BOE and Mayoral Candidate Forum - Wednesday, October 22, 2025

001Good evening. and welcome to the 2025 board of education and mayoral candidate forum. My name is Jeff Kron and I'm the Berlin High School adviser for the debate club. We're also having members from the Ro Cappa Social Studies Honor Society here as well. The students in this club um have put together an outstanding program for tonight and I want to congratulate them for the hard work they put into this program. Uh they're getting involved with their community. They're showing civic participation, everything that we want young people to do to be more integrated into this community. So, please join me in giving them a round of applause. I would like the students have a chance to introduce themselves as they'll be running this program and you will not hear me talk after this. So, um could

002you please stand up and introduce yourselves to the audience starting with Grace? Hallelujah. These students worked with me to com uh compile roughly eight questions um that we think are important for this community and also for our school district. Um at this time, I'd like to turn the program over to Grace Foster who will lead us with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Good evening, Maril and Board of Education candidates, Superintendent Benigny, the Berlin High School administration, faculty, parents, community members, and town official. Welcome to our candidate forum. As students, we understand the value and importance of active citizenship in our local community, which is why

003we are all here tonight. The mayor and board of education significantly influence the decisions that impact all students, including academics, sports, the arts, music, theater, and extracurricular opportunities. While we may not be able to vote yet ourselves in November, we are determined to be part of the process to learn more about the candidates running for these positions. I would like to thank Mark Kazinski, Brian Dude, and Melissa Gibbons and Peter Zeraboso for attending and participating tonight. Christina Elmani is not able to attend tonight due to a scheduling conflict. Let's give the candidates a warm round of applause. [Applause] This program is not possible without the support of a lot of people. We want to thank Mr. Benigny, Mrs. Amenta, Mrs. D pre, Mr. Testro, Mrs. Dorito, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Zaiton and his staff for

004their assistance in putting this program together. Finally, we want to also thank the audience for joining us in person and watching from home. And now, Spencer will explain the format for tonight's forum. There will be two parts of tonight's program. First, the candidates for mayor will provide opening statements followed by a series of questions and conclude with closing statements. Then, the board members will follow the same format that was intentionally designed to give candidates the opportunities to express their views on various educational issues. The format is not designed for audience generated questions or for candidates to engage in dialogue with each other. Do the candidates and board members have any questions on the format? No. All right. Now, we're going to pass it on to Yousef. Each candidate will have the opportunity to share an

005opening statement that is no longer than four minutes. After all the opening statements are presented, we will ask a series of questions for all candidates to answer. Candidate responses to these candidate responses to these questions are limited to three minutes. Mr. Kron will signal candidates if their allotted time has elapsed. At the end of the program, all candidates will have the opportunity to share closing statements that are no longer than 3 minutes in length. Do the candidates have any questions or need the procedure repeated? >> Thank you. We will now begin with the opening statements. >> Okay, that was the one thing that's not the program that >> Good evening. Thank you for inviting us here. I really appreciate it. I really do enjoy seeing uh youth advocacy and youth being interested in civics since

006in politics and and being involved in their community. I want to tell you a little bit about myself since you did invite us here. Um I've lived in Berlin long enough to see both my kids through the entire Berlin school system. Um and other than that, I have a I am I have a bachelor's degree in justice law administration from Western Connecticut State University. I have a master's criminal justice from Central Connecticut State University. And that's what really brought me to what I do for a living, which is I work for the judicial branch court support services division. I'm a program manager in charge of a statewide network of systems that really help people become the best versions of themselves. And what that means is I provide the resources. I make sure that I hear

007their needs. I manage the budgets. I do all the things so that we in the state of Connecticut can be a safer Connecticut, a happier Connecticut, and that the people that are involved in the criminal justice system have an opportunity to be successful in life. It's a lot of those experiences that I'm going to probably try to draw in tonight. Um, but really what brought me to this to wanting to run for mayor andor being involved in the community has been the education system here in Berlin. Both my kids went to Berlin High School. I went to the entire school system in Berlin. And I got to be honest with you, it is that school system that I think helped make them become the best versions of themselves. And as such, I wanted to give

008back. Both my kids have sort of different needs as they went through the school school system and they were both met. So I wanted to make sure that this is something that other kids and other students could have as they move forward. My son was often on this stage. He was in the theater department and he really between the support of Mr. Bole and the support of Mr. Smith, he really learned how to be the best version of himself and he has the confidence and he is now doing really well in college and I attribute a lot of that to the school system and what they've brought to them. My daughter had all the support she needed from Miss Day Prey throughout her life and now she is also trying to be the best version

009of herself and I want everyone to have that possibility for support and I want to bring that to a townwide level. I want that kind of support and people to feel that sort of support each and every day as much as possible. I want this to be the kind of community that people really feel comfortable and they feel heard and they feel like they're part of the community. Um, a couple of things that I just want to mention. um is that I have due to my involvement with the youth and education, I have been endorsed by the American Federation of Teachers in my candidacy as well as the Connecticut Youth Political Advisory Committee. Um let me get back a little bit to my position. I didn't see the minute thing go up yet. You're going

010to leave it up when you put up. Sorry. So, uh anyway, so um within that job, I do manage over a hundred million. Well, I'm part of a team that manages over a hundred million dollars. So the transferable skills and making sure that you know I work within units uh work within the people generate ideas are things that I have done. I am on legislatively convened boards. I am part of many committees and subcommittees all with the idea of working together to make the judicial branch and the court support services division the best that it can be. And again these are skills that I absolutely look to bring here and to the to the mayorship as well as my role at the on the board of ed. So, that's a little bit about who I

011am. That's a little bit about why I'm running. And I'm gonna end there. Yeah. Thank you. Uh well, again, thank you for for hosting this, too. It's always fun to uh get to the the high school here and talk to the students and get some information out there. Um and to you folks out there, but but a lot of you are at the senior center, so going to be a little bit of a repeat, maybe repeat show. That's okay. Um, so I I'm going to talk a little bit about myself, too. Uh, just kind of uh go through my uh experience with Berlin. Of course, I was born and raised here in Berlin. Went through the school system. Uh went to Berlin High and then I uh went on to as did my wife. Uh

012she's born and raised in Berlin as well. So, um then I went on off to Yukon uh for four years. After Yukon, I went to uh law school in California at Pepperdine in uh in Malibu there. Uh spent uh three years out there in law school and then I came back to Connecticut. Tal took the took the bar exam, passed the bar in Connecticut. Um practiced law for a short period of time in the Hartford area, mostly doing uh real estate uh closings and different things like that. on the civil side. Um at the time, uh I was really interested more though in law enforcement and uh so at that time there was actually a hiring freeze for the government kind kind of like there is now I guess and uh I had to wait

013a little bit. So I put in applications with the different uh federal law enforcement agencies, Secret Service, FBI, DEA, and uh DEA came calling first. So I went with the DEA and uh spent 30 years with the DEA. So what was interesting about uh joining the DEA, obviously I was back here in Connecticut. Um after I was done with training, they sent me back to California. So I worked in the Los Angeles office for about four years. Um and one of the uh you know, one of the investigations I had uh was uh regarding our agent that was killed in Mexico at that time. So uh that was uh you know quite quite an interesting investigation and it actually took the DEA 10 years to find everybody and and arrest everybody. that was involved in

014that. From there, I went to Washington. Uh I was I transferred to our office of chief counsel. Um they were looking for attorneys that were also agents. So we had some field experience and we had the legal background and that was the kind of the heyday of the forfeite program. The asset forfeite program began uh uh I think the law got passed around 1984. So, uh, it was pretty interesting because it was kind of groundbreaking, uh, law and, uh, a groundbreaking program. And one of the things that they had me do was, so as we seized assets in the field, uh, there was an administrative process, there was a judicial process. On the administrative side, they gave certain attorneys the u uh the authority to go ahead and sign off on forfeitures. So after I

015reviewed the case, what the agents did in the field and what uh the legal process had run its course, uh you know, I would just sign off on these forfeitures and forfeit it to the government. It went to um a fund that was uh then shared with all the different agencies that had been involved in the forfeite. Then it was also shared with local and state law enforcement that helped us with these investigations. It was cars, boats, planes, and a lot of money. So I in my time there I spent about seven years in Washington. I uh I forfeited about hund00 million dollars to the government and I also went out and did a lot of training a lot of training to our domestic agents and uh at the time because it was a new

016program I went around the world training. A lot of countries were interested in the forfeite program. Obviously drug drug trafficking is not unique to the United States and uh all the countries have similar issues with drug traffickers. The international drug traffickers are everywhere. So I I kind of tr trained some of the the countries and uh myself, people from the Marshall Service, US Attorney's Office, was a whole uh a whole group that went over there and one of the a couple of the countries um uh Singapore uh they adopted our forfeite program. Fast forward, came back, was in New York for a while, uh a moneyaundering group, and uh I I chose to move back to Berlin when I got transferred to Connecticut and uh we moved back to Berlin. Obviously, my son went through

017the high school, played football, he's now in medical school because of his great education in Berlin High, and uh signed up for the town, did 16 years on planning and zoning, and now 10 years as the mayor. So, it's been a great experience to give back to the town that gave me so much. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. We will now ask the candidates several questions. As a reminder, you have three minutes to respond and you will be signaled by Mr. Kron when your time is up. How would you describe your vision for Berlin over the next four years? Mr. Kazinski will answer first. >> Yes, thank you. Um, well, you know, the vision of Berlin, um, you know, I think it's much like we've accomplished in the last 10 years. Uh, you

018know, I guess when I when I took office, um, there was there was a lot of issues to deal with. I was surprised at that. I uh, you know, they had asked me to run for council. I I was on planning and zoning still, and I stepped down from that. And I learned a lot on planning and zoning of course because that's really an integral part of really a lot of things that happen in town have to go through planning and zoning. So it's a good learning experience. And even though I grew up in the town um I learned a lot through planning and zoning. So one of the things I learned uh I guess on the first day as the mayor of the first few months was the budget and uh the budget was

019not in great shape. Uh, I guess the uh most interesting uh or one of the scary things that came out in the first budget meeting that I had, we did not have a board of finance back then. We uh later implemented that, which I could talk about a little bit later, was that we needed to buy 10 new fire trucks. I mean, I'm sitting in this meeting, I'm brand new, and you know, not sure really what to expect. And so, they had been neglected for a long time. They didn't even the light of the fire trucks, uh, they didn't even make that brand anymore. So we couldn't repair them. So 10 new fire trucks at about a million to a million and a half. So it really um set the stage that what we needed

020to do was work on our finances and work on our public safety. That that was another thing. Obviously coming from law enforcement, I was really disappointed to see that we needed that many firet trucks. It had it gotten that bad. And uh you know so we went through public safety first and uh we have now bought I think six new fire trucks. I think we're on number six. And the radio systems didn't work either for the police or the fire which was another disturbing thing. The fire radio system we had to replace um within the first couple years. And we also replaced the police radio system. We now just transferred to a different system. But the first system uh that we replaced was the the officers in certain parts of town could not communicate by

021radio. Um not very safe for them, not very safe for the town. So that's another thing that we worked on. So that that was one of uh our priorities in the beginning. Um as well as everything else. I mean stuff was not fixed and we've gone through now in 10 years and and done a lot of work uh a lot of infrastructure work a lot of bud budgets for the school system have gone up every year this year was the biggest budget uh and 4.1% and so going forward the vision is to keep it going economic development too I'll touch on that later but we want to keep the success that we've had and the improvements that we've made to the town uh all across the town whether it's our senior seniors, whether it's our

022education system, whether it's public safety, we've done a lot of good and the vision is to keep that going. Thank you. >> Okay. So, how I would describe my vision for Berlin over the next four years is I definitely want to do my part to help Berlin grow both economically, but also in community. I do agree we have a very incredible foundation here. We have strong schools that we've already talked about, hard work, dedication of the people that run those. We have great people here in the town of Berlin. We have a central location. I mean, it is the dead center of Connecticut and it's uh perfect in terms of just us really yoking that and being having that be an opportunity for us to bring people in and to have an opportunity to grow

023the economy here with some ways. So some of the ways that I want to do that or I want to at least explore is I want to look at what's possible in terms of having more walkable space um almost like an area where people can hang out uh you know attend uh walk to one restaurant, walk to another um things like that have a more vibrant community, have a more social feel, have a more um you know community feel. Uh that is one of the things that I definitely want to do um because great opportunities can only turn into progress when we plan thoughtful and work collaboratively with each other. So therefore I really want to start talking about building community. The economy is certainly important but if you don't have a community that's going

024to participate or want to engage in it then it's you know it's only one piece of the puzzle. So in addition to that I want to be able to build a stronger sense of community. I want to see Berlin become more informed. I want them to become more interactive with what we have available here. I want them to know what we have available. We have a lot of great organizations, a lot of great committees. We have a lot of boards and commissions. I want people to want to get involved. We are at a point now where I would suggest that, you know, we're starting to see people wean from involvement and we want to make sure that we have people having that opportunity. More open communication means highlighting the opportunities. It means uh you know

025looking to become a fanatic of the local sports, the the high school sports, the middle school sports. coming to the theater um for the shows, doing all the things that make a small town a small town feel. In addition to that, I really want to give everyone as many reasons as possible to love Berlin by getting involved with the community, hearing their voice, and I'll talk about that a little bit later, and just really having this be a community that people feel safe, that they feel heard, and that they feel part of the community. That's really a big part of my vision. Thank you. Uh, what do you think are Berlin's biggest strengths and challenges right now? Mr. Dude will answer first. >> Thank you. So, I want to start with the challenges because I

026want to try to end on a positive note. So, I see one of the biggest challenges. Oh, actually I see the challenges at the various ends of the spectrum. So, we have a an aging population here. Um, you know, and it's about approximately 38% of our population is senior citizens. 50% approximately is 50 or older. So, and then on the other end, we need to really start thinking about how are we going to have the resources available for new families and for young families to move in. So, I I think taking care of that senior population, making sure that they have what they need, that they can thrive in our community, as well as making sure that we have a succession plan. And what I mean by that is we need to ensure that Berlin

027is competing in in terms of of attracting residents. We have a lot of communities around us that are also trying to attract residents. They're building up what they have available. They're trying to become more enticing as well. I want to provide amenities that will make people want to raise families in Berlin or at least explore the possibility of providing amenities. I want to make sure that our first responders have all the resources necessary to grow in proportion with the, you know, with the uh the raising population here in Connecticut and then additionally the new families that will moving in. Make sure that the schools and everybody is preparing for that succession plan. Uh, so I see that as being some of the biggest challenges, ensuring that we maintain a standard of excellence for our public

028schools as this transition occurs. So that leads me into the strengths. I've kind of mentioned it a couple of times, but I'm going to say it again. I feel like the Berlin public school system is a huge strength. I think that is one of the draws. I think when people are looking to plant roots, I mean, what's one of the first things they look at? They look at property values and they look at schools, right? They look at the school system and the school system and where we are in the world right now is become increasingly more important. There is going to be a lot of challenges facing students moving forward. It's an uncertain technological future. There's a lot of things that I think need to be considered. So here in Berlin, I would suggest

029that we have a really great diversification of educational opportunities, which I think gives students a bunch of opportunities to make themselves as well-rounded as possible. We have amazing teachers. We have a robust extracurricular activities and we have supportive students services for students. I think those things are tremendously important and I see those as strengths. And then the other strength that I want to call out is our first responders. I think our first responders here in Berlin are amazing. Uh I think the police department, every police officer I have met and talked to, they are in this business for the right reason. They care about our community. They care about you. Some of them don't live in the community and I'm telling you right now I think they would uh they feel like they're home here

030and they would protect any of any of us here. And then also our volunteer firefighters unfortunately you know we've had a couple of reasons to have to call them over in the middle of the night each time because that's how those things tend to go unfortunately and they've always been gracious. They've been there. They've never made us feel like it was a burden. Um so I I really appreciate the first responders here as well and I think that's a huge strength of this community. So, making sure that we continue to maintain those things because maintenance is one of the hardest things to do. Getting getting something to a point that you want it to be, that's definitely a challenge. That long-term maintenance and that steady growth and that, you know, uh, strategic growth, that's challenging.

031And so, those strengths and challenges, um, together, I think if we think about it correctly, we'll be in good shape. >> Thank you. Um the strengths, um the strengths are no doubt our people, our residents. That's what made my wife and I want to move back to town after being out of town for about 15 years. Coming back to Berlin, it was the the town we wanted to come back to. Um and it it's there was unbelievable community involvement. Uh you know, there's unbelievable volunteerism. That's how our town runs. I mean, I guess that I don't think people because I have a lot of questions about, you know, I always get a lot of questions. I think we all do, uh, who's involved in in town government, like, oh, yeah, how much do you get

032paid? Well, you know, the big goose egg, right? We get paid nothing. Um, and, uh, but we do it because we love the community, to give back to the community. That's why we do it. There's there's no other reason, right? There's no uh, but it's a good feeling. and you know from the council, the board of finance, all the elected boards and commissions, all the other boards and commissions. I mean, they run our whole town, public building, you know, conservation commission, planning and zoning, uh, all of them. They're all volunteers. They step up and volunteer and, you know, it's usually twice a month and, you know, some of the meetings run till 11:00 at night. Not not the most fun part of being a volunteer, but uh, we get a lot done and, you know,

033that's the events in town. I mean, this last year at the Memorial Day parade, I never saw so many people. So, people are involved. There's all kind of community organizations. God, we know the Lions Club, we know what they do, and all the other organizations in town. You know, look, look at the Berlin Fair with all the different groups that are have their their boost at the fair and uh, you know, earn some of their their uh, funds that they need throughout the year uh by being at the Berlin Fair. So, we all volunteer. And then there is the Volunteer Fire Department. Um, can't say enough about them. They're the ultimate volunteers and as they say there's nothing like the heart of a volunteer and they do it because they love it and they want

034to help us and keep us safe and right yesterday unfortunately was the day of the of the fire that started on Lamentation Mountain and today was the day that unfortunately the Weathersfield firefighter gave his life fighting that fire coming to help us. So, um, you know, we appreciate that and we we, uh, you know, have attended many memorials, you know, in Weathersfield and we had a couple here in Berlin where we put his name on the wall of the firefighters that that, uh, have died uh, in service of Burland. So, but the ultimate volunteers are them are the firefighters, right? So, that's a huge strength. And not to mention, you know, people want to move to Berlin, go try and find a house on the market in Berlin. I mean, it's certainly, you know, I

035I agree with Mr. Dude. The school system is phenomenal. It's it's a great school system. It's funded well and they're doing a great job. What they just came out on the rankings number 50 in the in the state. Um, you know, the staff does a great job. Ask us the staff in our town hall. Uh, you know, they do amazing job. Uh, like I say, they we we can't run the town. You know, I'm not running the town. The staff's running the town. Let's face it, right? I mean, we we're the legislative body and we direct things. things get done. That's how projects get through, you know, ourselves and the board of finance. But it's it's just uh it's a town of volunteers and you can't ask for anything better. Thank you. >> Thank you.

036I'm going to pass it off to Katarina now. How will you ensure transparency, accountability, and responses responses in the executive relationship between the mayor, council, and town manager. Mr. Kazinski will answer first. >> So, you know, that's important. It's probably one of the most important things to that the uh between the the mayor, the council, and our town manager. We all got to get along, right? otherwise it's not going to work at all. And you know, we're very fortunate. We just hired a new town manager. Um, he brings some great experience. I mean, he's the day-to-day manager of the town. We, as many of you may or may not, I'm sure you remember those of you that grew up here. We switched the form of government. I think maybe maybe 20 years ago now. We

037used to have the first selectman form of government where he basically here or she basically was the mayor. Uh, now we went to this town manager form of government. I mean, I see strengths and weaknesses to that, too. But, um, if you have the right people in place like the town manager and and the folks on the council now, I mean, we have a great group on the town council, we we commun we talk to each other. It it doesn't matter what party we're in. It really it really doesn't, you know, in a small town like Berlin, I always tell this to people and to our young people, you know, it's very hard to get stuff done at the state level, let's face it. And it's even harder to get things done on the federal

038level, right? we have our representatives and senators and we vote, but you really can't uh most times see the results of that. It's very hard to quantify that. Um but in Berlin, you could see the results. Uh you know, we we can have a project that we need to fix. We need to, you know, buy a firetruck. Okay, we appropriate the money, we buy the fire truck, it's done. You could see the shiny truck. could when we bought some of those first fire trucks, they drove up to show the council members to see it, you know, so you could really get things done. You know, we're not worried about the border or Ukraine or all the other issues in the world today and and in the state today. So that's really, you know, that's when

039we're responsive to each other. We work together and you know, like last night, as example, at the council meeting, every vote was unanimous. Both sides agreed because it's it's running the town. I mean, politics is involved in everything, but not for the projects in town. We got to pave the roads and right, cut the trees and all the other things we need to fix our playing fields and all the things we have to do. It we're giving back to our community. That's why it's great to be a volunteer and see what you can accomplish as a volunteer in Burland. So, that's really how and transparency is all throughout the process. um you know twice a month there's a council meeting and it's even better uh really since the pandemic because we got Zoom right so

040people don't have to come to the meeting you know I get it on a you know Tuesday night at 7 o'clock and when it's 30° out or 20 degrees out who wants to go to a council meeting most of us don't probably want to go either that night but you know we we we go in person it's easier a little bit easier to communicate but folks could zoom in they can they could be part of it whereas before you know maybe they couldn't so and all the meetings you that that's where the transparency is. It's all recorded. You could if you if you don't zoom in that night, it's recorded. You could watch it and you know that's the strength and transparency. It's all there. Everything's on the town website. Um we have uh newsletters

041now that people could sign up for. We send out agendas. We send out all those things. So, we do work together. It is transparent and uh we're very lucky to have these relationships now. That's why the town's doing well. Thank you. Okay. So for me first for transparency it's communication. Communication. Communication. Communication is the cornerstone of everything that will be successful. If that breaks down there's trouble. Very few things are are going to be successful without good positive communication. So you know to really get that going for transparency you need to have a conversation with the people. You need to have some sort of understanding of the culture of communication. everyone has input on understanding the importance of the communication and how you know how that's going to occur. This means information sharing. That means

042everyone has all the information that they need in order to do their role or their task within whatever project or decision that's being made. Um, everyone has uh upcoming meeting agendas and the materials that they need. All again all the resources in order to make sure that they're they're getting it done. Accountability. Make sure that there's a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities. who's going to be doing what, what are deadlines, how are you going to go ahead and formulate those deadlines. You know, be reasonable, talk it through, identify action steps, identify what's going to come next, and making sure you track that. Also, identify as a group any potential barriers or anything that's going to keep something from moving forward potentially and try to remove those barriers. Um, and then additionally, you know, just

043try to make sure that you're getting everyone's different perspective on these things. Uh, you know, not everyone, no one person has all the answers ever. um discuss reasonable and you know uh better ways to to move forward as terms of making sure that you know you you keep the public informed and you keep everybody else informed. And then responsiveness. This one to me is the most important. This is where you're developing a collaborative culture. People who want to talk to one another, ensure everyone has the opportunity to voice their opinions and also encourage a 360°ree conversation. What do I mean by that? Ask the devil's advocate questions. even if everyone's in agreement, make sure you're poking holes at your own theories. Make sure you're poking hole at your own decisions and that it holds up.

044So, that's something that I I think I can tell you I do a lot in my my professional work. In fact, this week I've been doing nothing but going across the state holding meetings of, you know, seven different stakeholders across several different agencies all with the idea of making sure that we are all doing our part moving in the same direction, you know, and you need to do this so that you don't have problems or that problems don't become big problems. And it's that perpetual communication that will keep all these things in line, that'll keep this moving smoothly. um you know talk about what resources are needed to get the job done and if there is a you know be solution focused have everyone have an opportunity to have a voice I can tell you

045right now I mean just I won't bore you with data but in my years doing what I'm doing the things that I've been involved with with this approach our rearrest rates have gotten better in the models that I work with our our metrics have gotten better and it's not because of me it's because of the system and it's the system that I I work with and lead in a direction so that everyone is working together. Identifi problems are identified quickly and problems are solved quickly. >> How do you plan to manage the town's budget to balance improving services while keeping taxes fair? Mr. Dude will answer first. >> Um, so yeah, so the town budget, I agree, it's one of the biggest pieces of the job, right? And it is one of the most important.

046So as such the first thing is connecting with stakeholders, connecting with the community, connecting with uh small business, connecting with the town agencies, making sure that everyone has an opportunity to really talk about services, what the needs are, what the priorities are for sure. Um and from there I would really look to from there I would look to draw on my professional experience of looking at budgets, making sure that all the programs we work with have the budget that they need. if they don't start to talk about how to make sure that we make up for that shortfall either through, you know, looking for additional appropriations or starting to make pivots, starting to think creatively, starting to make sure that uh, you know, if there's something we can't pay to do anymore, how are we

047going to best replace that? What what other opportunities are we going to look to to uh garner? Are we going to partner? Are we going to look for other community? I mean, all the different options. Sometimes at the end of the day though there isn't an option and that does happen. And so with that I will tell you right now that's when you just need to make sure that you've done all that you can so that when you speak about you know why a service has gone away that you can definitely really advocate for that or you can prove that you've defended and advocated to keep that service. Additionally some of the things um you know that I would bring to this my experience is I am I use what's called resultsbased accountability. It is

048a you know a municip municipal budget sort of thought process or or not really budget but a municipal effectiveness person. There's a few of them out there but that's the one that our agency has embraced. And the question is if you or the uh the three questions are if you're looking at a town service or a town question or a town expenditure is how much of it do we do? How well do we do it? And who's better off? And if you can't answer those three questions in a way that connects to your purpose then you really start to talk about whether or not that's something that you need to continue to do. And the other way that I would really look to bring my experience in is is being data informed. Um, you know,

049data is a big part of, you know, the decisions that I make. Uh, looking at it, trying to figure out exactly how that informs us, which directions to go in, what are our priorities, things of that nature. Um, for sure. And then I'm also pretty good at learning like, hey, we don't have data on something. How do we start to collect and or aggregate that data so that we can make good decisions? Um, so again, the only other thing I want to say in my professional career is I've many times worked with limited to no budget and I've gotten creative and I've talked to the people and I've worked the problem and we've come up with solutions. Maybe it's not, you know, the top tier solution, but we've managed to do something more often than

050not. So that's what I would bring to this position and that's my answer. >> Thanks. Thank you. Um, well, one of the things we did to manage the budget when we uh first uh when I first got on the council, we realized we probably needed a to bring the board of finance back uh which which is added another little level of analysis uh for the budget um because things I mentioned the fire trucks. The other most disturbing thing I saw uh which is you know we've managed that now and and fixed it to the best of our ability was the VNA. unfortunately a beloved organization in town. You know, uh we my parents used the VNA. Many people I know used the VNA. And again, in that first budget meeting, another thing that was pretty

051interesting is that uh we're looking at the budget. I'm looking at the budget sheet and it says uh million-doll budget for the VNA, but then I see we expended $2 million. So, uh you know, the first question to the VNA uh head of the VNA at the time, and I think the VNA board member was there, was your budget's a million dollars. you spent two. Oh, no, no, no. We we we we worked within the budget. No, you doubled your budget. They honestly they didn't even know that. And that I saw that through all the town departments. I mean, I I was shocked at it myself. I mean, I ran an office, you know, in Hartford and Bridgeport, and it was everything from making sure the carpets got clean to my agents came home at

052night safe. And uh uh I couldn't believe it that they they didn't even know what figures were what. And that's why we were in $107 million worth of debt because they weren't paying attention to the budget. So, we've completely changed that. I mean, we're down to we paid that debt down. We had a $10 million budget in our $10 million deficit in our pension fund. And talk about uh you know, bad decisions and you know, they were very clear early on when you know, I took over. I mean, I I would never have expected that, but I thought the town fairly ran fairly well. But we had a $10 million deficit. The old pension fund that that mo most of the folks had gone to a 401k, but the old folks that were still in

053it, police officers mostly and a few town employees. I think there's still a couple left, but they negotiated when the unions negotiated with the town, which I've rarely ever seen in municipal government or state or federal. Um, they negotiated that you could either take the annuity or you could take a lump sum. When I saw that, I said, "Oh, no. a lump sum for all the folks 10 years ago that we were looking to retire, you know, that they were looking to retire and uh you know, most of the police officers that retired and you know, God bless them, they got a good deal. I mean, that's how it is. But with a $10 million deficit and most of the payouts were a million dollars plus. So, we had to shore that up, too, and

054fix that. And we're I think we're now down to and we got through it all without having to borrow any money. That's how we managed the budget. and uh we got through some of these problems. So, we've fixed all that. Uh it's much more it's running much more smooth. And how do we fix it? How do we keep our taxes low? The other part of the question, we bring in economic development, right? So, by bringing in that extra general revenue, which has gone up every year for the last six years, and I'll I'll mention e economic development later. I know I'm out of town, out of time. that keeps our tax rate low and plenty of revenue to keep the town running as it is and to fix all the amenities that we've we've fixed

055in the last 10 years. Thank you. >> Thank you. I will now pass off to Isabella. >> What steps would you take to make the town government more efficient and transparent about how money is spent? Mr. Kazinski will answer first. >> Rolls right back. Right. Right. back to where I ended off. Perfect. Perfect. Um, so again, you know, we looked, we went through every department. I mean, we looked at everything. I mean, honestly, everything needed fixing. Uh, our playing fields were not doing well. And, you know, but we had to come up with a plan. We were we were in a lot of debt. And why the debt was so difficult to overcome was it's the debt payment, right? I think the debt payment when our debt was so high was eight or nine million

056a year. I mean, that's eight or nine million dollars. You know, it's like your mortgage payment, right? You got to pay it every year. That's a lot of money that we didn't have in our hands to fix things in the town. But as we paid it down, obviously the debt payment went down and now we're down to 50 or 55 million. And certainly that makes us more efficient and there's more money to go around and we started on the economic development plan. And what we did was we looked at the you know I don't I don't know if I'm sure you remember 10 years ago um Farmington Avenue was not is not the same place and we really worked hard with our economic development director and the council and different policies but the one policy

057that helped us was uh working on our um our tax abatement policy and that that really was the the policy that um that uh got people coming to town. I mean we have businesses moving to town. We have mom and pop businesses opening up. And when you give them a little bit of a break and they're building a big development like like uh you know, Steel Boulevard there in downtown, those those uh developers are phenomenal. By the way, that that property was was um very polluted. Thank God for the Brownfield grants because we needed $3 million to clean that property up. We're still cleaning up a portion of it, but look at the development we have there. That's a 20some million dollar investment in Burland. And because of the tax abatement, we give them a

058little break. Uh so as they build their development, they're spending their money building the development development. They're um you know, they're they're paying a little bit less taxes, which people some people have said, "Oh, why are you doing that?" Well, that's how we bring them to town. Once they build it out, they're playing the full ride. That's why our general revenue has gone up all these years with all the new new factories that have moved to town, manufacturers, uh companies. We we've been very lucky. And we talk about transparency with the budget. There was none. So, we came up with this. We came up with the pie chart that goes in everybody's tax bill. Okay? And people fought me on this. People didn't want to send this out. I I I won't say who, but

059uh it's like, of course, we want to What are we ashamed of? Are we afraid to show people where their money goes? So, you could put all the stuff you want on the website. You could try and lead the the the horse to the water, but you can't make them drink. But this is in their tax bill now. every year they could see where our money goes and how we pay down our debt. That's called transparency. They get it mailed to their home because it's very hard to make people uh you know, you could explain it all day long. You could put it in the newspaper. You could put it on social media, but it's hard. So, we've been very clear on where the money is going, how we're spending it, how fiscally responsible we

060are in spending it, and that's how the town runs uh much better than it used to. and we're doing great. Thank you. >> So, the transparency piece for me would mean taking the show on the road. And what do I mean by that? I think we all know that we don't get large participation in the budget referendum votes and you know, and again, those votes cost our our town money. Um, you know, so I I don't disagree at all. I think the pie chart was a great idea. I wouldn't have argued you with you at all, but I want to take it a couple steps further. Um, I don't know that I agree that the idea is that people I do think people would want to know a little bit more and put that into

061context, but I don't know that um, you know, a lot of people have a lot of time to really dig deep into the the budget. So, some of the ideas that I'd have to for the transparency is to invite the public to really learn a little bit more about the budget, you know, uh, hosting a budget workshop. And I'm not talking like digging deep, getting the accountants out and getting the advisors out and the calculators. I'm I'm really just talking about putting the budget in context to see where their taxpayer money goes to to understand what are the musthaves, what are the you know the things that you know absolutely have to be paid for like a a you know a good example is uh you know uh union uh teacher union pay pay scales

062things of that nature. the things where there's very little to no flexibility so that they can kind of understand that and that start to get them to really see where there is variables andor flexibility in the budget so that they know what they're voting on or they know where their taxpayer money goes so that they can have an opportunity to really want to be more involved with the process. You know, um I think it's our responsibility to get that to the community. If we're having low turner low voter turnout rates, then I think it is up to the town to meet the community where they are, not vice versa. So, um, and then again, providing clear summaries of where money goes, having constant updates on bigger projects, things of that nature, so people, you know,

063know. I think when people don't hear about things or they're not sure is when people start to speculate things that maybe aren't the reality. I think some of these things would absolutely lead to a well would lead to a higher budget referendum turnout, more community voice, and you'd also, you know, the community would hopefully at least feel like they have had the opportunity to be heard and included. In terms of efficiency with the with the budget, I'm a big fan of lean processing. And and what I mean by that is just constantly looking for perpetual improvement, continuous improvement. What are we doing? Is there better ways to do it? Are we still spending money wisely? work with department heads to review current processes. Reduce any redundancies. Identify redundancies. Identify any areas where technology can be

064part of the part of the solution. Make things more efficient. Just create that sense of continuous improvement. Establish open channels of communication for both the community and the town. All these things together. So just to make sure I mean and again this isn't anything that I am unfamiliar with. You know I you know I work in a state agency that is absolutely public information. how we spend our money, what we do with it, and and how it's benefiting uh you know, the the state of Connecticut is something that I've actually been responsible to communicate. I've been responsible to put together legislative report cards to show exactly why your money is being spent wisely. >> Do you plan to manage growth and development in Berlin while preserving its character? Mr. Dude will answer first. I think

065this is a great question and I'm assuming you asked it because you like how the town looks or whoever asked it likes how the town looks and I do too. I think we have a good balance of open space, we have a good balance of, you know, good neighborhoods and we have a good balance of of economic development. Um, so I do want to preserve that as well. And so the small town feel that we've got from this and the uh you know ability to maintain that should have really thoughtful and strategic growth. So I I think working with the planning and zoning comm uh committee commission for sure to make sure that you know they have all the things they need to make good decisions about how to keep that balance. I'd also look

066to engage with other you know organizations within town. I mean I can tell you right now I've been attending and this is just because I like the organization has nothing to do with running for mayor the land trust and I know that they have a big commitment to making sure that we preserve open spaces to keep that beauty. Um, so I would really look to develop project or I'd really look to encourage the development of projects that have walkability, bring people together, have a sense of community, so kind of keep that small town feel. I want businesses to feel like they're part of the fabric of the community. And I want to support the economic development team here in Berlin so that they can make sure that they're continuing to identify those types of businesses

067and continuing to work with those types of businesses so they want to stay here in Berlin or so that they are successful in Berlin. find meaningful business that we businesses that we know the community will support. Businesses that you know um are familyun or are going to give back to the community. So those are some of the things that I would do in order to make sure that you know we are still having that small town feel. We still have our you know beautiful landscape. I I don't really like municipalities that just have business after business after business and plazas like so I would I would agree that we want to make sure we maintain the feel and to do the right things to make sure that we achieve that >> next. Thank you. Um

068>> yeah right. Um well so we have a policy in place to do all this. Uh it's called our uh our uh plan of conser uh I'm sorry conservation and development. It's every 10 years we go through it. We went through it on planning and zoning. That's what you know we appoint different people to that group and then we go through and we do have a plan. Believe it or not there is a plan in Berlin. Uh we execute it very well. Uh a lot of people don't know about it but we figure out how we're going to develop the town going going forward and we've done that and that's why we preserved all this this space too. We have about 2,000 acres of uh open space in town. There's many many connecting. Look at

069Bsentennial Park. Look at Pistol Creek. We bought that. Um look at the new the new things we're looking at to buy. There's some spa. We're we're actually in the council meeting last night. The uh Fontella property. It's there's a little patch there of I think about a few acres that ties into the Metaccom Trail and we just we're just going to purchase that with the land trust. But planning and zoning is where it all starts. How we how we plan our town out. And I think we've done a pretty good job of it. Planning and zoning as I mean I'm partial because I was on it for 16 years but you know there was a development at one point that wanted to put up but thank God we didn't vote that in. Some people wanted

070it some people didn't. They were going to put uh remember if you remember they were going to make um condos out of the old Kensington grammar school and uh which was fine. That would have been fine but then they decided some developer came to town and decided to put up I don't know what do you want like 50 town houses around that whole area where St. walls now has the park. Oh my god, it would have been a disaster, right? So, you know, that's how planning and zoning works. People came out and people do come out um to the meetings when when they're worried about something, they show up. We all know that that serve on any board in town, they will show up. But when they're not worried, they don't come. I mean, the

071last few budget meetings for the last few years, there's not that many people at our town meetings. We have many, many, many town meetings. We had meeting after meeting when we were looking at the uh you know the senior housing and just people just don't show up. Uh when they're angry they do show up and I'm thankful they're not showing up because I guess they're not that angry. But uh that that's it's difficult to get people out and they're busy and you know they're they're raising their children and it's it's difficult but we do definitely uh we we do definitely do that and by preserving you know the character of the town. Yes, it was a farm community. I mean, we're we're more suburbia now, but uh the other thing that was on the agenda

072last night was preserving the the beautiful horse farm right off a high road, the uh Angus Moore property. And um it's great that the land trust got involved in that and they found the public land, you know, the national organization that's going to try and find the funding on it. Council supported that 100%. That's about I think that's uh 25 acres, maybe it's more than that. So, we are looking to purchase that uh through the land trust and preserve some more heritage in our town that you know, Mr. Moore was a was an artist. There's an old stone house there from the 1860s. That's going to be a wonderful park. We we hope someday to make it maybe a national historic site. So, we always work on that. We always work to preserve that. And

073I think we've got a lot lot a lot of uh success to show for that. Thank you. >> I will now hand it off to Megan. What are your thoughts on affordable housing in Berlin? Do you see it as a need or a challenge? Mr. Kazinski will answer first. >> Yes. Uh it's both. Uh it's definitely a challenge in Connecticut to find affordable housing. it's it's difficult to build it um obviously and and then when it does get built, you know, the developers obviously need to make some money and uh you know, that's just it's very difficult. But we're one of the few towns if if we're talking about the affordable housing bill 830G, um the goal is to have 10% affordable housing in a town. We have about I think we're about 9.4 9.5%

074somewhere around there. We're almost at the 10%. There's only three or four communities uh in the state that are almost at the 10%. Now, there's a new bill out there that the legislaturator is talking about uh some other affordable housing. I don't know what that's going to look like, but we have to watch that cautiously. So we we all these new developments that you see going up we have a certain percentage of those units are affordable units which is based upon the uh basically the income level you know a percentage I think 60% of the median income in in this area there's there's a formula they go through so the rents if you go rent it let's say um you know you get lower rent than someone with a higher salary also when you build

075a development that's a you know 830G uh like there's some developments in town that car. So, some of the houses that you buy are deed restricted. So, it's only it's a it's a less purchase price, but the downside to that or upside depending how you look at it is that when you go to sell it, there are some restrictions that you can't really get market price for it. But, you know, we do have homes like that and many developments in town that are, you know, lower cost uh even on a resale. So, you know, it's it's uh it's a difficult task in Connecticut to get affordable housing. I think we all know that. It's a difficult task to get cheap electricity in Connecticut. It's one of the most expensive in the country. But one of

076the projects I'm proud to say we we finally got done is our senior housing. So, we wanted affordable senior housing. Almost an impossibility because mo all the funding for projects like this come from the state and federal government. And through the last six years we've tried to get this project going forward. Um they kept changing, you know, kept changing the rules and they didn't want to call it just senior housing. They wanted to call it affordable housing. We want housing for our seniors so they could maybe sell their home. It's too much for them and still stay in town and have a reasonable rent to live. So we went through a whole bunch of the the housing authority was working on it. Um it didn't work out. The money never came through on their financing.

077Town took it over. Within two years, we're there. We signed the contract with a company. We found a company that is able to put this together. They build senior housing all around the country. Affordable senior housing. They're in they're from Simsbury Vesta Corporation. They have a great reputation. They they build it and they manage it, which is much better. And we signed the contract. They're supposed to break ground the the first quarter next year. and they're in a state pilot pro program for the financing and they've just been assigned an underwriter so we should be good to go. So that's one problem solved. 70 units instead of the 50 we had planned for. So that's another thing we brought to the town. Thank you. >> Yeah, I definitely see it as a need and a

078challenge. I mean and this again connects a little bit to what I do for a living. I mean, I can tell you right now, if you do not have a place to call home, if you do not have a place to lay your head, just nothing else is going to really be your focus. But it's not just homelessness. It's also, I mean, there are many many people who are a broken furnace away from being homeless or some sort of uh, you know, tragedy in their life or or something from being homeless. And I can tell you right now, it leads to a lot of other issues and concerns. and and there's no municipality that's immune from this. Um, you know, if you don't have afford, you know, if you don't have people that are able

079to afford their homes or have affordable housing, you know, you're losing out on a lot of things. You have people not spending money in the community. They're not helping to to make local businesses grow. You know, you may have foreclosures or people that aren't able to keep their houses up and that can cause issues and concerns. But then again, the humanity side of it, I mean, you know, what do you, you know, where are these people, uh, you know, where are people who need affordable housing going to go? Also, you know, you have people that want to come back to Burland, you young people who maybe, uh, you know, went to college or went away and they want to come back and finding affordable housing is something that could be prohibitive from them wanting to

080develop and grow roots in a town that they've grow, you know, loved. So, yeah, it's it's an issue. It causes emotional stress. It causes uh my gosh uh you know it leads to domestic violence situations, all sorts of things, you know, and the cost of housing used to be approximately 30% of your income and we're above 50ish% now uh for somebody in terms of housing costs and that's just it's getting more and more challenging for everybody. Um so yeah, working-class citizens are struggling to make ends meet. Housing insecurity acts without prejudice. There's not one person in this room right now who's immune from that potential. So, I think, you know, as we think about it, you need to think about like this is something that could happen at any given time to somebody you know

081and love or yourself. So, being conscientious of it, planning for it is the right thing to do. Um, you know, and again, it does help economic growth. It helps the overall well-being, the health of the residents. It makes for better relationships with significant others and loved ones. It actually in fact impacts the school system because if you have somebody who's growing up in in a house or or that's housing insecured children and students, they feel that they're not going to be as as well, you know, uh do as well in school. They're not going to get the outcomes that they want. So, yeah, I think it is an issue. I think it's a challenge. uh you know and I'm proud that Berlin is at least part of that solution and making sure that you know

082people have an opportunity to come into Berlin that maybe wouldn't have otherwise and really starting to grow roots here and to find that next generation. So that's my answer. >> How will you ensure that all voices in the community are heard? Mr. Dude will answer first. >> Yeah. Uh that's a good question and I think you know what I've tried to really convey tonight in most of what I said is the idea of community and I and I do really believe in community for a few reasons. One of them is connection is so important. Connection is something that leads people through the worst of times and part of that your town is part of that connection. So, I'm going to kind of try to tie this into a theory of uh social bonds or what

083I call community bonds. And it's, you know, basically suggesting that if you don't have connection to your town, well, let me do this in a strength-based way. If you do have connection to your town, you're going to be more likely to be committed to that town. You're going to be attached to others. You're going to have commitment to the goals of the town. You're going to be involved in pro-social activities. So, I think hearing all the voices in the town is tremendously important for those reasons and so much more. People want to feel seen. They want to feel heard. They want to know that they're part of something bigger. So, the ways that I would look to do that is regular office hours, people to come in, talk, tell me what, you know, say what

084it is that they're concerned about. Hosting town uh halls, whether it be virtual or in person. In person's always my preference, but I also understand the convenience of virtual. you know, attending diverse community events as the mayor, making sure that you're really understanding, you know, the needs of of the the population in a holistic manner. I mean, are there are there organizations or pockets of people that are feeling disenchanted and disenfranchised with the community? Developing a more robust social media presence that really, you know, looks to communicate all the things that are going well in the town. you know, if a little league team goes to the championship, uh, you know, just all the things that make us feel good about being in Berlin and celebrating the successes of our neighbors. Um, and then additionally,

085just having an empathetic ear when needed. Uh, you know, understanding that not everyone's going to have the same path or the same opportunities or they're not going to feel the same way. and just hearing them out and then just really making sure that they feel like at the end of the day they were heard and had a realistic chance to, you know, have a conversation about whatever it is that's concerning them. So yeah, um, you know, those are the ways that I would look to make sure that all community voices are heard. Uh, you know, and again, I think this is something in my professional career I've displayed really, really well across not just professional systems, but also talking to the clients that my system serves. I can't I I love the opportunity to talk

086to clients when I'm out in programs and hear their stories. It has really helped me become a better person. It's helped me understand the the needs of communities much much more. And again, more than anything, it's really helped me understand how much connection means to people whether they even recognize it or not. Those are the things that matter. Those are the things that make for a community, a life well-lived. It makes for all the things that people strive for. the meaning of life if you will. So that's the things I would do and the reason I do them. >> Yes. Well, so be being the mayor, I could tell you again as a volunteer, there's not a week goes by. There's probably there's not a day goes by that I don't talk to certainly town

087staff, but people in the community, they call me, they email me, they want to meet me, and I meet with all of them. I go to about every single event there is in town. You could ask my wife, "Where are you going tonight?" Every weekn night, weekends, doesn't matter. We had a beautiful event uh Saturday for the uh the Worthington Meeting House, right? 250 years. So, they beat they beat our uh nation's 250 250 years by a year. So, those are the events that are out there. Memorial Day parade, Veterans Day ceremonies, you name it, I'm there. And uh people, you know, come up, they have questions, they call, they email. It's it's amazing. But, you know, get back to every single one of them and answer their questions. We put everything out possible from

088the town. Um, you know, you can only spoon feed people so much. They've got to kind of come looking for it a little bit, but we do. It's all out there. Um, so, you know, we we do put as much information as we can out there and getting people involved. That's important. And one one example I want to use was so the girls softball field needed some serious fixing uh over at Sage, right? So, um it was on our list. We have like a 10-year capital project list. It it was on there, but I talked to the uh park and wreck was involved in it. I talked to the girls softball coach at the time and I said, "Bring bring the team to the council meeting. Let's teach them about local government. Let's teach them

089how it works." They came and they spoke and it was wonderful. We got them involved and of course we renovated the softball field. I mean, we were going to do it anyway, but but we brought them here, you know, to to the to the council meeting and they were involved. They saw how it works. You come and advocate for your position, you know, or for your project or whatever you want from the town. I mean, the saddest council meeting I'm at is when no one's there. I mean, there's a few people maybe on Zoom, but if no one's in the audience, believe it or not, uh it's disappointing to me and to most of us on the council. I think all of us, you want the residents to come and tell you, we're your elected

090officials. Come and tell us what do you want? And you know, they'll send us emails and we'll get it that way, too, of course, but you want them to stand up there and and talk to you about what you want. So, we can have a give and take with that. So, you know, when people know where to go and when they are interested in a project or disinterested in something we're doing in town, they do come and they they voice their opinion and that's the way it works. That's the way it should work. That's why we've been so successful, you know, that's why we have a 10-year capital project plan. We have a plan to move forward with all these projects. We fixed the girls softball field, all the playing fields, the returf fields, all

091the things we've done is because of we're trying to, you know, solve problems in the town that people need. They need, you know, another a new playground. We've done that. You know, whatever we've done infrastructure-wise, pave my roads. That's one of the most, you know, that's one of the most uh things that people want their road paved, right? That's real important. And we have a a paving plan for that. We pay pave five to seven miles a year. And if you call up and your road's not paved, you'll be on the list for next year. We do have a plan, but we'll try and take care of the roads that are worse. Anyway, we are out there. We are communicating all the time. Thank you. >> Each of you to present a threeminut closing statement.

092Mr. Kazinski, you may begin >> already. We're having so much fun. Um, so >> yes. Well, that's right. We have we have a way to end it, Brian. We're gonna we have a special way now. I don't think we're going to do it that way, right? No. Don't don't count that in my three minutes. Uh yeah, we're fair. Um so, you know, what can I say? Uh I you know, I've been involved in the town for now what 26 years. Uh grew up in the town. Um I think I have a great handle on what we're doing. And I guess I I I don't know from some of the things I've heard tonight, I look at the town, the the glasses is half full, not half empty. We do have community groups. We all get

093together. We have un unbelievable town. I mean, I meet with the mayors, you know, we have groups around that we meet with the different mayors. Rocky Hill is probably the closest to us. And, you know, she Lisa over there asks me a lot of times like, "How how did you get all this economic development? How did you get this? How do you do that?" I mean, you know, we're we're doing very well as a town, but it's hard work, but we've put in the hard work. And and not just me. I'm just talking about me. Like I said before, it's all the boards and commissions. It's everyone in town. It's the town government. We do get along in town despite what I see on social media. Pretty much we do. Yeah, we have difference of

094opinions. Of course we do. That's healthy. That's how it should be. But when the chips are down, we all show up and we and we get things done. And that's why the town is thriving. I mean, we have 145 million of investment in town in the last six years. You show me any time in Berlin's history, not since I've lived here, that I've seen investment like that in our town because we're working at that. We're working on bringing businesses to town. I I mean, you're probably not going to believe this, but the governor asked me twice. He was at the Berlin fair once and he was at a ceremony here. He said, "How are you getting all the economic development to come to Berlin?" I said it was the tax abatement policy and it's also

095our economic development director who's phenomenal who takes his direction from the council and you know and the town manager of course but what he does is how we got a factory to move here from Rocky Hill. He answered the phone. Rocky Hill was ignoring this factory. They it was uh it was second generation a manufacturing plant. They do defense contracting. They called around different towns because Rocky Hill didn't have the right property. They didn't want to deal with them. I don't really know what the whole story was there. He called Berlin. Guess what? Forest Machine is over on Christian Lane. And you know, they're adding to our tax base. You have to have the right people in the right places. And I believe we do. That's why we're so successful. When the pandemic hit and

096the Newport developers were was building Steel Boulevard, the price of steel for that first building where Hops is in the was went up $100,000. They had to eat $100,000. They said to me, "We said we're going to build the development and we're going to do it." And they did it. So, you have to go through the process to pick that right developer and we do all the time. That's why Farmington Avenue looks completely different than it did 10 years ago. And that's why our town is vibrant and it's doing good. Of course, we could do better. There's always more to do and we're going to get that done, too. So, I uh you know, I I I look forward to hopefully serving the town uh again, and there's other projects we need to finish. There's

097always another project around the corner, but we'll get it done because I will stand on my record for the last 10 years and look around. It's a lot better place, I believe, because of the team that in the town that's working on it. Thank you, >> Mr. Dude. >> Thank you. So, first I want to thank you all for having me here tonight. I'm going to take my closing statements in a little bit of a different direction. I'm not going to sum up what I said. I really want to talk to you, the youth, tonight. For me, this is me speaking. This country right now is more divisive than I've ever felt. And I don't like it. And it doesn't feel good for any of us. And there is enough blame to go around. There

098is not one individual or one party that's more or less responsible at this point. People are tired of the Republican versus Democrat Democrat versus Republican argument. And I am too. So really what I want us to do is take an opportunity to really talk to you tonight about thinking ahead to who you're going to be in your future, knowing that however you think about things tonight, however you think about things politically, those may shift as you move forward in life, you get a job, you get married, you have children, these things, these priorities, they change. So please, I'm encouraging everyone here tonight, don't be stuck in just one mentality. And again, this is not at all meant to suggest that this is one party over the other. And I want to make it abundantly clear.

099This isn't to suggest me versus the mayor either. This is just a general statement. I think it's time to do better. It's time for us to be better. And because we are such a small town, the divisiveness of these types of things are felt a little bit more, but so can the unity. So, as you're moving forward, I encourage you to do a couple of things in your life. Always seek out new experiences. Question your own beliefs and your own assumptions. Put yourselves in positions to hear and interact with people that maybe don't think like you do. Start to become empathetic towards other people. Everyone has dreams and goals and they see pathways to get there. And when they don't feel like those pathways are available to them, that's when they become frustrated. Hear that

100out. Understand their rationale. I am not at all suggesting that any one of you need to change your mind or that you need to agree with them. One of the biggest social skills I can absolutely encourage you to develop as quickly as possible is the art of agreeing to disagree. It's a wonderful thing to be able to walk away from a conversation where people feel like there's no hurt feelings. They had an opportunity to talk and at the end of the day it's okay that we don't agree. So, please, as you're starting to think about your futures, just do whatever you can do to make sure that you have a well-rounded, robust, absolute, holistic view of what's possible, of how people feel and how they act. I'm telling you right now, I think you'll be

101the better for it. You will understand people much, much better, and you will know how to interact with people in a way that is just amazing. So, having said that, all I can tell you right now is I'm going to quote my favorite fictional coach, Ted Lasso. Always be curious, not judgmental. Everyone in our society just wants to be the best version of themselves. Help them get there. >> Thank you. We would like to thank Mr. Kazinski and Mr. Dude for their time and participation tonight. We will now transition to the board of education portion of this program. [Applause] That's Each board member will now have the opportunity to share an opening statement that is no longer than three minutes. Mr. Zeraboso will go first. Uh for my open opening statement, I just want to

102introduce myself. My name is Peter Zeraboso. Uh I've served on the board of education for three years. Uh in my capacity on the board, I've served as the chair of the finance and operations committee for two years. Um, I've lived in town uh for a little over five and a half years now uh with my wife. I have a three-year-old and uh we're expecting a second on the way. God, God willing, of course. Um I'm I am a huge fan of our school system and that is a primary driver as to why myself and my family decided to move to Berlin in the first place. Uh, I grew up in Meridan, lived in upstate New York for a short time and then resided in Manchester as well. Um, I would have settled in Manchester had

103they had a uh robust education system like we do in Berlin, but that was a primary driver for me and my family to come here. Um, it's been a pleasure uh serving on the board. I view my service on the board as uh helping the town out and serving as a volunteer and I really enjoy my time on the board and helping the community and supporting the school system in any way that I can. >> Good evening everyone out >> um for putting on this event this evening. Um this is the third time um completing one of these forums and I think it's just a great opportunity for the greater community um to hear from all the candidates. So I appreciate your hard work. Um a little bit about myself. I moved into town in

1042010 actually 101010. Um at that point of time it was just my husband and I and we did not um really actually think of schools ironically. Um but what's amazing about our location is my kids can walk to all three schools. Um which is I think amazing and talk about sense of community. Um my connection to education comes from a line of educators. Uh my grandfather was a music teacher, my mom a science teacher, my brother a science teacher, and I as well went to school for education. I have a certification for art education K through 12. Um I taught in Waterberry for eight years and after having my second child, child care was way too expensive. Um, so I had the most amazing opportunity to be able to be a stay-at-home mom, um, and

105be present for my kids and my family, um, which was able to allow me to go to events at their schools. Um, you know, share in their activities. um whether it just being there as an extra pair of hands or even to teach a lesson uh myself just to kind of help the teachers and just because it's something that I love to do. Um after the break um I did end up going I'm back in the classroom. I'm in a local preschool right now and it is the most amazing job. um super rewarding in a different way that I was um teaching, you know, at the more of like the upper levels. Um the smallest accomplishments as being able to write your first A or your write your first letter and seeing the smile on

106their faces of how proud they are. It's just an incredible feeling. And I just want kids to have that feeling throughout their whole education career. um because it is 15 long years or more if you choose to continue your education um in college. So um I started on the board uh this is my I'm going for my third term. Um I've been on the board for four years. I've learned so much. It's been a great opportunity to understand the education system in a different view than just a teacher. Um, now I have the view as a parent and now as a community member as well and I'm continuing to learn. Um, and it's just an amazing opportunity and I'm very grateful for the time that I have served on the board and I'm looking forward

107to um the future. We will now ask the board of education candidates several questions. As a reminder, you will have three minutes to respond and you will be signaled by Mr. Kron when your time is up. What are the most important qualities for a member of the board of education and how do you embody them? Mrs. Gibbons will answer first. >> So, like I said, this was this has been now my third time doing this forum and I was talking to Mr. Kron before. Um, it was actually nice to reflect on these questions that were presented before because it's just interesting how things have changed and how I've grown and how just my perspective overall um has changed. But I would have to say um the most important qualities to be a um board of

108education member is to know your roles and responsibilities. Um I learned that definitely within the first year and you know one of the major things that a board member does we know I would have to say the budget um is definitely a top priority but we also are involved with policy which directly more relates with um just like the students and the everyday changes um one might have. So understanding those roles and responsibilities um which is you know also listed under the state statute that explains it. Um being prepared I think is a huge component. As I uh showed up here at 6:00 today um it was in my calendar. I thought it was six. Um the meeting 6:30 obviously so very punctual. Um, but being prepared for a meeting is looking at all of

109the material. Um, so that you're prepared with questions that you might have to get clarification to get a better understanding of what it is that you potentially are going to be voting on or what you're discussing. So, definitely reviewing material before or diving in even deeper on your own to do your own research. Um but definitely looking to you know give questions to the chair if needed or the superintendent. Um you know just to be prepared for the meetings themselves and also just being um with communication, right? A great listener. There's a lot of things that people have to say and they're all important. Um there are different perspectives and that's fantastic. Um, I would have to say when I first joined the board, it was hard to probe questions that might have gone against

110the grain. Um, but I feel like now there's more cohesive board where we're more resp we respect each other's opinions and once again I think that collaborative work of listening and understanding where someone might be coming from just helps create a stronger board overall. >> Okay. Uh I'm going to be succinct and I am going to say that I uh completely agree and echo Mrs. Gibbons's point, but to elaborate on that um I would also add that um working and being able to work collaboratively with others is probably the biggest thing and the strongest quality you need on the board of education. uh because any board especially the board of ed uh consists of uh individuals with different political ideals, different life experiences, perspectives, and we're all working together to unify and and work in

111the best interest of uh the town and the school district as a whole. Um I think furthermore that another good quality is to look at the broader picture even outside of the board of education but how our decisions on the board of ed not only impact the district but when it comes to budget issues how it potentially impacts um the town as a whole because as we all know the board of education budget does take up a significant portion of the town budget and the decisions we make here has a direct impact not only on the students but on um all residents and taxpayers in the town as a whole. So taking into account and looking at the broader picture and how our decisions impact and how we work collaboratively with um the council, the

112board of finance and all the other stakeholders. That's probably one of the biggest and most important qualities that we have to uh you know we need to embody as a board member. >> Thank you. What are the most pressing issues facing the school district over the next four years? Mr. Zeroso will answer first. Uh the most pressing issues, there's quite a few and it's not just unique to Berlin. Um I think first and foremost is obviously budget sustainability. Um not only not just from a town level but also from state and federal level. um with um you know with uh reductions in federal funding and additionally state funding coupled with state mandates that are pushed on to uh the town and the and the board of ed. In the as an example in the last

113year we had a uh state fun uh statemandated um reading program that was estimated to cost half a million dollars. Um, and through the work of some of our staff and uh, curriculum directors, they found some grant money to bring that number down to 215,000, which is still a significant number um, for our budget. Um, but these kind types of mandates that come down from the state just continue to come. Um and in the example of the reading program, um it was the board's position and my own position that it was arguably completely unnecessary because the curriculum program and reading program we are we already had in place was um well vetted and very very effective. Um but nonetheless um budget sustainability and the pressure we have from external factors um are definitely going to

114impact the district. Uh secondly, uh student mental health and and the school climate as a whole. Many students face anxiety and behavioral challenges. Um so we need to continue to support and fund counselors, social workers, and continue to have staff tra uh training which can create a safe and supportive environment for all of our students. Um additionally, um focus on academic growth and learning. Um some will say that the pandemic had a huge impact on the learning of students which it did but I think the carryover from the pandemic is just the overreiance on technology the advent of AI and how students and young people are getting wrapped into the technology and AI it's it's really having a detrimental effect on not only you know their academic performance but also their mental health and we

115need to focus on how we as a district are going to set policy or adapt to these changing times. Um, and lastly, I'd say teacher and staff retention is also going to be a big issue. It's already an issue. Um, so we need to focus on setting policies on how we can attract teachers to our district, not just teachers, but the best and qualified teachers um to our district to help support our students and also how we can focus on retaining them. So, I'm also going to agree um with a lot of what Peter said, and I'll just elaborate um a little bit more. Um I one of the top ones I did put as an issue would be the maintaining and hiring quality teachers. Um lucky enough, I've been a part of the beginning

116ceremonies and welcoming the new teachers in the district um as well as the end of the year. And as we're going through and um seeing these retirements in the town of Berlin alone, it's incredible to see the amount of years that they have committed um to the district, 25 plus and so on years. Um you know, and that's a testament to the district itself and the people that um work here and the student body that we have. Um, however, maintaining, you know, those teachers, there still is, um, a fear of teacher burnout. I do know very close friends of mine that have put um, 18 plus years in the classroom, including my brother. Um and it's just gotten to the point where the their mental health is taking um a turn in a negative direction

117um because of the demands in the um I'll say the plate is too full um for some of these teachers and it's putting stress on the teachers which essentially is going to feed to our students and they're going to feel that as well. And if our teachers do not feel supported um and enjoy what they're teaching, then our students are not going to get the quality education that they deserve. Um so, you know, valuing the teachers that we have. Um and also hiring. It's, you know, it's been seen in the news before. My mom works for a university in Florida. the enrollment for college students to go into education, it's down. And if we don't have the individuals stepping up to go into these roles, then it's going to be harder for our district to

118hire um the best quality teachers um for our students. Um I definitely think going on with the mental health, the um social emotional well-being not only of our teachers but of our students as well. Um, I have a first grader and a fourth grader and there's times when they come home and I can just tell that they are overwhelmed. There's a lot. Kindergarten does not look the same that it did when I went to school and teachers are doing their best, right, to make the learning fun, but at the same time, it's a it's a burden. And some kids can rise to the occasion and others might fall through the crack and it breaks my heart because sometimes once they're down there they're trying to keep their head above water and it's just once again

119a lot on the plate. Um the last one I would have to say with technology is AI. I myself am not very familiar with it. My husband would make fun of me for that. He probably told me that I could have, you know, found all the answers to my questions. Um, but how that's going to look in the classroom is something different and something we definitely need to be prepared um for for students and our staff. >> I will now pass on to Yumna who will answer the next questions. In your opinion, who and how should decisions be made about what is taught in our classrooms? Mrs. Gibbons will answer first. >> Sure. Um, so being in education through bachelor's and masters, you know, I'm very familiar with curriculum. In those cases though, with my

120courses, I could write the curriculum or I was to develop a curriculum. um and that was just based on following the standards um in which my content has presented. I do believe that the decisions on how things should be taught in the classroom should come from the teachers um because they are the ones that are directly working with the students and throughing through using differentiating instructions and different techniques, right? they're going to find the best way um for their students to thrive. Um in terms of what curriculum should be taught in the classroom, I do have mixed thoughts on it. Um I don't think it's should be one individual. Um there's it's got to be a group you if we're creating if we're taking in a curriculum that has already been developed um it needs

121to be looked at especially from the teachers knowing their student population and the needs of their students if that's going to be the right fit for them to thrive. um as well as obviously administration um and just kind of looking the bigger picture and the bigger goals for the um district. Um and I also believe that there with the different curriculums a one-sizefitit all does not work. It might be bits and pieces um because not every one child is the same. They don't learn the same. they're not going to retain the information the same way. They have to be able to connect to it. Um so with that in terms of topics or content, it needs to be relatable so that the learning is fun and the kids stay engaged. Um, and I do believe

122that parents have a say um, in what their students are exposed to in terms of the curriculum. And I do respect that if parents feel that whatever curriculum is being presented um, that they have the option to opt out um, per their decision. Um and so I think it's a collaborative effort. Um in terms of the curriculum, there's a lot of different components to look at it that teachers um overall staff like we have the reading specialists, math specialists who see bigger trends in things. Um it's a big wide discussion on what's going to work best for our students. um not what say the state thinks that's going to work best for Berlin students. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, uh what should be, you know, how do this how are the decisions made about what's taught

123in the classroom? I mean, first as Mel has elaborated on is, you know, really respecting the expertise of our teachers, our curriculum directors, um and our administration. Um but ultimately what it comes down to is uh collaborative effort. Again um classrooms need to balance the educational expertise of our teachers. We should be using evidence-based practices in the classroom and ultimately we should also be respecting and and acknowledging the values of our community and by extension our parents as well. Um, I do agree with Mel that there are certain curricula items that, you know, if parents feel uncomfortable with or or feel that uh they don't want their child participating, you know, the the parent should be able to engage and potentially have the option to opt out. I think we do have some items already

124um and uh in our curriculum that afford that option. I believe recently it was Aeron's law, right? there was some classroom teaching around that and uh parents had the option to opt out of that. So that should always be respected. Um but you know truly in short you know curriculum decisions are a partnership. The board acts as oversight and accountability for what happens with the curriculum but it comes down to the teachers building it. Um, and ultimately it's all about just keeping the classrooms student focused, academically strong, and reflective of the values of our community. Please describe how the board of education can involve more students in the decision-making process for how our schools function and represent their goals, interests, and values. Mr. Zerabo will answer first. >> Yeah. Um, well, I think we already

125practiced one uh one good thing. We do have student representatives on on our board and they present uh a report at each meeting and help advocate for what students might be concerned about in the school district. Um, I personally I would like to see more student engagement at board meetings or seeing them come out or see seeing them send emails um in regard to policies that may be directly impacting them. I mean, of course, all policies ultimately direct them by extension. Um, but we certainly um recently had some decisions about p the use of personal devices. Um the um the elimination of carrying backpacks between classrooms for safety reasons. And I I do recognize that some students were dissatisfied with that decision, but it would be nice to have students come to the meetings and

126empower them to come speak and be civically engaged. And while the student representatives are a good um asset and feature to the board, it it would be great if more students uh got involved uh through those mediums. Um, additionally, I think that we could probably implement, you know, regular surveys and forums to to help gather student input on the curriculum and more importantly the school the school climate, um extracurricular programs and and mental health supports really. Um, it's important to hear from a broad range of students and not just a few select voices. Um, and finally, it's it's crucial to communicate back to students about how their feedback influences decisions. Um, and showing that their voices have impact. Um because you know uh having the student representatives at the board seeing what's going on um

127on a monthly basis at the meetings whether it's the football games or the litany of programs we offer. It's it really means a lot and serves as a great snapshot for the board to get insight into what's happening in the school district and it's great to see how involved the students are in the entire process. Um, I'm going to echo what Peter has said and just add a little bit to that. I think it's wonderful that we have the student representation on the board and just being at the CAB conferences and being able to talk to other board members in different towns. Um, I don't think I've ever spoke to any of them that have um said that they had student representation. So, I think that's a phenomenal way to get student voice out. Um,

128it is definitely more directed to the high school level as we're given information about high school events. Um, it would be nice. I know they hours aren't really conducive sometimes, but even if we push that student representative to maybe an eighth grader or a seventh grader, you know, just to get a perspective on what's happening at the middle school. elementary school might be a little tough, but it would be actually kind of I think pretty interesting to hear their point of view um from different topics that we have. Um I also believe that surveys uh would be a key in having your voice being heard um with a larger, you know, population. I also believe like Peter said, it would be wonderful to hear more student voices. um advocate for yourself and what you believe

129in. Having the open, you know, audience of citizen, you know, giving you that time to speak out to the public or even once again with all this technology, you know, a simple email sent to the board um would be a great way to um communicate your concerns or your interests or what you, you know, value within the schools. Yousef will now ask the following questions. Please describe how your personal and professional experiences will impact your service as a member of the board of education. Mrs. Gibbons will answer first. >> Perfect. So, um, just to touch upon some things before, like I said, I'm a mom of two. Um, I started on the board when my son was entering kindergarten and he's now a fourth grader and I also have a first grader as well. Um,

130you know, I mentioned before that my passion for education, you know, came through the role of wanting to be a teacher. It's actually, I know, very difficult. at the age of 17 when I graduated high school to decide what it is that I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Um, but there's just something about the passion to help inspire individuals to be the best that they can be and to explore the world um is definitely amazing. Um, so having that teacher teaching background gives me one, you know, perspective. And, um, I'm just since being on the board, I've been fully committed. Um, I think I've only missed one meeting out of the four years. Um, just this year, I had to zoom from Colorado um, as I was about to board an

131airport, but we had a Zoom meeting um, that I connected into. So, I truly value the commitment to the role itself. While the the with the time I've been on the board, I've been on the community engagement um committee and I've also been on the curriculum committee and I'm hoping to have the opportunity to be on the finance and operation committee because I think it's important for a board member to understand all the different components um of each um committee to have a better greater understanding of how things work. um kind of going back to the roles and responsibilities. Um and I just I'm doing this because I want to I enjoy giving back. I enjoy the opportunity to be able to volunteer. Um, and I'm present within my son's elementary school, whether it's the

132PTO. I just completed the door design for the um, Scholastic Bookf Fair, and it's just because I enjoy doing it and I enjoy giving it back. Um, I've learned a lot. I'm continuing to learn. I try to attend the CABE um conferences when available, but if not, the CAB also, you know, gives a lot of information out for me to read to be a better board member. Um, and just to understand the different things that are going on, even up at the state level if there's new legislation that's going to be passed and brought down. Um, so I take the time and the effort because I want to I want to learn more. I want to have a better understanding so that I can make the right decisions as a board member. Um, in my

133professional experience, I've worked as a nurse for about 15 years. I've worked in different different areas. I've worked in a transplant unit, operating room. I've helped manage a large residency clinic. Um, I've worked out patient. Um, but I think working as a nurse, you know, I've learned to stay calm in pretty stressful situations, solve problems, and and also advocate for the need of my patients and for others. I think those skills kind of directly translate to my role here on the board. Uh, in addition to my experience as a nurse, I've worked um or worked, I should say, volunteered really uh as a union officer in a very large uh union in the state. Um, and in my capacity there, it's kind of taught me how to represent people's voices because we represent about 3,000

134different people in many different job titles, which can sometimes be very difficult as there are competing interests within that group. Um, furthermore, it's also helped me negotiate fairly because I've sat on several um, contract negotiations which can be very tedious, lengthy, and um, admittedly very boring, but it is what it is. Um, and it also helps me balance multiple perspectives because I'm dealing with a litany of people in different uh in different arenas. Um, and all of those skills kind of help help me on the board here. I mean, it's it's they're all very similar. Um, so all of the experiences when my in my role as a nurse and my role as a union officer and volunteering in that capacity and sitting on uh negotiations for contracts, um, it's all helped me in this

135role here today. Um, so I really I just try to use my best judgment, have a commitment to collaborate, collaborating with all of our board members in every single discussion we have and just helping to ensure that, you know, our schools are wellrun and responsive to all of the needs of our students. Grace will ask the next question. If the school district is faced with a tight budget cycle where spending cuts are necessary, please explain the process the board of education should follow when making these cuts. Mr. Zerabosa will answer. >> Well, the budget cycle is tight every cycle. It's it's always difficult because as we discussed earlier the the pressures from the state and and and the federal government and balancing the needs of the town. It's always going to be a tight cycle.

136That's just the reality of the situation. Um but through that process, you know, first and foremost, we rely on the superintendent and the administration um principles and so on to set their budgets to bring it to the to to to the superintendent. He sets his budget, discusses with us what we're going to review, what what his thoughts on the matter are. We work collaboratively to look at the best cost-saving options and efficiencies. I mean, recently in the past cycle, although it is not yet applicable due to contracts, we're really starting to hammer in on how to be more efficient with our transportation costs and busing because that is a significant portion of our budget and there are definitely ways to be leaner on that um without impacting the student experience. Um but ultimately, you know,

137we use the be the the um we use data to the best of our ability. We look at whatever we can do to not impact the classrooms or or um increase uh classroom sizes. Ultimately, we look at the tertiary programs that we may need to cut or eliminate or you know, do we need the support staff? Do we need um you know extraneous programs? Obviously, we want to keep everything we can in the budget, but the reality is is that sometimes things unfortunately need to be cut and we ultimately look at the things that are not going to have a direct direct impact on the students. Um, and I always look at what we can do to cut administration. We already run administration pretty lean as it is, but it's just my natural inclination to

138lean towards administration before cutting teachers or support staff or things of that nature that are going to have more of an impact on the students or the classrooms. >> I'm so glad you went first on that one, Peter. Um, I agree with a lot of what Peter Peter has said and I just, you know, want to elaborate a little bit more. Um the budget is tough each and every year and there's hard decisions that need to be made. um and with our finance and operations committee. Um it gives the opportunity for these discussions to start based on the information that's been provided to us from the superintendent, his administration staff, um on the needs of the staff, the students, the school, um and then us as a board. We have to look at it, you

139know, as a whole. um once the budget you know is set by the town um the superintendent needs to work within that budget and unfortunately we don't have an endless amount of money that we can get access to um so it does put hard decisions in place um but I do believe that reductions should be made with the you know most minimal impact obviously to the students and their learning as possible. Um teachers, paras, staff are priority. Um small class sizes absolutely. Um so like Peter had said, you know, kind of being creative looking at things maybe in a different way like we tal like he talked about with transportation. Um I had mentioned during the budget season about tech the one-on-one technology for the younger students. um just once again to find ways that's

140not going to be a person, a body, a connection that's going to help support our students um and their needs. Um, I think the discussion, it's a long process over several different meetings and I think from the four years that I've been on the board, um, we typically hear from a lot of the same voices in town and it would be absolutely wonderful for more individuals to come out and to speak. Um, same thing with the student representation. um because if we don't hear it, we're going based on just the information that's given to us. And I definitely do believe that certain things um especially revolving around the budget and what potentially might be reduced or cut instead of the after um the budget is set and after this discussion has been made. Um, I

141wish the communication from the town, um, the parents, um, even staff, um, to come out and speak, um, to the board. Please share what you see as the most important priorities for Burlin Public Schools to ensure that an equitable education is offered to all students. Mrs. Gibbons will answer first. Um, so from what I've seen um, in both of my student both of my kids classrooms and just from talking to parents and the great rapport that I've had just being within schools and talking to the teachers, um, I do believe that the teachers already strive to different differentiate instruction in the classes to meet the students needs. um their goals and the goals of our school is for the success of all the students. Um education is already equitable because teachers follow um the state

142standards. We have IEPs, 504s in place for students that need them. Um and services, you know, should be available for the students um if they might be struggling. Um teachers always have the students best interest in mind and support from administration and proper professionals um proper professional development which we have a lot of um can be a great resource for the teachers. Uh yeah, the most uh important priorities for assuring an equitable education in my mind is is really shoring up and supporting students and kids who have special education needs. Um I think that the district already does an excellent job with providing an equitable education everyone and I do think our um special education program is excellent. Our current staff does a phenomenal job of focusing on the students, giving them, you know, the

143support they need um and and putting them uh assisting them without placement if if that's necessary and putting them in the best um uh supportive school environment that they can be placed in, working collaboratively with the student and the parents. But my concern with special special education really comes in looking down the road um is with funding from the state. Um this has been an ongoing issue. You know, 25% of our budget um it goes to special education and that is not just unique to Berlin. It's unique to almost every single school district across the state. Some might be a little bit greater. Um but the state really doesn't give that much financial support in that arena. And you know as uh Mel touched on uh earlier about you know children falling through the cracks

144um and being overwhelmed and may and needing you know supports whether that be ABA or or other uh professionals. I think that, you know, not only is our role on a local level here as a board member, but I, you know, reflecting on it, I think that ourselves as individuals or as board members or as a board as a whole, you know, I think we should, you know, really start to focus on um acting legislatively, even if that means, you know, taking a position and and going to the state capital and speaking on issues such as special education funding um and advocating for the needs of our students in this town. But I do think that that is probably one of the biggest problems that we face in terms of equitability um in our school

145district and we manage it well despite the overwhelming challenges um and lack of support or funding from uh you know our state or federal governments. >> Thank you. Yna will now come up to ask the last question. >> How will you balance your own personal and political beliefs with fellow members who may disagree with you and how do you recommend the board handle these differences of opinion? Mr. Zeraboso will answer first. Uh having served on the board for three years, I I think um the board members or my own uh personal political beliefs have had very little um influence on the decisions we've made. Obviously, um board members, uh have their own personal beliefs or political beliefs, but um as a board, we work pretty cohesively and communicate fairly well and and can navigate disagreements

146and and work collaboratively to reach a conclusion uh that's favorable. Um how do I recommend that the board handle these differences of opinion? It's really just through open communication and talking to to each other as individuals and realizing that you're talking to a fellow community member. You know, this isn't, you know, we're not dealing with um cutthroat national political issues or fighting a culture war. We're here to discuss what's best for for the students in our district and what's best for the town. And uh we're all on the same boat here because we all want what's best for Berlin. Um, in in regard to my own political beliefs, uh, you know, I'm not affiliated with any any um major political party. Um, my primary concern is just on what's best for the average working person.

147And part of that is having a robust public school system that they can send their kids to and have confidence that their kids are going to have a great education and they're going to have a safe place for their students to go and that they're going to have a a strong town to live in. So that's my primary focus. I I don't really uh align or affiliate with either major political party and I try to work collaboratively with uh with both sides or anyone who falls along the political spectrum. Um I agree with a lot of what Peter says and um one thing I want to continue to do is and I think it's extremely important and I think what has made our board um continue to grow and be stronger is just to be

148respectful of all opinions. Um we might not always agree on something and that's okay. we can have the open discussion because like Peter said, the ultimate goal is the same. We want what's best for the students of Berlin. Um we want to be able to just offer perspectives um through just even our life experiences, maybe it's even our jobs or expertise. um you know that's what we give to the board and I think that's what um makes the board work well is all the different perspectives um and it's okay to present questions or raise concerns um most importantly is to have the communication and have the discussion um and being respectful um you know to what the other board members have to say what other community members have to say. Um, everybody should be heard

149and you know that we are all here for the same goal and that's just committing to um supporting our district um the mission um goals and of course placing the students needs in first. This concludes our questioning of the candidates. At this time, we invite each of you to present a threeminute closing statement. Mrs. Gibbons, you may begin. >> Um, so once again, I just want to thank all the students for their hard work and time preparing this um, and being able to have this for our community. Um, I'm just very grateful for the opportunities that I've been voted into this position. I've learned so much. Um, I've just made great relationships with other parents, with other staff members. um and just it's brought me even closer to the community um you know each and

150every year and this volunteer position I think is wonderful and I think any individual um should step up and take the opportunity to step in this role um because it's it is rewarding and beneficial to just give back to the community. So, I'm thankful for the time that I've served and um looking forward to serving another term. >> Uh yeah, uh I'm I'm happy to serve on the board. Um and you know, I'm really proud of what the district is currently doing. Um and you know, I've I'm very proud of this town as well. As I had mentioned before, I grew up in Meridan. Um, and growing up in Meridan, uh, we had always looked as, uh, looked at Berlin as like, wow, that, you know, that's a really nice town. Um, and I spent

151many, uh, much of my youth, uh, navigating the green spaces, uh, you know, Metac Ridge, Ragged Mountain, uh, the area behind, uh, Timberland and Hubard Park, and and so on and so forth. So, I always found uh, Berlin to be a rather idilic town. Um, so to have the opportunity to move to town and and and to live here and to raise a family really means a lot to me and and it truly is a privilege. Um, you know, I I look at the um wide swath of volunteers in our town like our volunteer firefighters and and even the Lions Club and all the volunteers that help build this community together um including people who serve on our boards and commissions, especially those who've done it for many, many years. Um, and I just view

152my um, time on the board of ed as just uh, the very least I could do to volunteer and give a little bit of my time back to the town. So, I'm happy to do so and I'm happy to do whatever I can to continue to help out the district. >> Grace will now give the closing statements. Once again, we want to thank all of the candidates and the audience, both in person and at home. And to everyone who helped make this event possible, we hope the information shared tonight helps the voters of Burland to make an informed decision on election day. Have a wonderful evening and please drive home safely. Thank you.