running unopposed in their districts and they're here to just remind everyone why they are running and we'll get into a nice discussion about some of the issues that are affecting south burlington especially from a state level there's a number you can call anyone out there that's watching right now it's the eight six two three nine six six and we'd love to get a question from someone but i'll start off let me start with and listen why do you do remind your constituents why you're running and what were the things that you are important to thank you and i really i want to start first to say thank you to channel seventeen for hosting this this is the fourteenth time that i have come  this camera and i think this is a very in incredibly important function that channel seven thousand does in terms of bringing candidates to the public and asking us these questions so thank you and i want to thank the voters of south burlington who given me the best job i could ever ask for it is a huge honor and privilege to represent you and i've been representing you since one thousand nine hundred eighty three this is the first time that i am running without an opponent and i appreciate that it doesn't mean that i'm not coming to your home and thank you for welcoming me into your home and sharing your joys your ideas and your concerns about how to make south burlington and how to make vermont more welcoming and to be the state that we all know and love and i'm running as i have always for to make to build on for months strengths to vermont has a lot to offer we are a wonderful state we have an incredible workforce we have an incredible  waterways and natural environment and we are for the most part a welcoming community and it's i'm running to make sure that every vermonter has a solid to the house representing the generally known as the at the airport district of south burlington i feel very intensely in my relationship with and my responsibility to my constituents and i believe i still have a great deal of energy to provide to them in terms of my experience now over the last six years the last two of which i was chair of my committee government operations in the house my work ethic which my my folks know is pretty much nonstop and my fairly highly intense level of constituent outreach and service i would say deeply want to continue that on behalf of my my people my constituents the other reason that i'm running is that in service in house government operations committee on which i've served all six years and hope to serve these next two years again i'm all about transparency and accountability in government and i know a ton more about all of that with all the ins and outs of the different layers and all of that having given the six years so far immersed transparency now that you both have been in the system for a while worked what do you see are the things that we can do to make things more effective or more transparent what do you see that as you can i ask you a question what is ineffective what is not working from your question assumes that there is a problem so what is the problem it's just i would say that generally people feel you know there's a general kind of and it may be wrong but that things are not as efficient you know monna terribly or you know or financially or so you're telling me that haitian and those types of things that they did feel like me they're not as quite connected to their state government and  maybe that they're not connected maybe their own fault but you know that's one of the reasons why i think that getting that out on the table is a good thing well so since you have clarified and i happen to be the co chair o the government accountability committee which is separate from the house government operations committee personally when i want to check in on let's let's make darn sure as to how well we're doing or not i look at the data first of all i go online and for all of the departments and agencies in state government you can find for most of them if not all at this point their so called report card right there on their website and it's framed in terms of results based accountability answering three questions what are we doing how well are we doing it and has has it made any difference in anybody's life and the departments and agencies are responsible for posting and keeping up to date that report card the other place i look for data is on the state it's the state's website that's titled spotlight dot vermont dot gov spotlight dot vermont dot gov and there you can find the annual performance reports which are focused on the ten state outcomes that are written into statute that we are supposed to be targeting everything toward for instance the very first on the state outcomes is vermont has a prosperous economy second one is monitors are healthy there are big issues that are pretty much you know motherhood and apple pie kinds of things and there are indicators for each of these outcomes for instance just a couple for the for the outcome that vermont has a prosperous economy there is the number of children and adults living in homelessness there is the percentage of children living at or below acc we at or above two hundred percent of the federal poverty level things like this and there is a narrative and there are a series of charts showing over time over the years whether we're going like this or whether we're it's all right there now being involved with the government accountability committee the montra of which is you cannot improve something if you cannot measure it and you cannot measure it if you don't have data so we push push push for the data in house government operations it has become perhaps annoying to witnesses sooner or later we're always asking so what's the data that backs up what you want to do for you watch you know the sometimes perception can be not sometimes most often perception becomes reality at least as one goes through one's daily toil so i talk to my folks and i get a sense of where they're coming from and that gives me the opportunity that if there is mistaken information gives me the opportunity to say but it's this here's the here's the real story  and i ask questions i try to find out what you mean it's too big tell me ok what part is too big what do you think we shouldn't be doing and who should be doing it and because blanket statements like that are hard to respond to her and on some level i mean i ask you the question what do you mean by government not being affective and some of that is it's not effective because you're not addressing my problems or you're not addressing my priorities or the way i mean i think all vermonters want want for money to be prosperous  be welcoming want our waters to be clane want to our economy to be strong want everyone to succeed and we have different ideas on how to get there and so and so on he said well it takes too long it takes way too long i just do it well my idea and your idea and your idea about how to make the economy stronger may have a similar thread but maybe all different and away from my perspective that makes they get continues to make our government work is one forums like this to a real free press and three government outreach for which ma is the poster child she goes around to her district at least three door to door at least three times a year election year off election years she goes out there but in terms of the  she calls it our people but in terms of vermonters participating voting sharing what's not working that is how we can be more effective we're not going to be effective if we only hear one issue and it's affecting people and their right across the the economic strata and all different types of families from a state level how can you work in with the state to help the statewide problem as well as the things  national conference because vermont is actually a leader in in addressing this issue and so i i got to not speak about me but speak about what vermont is doing i want to say i want to go back the governor shumlin who in his state of the state address said this is a prop he focused only on that and he said this is a public health problem and that began to change the conversation and that was very important we have what the state does is the state on some level provides resources i e money and people and they've set up a based treatment for opiate addiction is medication assisted treatment also known as m a take and vermont's model of delivering it which is having a clinic a methadone clinic which is more than just giving the medication but also the therapy in the case management in the social supports for housing or job training or whatever and having them now dispersed across the state so i can say  chittenden county i just heard from the howard center that there is not a waiting list to get into the hub and then went and then there are an increasing number of physicians who are able to prescribe buprenorphine which is another of the medications in their in their office and they have social workers and case aides and nurses to assist with the other  aspects that's a national model and the fact that we have that across the state in their pockets there are areas where we need it more and bennington is getting some soon and things like that so that level the hospital you v m and see it is momentarily going to be able to provide when someone comes in if they have their hand as well as an appointment so so that you know so those kinds of things are really important to what state legislation did was so we set the stage for limits on prescribing because at one point in time in this has you know for a lot there's lots of reasons the federal government and others but if there was pain we prescribe opiates and we prescribe lots of opiates and more than what was perhaps needed and so what state law does is state law you know what we have done in vermont  set the parameters for the department of health to work with physicians and the medical society to to to adopt appropriate guidance around prescribing  can work with insurance companies to say hey you know why don't you start reimbursing for non farm and pharmacological responses to pain we've done studies to show that yeah it now things like acupuncture does work so talking about being effective i mean medicaid did something they did and you know yes there is it it can work those are all things it's we're closing the barn door after the horse has left right and what we now need to do is one continue to sort of look at what's working and then how is that how is the implementation going out but ok why does the barn need why why this continuing to happen and what we are learning is that it has to do a lot with a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness and a lack of connection lack of connection to people around them or a lack of connection in the community and so some of what we can do is start to do that kind of work so that there is not as much of a take up and for instance  want to give me the yes sorry ok so i'll stop right there i'm sorry but no and is the expert on this topic i would only add in that another another way in which the state has been helping to address the issues so that we provide a modicum of financial support to entities such as the turning point we have one here in tripoli turning point of chipping county and i believe there are sixteen keep going on it too long but so from a regulation standpoint this is the state working on implementing rules and regulations to limit what we already have you've already done it we haven't been at all you mean with regard to the prescriptions  something's working now doesn't mean it will work in two years so part of our job as legislators is to ask questions and part of the community's job the provider's job is to provide us with information and let us know when you know this is no longer working we need to do something different and i'll just goes back to may this whole idea go to achieving those right you know those goals and th direction and maybe the goals have to be changed at this point or to grab that or there can be exactly and then we're willing to be a doing to try new things being willing to look outside of our borders to other states or other you know to other countries what are they doing what are they doing that's working are we at a place where we can try those things or not you ask about the you know opiate crisis and on some level what is as much of a crisis as if not more is fenton all right and that's a whole i mean and at one point in time it was like ok let's get strips out to everyone so they can test let's give so that they can test if there's someone said to me a bit sarcastically but not really as we don't need to get that strips because ninety percent of the heroin now is laced with fat and all so what we need to be doing is not spending money on providing strips but rather doing education  family level the community level for people to talk to one another yes to reach out to one another to never close off a conversation it's not be afraid of opening a conversation and certainly in the schools there's a lot of work done with the youngsters in school at the lots of age it's not just the high school so that peace cannot be forgotten going right back to parents really not being afraid to talk about these kinds of things with their kids intact later also to not leave medications in the medicine cabinet where people can think always grandma can take it must be ok for me to take it because that has been part of the bigger picture and something as simple as taking medications once one is done with that any extra going to one's local police department there's a box you just put it in the libraries and in libraries now too ok that's great well let's let's talk a little bit because i think this this topic by the way i think is worthy of its own form with some point you know you know that i think that gathering people like issues that you want to really focus on in this next legislative session and beyond that you think you're going to put your energies to at this point it goes back to what i said at the beginning that the transparency and accountability piece as it relates to  state government i already know that we're going to be looking at campaign finance the whole question of corporate money in politics  we want to move to an honest to goodness full blown public financing of campaigns is that the only way because there are there is a school of thought and we're doing some research with some other states that think they've passed legislation to successfully remove corporate money from in the process but then it just goes into a dark money thing and that doesn't your thing so maybe public for a real public financing system is  the route to go but this is going to take a lot of study a lot of discussion with witnesses and all of that but that's one piece another piece which was brought to our attention at the very end of the last session it was the matter of  oversight for our sheriffs there is a mystery surrounding this some of how the mystery as to how some things are done and who's accountable to whom and all of that we're not trying to cause anyone to have heartburn but it's part of our responsibility to public safety all of the law enforcement issues are part of our responsibility and if we don't do the broad look then we're not doing what should there's there's also the matter of see the sheriff's because the the list gets longer once we're in session but i there will be  vital records looks at you know the birth and death records and that's the major focus of the work we did during this last bayani i'm was to close the door such that people from a mountaintop somewhere could not get their hands on our birth and death records which they could it was totally open door which we thought was  outrageous so we did a lot of work on that and part of closing the door was establishing the statewide registration system computerized you know and setting the rules as to who are the only people can have access et ok so the system was supposed to be up and running for the beginning of july this year and we got the word might have even been during the special session that it wasn't ready which created a very unhappy situation shall we say and one of the first things i have put people on notice i did that before early in the summer put people on notice that when we go back in january they're going to be invited in and they would have to explain themselves what went wrong and how is it being fixed because we extended the date for the statewide registration system to this coming july but maybe it can be ready sooner than that so that that piece can be so we have to revisit that there are also questions that need to be revisited with regard to the ethics bill that we passed last session one of the pieces of that statute is that people running for office are expected to disclose certain pieces of financial information well this person was not terribly happy when she heard that some persons wanting to run for office didn't think it applied to them because and why not just continue to think it doesn't apply to a person if there are no consequences because built into the law brand new law brand new concepts until we had not put any consequences so we need to have a there are some of us who believe at least we need to have a conversation about consequences my will confess that my kneejerk reaction is well if you can't go along with the law as stated that candidates need to provide x y and z financial disclosure if you're not willing to do that well then your name is not on the ballot i have no idea if that's constitutional or not most find out or barring that can be a little fine i don't know if that's constitutional but but you see the fact that people some people the vast majority followed the law and our thinking was not to put consequences in because people would be law abiding but that the that some people thumbed their noses at the law say that big it's big and i want to say it so what i want to do what i believe that we will continue to focus on is how to invest in people how to shore up people how to remove any barriers so that every single vermonter whether they're over sixty five whether they're a person with disability whether they're a child whether they're you know a person living a poor family living in poverty that whatever that whatever barriers that we are able to to address or remove so that they can succeed because i believe that improving our economy means investing in people so that you could follow through with soul from an economic standpoint to help the economy in the state to make a more prosperous because that when there's all these predictions that if people are living in poverty they won't buy things right if people aren't able to get out of of their house because of barriers we won't buy things and there there are jobs that are not being that are being left unfilled because people don't have the training really to phone the we have a phone call now i mean you know i mean there are jobs that are on filled because and we have people who want to do them we have young people who want to come here or young people who want to stay in young families are not going to be able or say a barrier to them staying is not having access to childcare or not having access to paid family leave if we are going to support the economy we need to support families because workers are members of families and when i am at my job i do my job but when my family is in disarray i'm not going to be doing my job as well as i could and if i need to leave my job for a bit of time to take care of my sister my mother my father my new child my new baby how can i do it in a it has it does not pertain directly to my commute or i i would want to call everyone's attention to two reports that came out this week one is was one of the nobel  car if economic development he said if economic development is thriving that's liable to be hurting the climate because of all the fossil fuels and all of that being used up as you know and economics  pursued however he also said if the climate is not cared for if climate change is not addressed addressed then that's bad for economic development there's also the fact that there was the report from the un this week the intergovernmental committee on climate change they pointed out we've got to do something around the world fast because the  goal is to cap the cap the greenhouse gas warming at one point five degrees celsius we have already gotten one degree celsius warmth one half a degree is left to get to that we have and circling back to government effectiveness across the world someone did the top one hundred things you can do one is educating women and the other is family planning and those are in the top ten to deal with climate change i want to thank you both of you not only do i feel confident about south burlington are often their representatives but i feel better you've educated me quite a bit here tonight as well and we have to wrap it up unfortunately i wish we could keep going but folks thank you for for tuning in tonight and you can find us on the internet and we'll see you again at channel seventeen town m