City Council - Regular Meeting

Hello there and thank you for tuning in to Town Meeting TV's coverage of Town Meeting Day 2026. Uh my name is Bobby Lucier and this program is part of a series of candidate forums hosted by Town Meeting TV in advance of Town Meeting Day which is Tuesday, March 3rd. These forums are made possible by Town Meeting TV's generous underwriting partners. Thank you so much to these folks. You can find all of our forums at cctv.org/tmd2026 or on our YouTube channel where we have uh autogenerated captions available. And if you're tuning in on YouTube, you can also click the subscribe button to stay tuned to local democracy this election season. On tonight's forum, we have two candidates running for the Ward seven seat in the Burlington City Council and their names are uh Bill Standen, the progressive, and Evan Litwin, the incumbent Democrat. So, thank you both for joining us tonight.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

And we've prepared a list of questions for both of you. Uh but you'll have uh 90 seconds to respond to each question. We'll be keeping time. Uh rebuttals will be allowed only if one of you names the other directly. uh in which case uh you'll have 30 seconds to respond. And um if you are tuning in live, we welcome your questions at 8028623966. It looks like we already have uh a caller on the line. So we're going to start with opening statements and then we'll go to our first caller. Uh and if you call in, we are we will do our best to uh prioritize your question, though we will also screen calls to ensure that questions are not repeated. And we're also going to ask that you make sure your question is directed to both of the candidates tonight. So, not just one candidate in particular. Uh, we want to make sure that both candidates have equal time tonight to speak. Um, you can also submit questions for future forums online at cctv.org/tmd2026. So, uh, let's get started with opening statements. Thank you again both of you for being here. And we'll start with you, Evan Litwin. Uh, one minute for an opening statement and, uh, the question here, why do you love Burlington and why do you want to continue to serve as a city councelor?

Oh, wow. Thanks for asking the question and thanks for having me and thank you to Bill for joining me uh for the conversation. Um that we don't have a minute to talk about why all the reasons why you could love Burlington or or one loves Burlington, but um I'm thinking a lot right now about beyond, you know, originally it was the lifestyle that we could live here, the healthy lifestyle, beautiful outdoors we have, but recently it's become more and more and more clear to me how valuable the community is here. um whether it was during the pandemic where we really led the nation in um taking care of our neighbors and our community to right now where we're seeing um extreme disturbing overreach by the federal government and a community here that is just soundly rejecting that vision for our community. So, um I'm excited to work with my progressive colleagues, the mayor, um and all of my neighbors to make sure that this community is safe and I feel like everybody's ready to do that. So, that's probably why I love it most right now.

Evan, that was perfect. One minute. Spot on. Thank you so much. Uh Bill, uh you have one minute for an opening statement. What do you love about Burlington and why do you want to serve as a city counselor?

Yeah, thank you. Uh, I think uh what I uh the community is uh something that I also love about Burlington. What I uh I don't know I couldn't put my finger on what I love most about Burlington. Um but the community and uh I really think that we have a special combination of uh features that will allow us to bring people and uh include people from the beginning of their life all the way to the end of their life. And we have the facilities that we can address uh all the problems that come along the way as as we need to uh in human society. Um, I think that Burlington has uh, like I said, a unique set of features to, um, really address those problems and, uh, that's why I want to be a city counselor because I, I want to be part of solving those problems.

Great. Thank you both so much. Uh, it looks like we have a caller on the line. Is that correct? Looking around. Yes. Uh, okay. So, we are going to, uh, answer our first phone call of the night. Hi there, caller. Can you hear us? Yes. Hi, here. Great. Um, can you share your name, where you're calling from, and your question for both candidates tonight?

Yes. Uh, my name is Dave and I live in Burlington. No better place to live uh than Burlington. So, I'm excited to call in tonight. My question is in regards to I know both candidates were at the NPA meeting last week and there was discussion uh about the 2020 vote when it came to defunding the Burlington Police Department. and I couldn't quite hear and I know there was a discussion between the two of them, but I'd like to know where they both kind of stood on that. I know they weren't on the council, but I'd like to hear their thoughts and their opin opinions on that vote and where did they think that that has left us uh in regards to public safety here in the city of Burlington. So, thanks very much for taking the call.

Great. Thanks so much, Dave. We appreciate it. And we'll start with you, Bill, on this one. 90 seconds uh your position on the 2020 vote uh regarding the police department in Burlington.

Yeah, so uh I uh was very supportive of that. I thought it was uh great. I at the MPA meeting, I said it was one of my kind of shining examples of liberalism kind of coming out of my more conservative background. And um the when when we reduced the cap I was happy and then over time the cap went back up because we needed to address uh public safety concerns and it kind of is coming back to the forefront again where we're talking about the five the 5% not 5%, sorry, the 5-cent uh increase on public safety uh on the ballot measure this year. And it's kind of we're coming to the same contradiction where we've now brought our policing uh our police department and our our public safety budget back to the forefront where we want we we've agreed that we we need to have it a little bit higher than that cap was to address our public safety concerns and we need to fund it. And I I think that it should be pretty easy that to say that we need to fund that now now that we have all seen that we need it uh in our in our community here.

Thank you so much, Bill. Evan, your thoughts on the 2020 vote?

This might be uh one spot where um I respectfully disagree. Um, essentially what I will say about the 2020 vote, which again I was not on the council at the time, um, was that there was a lot of good things in that resolution um, around racial justice, inclusion, and equity that really we needed to to deal with and reckon with as a community. That being said, um, and I said this two years ago, I believe councelor Jen at the time, um, you know, was looking for, uh, an opportunity to study further before making the decision that was made and I would have supported that. Um, I think that this has led us to a pretty bad situation that we're in right now. Um, we thought, uh, the decision makers at the time thought that this was going to lead to just a natural rate of attrition and it didn't. We lost dozens and dozens of officers. Um it demoralized the department. Um many people have gone to other communities nearby and and don't have to deal with this type of problems that we have in downtown Burlington and can get paid. Similarly, um under the last year of the Maro administration, um they had to negotiate the one of the best, if not the best contracts for the police department in the entire country. Um and now this is coming home to roost. don't have the support we need. I did a ride along on a busy Saturday night. There were four or five officers covering the entire city. Um and lastly, um the reason that we're now having to come back to ask for five more cents on top of the three cents we asked for two years ago is because we're having to pay so much to recruit and retain police officers in the city.

Thanks so much, Evan. Um it looks like we do have another call, so I'm going to let that caller on the line. Hello there. Can you hear us? Uh yes, I can hear you. Hi, great. Can you share your name, where you're calling from, and your question for both candidates tonight?

Hi. So, my name is uh Dylan. Uh I live in Burlington, uh W 7 specifically. Uh and I guess the main things I'm calling about tonight are about the housing situation in Burlington. Uh you know, I'm kind of concerned about just how, you know, rental costs have been going up and how our city just doesn't really seem to have a lot of uh housing supply. So, I guess my question is, uh, how will you work to, uh, stabilize or reduce rent while still encouraging developers to build more housing? Great. Thank you so much for that question, Dylan, and we'll start with Evan Litwin on that question.

That's a really tough question, and as a lifelong apartment dweller, um, it's I'm I'm sensitive to that reality. Um, if I didn't live in a Champlne Housing Trust building, I absolutely wouldn't be able to live in Burlington and may not even be in Vermont today. And I think that's why we're seeing a lot of young folks just leaving the state. Um what we do see is um rents going up for a variety of reasons including taxes going up um including uh inflation that we've seen over the past 5 years um get pretty extreme and now it's over half a million dollars to build a unit. So a lot of that cost is being passed right on to the renter. Um that being said, um we do not have the legislative authority in the state of Vermont to control rents. In fact, it's specifically forbidden. So, I actually implore Dylan and um other folks who are concerned about this to call their legislators legislators. Um and we need to push uh to for communities to be able to have that type of community control. That's one reason why I wrote and sponsored the now passed charter change, which would allow us to give people more runway. It was designed a little bit like the control that's offered for rent increases on um mobile home parks. And that essentially was my goal was to make it less attractive to not control the rent, but to make it less attractive to shoot somebody's rent up 100, $200, $300 a month, which I have heard from people who live in W 7 and beyond. And I think I'm out of time, so I'll wrap up there.

Thanks, Evan. Appreciate it. Uh, Bill, your thoughts on on housing in Burlington?

Yeah. Um, so I think that um, Burlington is in a a unique situation with housing where we uh, I mean, especially I'll talk about W 7 specifically. W 7 is a suburban sprawl. Uh, kind of. We don't we we're packed in as much as we can be. uh in in W 7. I think that the only way that we're going to make more housing there is by demolishing old housing or chopping them up into smaller subdivided units. Um I I think that there are a number of policies that we could be implementing that like the charter change that just failed uh the with the tax fairness question. Um that could have been addressed with something like rent stabilization uh if that had been brought up at any point in the past two years. Um, but it wasn't. And so now we're in a situation where we can't have we can't have cake and we can't eat any anything. We just can't have we don't have we just have rent going up through the roof.

Sorry. Yeah. No, thank thank you both so much for your thoughtful responses to that question. We don't have any more callers on the line currently. You're welcome to call in 8028623966 and we'll take your call. Oh, I do now see a call on the line. That was like magic. Okay. Yep. I'm getting Okay, we're popular. Exactly. So, hi there caller. Can you share your name and where you're calling from and your question for both candidates?

Sure. Thank you. Hi, my name is Lee Morgan. I live in Ward 3. This question is for both candidates. Please answer this question with a number. After council Democrats, including councelor Litwin, voted to keep the apartheid free communities pledge off the ballot. And given that the Shalom Alliance opposed that pledge, how much money have you taken from Shalom Alliance board members? Please answer with a number. Thank you. Thank you, Lee, for that question. Uh question being about how much money you've taken from the Shalom Alliance in donations to your campaign. Start with um I think actually we're starting with Bill Standon here. Yeah, I think uh if I understand the question correctly, zero.

Okay. Uh Evan, I don't know who is on the Shalom Alliance board. Uh for in totality, I believe there's at least one individual that's donated approximately $200 to me.

Okay, thank you both so much for answering that question. I think we're going to move on to our written question here, our first written question of the night. Uh and it's about city finances. So the question here, as a counselor, you will be asked to vote on the city's budget. For two years, we have seen what the mayor calls a structural gap between revenue and expenses in the city budget. So what solutions to the budget gaps do you think the city needs to consider? And we'll start with Evan Litman on this one.

Sure. Um I this is tough for 90 seconds, but what I will say is I don't know if I agree that it's a structural budget gap. What I would say is that we have uh dropping revenues. This is something that's happening in a lot of places. Um and uh certainly after the pandemic um and we have skyrocketing costs of doing business whether that's building or paying for labor or paying for health insurance. I think we need to be looking at health what what the health insurance and cola packages are for our employees and I implore our HR committee uh to look closely at that. Um and I also think that we are just going to need to cut roughly $10 million from the budget. A lot of that growth happened during COVID when we had an influx of ARPA money and that money was rightfully used to support mainly the most vulnerable people in our city. Um, and that resulted in additional growth to the budget that just simply hasn't been that vacuum hasn't been backstopped with any sort of additional federal grants which I do not foresee happening under the current administration. So, we're going to have to make some of the hardest decisions that this council has had to make in at least 10 years. And we need to have a really honest conversation as a community in every ward about what do we think are essential city services. That doesn't just mean police, fire, fixing, water um main breaks. I agree those are essential, but we need to get comfortable with what are we willing to not have for a little while while we weather um this economic um crisis. Thank you, Evan. Bill Standen, your uh thoughts on solutions to the budget gap.

Yeah, uh thank you for coming back to this. So, uh I uh think that the mayor has been talking about this structural budget gap for two years. It's been something that has been rolling down the road. We've se known that it's been coming and I I thought that our city council was having conversations about this. Um I thought that we were having the conversations to address this. Um but it's here. The the $10 million plus budget gap is here. Um, and when we were at the NPA meeting last week, it was really alarming because the the mayor has been talking about we either need to raise revenue or make cuts. And we went to the school board and the school board said if we we have cut everywhere that we can cut if we cut any more, we are cutting teachers. We are cutting our educators. That's that's a failure of government. We can't we can't put ourselves in that position. Um, yeah. And so so uh I guess to to address that my my main uh way would be to raise revenue. I think that we need to bring business in. I I know that business is uh fleeing uh other parts of the the state, other parts of the city. I think that we can find new innovative ways to bring it into the new north end. And um I I think you know I think back to the tax fairness thing. I think that rent stabilization would make that a viable option uh for again raising revenue to address this uh budget gap. Thank you both so much. We're going to move on now to the school budget, which is separate from the city budget. Burlington school district administrators have proposed an over 140 million school budget. This year representing a 4.47% increase from last year's school budget. So a question, do you support the school budget this year and why or why not? And we'll start with Bill.

Yeah, so just double tapping on what I just said. Uh the I think that the school boards have done what they needed to do. We have asked them to cut and they've done that and they're at the point where we're going to be cutting the educators that want to make Vermont their home. They want to educate our kids. We should be valuing them above many other I mean not not that we should be ranking professions, but like they're they're essential workers. We we labeled them essential workers during the pandemic and then that title just kind of disappeared. Um, so I'm I'm very supportive of the school budget. I think that they've done really good work to to um make it what it is. Great. Thank you, Bill. Evan Lin, your thoughts on the school budget?

Yeah, I mean, yes. So, I I wish that we could also be going to the voters with such a low uh tax percentage, 4.47% is less than half, excuse me, uh less than double um what the mayor is currently proposing. Um but we need to make sure that the governor does the buy down which I believe he's committed to do. Um for me, you know, per pupil spending it rough breaks down roughly to about 400 bucks a week per child during the school year. Um however, you know, you slice it. And I think currently the way that our federal government is acting, um the way that that they're using Project 2025's goals to dismantle many of the federal agencies and make them more uh ineffective, including the Department of Education. Um this is not the time in my mind as as a community to um question our investments in our kids and our families um and the future of our community. this is the time we double down on those investments and we opened the beautiful new school um in fall which I'm really thrilled about and they again worked hard to come down to make sure that they did not have to borrow tens of millions of additional dollars that that they had originally thought they had to come to voters with. So thank you to the school board and um school superintendent who worked very hard on that budget.

Okay, thank you both. Sounds like a yes for both of you on the school budget. Uh we're now going to move to the other ballot questions that voters will see. in March. So, the question here, what is your position on the items that voters will see on the ballot? Uh, specifically, we're talking about the charter change item for the formation of the racial, equity, inclusion, and belonging office and also the proposal of a 5-cent police and fire tax to support the public safety budget. And we're starting with Evan Litwin here. 90 seconds for both. All right.

You know, we know because it's two of them. Let's do two minutes. Let's do two minutes for for to address both of them. I I appreciate that because I believe the conversation around racial equity, inclusion, and belonging is deserving of that time. Um to to sort of nutshell that um the I I absolutely am supportive of chartering the REIB office. Um it represents less than 1% of our general fund and you know for that modest investment we get um quite a bit. we get coordination across many different departments so that there's not this sort of silo effect that can happen um and voices can be left out at the table and then [snorts] policies get made, programs get developed and after the fact we realize that um they're not equitable that there's some some issues and then that's actually more costly in my opinion to then have to go back and change those programs or make um make those shifts. Bottom line on that is that, you know, a yes vote to me doesn't change the budget. It changes the durability of our commitment to the city that works for everyone. And mainly it ensures that you know even in this crunch no Burlingtonian is left behind because of historically rooted systemic um systems of oppression because of age ability um or any other um identity that you know comes into that. Um and that's why I support them. They're going to be taking on the Council on Aging work. they're going to be taking on some of the accessibility work and that with a population of uh quite a older population we have in Burlington, we need that and so I thank them.

And 30 seconds left here if you want to address the public safety tax.

Um so in terms of the public safety tax, I think the voters really need to decide. That's why I have voted to push this forward for them. We do need to have a conversation about it. A no vote is not going to mean that we have to cut police and fire. there's no fat to trim from fire whatsoever in that budget. [snorts] Um and I don't hear anybody saying that we need to, you know, have fewer um police in my mind. But um what I will say is we need to see strong commitments from this mayor for really deep cuts and I think voters deserve to hear that before they have to make an informed decision on the $3 million. Um, so I'm hoping that in the next several weeks we will get some real clear answers from the mayor about how deep her cuts and where they're going to be before voters cast their their ballot.

Thanks, Evan. And you went a little over. So, we'll give you about two and a half minutes to address both. And we'll start with the REI uh question for uh Bill Standon.

Yeah, thank you. Um, I think that the charter change question is great. Um the our REI is uh one of those offices that came out of the the 2020 um uh kind of uh you know uh really progressive uh policies that uh we were um kind of coming to as a city together. Um, and I think that putting in uh in the charter change is um I think it's great um for as for the the 5 cent sorry it's hard 5-cent 5% uh 5 cent increase on public safety um I the the number I I don't I don't know why we're scoffing at three I don't nobody's scoffing at at $3 million but Uh it's a five if it's a 5-cent increase to raise $3 million on essential services like our fire department and our police department, our EMTs that are running around all day uh that come when we call 911 for any anything that that we have going on in the city. And as we if if we add more housing, we're going to have more people and they're going to be responding to more calls. So, we just need to fund these guys, these people, because they're doing a lot of important work for us.

Great. Thank you both so much. Looks like we have another caller. Caller, can you hear us? Let's try that. Hi there. Can you hear us? Yep.

Great. Hi. Uh, can you share your name and your question and where uh and uh your name where you're calling from and your question for both candidates? Yep. Uh my name is Sherry. I'm um in Ward 7 and um two-parter, but for Evan, you know, you've been in this position for two years. What do you feel like is one of your biggest accomplishments that you've um had so far or something you're proud of that you did in these last two years? And then for Bill, um you know, what do you hope to accomplish? What are your your goals for this upcoming two years if you do get elected? Okie do. Thank you so much for your question and we're actually going to start with Bill Standen on this question. So, what do you hope to accomplish on the council? You got 90 seconds.

Yeah. Um I hope to uh support the mayor uh in um closing this this structural gap. Um Councelor Newer has a really uh great affordability uh plan. Um I uh hope to see that kind of flourish and uh see what he can uh bring to the table on that. Um, I really hope that Ward 7 uh can lift the burden off of its uh homeowners and its its residents because like I said, we have suburban sprawl where a lot of residents, our our revenue comes mainly from residents. Uh, I would really like to see more commercial uh uh business uh uh be driven into the new north end so that that uh balance can kind of be shifted a little bit um a little bit off of our residents. Um yeah, and and you know just to touch on the what's going on at the federal level, you know, if they come I hope I hope that we're ready to stand up because it's you know it's kind of time it's it's here. you know, it's time to really get to to thinking about where we stand on on human rights and stuff like that. So, I I hope that I can meet that moment.

Thank you so much, Bill. Evan Litwin, your thoughts on your biggest accomplishment in the council thus far.

Um, I have been in my mind one of the most uh effective counselors. I've written policies and and um resolutions every six to seven weeks on average, all of which have passed bipartisanly. Um, probably the most timeconsuming effort I made, um, was around looking at syringe litter, which we were hearing from the community was an increasing concern. Um, and I engaged our board of health to kind of start the process, kick it off, conduct a report for us. It was a great report. I really appreciated the time that those volunteers put into that. Um and then took that report into uh CDNR which is community development neighborhood revitalization committee um which I work on with councelor Newbieser and Shaker um and we conducted another several months of stakeholder conversations and research and digging into the data at the state level and uh issued a report that's available online on civic clerk um with a variety of recommendations to the city um and worked very hard to I think we'll we'll start to see the fruits of that this year with new collection sites, but also more accountability and oversight of SSP or syringe service provision programs in the community. Um, and I believe that it's an important service, but it needs to be um operationalized really well and I think that that had not been happening.

Great. Thank you both so much. We've just got a couple minutes left, so I think I'm going to turn it over to closing statements for uh let's say maybe 30 45 seconds here. Uh and we'll start with Evan Litwin, the incumbent.

Well, I uh things went fast, so I appreciate um all the calls that came in. Um, and one of the things that I guess I want to say to folks is um I have I'm excited to come back and be um to put my name back in there uh to work for Ward 7. It's been two years of a learning curve. So, I feel like I'm ready to hit the ground running. Um, again, we need to elect someone in this ward who can come to the table right away with a strong understanding of our budgetary constraints um and authorities and really be able to make difficult decisions while also prioritizing the needs of a pretty diverse group of people in our community. So, I'm ready to do that work um to dig in and I'm not uncomfortable having uncomfortable conversations about it. Thank you so much, Evan Litwin and Phil Stand and we'll give you a minute. Evan took a minute, so a minute for a closing statement.

Thank you. Um yeah, I thank you for for this opportunity uh bringing me out here. Um I uh am just really excited to be on the ballot and uh giving W 7 uh an option um on town meeting day. um town meeting day and town meeting TV uh is kind of a really unique Vermont uh direct not direct democracy but like it's a great democracy tool um to get in touch at the local level at the state level. Um it gets people out and talking about uh uh issues and um I uh I I I want to be uh there on the city council making these decisions for W 7. I want to put in two years of service with Ward 7. Um, and I think that together we can make this a better place. Um, we just got to put our heads down.

Great. Thank you both so much for coming in. Thank you both for running. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much for uh for uh coming tonight and thank you for tuning in to Town TV's ongoing coverage of local candidates, budgets, and ballot items. You can find this forum and many more at cctv.orgtmd2026. Uh you can also stay tuned in just a few minutes. We'll also have the W 8 city council uh candidate forum here starting at 6:10. And you can also tune in to Town Meeting TV on uh town meeting day after you vote uh at 7:00 when the polls close. Tune in to our results recap show that evening. Thank you so much for watching and sharing Town Meeting TV.