 great to be in the people's house. Thank you so much for coming. I'm Paul Costello. I'm going to moderate this evening. I'm going to turn it right off to John Paul from the most familiar foundation for over a long time. First, I just want to make note and recognize Paul Costello to work on flood recovery. Take more time than we have here to talk about just the detail work that he did hours and hours right after the flood. But he was instrumental in creating a molecular strong recovery fund, which I'll talk about just briefly in a second. And Paul, of course, has spent a career as a facilitator doing projects like this, so perfectly soon situated to help lead us. And so I just want to see if we can all recognize and thank Paul for his work on the foundation. The molecular foundation was created about 30 years ago to invest in capital projects that will improve the vitality of our community. The foundation helped fund projects like the tennis courts, the bike path, our projects, most recently the new Mount Bike Pass and the North Branch Park. And so our partnership now with Montpelier Live is a new one. It brings the strength of both organizations together. Our focus on brick and mortar and projects with Montpelier Live's focus on the business and downtown vitality. It's been one that I think has been really helpful so far. Really, we came together to form the, as I mentioned with Paul's leadership, to form the Montpelier Story with talent and the willingness of people to come together on projects. This obviously is much, much bigger than anything the community has faced in, you know, probably 100 years. I think if any place is able to come together to build on the fabric that we have with our citizens and our community engagement, this is it. And this is a testament to having all of you here to work on this tonight. So thank you for having me. So this process initiated at City Council with the mayor, with the city government saying there's a lot of discussion in the community on what's next and on the immediate crisis as well as on resilience. We need to bring this to a focus. And with the approval of the city, they came and talked to me about framing the structure. I want to introduce Bill Frazier, the city manager of Montpelier to say we're welcome. Thank you, Paul. I don't have a lot to add other than thank you all for being here. Like John said, it's a fabulous community and the turnout here is really terrific. We can't do this without you. I'd also like to thank Montpelier Foundation, Montpelier Live, for putting the resources together to make this happen and for the fundraising efforts. It's really extraordinary. I think I've heard a very large number that they're up to. I'll let them say what that is, but I think they're doing really well on that front. Just to clarify, for people B, as the city are here to listen to you tonight, to participate, all of our leadership team is here as they were on the last meeting. Could you stand up quickly if you're a member of the city leadership team? So these are the folks. These people, we will be in all of your sessions. There's one person at each of your sessions, so we are here to help you. We're not here to tell you what your answers are. We're not here to tell you what you're doing wrong, but we want to hear from the public and we want to participate and come up with good solutions. So again, thanks to the organizers. Thanks to Paul, John, who stole my thunder on that one too, but that's okay. Let's give him another round of applause. And now I'd like to introduce Sarah DeFelice from Bailey Road and Main Street, who's going to speak for her business, but also for Montpelier-Loyne. I'm welcome. My name is Sarah DeFelice, and I'm a downtown business owner here in Montpelier. I own Bailey Road, which I opened when I was 26, 14 years ago, and I am so excited that I had just moved across the street and expanded a year ago. So it's very kind of refreshing in my mind how to re-put a store together as we're doing now. I'm also here as a huge fan of the Montpelier Foundation and Montpelier Alive, who they have just been a huge support for us businesses downtown. I was just talking to John Holler and he said that the foundation is currently at $1.6 million that they have raised with a goal of $2 million, which is absolutely incredible. For business owners like myself, where FEMA is not an option and we really don't want to take out more small business loans, it is a lifeline, these grants and the fundraising that they have done. I just wanted to speak to the feelings that I felt after the last meeting that we had and just such a support from this group. And I felt how everybody wanted a small businesses, our mom and pop shops to line our streets again. And just having and knowing that support is here in the community lets us continue our hard work day in and day out. I'm so grateful that everyone is here today to start thinking of resiliency and the big picture because a lot of my fellow business owners and I are still kind of in the trenches trying to get our doors open. So I'm grateful for all of you here. One thing I really want to press upon everyone is in order for us to come back, change needs to happen. And whatever comes out of these groups today, we're going to have to be open to change because we want our streets back. We want to be vibrant. We want our doors to be open. We want our Sunday stroll to get our baked goods, the bookstore, go to the toy store. We all want that back. But in order for that to happen, we have to be open to change. In the past Montpelier has, the people have voted for a project. Let's just talk about quickly the big hotel and garage project that was put out a few years ago. The businesses were behind it, the voters voted for it and a small handful of people stopped it from going through. We need to be a full team in this rebuild and we need to accept the change that needs to happen. To come from this breakout session, I'm so excited to welcome everyone back into my shop once we can open our doors again. And thank you for being here. In the wake of the greatest disaster Montpelier has faced in 100 years, we're just beginning to face this tragedy. The tragedy it represents to those who are most hard hit, families and businesses in the downtown. It's not a day today for debate, politics, one-upmanship, we're making points, we're fighting for your corner. It's a day to think together. This building is a place that argues through our issues, right? Today we're not going to make the decisions that bind non-law. We're going to make the decisions on what we stand for together. We're going to lay out in each of the working groups, and this is a working session. We're not having another brainstorming session where the ideas just flow. We've taken those notes, the pamphlet, thoughts, every idea that we've seen in front porch form. We've tried to gather those ideas together into crystalline titans that we can start digging deeper. So this is about digging deeper, getting into one of the things that are practical that could be moved forward in these different issue areas. Let's build the big list, but let's also say in that list, what are the most important, what are the most impactful, what are the most unifying, what are the ones that are going to make this a better place for the next generation of young, non-killer people? What are the ones within our power? And in that we're going to be able to come out with some key ideas in each of these working sessions that we'll bring back here to the podium at the end of the evening. And then the city, the non-profits, the working committees of the community will have those ideas to look at, wrestle with them, see if some of them are in their boat house, in the work that they want to do. And in others, what do we invent and how do we work together as a community to take power over those that need an extra push? So on the 7th, we'll be back here, September 7th, we'll be back in this building or somewhere else in the community. Maybe we could work in the high school where we can put things up on a wall. But we'll work that out, we'll let everybody know the next phase. So the steering committee that we pulled together, we're all walks of life from people in town. They come up with the idea of looking at emergency planning and the warning system that's currently in place. What do we need to do and how do we think forward about that for the future? What do we need to do and think about when we think about food systems and food security for the future? Not just agriculture, but what we do to feed people who are in poverty today. The idea of leadership, recovery and resilience. Do our current structures work? Are there other needs that we need to address to be as cohesive and effective as we need to be both today in recovery but also as we look at the resilience work that's essential in an age of climate change? Then financing, recovery and resilience. How do we look at what dollars may be available? The money that's been raised by the Montpelier Library and Montpelier Foundation is an incredible testament to how much people love this city. Over 2,000 people have made donations. But it's a drop in the bucket for the business loss that we've seen and the crisis that these businesses are going through today. Let's recognize that people are in a whole lot of different places in terms of their hierarchy of needs. Some of us able to philosophize and others who are looking at a very, very painful bottom line right now. And all of it is important. So we're going to try to add some of that up today. We want to talk about the riverine corridor. What is possible to do to make the river less dangerous to this community in the future? What is it possible for us to do to make our buildings and our downtown safer, knowing that there's going to be future events? Then what do we do today and into the future to support, protect our downtown? What do we need to do around city infrastructure? What are the needs? What are some potential next steps? And then long term, what is our action? What's within our power as individuals? As families? As members of a community to do our part in the worldwide struggle that's going to be necessary to defeat climate change? It's going to take teamwork in each of these rooms. Please respect your facilitator. We have resource people with expertise that we brought together in the room in that list. This is here with the longer list of topics. There's a room assigned for each group. You can look at that sheet and decide where you want to go. You've got about an hour and 20 minutes in each room. In each room you're going to take maybe 15 to 20 minutes to do a situation analysis. What's currently going on around this topic? What's our experience like around this topic? What do we need to understand together in this topic? Then we're going to spend a lot longer thinking. What are the positive actions we could take that would be unifying and that are within our power as a community? And then finally, although we'll save them all, which are the most powerful and impactful and best leverage for our community strengths to move forward? So this is a hard working evening. We're going to come out with a serious product of key ideas that this community stands for and wants to see move forward. And then those ideas will be digested around the 7th. We'll see where we can go with them. We'll have more on an action planning end of the spectrum. I have to read this evacuation notice. This is the one thing that the Sergeant and Arms think. Let's have a round of applause for the fact that there are people who protect it for everybody and they want to make sure everything's done right. So please respect the place. But if there were a needed evacuation, I feel like a skirt is on this one. You're going to exit from the rear door. If you're on the right side of the room, you're going to go around to the right to go out down the stairs and out the right door. And if you're on the left, you're going to the other side. If you're in other parts of the building and the fire alarm goes off, some fire doors will close. Please look at the exit signs. You can exit the fire escape at the end of the small hall to my right. But the exit signs should show you where to go. If you cannot do stairs from this chamber or other rooms, make your way to the elevator in the center of the building. Capital Police will come to you. If you cannot get the elevator, the Capital Police will do a sweep of the building and help you. So hopefully we won't have to go through any of these exigences. And that's all I have to say. I hope everyone has got a copy of that sheet with the rooms listed. I think there's still some left. And you'll want to go to one of the rooms that will be working. And we'll see you all back here any time.