government and national government that you can be you can have a voice you can sit at the table you have a right to be at the table and the type of leadership that i bring is always mentor in people and showing them the way as well as fresh ideas on how we can solve certain problems and when you ski and what the people are really saying and so i'm really excited to not only be the to be a visionary coming onboard but also making history being the first black advisor to sit on city council like that's big and it's been a part of a national effort to include more of our voices we've always had votes we've always helped in the lections but it seems sometimes difficult to kind of see women of color on the other side of the table and i'm looking forward to having that leadership continue the stuff that everything i've done in the community i'm looking forward to having that continue as a city councillor thank you think we have about another couple ok we have minute each of you can kind of give a concluding statement tell folks why why why they should vote for move or what and we were on our way to church one sunday in july beautiful day and halfway there we played hooky and came back to when you ski and went to sneakers for brunch and i walked around and saw all these amazing buildings and i ended up calling king's crossing on that monday and wednesday we visited and we decided to move there and why a lovely new ski is because it's a place where people can why would love to have you vote for me is because i'm not just for the people i am the people and i've never capitalize even though i also consider myself a social entrepreneur off of the trials and tribulations of people i put myself even with the people one purpose when it comes to like economic  levels i don't have a car and now that was made apparent but i chose not to because i wanted to stay in the community i wanted to be a part of the community when i first came to want to ski i was afraid because of the rumors about the drug addicts in the robberies and yeah those happened but i just fell in love with it when news came because it has a certain personality to it that i haven't found  other place and for my and i'm excited about what the leadership is has a vision and what we're moving towards and i know when you asked the question about twenty years i know him and max like ten years when you ski is going to be like flourishing so i'm really excited to be a part of this and this is a city i would love to call home for a long time thank you both so much for joining us tonight we reminded you also can vote early any time just go down to city hall i want to say seventy four thirty but i would swear might be eight to four thirty and you can vote starting i mean it's open now you can you can go down and vote so early voting you don't excuse like  for this pre taped interview with christine lott the candidate for when you see city council there are two open seats and when you ski and three candidates for a two year term thanks for joining me christine thank you for having me we're going to use the same ground rules that we use for all candidates the candidate will make an opening statement of up to two minutes and she will answer prepared questions for up to two minutes as well so again thanks for coming and on tell us opening statement why you're right you're running for coun so i have been living in wineskin or on and off for since twenty ten and then moved here permanently four years ago to marry a president we own a home in the city and last year i decided to volunteer to join their housing commission well i've been serving on the housing commission it's been it's been really interesting to learn more about you know how things work and when you ski and where we where we're headed what we need to be on the lookout for and i've enjoyed being able to dedicate like my time in my service to that and so when i heard that two of the council seats were coming up for reelection and neither of the council members were returning i thought that i would step up to the plate and offer to step up my role there i work in my day job as a business analyst for a nonprofit organization and i enjoy bringing that level of analysis research attention to detail to you know these goals of the city and making sure that we look at we look at all of our available data and make smart choices for for the long term future of our  community and you have a philosophy a political philosophy around being a city councilor i mean my number one philosophy is just like to do the right thing for the most people for the longest amount of time and really big into long term planning i think politically i consider myself pretty progressive socially a little bit conservative financially i like to see like i said long term vision and just like really measured smart choices  people are making decisions sort of fits in with your business analyst yes so we have a series of prepared questions based on on hot topics in when used well certainly we have time what we'll have some time if there are other things you want to talk about as well let's talk a little bit about municipal budget is this something that you support and talking about kind of long range so the priorities that are set forth in that budget although it's a short term thought i've looked at the budget and two two things stand out there so one point is that i know like the goal of the budget was to either have a zero percent or like up to cost of living percent increase which i'm on board with i feel like the current climate in the community right now is not to have like a big raise in taxes nor is there any major need for that any major funding need right now so i think that's our choice the budget also is designed to follow the current she's your vision and i support this sheet of vision you know the focal points there are around economic development for the city while maintaining like the community values of affordability and keeping our small town feel there's some focus in there on housing which i think is important you know definitely a topic that impacts all of us  most of the spending that i did see added to the budget is for like it's in line with his vision having some infrastructure improvements having some staffing to carry out this siege of planning making some system improvements at the city so that they're able to monitor their work  and make measured progress that they can keep track of there's nothing in there that i thought was particularly disconcerting i think that looks pretty carefully planned to align with this current  works project which is wastewater treatment plant which we don't have to go into details and i did hear a lot about that from the town manager but that is a bond of one point four five million and also the public safety which is the regional project this is an upgrade to a system that we are invested in to improve efficiency and efficacy to treat our water entry the surrounding watershed area you know the so prevent materials from getting into the lake as well as damaging the infrastructure that we're already paying for and i understand this bond funding is also kind of a rollover so it's not going to have any direct impact to folks right now  so i think like that's a smart choice that something we should move forward with the regional dispatch i absolutely i'm onboard with this makes sense to me like let's share resources let's have centralized dispatch they've done research already that it's going to decrease response time in emergencies and also support better workflows when there's a mutual response happening between different communities i think the shared resources for staff is going to be important you know as i understand it right now there is one dispatch on duty and when to ski at any given time like they can take a break they can't learn from their peers i just think there's a lot of upside to this change great  way you see it i think so and i think that this vote is also sort of can we move forward will we or how we will ok so it's saying yes let's look into this and let's let's try to move forward with this but it's not saying to anyone like this is what your city has to do and this is what's happening so i think having the space to let cities figure out how they want to work together is helps helps this move forward in a sort of a slower do you feel like there's enough intersection between the diverse communities of which we know there are very diverse community and are you satisfied with the amount of community outreach public participation in the community and do you think the democracy big word and when he is healthy in my personal experience when i am out and about in the town i would like to see more interaction amongst different communities you know if i go into any business downtown i see sort of groups of people who look like each other you know we're not just talking about like cultural cross sections but generation all i even like while i was out knocking on doors i heard so maybe renter versus homeowner dichotomy that there was a bit of a surprise to me honestly and i think that's definitely something that we need to look to address to get more folks involved and understanding each other being more involved like we are all members of the city of when he ski and we all have an interest in the successful outcomes in the public meetings that i purchase paid in or attend just attended myself i haven't seen very high attendance i think there could be more i know the city does do a lot of outreach you know we've got the i've signed up for notifications from the website and they do front porch form posts and work with the school with the district newsletter but i feel i feel like there could be probably some more effort there to try to reach folks who are going out of their way to engage and try to bring in people who are who are not saying this is a priority yet and help them understand how it it could be a priority for them and it could help them in the long term and how do you do even the city had a website i didn't know how to get involved and the first thing that i noticed was the school district flyer that i get the mail because everyone just gets that by living there and so i think the fact that i didn't have to go out of my way to do that it came to me and then include information for how to get myself a gauge i think that's important to create an opening without relying on people to do it themselves i know there's a lot of activity with the you know the  community services area there's a i remember the name of it but there's a community services commission and thinking about what kind of events we're supporting and making sure that there is appeal to broad audiences you know we're not just saying here's an event at the senior center here's an event for new americans here's an event for children at the library thinking of events that might have cross appeal so that we can try to engage more people the same time so it's kind of a creative approach yeah a lot of outside the box yeah great great i think i think this is something communities struggle with whether they be diverse or not diverse in terms of in terms of makeup i think it's something that's always tricky is how do you really get people involved when they may not see a direct impact on their lives right away either by budgets and town budgets and things like that yeah so so let's talk about since you talk a little bit about how to get people involved what do you see the role of the city council whether be around your involvement or you know they have been in the past rather we could all hold operationally focused because there were things that need to be cleaned up and you know there were there were there was budget issues there was all that development and so how all the pieces fit together do you see a role for folks outside of that as well in the city council or do you see it more as an operational kind of off job i think operations are really important and one thing that's key there is that the you know the council is really acting to set policy guidance where the city staff is actually implementing things at a more detailed level and i think the current structure of  the various commissions feeding into the council this puts the council a good place to take a high level view of what's going on and like advise on those operational  and it's very important to make sure that i think particularly development is a key issue right now growth is coming and when you see there's people want to move there we're seeing it i think that's one of the priorities for the council is to monitor that and make sure that that is happening in a with a sustained outlook and with the community values in mind but i do think there's also a role for council to you know interact with other areas have some interaction with the school district is this community services area to just be engage with other members of the community and this is a way to find out how to get people more engaged like let's let's talk to people and find out what they want to see so to your point like it's not just operational it's not just monitoring what's going on and planning for the future but also like being being a listening ear to the community and finding out what is the stuff that we're missing that we need to be have on our radar the harder not to crack or yeah you talked about being on the housing committee to come in the housing commission  were aware of it tell us what you think as a city councillor you my with some of this recognition that you might take on or pursue in the next year yeah so i you know i join the housing commission because i think housing is one of the most important things that we need to focus on when to ski affordable housing is always well this is an issue nationally right but this is an issue in many ski and there are some incentives in place already to try to encourage affordable housing one of the biggest pieces of like the housing news assessment is that we need to ensure a mix and a balance of housing so we're not talking about just just monitoring that there's enough subsidized housing for low income folks like that's important that's something we need to do but we also need to make sure that we don't end up in a position where we have low income subsidized housing and luxury units being put up because that's what maybe developers want but there's nothing left in the middle that's the thing that i think i think that's like the key piece that we need to be monitoring and we need to make sure that doesn't happen so that there are options like across the spectrum for all of our residents and for new people who want to come here some specific recommendations that were included in the assessment to get to that point there's some really some great data work that has been suggested as already implemented  there's some software that the city is actually already implementing to get a better handle on monitoring violations for rental housing and make sure that our housing stock isn't deteriorating  and some other planning to do some personal mapping to really have a bird's eye view of what we've got i i think those are like those pieces are really important it's hard to monitor what's happening in the city and be prepared for the future if you don't have the tools in place to really see that the other thing i want to call out is the recommendation to utilize there's an existing housing trust fund that the city has and it's underutilized so there's already money available to incentivize some things you know how that can be used there's a couple different ways but like this is money that we can use to encourage more homeownership i think that's something that that's one of the recommendations in there and something that is important to the community and then also helping people like renovate their property if it's getting into disrepair so that we can keep our housing standards where they need to be and has the housing trust fund is the council decide where that money goes i don't believe so ok i'm sure there is some guidance involved but i'm not one hundred percent sure like who manages that  that's a great question you know with the when you ski schools have i would say sort of a negative reputation like i hear people saying they they don't know if they want to send their children there or like maybe people are moving to  because they don't want to send their kids to the schools they had school districts not agree and i think this is a misperception i like seeing performance and testing data on the whole of the school is underperforming the state average but actually performing on par with the state and what that tells me is that while there is this she wouldn't happen we have these disadvantaged kids that we do need to support i have seen when you when you see school district make efforts so that like they have programming they're trying to work on this problem but it's not happening to the detriment of other students so if there's this perception that all the resources are going to assume group certain group of kids and other kids are being left out like that's not what we're seeing think you know i think because the average kid is performing on par with where they need to be and i do see efforts to help with these disadvantaged kids to try to narrow that gap like i know like i said i i moved here i married into a lifelong a lifer i would call him to his family here i'm very invested in the community and i would like to do more than i do right now serving on the housing commission has been great and i'd like to step up my level of efforts and help just maintain like i feel like the city is on a good trajectory and i want to make sure that continues and that it continues in the long term sustainable way very well christine thank you so much for coming out and joining me tonight today thank you we're going to have are just as we part of the larger debate with rest of the candidates at a later date and that will be brought together but we appreciate your coming out and good luck on timing day march sixth don't forget to vote on a town meeting day march sixth thanks for joining