City Council - Regular Meeting

Hello there. Good evening and thank you for tuning in to Town Meeting TV's coverage of Town Meeting Day 2026. My name is Bobby Lucier. This program is part of a series of uh forums, candidate forums hosted by Town Meeting TV in advance of Essex Junctions Town Meeting Day, which is Tuesday, April

14th. 14th. Um these forums are made possible by our generous underwriters. Thank you so much to these local organizations that make uh these programs possible. You can find all of these forums at cctv.org/tmd2026 and on our YouTube channel. Uh you can go ahead and subscribe to our channel to stay tuned to Essex Junction City Council meetings and uh other local democracy um coverage. On tonight's program, we'll hear from three candidates running for two seats on the Essex Junction City Council. And those candidates are Raj Chala, Marcus Serta, and Bethany Clark. Thank you all so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you.

And if you're tuning in live, we welcome your call. You can call in with a question for all three candidates at 8028623966. If you call in, we'll do our best to prioritize your question, but we do ask that you make sure that your question is directed at all three candidates and not just one candidate in particular, so that we can give each candidates tonight equal time. So, let's get started with uh opening statements from each candidate. We'll start with you, Marcus. 60 seconds. Uh why are you running? What do you love about Essex Junction? And what makes you qualified to serve as city council? Anyone who lives in Essex Junction knows why Essex Junction is such a wonderful place to live. Uh I moved into Essex Junction about 25 years ago with my kids. Uh because the school system is amazing, the community is amazing, the people are just fun to be with and uh so for me this has become my home and it is because of those people that I just fell in love with it. Um the work I have done over the years uh has been wide and varied. Uh one of those things though is I used to do a morning radio show here in the local area and you know it came because of the fact that I was a news junkie. But in talking about these issues, it became clear to me that one of the things that I really wanted to do in order to serve my community was to show up, put my name on a ballot, and then do the work in order to serve them. So, I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to make that work happen. And uh so taking this on a second time was an easy decision for me. I made that public announcement over a year ago because of the fact that this work has been so rewarding.

Thank you so much, Marcus. Yeah, thank you. Bethany Clark, your opening statement, 60 seconds.

I love Essex Junction for its walkability. It's uh very close-knit. I know my neighbors. I've known my neighbor since I was 7 years old. I moved here with my parents when I was two for also the school system actually. Um, and while I did leave when I was 18 to get a college degree and work, I came back um because this is my home and I am very excited about the future of Essex Junction. I think we're at a very exciting time where we get to decide what that future looks like. I very much want to be a part of that process. Um, putting the exciting work that um, the city council has already done visioning what we want our city to look like into practice. I have a very strong dedicated um, commitment to Essex Junction. I am relatively young, but I've been I have been committed to this city since I was 10 and volunteering from the local library to the Memorial Day parade committee to currently serving on the Green Mountain Transit Board of Commissioners as an alternate and having just wrapped up a tenure on the governance committee.

Thanks so much, Bethany. appreciate that and uh you went a little long there so I'm going to say Raj if you want to take a little bit more than a minute there for your opening statement.

Um thank you. Um I think you know what I love about Essex Junction um it's kind of hard to put it all together but I think what what kind of came to me was people. I just love the community. That's really what it's made up with made up for of um you know we have we have the best recck department. We have the best library. Um the school system's excellent. Um we've now got phenomenal cafes. We've got a public works department that takes really good care of us, but really it's the people. It's my neighbors. It's um people I get to meet that that um doing this work or doing other work or through friends. Um and you know, when I was growing up, we moved every two or three years, sort of an IBM kid. Um, and this concept of having my daughters have essentially one house and and one experience, one community to connect with, um, has been kind of wild for me to watch. And I think we've we've gotten so much from the community that I've just always felt like I needed to to give back. Um, I have spent most of the time I've lived here um, either on volunteer committees, doing city committees, um, or most recently serving as a village trustee and a city counselor. Um, I stepped down. I I decided not to run last April. Um, after my second term on the city council, um, we went through a very intense um, merger separation and I needed a break. Um, but the city is embarking on work uh, the community building work and the visioning work and the execution of all of the topics that brought me into this work in the first place. and so I couldn't stay away.

Great. Thank you all so much for your opening statements. Thank you for running. Thank you for being here. We have a list of questions prepared for you. We also have the phone lines open. 802862 3966. We do have a caller here uh with a question. Oh, the call just dropped. Is that right? I don't see the call anymore. Well, if you called in and then dropped your call, then uh please give us a call back. But I'm going to in the meantime start with a question about the city budget. So the question here, we're starting with you Bethany. Do you support the prop the proposed city budget of $22.9 million? It's a 4% increase from last year. And what experience do you bring to the overall financial management of the city? 90 seconds.

Yes, I support the city budget. I know that affordability is a big topic and any tax increase is painful. Um I know this. I feel it. Um, but I also know that our city council always does the very best it can to keep increases as low as possible. Um, and unfortunately when you're funding a city, keeping things level is not keeping things level. Um, so yes, I will be supporting the city budget and I commend the city council on keeping it to a 4% increase. I'm sure that must have been quite the task. Um, in terms of my financial management experience, I have almost 10 years experience in nonprofits. While this is not municipal work, it does mean that I've managed multi-year, multi-million dollar budgets with a high level of financial accuracy. Um, and I've also already signed up for training that is specific to municipal leadership because I recognize that my opponents have a bit more experience in this than I do being that they've both served on the city council before.

Great. Thank you so much, Bethany. Uh, Raj, your thoughts on the city budget?

Yeah, I I do support the uh budget the city council came up with this year. I know from experience that um there's not a lot of wiggle room in the in the city budget, is it? It is year after year it is a very tight um trim uh document. Um there were there are a lot of pressures the city's dealing with and the municipalities all around us are dealing with that are out of our control. There's inflation, there's uh increasing health care costs that we have no control of and a whole raft of other things. Um so I think uh it's probably the best they could do. Um I did follow it pretty closely. I know they made some decisions um around um capital funds and and other and other places where they could be strategic um and the trustees and the city council now um have a history of being very careful when it comes to capital planning and and future projects. So um yeah, I I think you know I I bring six years of doing these budgets um to uh to the table. um it does take two or three to really get your head around it and to understand all of the uh all the factors at play. So um yeah,

great. Thanks so much Raj and Marcus. Your thoughts on the city budget?

Yeah, so I appreciate the points that both Bethany and Raj have brought up. Um this was a very difficult budget as always, but uh I do support this budget. This budget continues to support bringing those same level of services that the residents have asked for um while controlling costs the best that we possibly can. Um you know I do want to acknowledge and recognize a couple things that made this process difficult. One of them being um the fact that the uh police association for the police department in Essex um was renegotiated recently. They saw a pay increase and again this is not a criticism on that. I think that that was justified. This is a very difficult time for police officers from the standpoint of trying to recruit and I I think they were trying to do everything possible to retain their staff. But seeing something like that that comes through that is out of our control um on top of the fact that there was a devalu devaluation of the property owned by utilities. these things impact our grand list and so it makes it a little bit harder um for us to contain those costs the best we can while maintaining the services that we're trying to provide. So uh we'll continue to take on those challenges and again I have the experience as well being on this council currently. I've also had years of experience of working multi-million dollar budgets with businesses that I've worked with. So, I'm going to continue to bring that experience to the table uh and hopefully with the support of residents here in Essex Junction.

Great. Thank you all so much. It sounds like it's three yes votes across the board on the city budget. Uh we're now going to move to the school budget and I will just reiterate because we lost that caller. You can call in again 8028623966 and we'll get your question on the air here. We're going to move on to the city budget. We're going to start with Raj Chala here. The Essex Westford School District has proposed a budget of $102 million. This would result in per pupil education spending being 2.82% higher than the current year. So, do you support the school budget? And how does this uh increase impact the city council's work?

Yes, I'll be supporting the school budget this year. Um, and I'll be grateful that I wasn't tasked with coming up with that budget. Um, uh, city budget's hard enough. I can't imagine the um multitude of factors the school board has to deal with and the uncertainty that they're dealing with. Um you know, when we're when I was participating in in this work, I paid attention to all of the all of the pressures um on our on our residents, not just the city budget. Um you know, our utility budgets, the the school budget, and others. um well aware of the impact that any increase we proposed being compounded by by everything else out there. Um that said um the city has to do its work and the city has to present the best spending plan which is really a policy plan. Budgets are really policy documents. Um we have our long-term vision given to us by the community and our capital issues and our needs as a city. Um, so it is a factor in the decision-making process, in the planning process. Before the budget's even created, council is asked what increases they want to see. That feedback is based on community community conversations and so there's guidance given that always takes into account what's what else is happening in our community. So in short, yeah, I do support the work they've done and um and I'm certain that this year, like other years, the council took into consideration what might come from them. Great. Thanks so much, Raj. Moving on to Marcus Serta. Your thoughts on the school budget.

I agree with the points that Raj has brought up. Um, again, I moved to Essex Junction so that my kids could go to this excellent school system. Um, and I know the challenges that the school board is up against to try to do their very best to put a budget forward, knowing the fact that there's still a challenge that is really being handled, needs to be handled at the state level. Um, the city council has no, you know, authority over this particular budget, no influence on this budget outside of being like every other resident and saying, "Hey, these are the things that we're looking at and concerned about and hopefully you'll take on." Um, but I am supporting the budget because in watching that work, in talking with members of the school board, I know that they put in a lot of hard work this year to come to this number. Um, I would like to see more effort done at the state level in order to help control this cost because it does impact what we do at the city level from the standpoint, as Raj said, we do bring this up in our own conversations around what is it going to look like for residents when they show up at the ballot box and have to vote on these particular measures and the impacts on their daily lives. So, we do keep that in mind as we're looking at the overall um situation for our residents and so we're very mindful of it. But I will be supporting the school budget this season.

Great. Thank you so much, Marcus. And Bethany Clark, your thoughts on the school budget.

I will also be supporting the school budget this election. Um, like my fellow candidates, I understand how difficult building this school budget is for this district in 2026 under these circumstances. Um, I also know that again any tax increase is hard and it hurts. Um but we have to continue to maintain the high standards in our schools that are also why I came to Essex Junction. Um, I agree. I also agree that the city council has to take into consideration the fact that any increase in the school budget again is going to be compounded by increases in the city council budget. Our residents don't experience two small tax increases. They experience one and it hurts. Um, but like my opponent, like my fellow candidates said, um, we have to do the work of the city and while we can take into consideration the needs of the school board, we have to do what's best for the city as well.

Great. Thank you all so much for your answers on those questions. It sounds like it's also a yes vote on the school budget for for all three of you. Um, please excuse some of the background noise here. We do have an axe throwing uh facility downstairs. So, they're having fun with axes downstairs. We're having fun with local local democracy up here. Um, but who's having more fun? But who is having more fun? That's that's and hopefully our pictures aren't on the wall. So, we hope.

Um, okay. Moving on to the next question, which is about the other ballot questions that voters will see. So, do you support uh article two on the ballot? This is a public works garage bond which would allow um almost $14 million to finance the cost of constructing a public works facility. Uh and why or why not? And we're going to start with Marcus.

I absolutely do. Um as a matter of fact, I encourage any of our residents to go to essexjunction uh.org uh in order to look at the pictures of this facility. come to the uh live event tomorrow um because of the fact that you can take an openhouse tour of the facility and you're going to see what I have seen going over there and and looking at what this staff has to work in that does not meet the needs of the city right now. This facility was built in 1956. Uh we can't keep our equipment in there for the most part. Much of that has to be still stored outside. If we can bring that stuff in inside, that gives us the opportunity for the long term to save money because of the fact that we can extend the life of the equipment we use in order to maintain our streets, maintain our our water systems and sewer systems and things of that nature. Um, and the other thing is respect of the staff that is doing this work 247. A storm comes, it does not matter. These crews could be in plows all night long and they come back to a facility where their bathroom is a storeroom. It it actually looks like the storm rooms built first and then the back and then the toilet was put in second. It just doesn't quite respect the staff that is doing this hard work to keep our lives moving forward. So, uh, yes, I will definitely be supporting this.

Great. Thanks so much, Marcus. Uh, Bethany Clark, your thoughts on the on the bond. I'm a big believer in spending money to save money. Um, these improvements are very evidently necessary and they will be more expensive if we wait. Um, the facility is not up to the standards we should hold our public facilities to. It doesn't meet the needs of our staff. It doesn't meet the needs of our city. As Marcus mentioned, it's old. The last major improvements, I believe, were at least 30 years ago. And we need to respect our staff and we need to make sure that our public works facilities are meeting the needs of the city before there's an emergency where it's detrimental to public safety that they if they don't.

Great. Thanks so much, Bethany. Raj Chala, your thoughts on the bond here?

Uh, not surprisingly, I also agree um for all of the points that have been brought up. Uh, now I do wish that we had been able to get to this sooner. Um, the staff component is very important to me. Um, having a um safe and clean and appropriate workplace, I think uh should be an expectation. Um, we just renovated our city hall to Lincoln. Um, and you know, it was difficult to pick which one to do first to be honest. Um, so I think it's much needed for all the reasons that have been stated before. Um, I do hope the community will support it. It is a very difficult time to be asking for this. Um, but it is a good investment and frankly one that will become more expensive uh each year we wait.

Great. Thank you all so much. Next question. We'll also look at a question that voters will see on the ballot. A couple of questions around increasing the pay for city council members from $2,500 to $3,600 per year and also the council president earning 25% more uh than the other members. So question here, do you support these changes and why are we not? And we're going to start with Bethany. Um, I want to add that there is another ballot item that deals with city councilor pay. Article five also deals with tying the city council raises to the consumer price index. I mention that because while I will not support articles three and four, I do support article 5. Um, I worked on the governance committee that presented these as a recommendation to the city council to put on the ballot after extensive consideration and collaboration and engagement with residents of Essex Junction and leaders of other communities. Um the survey that was released by the governance committee showed that residents while they were hesitant about raising city councilor pay or raising the weight the how much the president made they were in support of tying raise future raises to the consumer price index in the charter. I think it takes away a conflict of interest. It means that it's a little less awkward and city councilors don't have to sit in front of you and ask you to give them more money. Um, so for that reason, I will not be supporting articles three and four, but I do support article five, and I also support the charter review, which I think is article six.

Great. Thank you so much, and thank you for pointing that out, um, Bethany. And if if you both wouldn't mind also weighing in on on that other article that Bethany mentioned and we'll start with um Marcus here. So um as as I look at this the thing about this I'm sorry Mark I'm sorry to just you can keep going if you want to um you can go ahead.

So um looking at looking at this look this for me is a communitydriven effort. This was done by our um governance committee which had community members. it did have two city council members that actually chose to um recuse themselves from voting on on moving this thing forward because I don't want to necessarily get into a deep conversation about whether or not I get paid more. Um but I will acknowledge the fact that the work that is being done should be recognized but I more importantly it is about and this is actually a question that was brought up during the initiation of that governance committee what which was the question of how can we get more people involved? What are the challenges that need to be overcome? One of those that was often brought up was uh the potential for the need for child care so that moms and dads could potentially participate in a committee or on the council. Um these kinds of financial offsets can potentially support people who would not otherwise jump into a race or volunteer for service on one of our committees. Um, right now I stand kind of unknowing as to whether or not I'm going to vote yes or no on the day as I consider this. But I will simply acknowledge and really appreciate the fact the community coming together putting these kinds of things forward. But I do agree on the 3% uh I also agree on the charter amendment uh the charter process moving forward. So I appreciate the fact the community coming together and moving this forward.

Great. Thanks so much Raj.

Sure. Um so get that out of the way. The charter question of every 12 years revisiting the charter and the CPI increase. Um I agree with um I also agree with the other two questions and uh three or four years ago I brought this up. I I guess it was for when we were still as village trustees. Um for a lot of the reasons Marcus uh mentioned um the entire time I've been volunteering in the city village and city um it has been a struggle to recruit people to come forward and I've spent years and years um asking people what the barriers are um to get young people to come to get people who work different shifts to come. We have global foundaries. They're three shift company. if one of their folks wanted to do it when how are they going to do that if they're a second shift person they can't meet um as a trustee a counselor a vice president and a president I took an average of five days off a year to do the work that is vacation time that I couldn't use for my own family and it cost me a serious amount of money for us and it would cost anyone else that I've heard feedback that says you know I'm a single parent but I want to participate so these are all documented real reasons and if we're going to say and going to stand behind the fact that we want to be a welcoming and inclusive community. We want to walk that walk and we want to bring more voices to the table. This is a very very small investment um to make that happen. Yes, I will likely benefit from this if I win, but I'll also be continuing to spend the time to get other people to step forward and run. We do provide $50 stipens as well for everybody on our committees, and I think that should be looked at, too.

Great. Thank you all so much. And I'm sorry that I Love the order there. But Raj will be first on the next question. Got about 20 minutes left here. And just want to encourage you if you are tuned in live, you can call in at 8028623966 with your question for all three candidates here tonight for the Essex Junction City Council. It's two seats here for the three candidates running. The next question is about Essex Junction as a city and its separation from the town of Essex. So in July of 2026, Essex Junction will celebrate four years as an independent municipality. So what is the impact of this change in structure on the Essex Junction community? And we're going to start with Raj Chala. I think, you know, when I was trying to when I was thinking about this question, um, I just had a bunch of words flying in in front of me, you know, just just energy, there's momentum, there's participation, there's pride, there's, um, in the year leading up when it was clear we were going to separate and the two or so years after, um, well, even before that, the energy was palpable. We had people that had never stepped forward before coming forward to take volunteer positions on committees. We had people who had just moved here. Um, often with these positions, you get someone who's near retirement. Maybe their kids are about 17. They're they've got more time on their hands, but we were starting to see a complete shift in that. And I think that has continued and grown. And I think that just gets to the reinvigoration of the community. Um, you know, we're the only community that was born in Vermont, born in Vermont, even though we pre-existed in decades. Um, and I think that has motivated people to become involved. Um, it also means we get to uh have another shot at uh defining our identity. Um, we have a lot going on in Essex Junction. We're the home to the fairgrounds. We're Five Corners. We're tree farm. We're so much. Um, we're global. Um those are the big things but

we're a lot of little things too and I think um so we have a lot of challenges moving forward too and I think those are going to be very difficult to deal with. Um keeping community together, keeping this momentum, keeping it affordable, welcoming in 15 to 2005 1500 to 2,000 residents over the next 10 or 15 years. Yeah, big challenges. So thank you so much. Uh Marcus.

Yeah. So, I I agree with what Raj said, and I'm going to focus on a couple of these things that really are exciting for the city right now, which is this is a real opportunity now that we've gotten that transition done, that work of of separating done and moving on to what is truly us owning our future, our present and our future. Um, we have a level of engagement right now and excitement that is happening and I think a lot of that is because we are finding new ways to engage with the community whether it is the event of Meet Me on Maine and seeing families and people come out and enjoying

all of a sudden it becomes it's not something that's somewhere else in a park that no one sees. Maple Street Park is a is like a gem on earth. But to have that event where it was, everyone saw the community come together. It was obvious. It was like a highlighter on a moment. It was a be it was great. It also though was really used to engage the community. The governance committee uh we had our downtown improvement plan out there. people not only came and drew on the street but were able to engage with our government, were able to participate in the discussion about the issues that are happening in our community. That was a huge highlight. We're doing more of that. The council this year took on the task of being more engaged. We have our budget engagement events happening right now. These are the kinds of things that we're going to do to build up this community and strengthen it moving forward.

Great. Thank you so much, Marcus and Bethany Clark. your thoughts on the city's independence?

Um, there was a lot of work put into once the merger beca once the merger died and the separation became real. Um, a lot of work put into building up our infrastructure, building up our capacity where we hadn't had any before and a lot of visioning work about what sort of city we wanted to be. I remember when I moved back home, I immediately looked up, you know, the strategic plan results, the comprehensive plan, all of these exciting, you know, strategic visioning processes that had been going on as soon as Essex Junction became a city. And now we're in this very exciting time where we get to put all of that into action. Um, and that also means to me that Essex Junction is stronger and more resilient because we are now standing on our own two feet and deciding our own destiny and determining our own identity. And it also means, as my fellow candidates have mentioned, that we're facing some pretty difficult challenges that every other community in Essex Jun in Vermont is facing. And we need to learn from our neighbors and what has been done before so that we don't have to recreate the wheel and deal with challenges on our own.

Thank you so much. Next question is going to be about public safety. What is the state of public safety in Essex Junction and what is the city council's role in keeping Essex Junction residents safe? And we're going to start with Marcus Third on this one. It's one of our top priorities um outside of trying to be fiscally responsible. Um keeping our community safe is extremely important. Let me start by acknowledging the fact that the fire department is an amazing group of individuals who every day take on the call to help those people in the worst times of their lives. Um and they do it selflessly and I really do appreciate their service. We work with the Essex uh police department. Um they are not under our direct control, but one of the things that I do appreciate is the ability to communicate and have a dialogue with Chief Hogue. I recently had that kind of exchange with him to talk about some issues that were on top of my mind. I know he is willing to do that with residents, but um being able to have that open conversation means that we can continue to focus on the issues that are happening, whether it's traffic concerns, property theft, and I know that we're going to continue to work with the police department to improve those situations. I do also need to I want to acknowledge the fact that I believe that public works is a part of that public safety net. And I see that because of the fact that look, these are the individuals who make sure that our roads are clear and working so that we can get out, get safe. We got to move whether it's we're going to work or we need to get out of the area because something is coming our way. Um, and these people go out 24/7 to make sure that we can do just that. So, I really appreciate um all the hard work that happens from our public safety individuals.

Thank you, Marcus. Yeah,

Bethany Clark, your thoughts on public safety? I agree that um our entire public safety team does an excellent job. The fire department, public works, Essexbd, they all do a wonderful job in Essex Junction. I feel Essex Junction is very safe. I also recognize that there are situations outside of our control, maybe even outside of Essex Junction, that are perhaps making some residents feel less safe. Um, I believe that city council's role and is to work with law enforcement to make sure that all residents feel safe and I think our city council and SXPD do a wonderful job of that and will continue to do so.

Great. Thank you, Bethany. Lastly, Raj, your thoughts on public safety?

Yeah, thanks. Um, you know, I think the city council's role, you know, they set the tone. Um, and expectations. Their responsibility is to work with the city manager to ensure policies and procedures are followed and to ensure the relationship with um our contracted police department, Essex Police, um is is executed properly. Um as everybody said, we are really blessed to have a first class police department, fire department, rescue group, and I'm glad Marcus brought up public works. Um, I'm confident that SXPD shares our community values and its leadership um is open um and I believe firmly behind um making sure people are treated respectfully. Um and um yeah, I'm very confident of that. have been involved enough um with various committees in that in that aspect of life and Essex View and others um to to really appreciate um the police department's approach. That said, right now it's a very uh terrifying time to be part of a non-dominant group in this country and it is our community is not um immune from that. And so, um, I think there I think the council needs to be vigilant and maybe uh needs to take a more vocal role in in what what's happening in our

in our area and what's coming um and take a bigger stand. Great. Thank you all. Just under 10 minutes left, so we'll try to get a few more questions in here. The next one's about housing. What will you do as city councelor to help Essex Junction meet the need for safe and affordable housing? and we'll start with Bethany Clark.

I think some of the actions that have begun to be taken um will be of huge benefit. Um I think the reasoning to increase the height limit to nine stories while perhaps a difficult pill to swallow for some is going to be of huge benefit. Sex junction doesn't have any room to grow out. It can only grow up. So I would want to focus on on high density population centers, centers that are already dense in population like Five Corners, like Pearl Street, increase mixeduse housing in those areas, which increases walkability. Um, and I think the comprehensive plan review in 2027 is also a really good opportunity to look at our goals and our strategies and make sure that we are on the right track.

Great. Thank you. Raj Tala, your thoughts on housing?

This is certainly the one question I thought 90 seconds was impossible for. Um, a lot of the work that's going to shape uh what affordable housing, housing in general, um, what the next 10 or 20 years is going to look like in Essex Junction is being done right now. Um, it started with the transit oriented development project we did. It started with the visioning we did, the strategic plan we did a few years a couple years ago. Um, this is being done primarily by our planning and our our community development department and our planning commission. Um, city council is again setting priorities, working with the community to get these priorities from the community and then we'll ultimately have to give feedback and or approve or disapprove of what they come up with. Um, I think the things that concern me as I look forward to the housing to what's been proposed and what's coming and where it's planned on where it's going to be put, we have very little green space that's open for being a third place for people to be. We have finite amount of parks. Maple Street is often already full. So, as we welcome all of these apartments and all of these people, I want to ensure that the apartments that are coming, the developments that are coming, for instance, include those spaces that will take up bedrooms. That's going to be uh a very difficult debate. More bedrooms, common space, green space, gardens, rooftop gardens. Are they environmentally friendly buildings? Are they efficient? That increases cost. We're losing public transportation in this state. How do we welcome all these people and guarantee that that transit will be there for them? Those are those are big questions that I think the city council will have a role in. The details are really at the planning commission.

Great. Thank you, Raj. Sure. I know it is hard to to tackle these these big questions in 90 seconds, but thank you guys for staying on time. Uh Marcus, your thoughts on on housing?

Yeah, in order to try to condense it because I could do the same thing. Um, but I will simply say I agree and appreciate all the things that have been brought up by both uh Bethany and Raj. So, I'll add to this. I think for us to continue to move forward in such a way to bring the housing needs that we uh need to have in our community, we need to start having some real difficult dialogue with developers, but it needs to include the community. The community spoke up during our strategic planning process. they wanted to be a part of that decision making on how housing came into our community. Um the city council did take that hard step um of allowing for that height. The challenge is there. We're five square miles. It doesn't get it's not going to get any bigger. So where do you go from there? So that height was uh to try to accommodate. We all want to get to a place where we've got more opportunities for first-time home buyers. We want affordable housing for everyone. That means low income as well as, you know, the middle class having the opportunity to afford and live a comfortable life in a home that will accommodate their family. Uh seniors, you know, being able to remain within the community that they've grown up, fall in love with, and and want to remain um and having accessibility to services. So, it is going to be a consistent challenge, but I think that challenge is uh able to be accomplished by having that conversation with developers. I think we have the tools to make that happen. We just need to get it done.

Great. Thank you all so much. Uh we have just about five minutes left, so I think this last question we're going to wrap in as a closing statement uh here. So this is this will be the last question of the program and it's about connecting with your constituents. So as a candidate and as an elected official, how do you gather input and balance differing perspectives from your constituents and how do you ensure that you're hearing from a ri a wide range of voices and not just the loudest ones? Um we're going to start with Raj Chala on this question.

Sure. So I started out by by saying the thing that I love most about Essex Junction was people. Um, I started my working life as a photojournalist when I was a teenager. Um, and I think that work is very much centered around community and telling community stories and meeting people and learning about people and what motivates them. I think that I still have that love. I don't shoot landscapes. I don't do any of that. It's people um and and diving into them. Um, it is really, really hard to get people to engage on a municipal level. And I think you have to be willing to call people, you know, and say, "Look, I I feel like we're making this decision. I don't know how this is impacting this group of people over here. Do you know anyone I can talk to?" Um, I would love to see as a priority for me, if I get back in the council, for us to really discuss and try to implement some kind of equity assessment to all decision-making and spending decisions we make. Um, other communities have done this. It's been discussed on our board. We just haven't gotten to it yet, which is part of why I want to come back. We did merger, we did separation, we did setup as a city, strategic plan, a couple other things. What I call the funwork of building community about starting us out in that new vision is why I want to come back. Equity assessment for this would be who who is impacted by this decision. Have we reached them? How are they impacted? How do we get their feedback? How do we incorporate that feedback and change our approach or do we that kind of thing I think is critical um if you're going to build a community um where people feel connected.

Thanks so much Raja and we're going to go to Marcus here and this is uh the last question and your your thoughts on connecting with constituents.

So I appreciate all the things that Raj brought up because those are things that we're clearly working on and we're going to continue to work on moving forward. Um, this year I was uh I was vice president of the city council. Um, working with uh Amber Thibo, who's the president of the city council and I I got to say um Amber has taken the reigns of making sure that engagement with the community was at was one of the highest priorities we had. I encourage our residents to always go to our city website. You will find our email addresses, our phone numbers. We are easily we're more accessible I think than uh the city council has been in the past. Um we are doing these budget engagement events. Uh we were just out at city hall available there in person all day um dur on tax day in order to make sure that while people were dropping off their their tax payments if they wanted to they can also engage with us. We were asking qu questions of residents while they were coming through as well. Um so we are heightening that. That is a main priority for us moving forward and we'll continue to do that as a candidate serta for ej.org but you know as far as the as a city councelor goes we're going to continue to rise uh increase the amount of engagement we have in the community. Meet me on Main was a perfect example of that and I look forward to uh moving more of those initiatives forward.

Great. Thank you so much Marcus. And lastly, Bethany Clark,

I would love to continue a lot of the things that the city council has started doing um more engagement events. I appreciate that they are doing more events on Zoom at different times of the day um to catch people who, you know, have varying schedules. I'd also love to explore how we can access um people who, you know, on Facebook, on Front Porch Forum, are there other platforms that we could use that we're missing out on? Um you know, those are platforms that in my experience trend towards a certain age demographic. Are there other platforms we could use to engage young people who aren't on Facebook as much, aren't necessarily looking at Front Porch Forum? Um, I would love also to explore getting city news and bulletins translated into other languages more than they are. I know I am hoping that there's a possibility to explore some way to do that with volunteers so it doesn't cost anything additional. Um, but I think we need to look at how we can expand engagement for people who don't speak English as a first language as well because they are part an important part of our community. Um, and I also you have to listen to when people are being particularly loud. Um, and start to ask yourself what issues are people engaging on and why.

Thank you all so much. Bethany Clark, Marcus Serta, and Raj Chall, three candidates running for two seats on the Essex Junction City Council. Uh town meeting day for Essex Junction is April 14th. So don't forget to get out and vote. Uh and thank you all for joining me. Thank you for tuning in and have a great night.