 We have Larry Noah's coming in this afternoon. But this morning, our pages came to me and said they had some additional information, both about some additional information about yesterday and then some additional information that they learned today from the youth lobby, I think. That's what they're calling themselves. So what I would suggest is just pull up two more chairs and sit at the end of the table here with us, like witnesses. And Gail, let's record this. Oh, OK. Well, the committee's record. We're supposed to record everything so that if somebody wanted to find out, we are on the record. When C says here, we are on the record. Oh, look, and she even now says that. But then if somebody really wants to know what happened here or here and they couldn't be here, they can't ask for the, well, I shouldn't say tape anymore. Should I CD? What are they at? Whatever they ask for. Of course, would be this. The copy of the record. Yeah, they can have that. So welcome. And once again, you've seen this happen so many times. Just identify yourselves for the record. And then after that, when every time you speak, you don't have to identify who you are. So I'm Chip Jenom. I'm Nora O'Ready. And I'm Cynthia Nard. Yep. OK. So what would you like to tell us today? So we'll first update on the Extinction Rebellion. Wait, you know this from the beginning. Yeah, I read a news article. And it was about how the terrorism police declared that the Extinction Rebellion was an extremist ideology. We're in what countries in our country? They're a global organization, I believe. Which group said they were terrorist organizations? It wasn't specific, but it said a group of terrorism police. So I'm not sure how accurate this article was, but I thought it was interesting enough to update. Yeah. So they've been targeted, I mean, they've been identified by someone now as a terrorist organization. Not necessarily, just as an extremist ideology. Oh, OK. Great. And then so then this youth lobby, that's their logo. On a half-year note? Yeah. They're not as extreme as they were in Vermont specifically. Yeah. And they were a lot more civil than Extinction Rebellion. Today they did a press conference in the even outing room. That's how you kind of heard about them. Would you just go back to the logo again here? So that's a hand holding up a portion of the earth. Is that what they're holding up? It's just like a hand with a face in the back. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Otherwise it's the global. The majority might exist. Yeah. OK, flavor. Good, thank you. And then this is their mission. Their mission is to help youth from across Vermont realize their true power to affect significant change through responsible, important collective action and civil discourse. And find a way to channel their concerns about their future in a productive way. And then what kind of discourse did you say? Civil. Civil. That's what I thought you said. Another one of the members, we asked them, and she said, we advocate for stronger, this is a quote from one of the members. We advocate for stronger climate action at the Senate level by talking to, at the state level, sorry, by talking to lawmakers and holding events to show the urgency of the climate crisis. So did you go to the press conference? I was there the entire time he was there for part of it. Yeah, I was there for the first time. And did you go to the youth summit this fall? I went to the climate strike this fall, but I didn't really go to the youth summit. Because I went to the youth summit, which was very interesting. It was very impressive to see these young people organizing as well as they did. It was inspiring. Speaking of which, the ages of the group came from middle school age to college age. But we saw several members who were younger in the middle school age, but they're not official. And they're also adults. But I think they're mainly just there to organize and drive. I think some of the adults you saw were actually their teachers. Yeah, none of the same members that we told you the quote, but as you said that, she had been lobbying and doing stuff like that for not lobbying, but doing work to help the climate change, like since she was little. But then when she's a senior now and this year she'd heard about it from our teachers who recommended that she join and now she's a member. And then they have, other than like events like this and stuff, they have regular meetings in Moncler or Waterbury once a month. And she was also saying how, what was saying from the teachers? Oh yeah. They're not a climate specific group, so in recent years they've been focusing more on the climate crisis. They also focus on lowering the voting age to 16 and... Ah, they, for climate they work on the climate strike, rally for the planet and climate congress. They also work with jobs such as trial stewards and then the VP IRG, and then justice, race against racism and team voting. And she was saying, the girl that we had interviewed, she said that the organization has been going on for about six years. She said about quite 10, about around that sort of timeframe. And then this is a video on their website of what they show like, yeah, what's the video? That's good. Sorry, can you make it full screen? I don't think so, because it's on Instagram. It is now our time to stand up and act together to create the climate action. The last people in this building behind us have chosen to make our state a leader in a fight against planet change. What? Fighting for solutions to problems that you've been facing your entire life. In 2018, 21% of eligible and young voters showed up to the polls. We are throwing away our voice and with that our future. If we go to the voting booths and we write the names of people who will follow through and act on climate, we can see some serious change. We need to take control of our future and shout this call to action to every corner of the globe. Did you ask them, because one of the things that you said was that you felt that they were more interested in civil discussion and dialogue and actually working with men. Did you ask them about what they, how their response to yesterday's by the extinction rebellion, their response to if they had any feelings about that or what they would have done? Sorry. We did not ask them, but during their press conference they identified several bills that they thought were either good or could have used some amendments to make them better and to protect their climate. Something I really noticed was that a lot of groups, whether they were like them or extinction rebellion or whatever, they have ideas of when they want certain things happen, certain changes in the climate and our pollution and stuff to happen. But their timing isn't very realistic, but this group, their timing is extremely realistic of when they think, the timing when they think we can actually get this stuff done makes more sense than some other groups that have heard. They put a lot of thought into it, like a lot more than some groups that are mainly adults and neural kids. Yeah, the approach that they're taking is a lot different I think than the group that we had seen yesterday, because they sort of had planned, like they came into the state house and they had planned out the press conference ahead of time and meeting certain people so that they knew what they wanted to do and who to talk to to get things done. They were in touch with all of us who have been very involved with their movement and who are involved in committee leadership and asked if they could come into our committees to present their petition. And sadly, their timing wasn't very good in economic development, but they did it in several. They showed up in the Senate agriculture. Good. I thought their press conference was really well thought out and they added a lot of really good points. And like, I don't know what you guys, but I recognize people who were in it. Yeah, I did too. I don't think that's actually the chapter for South Berlin, generally. So they have like many like chapters is how they describe them, like many parts of it in different schools. So there are people from all over the state, like some people that I know were in it, like up there in the bill. And I'll talk to another girl and she said they're working on expanding to make it more statewide. I was just, we talked to a man who was trying to get more people actually from South Berlin tend to join because they wanted to get more people from all over. When they have a chapter in a school like that, do they have to have a teacher that will sponsor the chapter? Is that the way it works, do you know? I don't believe it's necessary to have a teacher. They told me if I was interested, I should get a group of people who are interested. And the more people you have, the more necessary it's for a teacher to join. So I think the students come first and the teacher will organize it as well. So I'm just wondering, did you prefer what the youth law we did today to what the extension building people did? But we're sorry, you got that message. But I'm wondering, do you see a role for both kinds of activities? I mean, I mean, can you understand what I'm saying? Like, does some people want to do it this way? Something you want to do it that way? Is that, yeah, sort of see a certain useful thing to think about? Or is it just say no to the people we don't want to hear from? I think, oh, go ahead. I think we should listen to everyone. But I really, I think what was done today was more productive. They told us they were coming every Friday in the session. So they also have resilience, like the other group tried to show, but this is more thought out and it's planned. So I just think it was rather executed. And like, I feel like they're trying to work with the politicians and with all the people in the government. And I think Sinks was rebellion was looking at them more of an enemy, not as like a partner to get stuff done. Thanks. So I'm curious, because I, for many years of work in the media, you were all here when the event happened yesterday. And then I don't know whether you bothered to see television reports about it or read newspaper articles about it. How well do you think the media did covering what you saw? A lot of times someone will see something and have a form of opinion and then they'll read about that in a paper later or see it on TV and go, well that wasn't really what happened. So I'm curious whether it was portrayed the right way on the state's media if you maybe didn't watch it kind of long? Well I know after we left to take like a break when we were moving to protestors, I think a bunch of us just found out to see what was happening while we were gone. And the most accurate thing was obviously the videos that they had of what happened. But we did listen into the VPR or I did with a couple of people. And I think that was nice because you could actually hear what the people in there were watching and they were sort of describing it to you. I didn't physically read an article so I don't know if that person sort of, sometimes when you summarize things it's harder to get everything out. And so I think one thing that they did well was with the VPR and that they did a good job describing it. And the state is streaming it, right? So instead of telling you what's happening they're just showing it to you and you can decide for yourself kind of what's happening. As people who were on the feet were hearing the whole thing. Right, right. But they also then summarized on news what had happened and had sound plugs also. And I saw the CAX that coverage late last night which sadly ended up being more about the protest than the speech. That's not what happened. Which was from their point of view, very successful. Right. You know, if something that is about something else ends up being about this other thing that get hijacked then that was a very successful disturbance. So from a media point of view, or Brian's point, it was for the rest of the month, what did they learn? They learned there was a disruption and that the governor's speech was disrupted for 20 minutes. Last night I watched it on the news. And like you said, they didn't really, and I think they should have talked about the beginning of the speech. They talked about what had happened. And then like when they're done talking about the, like nothing else that had to do with that really happened after the protest. So they should have been finished and talked about the protest and continued talking about the points in the speech. Because like they don't want it like they, because then like the protestors don't care if they get kicked out or anything. They want to get, they want everyone to understand their message. So they should have kept going along with like with what the speech was about. So sadly I think actually the impact was much more substantial than those of us for here because CX spent more time on them and on who was arrested afterwards because it followed them in the lobby. Did they be arrested? Then on the speech. There were 15 detained and I think they want to rest. Yeah, I mean in the news business it used to be if it bleeds it leads. That was the phrase. So that whenever there's something, you don't ever do a story about the cat successfully coming down from the tree by itself. It's always if somebody rescues the cat, that's the story. So it's the similar kind of thing here where as Allison correctly points out, I think the speech was overshadowed by and I'll do use my own term misbehavior more so than maybe you need to speak. But anyway, that's okay. But I was just curious, how do you guys talk about that? I think the group knew beforehand that if they were escorted out and if there were a restmate there would be more media coverage. I feel like a lot of that was very intentional. I think they knew they were going to get kicked out and that was part of the plan. I heard it was almost identical to what happened last year with the exception of Anna being unfurled. There was a new disruption last year. Yeah, right. In the house. That was two years ago. No, it was two years ago. Are you talking about the one in the house? I'm talking about the Walshaw one. The last big one was the Walshaw. He had one and then Phil Scott said two. Yeah. Yeah, but the first one was pretty honest. Yeah, it was pretty honest. But one of the differences between that this one and I give credit to the kids who were there yesterday for doing this. I mean, I know they wanted to be escorted out and everything, but when there was a recess and they were escorted out, they followed the rules. I mean, they left. They did go out in the Shumlin one during his inaugural speech. They did not leave. And in fact, a group of people came and sat on the floor in the well of the house there so nobody could get out and occupy the house. And occupy the house until nine o'clock that night when they were going to lock up. And then they had to physically remove people. And in fact, one of my constituents has a suit against the state for that. But so that yesterday, they achieved being escorted out, but they actually did follow the rules when they were asked to leave. So that was to their credit. Like you said, they followed the rules and nobody was watching when they followed the rules. Yeah. Like they didn't care. When the government said sit down, they didn't care because everyone was watching. But then the second everyone stops watching it, it's not going to get on the news. They go along to what I was saying. I think their approach was different because, well, there's more with a sense of urgency towards the issue which both are effective and both are important. So I mean, we have to give credit to them too for what they're doing it for. And I think both are different ways. But equal is important to the cause, I think. So which approach do you think Greta would have supported? Our question is our youth lobby because she helps come up with plans on how to fix it. And I don't think the, I don't think it's teacher Abelie was really thinking about like, how they were just thinking it needs to be fixed, not we can help by coming up with plans to fix it. But youth lobby had like a plan to do this. I feel like her approach was somewhat in between because she did call out the world leaders for not doing enough, but she also issued a call to action for other people and raised a lot of awareness, a lot of positive awareness for the issue. So in that, it was similar to the youth lobbyist. I would agree. I think she's maybe more on the side of the youth lobby. But I think sort of somewhere in between because she does use both tactics, I think, in the way she promotes climate change. Part of good advocacy is knowing when to use which tactic. Yeah? I think she's very good about that. I take it she's a real fan. She's a pretty impressive, isn't she? Very moving to watch somebody who has overcome so many disabilities to be such a force of nature. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Yes, we are very much. Thank you. I do. I'm here in the stay house because we couldn't have been at the youth summit today. We were all on committee. So we are really grateful to you for keeping us current. Thank you. And on other issues, too, really, we're serious. If there are things that you think that we're missing out on that are, let us know. And if it's something that we have time for, vote. No. Can you come in? Before they leave, before you leave, you guys were, you were, I overheard you say, you didn't know what our mission of our committee was. So we would like to tell you what our mission is. What do we oversee? What are our responsibilities? Anything we want to. We look at the structure of government, but we, as state employees, law enforcement, I don't even remember because Brian calls it, Senator Cole more has to. It's a fringe. To leverage, yeah, elections, voting. We do elections. We do all the amendments to the Constitution. No, we don't do all the amendments to the Constitution. That's certainly not. We do the ones that relate, too, to the right. But then harvest, that's true. We do that, too. But we, because we are the government operations committee, our feeling is that anything that has to do with the operation of the government, if no one else will do it, we will do it. So Senator Cole more called instead of saying we deal with health issues on the health committee, we deal with ag issues on the ag. He calls us the surprise a day committee. But you may have met the new, what do we call it, the director of racial diversity who's looking at systemic racism. We created that position in this committee. And we oversee local state government. We oversee how government works together. We have a pretty wide. Where do you say charters yet? It's plain charters. Yeah, it's plain charters. And if some other committee won't do it, in the sense of at one point there was a bill to set up to establish medical marijuana dispensaries because people who needed it as a medicine had no place to go. And this elderly woman said, what am I supposed to do? Ask my grandson to go buy some pot for me in the school. She didn't want to do that. But this bill was not going to be taken up by health and welfare. It just wasn't, they weren't going to do it. So we took it in here. We did it. We have nothing to do with dispensaries or marijuana or anything else, but whatever we want to do. I have a question. So each page has to choose a bill, a Senate bill and a House bill and do like a short paper on it. And mine was about the Senate proposal to amend the constitution, giving the governor a four year term. Oh yeah, there are a couple of those. Are you guys involved in that? We are. We have that one. Okay, thank you. But you should come talk to me about it if you wanted and do something because I'm not sure we're going to do anything with it. Okay, thank you. But we, if that's what you're going to follow, we could have a discussion of it. I'll set that up. Thank you. Can you just make a copy of that chip and then bring that back? Yeah. What is that? It's our mission. It's our charge. Oh good. We have it on the board. Constitutional charge. Where is it? Thank you. Thank you. Where should we start? Yeah. Okay. Should we come? Just to close the door. Yes ma'am. Thank you. So we're just, we just want to have a general conversation. We know that we're going to have, I believe, next week we're going to actually take up the two bills that we currently have in here on the ethics commission. And we're going to try and have a lot of testimony then. We also invited Paul Burns to come and tell us why we should just, can you? Fair enough. You didn't hear or read the article? No, I somehow missed that. You said if you're going to have an ethics commission that can't do anything, you might as well just get rid of it. So I disagree with him, but anyway. Happy to hear that. Hi, good afternoon. How are you all? Good. Happy to hear. I'm Larry Novins for the record. I had asked originally, we tried to get together with Senator White, we kept missing each other, and so he might be coming to talk to the committee, and thank you for the chance that spoke to Senator Polina last, I guess it was late summer, early fall, and kind of outline what we've been doing the last year and what I've seen in my observations over the last year and then what my goals are for the future. So I'll sort of briefly outline what I've seen and let you know that our annual report will be ready and will be filed next week so it goes into a pretty excruciating detail, I think. So what I've seen, we had about 23 complaints last year and they were against all versions of state government, legislators, statewide officers, state employees, members of state boards and commissions. So we covered the gamut, we also received, I think about six complaints that were against municipalities or sort of quasi-autonomous regulatory bodies that aren't officially part of the state but exist out there. And in seeing these complaints, certain things became obvious pretty quickly. The complaints that alleged anything that looked fairly serious were referred as they are to be referred under the statute, either to the AG's office or the Professional Responsibility Board or the Department of Human Resources, I'm sorry. And we had one complaint against, it was a member of the municipal, I'm sorry, judicial branch but that person had since left so it didn't make any sense to refer that. What I found out is when we get a complaint, if we were to get a complaint against the governor, the lieutenant governor, secretary of state, honor of accounts, attorney general or treasurer, the only place under the statute where we can send those is if it's criminal conduct to the AG's office and if it's anything regulated by law and we'd send it over to Department of Human Resources who would look at it and investigate it and send us a letter back saying, we have no authority over those people. So there's no oversight over those people and six people in government who arguably have the most responsibility and the most authority. So that was a surprise to me. So the statewide office owners. State-wide office owners. And then we had, I think, one or two complaints against the state boards or commissions. And right now they're 180, I think, according to the governor's website. I counted 175, their website this afternoon said we're made boards and commissions. If we were to get a complaint against the parole board or the natural resources board or the practice board or the Public Utilities Commission, Human Services Board, we would take those complaints, send them over to DHR, which is the only place they could go unless it was criminal conduct. And they would look at it, review it, compare it to what they have, and then send it back to us and then say, those people aren't state employees. We have no authority over them. Good. Why would you not send it to the, oh, because it isn't in the statute, but I'm thinking why wouldn't you send it to the appointing authority? Because it's not in the statute, got it. And so the appointing authority for all the boards and commissions is governor, for most of them anyway, and under the code that applies to them, whatever the equivalent of an ethics code that applies to them, is the governor's executive order, which doesn't have the force of law. It's an executive order, could be modified or changed at any time. And according to its own terms, the person who enforces that is the governor. So if we had a complaint, if there was a complaint again, somebody on one of those boards who was doing, the kind of thing that under the ethics code would not be permitted, you know, using your office for personal being, that kind of thing, having the conflict of interest, it would be up to the governor according to the executive order to enforce that. And I think if it was somebody in a border commission using an occupying machine to make their Christmas cards, I would hope the governor had better things to do. So we have this huge number of people who act in the name of the state of Vermont on these boards and commissions. So these people are granting licenses, denying licenses, state board of education, public utilities commission, making huge decisions. And there's really no oversight for them and no place to go for ethical complaints. That was another thing we found out this year. One of the other problems that we have is under the current statute, it says that we are to accept complaints about government ethics in any of the three branches of government. And then the other part of the statute says, well, what do you do with these complaints? Says we can refer complaints that are violations of the Department of Human Resources Code of Ethics, which there really isn't one we've put in in our proposed bill to fix that. It's really a policy and procedures manual. But apart from those violations, the only thing we can refer to DHR is conduct or violations of conduct regulated by law. So unless there's a specific statute that's violated by somebody's unethical conduct, I can't refer that. So if I got the complaint about somebody using public office for their own personal benefit, unless there's a statute proscribing that conduct, I can't refer it. So there are huge gaps in terms of what is considered to be ethical or unethical conduct in Vermont and what can actually be referred from our office to other people for enforcement. And then there's the third part, which is the limitations that DH, the Department of Human Resources, has in terms of what they can and cannot enforce, they cannot enforce our ethics code. Which, as you know, adopted by the Commission in consultation with the Department. So it's essentially people sitting around the table about this big and coming up with a code, which is I think a good code. And I think it should be the model for a statutory code of ethics, but it doesn't have the force of law and it can't be enforced. So that's another problem. If we said we have a violation of our code we said it was DHR and they'd say we can't enforce that. Assuming that the person who is complained against the subject of the complaint was someone under their jurisdiction, somebody that they had authority to do something with. If we get complaints against lawyers, we have to refer those to the Professional Responsibility Board. And we've referred a couple complaints to them and they don't have authority to discipline lawyers for violations of the state ethics code. They can sanction lawyers for violations of the rules of professional responsibility, which are in many ways narrower. So it would be a violation for me to use my position as a state employee for my own personal gain. It wouldn't be a violation of the ethics rules that the lawyers aren't bound by. And if they saw that complaint, they would say there's nothing we can do about this. It's not a violation of our code. So a lot of the kind of conduct that one would normally think it should be an ethics concern or an ethics violation, even if it is referred to somebody else, isn't within their jurisdiction. So we have huge gaping holes in what we have. So it took me probably about three or four months to really appreciate the gravity of the situation. I mean, really we have an ethics code and ethics oversight in Vermont that here's the way I like to put it. It leaves us lots of room for growth. There's plenty we can do to make it better. And so our hope and our goal and the commission's goal for the future is to say, okay, what do we do with this? We get municipal client complaints and we've got some serious ones that we can't do anything about. The Secretary of the State's office under Act 7917 is supposed to report to us about the complaints they did. And they wrote to us and we have a brief outline of that in our annual report. They get lots of complaints. There's a lot of serious stuff going on that is going unaddressed. And at this time, I'm not saying give us authority to look at those things. I've seen a couple of those complaints and the resources it would take to fully investigate and figure out what to do them is way beyond, certainly beyond where we are now and beyond where we might conceivably be in the near future. So that's another issue for us. So what we've done is we've sort of come up with a three-stage plan of what I think is a good approach to trying to fix this and make ethics oversight the law meaningful. What I have called phase one is what we sent over to House Government Operations and it's a proposal to change our current statute to make some modifications to it. And most of it's kind of tweaking things. There were a few things in there that, Senator Brink, how are you? Good. There were a few things in there that struck out as just being, I think, mistakes. And there were a couple that were sort of policy things. I can go through them very briefly if you like. But the big one, the one that I feel is most crying for attention right now is what we're asking for, and this is what is in Senator Bellina's bill, is we're asking that the commission be charged with presenting to you a draft of an ethics code that can be adopted by statute so that we can have something that, when we get around to enforceable, will be enforceable. So we put that in that, we put that in our bill and we have available right now a rough, but I think decent draft of a code that could be debated and considered for adoption by statute if and when you wish to do it. I mean, I would love if we could get it on someone's plate this year. I don't know if that would happen. I think at this late day, man. Well, we're taking it up next week. Yeah, why not? The proposal to, Or on day four of your life. Offer my assistant. Well, his bill. Okay, are we talking about S198? I don't know. Well, we're talking about anything around the ethics commission. But the bill, I think what you're talking about, and what we're talking about is the bill would instruct you to come up with the ethics code, which would then be debated by the list that you're probably next year. Oh, I see. I see what you're saying. Debatedly, the actual code this year. I see. I don't know. Maybe we can work really hard. Be delighted if we can move it up. I mean, we asked for authorization to do this in hopes that it would start the discussion. I mean, I don't think anything would please the commission more than to have something substantive actually being discussed now rather than saying, okay, we're putting it on the agenda for next year, which is essentially what we asked for. So our phase one would be asked us to give you a proposed code and then make some changes to the current statute, Chapter 31 of Title III. And the changes that we recommended, I can go into this later. It's not detailed, but one of the ones is we are in charge of putting out and collecting the executive officer financial disclosure forms. Right. And those forms are to be filled out and submitted by annually. So this year we received the forms to cover the year for the county year, 2018. The next ones that will be filed will be in 2021 for the year 2020. So if I wanted to give anybody in state government $10,000 and not have to be reported, I should have done it during 2019. The reporting should be annual. Oh, I see. Yeah, it makes no sense at all to have to buy into a reporting. And I've looked through the statutes and rules of other states. That was probably over, I mean. My guess of where that came from is they have candidate disclosures. And you do those when you're a candidate every other year. And I think they just mirrored that on the financial disclosure. I know that in the executive branch, the governor requires them to submit annual disclosures. But if we're gonna have it statutorily required, it should be annually. I think it's fairly easy fixed. The forms that are used for financial disclosure don't have any language on them where the person certifies that I certify this is least to the rest of my belief and information true. So we just ask for language so we can put that on the bottom of the form. The statute outlines what we have to put in the form. We really have no discretion in what's in the form. So as long as it's going to be that way, we're asking that you allow us to put that language at the bottom of the form. We could change the whole form. We could change the whole form if it's a good idea. So we should make an annual and we should at least put the language at the bottom when people sign it and say, I certify on based on information, belief, et cetera, that this is true. That's what we said. Yeah. Another change that we're asking for is to change the terms of office of the ethics commission members. There are five members. If we had five year terms that only one would time out per year. With three year terms, we have problems where we get it really is a mess. So that was another change. Of course, what was in the news last year was the advisory opinion. And the commission changed its policy on advisory commissions in May in light of what we'd heard that the legislature in the reaction to the advisory opinion that was issued in 2018. And so to comply with what we understood in May to the legislative intent, we changed our policy on advisory opinion so that the new policy is the ethics commission will accept a request for an advisory opinion from a public servant, someone who works for the state of Vermont about their own conductor, their own activities, either current or prospective, but know what people call third party ones. So I can't, you can't ask me for an opinion about what Chris Widers is doing or somebody else in government, somebody else. I don't know what you're doing. You often want to ask that. I'm sure. It's pretty pen. Yeah. After hours. So that eliminates the problem that I think the governor's office correctly characterized as weaponizing advisory opinions. And our understanding was that was consistent with what the legislative intent was, at least as we learned during the course of last year, as it was made very clear to us. So what we're asking is the statute be changed to clarify that advice given from our office or advisory opinions be limited to requests from people who are subject to the ethics code about their own conduct, current or prospective. So I think it makes sense. That's another big one that we're asking for. In the current statutes, it says that people who are candidates for state office, and I assume that means state-wide office or legislative office can't be members of the Ethics Commission. And I think I wasn't here when that was passed, but I'm sure the rationale is, since most people running for office have some type of political affiliation that's not proper to have them be in the Ethics Commission, that makes good sense. We should extend that to candidates for judicial office, side judges. So we put in an addition to put that in. And that brings us to that's phase one. So ask us to give you an ethics code. Phase two would be that we submit a draft code to the legislature so you can consider it. And the code that I've drafted that is, I think in good enough shape, at least to begin a discussion, doesn't vary a whole lot from what is in our current ethics code. The main things are, when you are a public official, public servant working for the state of Vermont, your allegiance is to the state and you need to keep separate your private interests and your governmental interests. So avoid those conflicts of interest. Don't use your office for personal gain. Don't speak or do anything that either implies or might buy, implies if you're speaking on behalf of the state when you have no authority to do so, basic, basic things. And then in the proposed ethics code, we put in a proposal that ethics education for state public servants be mandatory. We have mandatory sexual harassment training. We should have mandatory ethics training. It doesn't have to be every year, but it should be on some kind of a regular basis. And that should be part of state government. So people will say, well, okay, fine. We have an ethics code now if we get one. Who's going to enforce it? How's it going to be enforced? And I think my response at this time is, right now we have no enforcement over ethics provisions. Let's wait, let's get a good code so that there's something to enforce. And then we can have a more detailed discussion about how much of it is going to be enforced against whom and by whom is it going to be enforced. For example, I mean, I've looked around at all the different states and the different schemes are kind of mind-boggling. In some states, there is an ethics commission that can impose fines against anybody in state government, including the governor or legislators. In other states, that's just not allowed. So the governor, the six statewide officers would be subject to whatever the constitutional provisions are, so impeachment or whatever. And same for legislators. Most states would say, okay, I won't say most states. Some states would say if it's a state senator, then the state senator should do it. And if it's the house, the house should do it. Other states would say if you get a complaint against a legislator, then let the ethics commission deal with it, let them have some kind of prosecution, let them come up with findings and conclusions, and then send it back to the legislature and they can decide whether or not they want to impose a sanction based on that or a half worth of hearing. So we can do, if it went that way, we can do the legwork of hearing, find all the facts, send them to the proper body, and then they would say, okay, we accept it, we reject it, we want to do our own, or we'll decide what the appropriate sanction is or if it's a recommendation that would be dismissed and that's the end of it. So there are a million questions to be asked before we get to that. Who's gonna do the actual prosecuting of the cases and the charging of the cases? Who's going to hear the hearing? And in some states they have retired judges who sit and do these hearings. In other states, the Ethics Commission itself would hear these. So there are a lot of discussions to be had about this and I'm sure given two or three weeks I can come up with a list of questions that should be asked before we could get into any kind of drafting. So my sense is enforcement is a future consideration but our current need is to have an ethics code by statute so that people will know what it is if public becomes aware of it. And then when we're asked for ethics advice we have something more than what six people sitting around a table think is the right thing for government employees to do. If I were to write or anybody were to contact me and say I'd like advice about what to do and I give them advice based on a code that's not enforceable, what protection is that for them? If they follow my advice and somebody or boss or somebody said well I don't think that's right I don't think you should have done that. What protection is there? So at least with a code I've got something a little more concrete that I can base advice on. So that would be a tight hold step in the right direction. So phase two is to give you a draft of a code that you can discuss and hopefully pass and then phase three down the road would be okay to what extent do we want to enforce this who's going to do it. And right now I'd be happy to have a code that we can work with. What do we do in the meantime? Where are we going and what do we say to our constituents, the modders who look to us all the time? I think the sort of fundamental challenge that anybody in state government has that they're fishing and state government with integrity has or needs is we need the trust of the people we serve. And I think having an ethics code would go a long step towards raising awareness of ethics in state government and in the public so that they have a better sense okay here's what the people are working for me are doing and are serious about doing. Somebody said was that a partisan issue? You know are you talking about more government or less government and I don't think it's more government. I think if you're a person who distressed government then an ethics code would be a good thing to have. If you're a person who thinks that government should be a little more involved in things then ethics code is something you should have. So I hope it's non-partisan rather than bipartisan. Where does that leave the ethics code or the ethics commission? I think what we would like to do is to work and devote our primary attention to ethics awareness and education. If we can do that I think we can decrease the number of complaints that we get. We can raise consciousness among public servants and among the people we serve of ethics. I think we can promote confidence that the government is working for us enough of themselves and I think that serve a win-win for everyone. So that's not very brief but that's sort of my summary of what we've been up to the last few months and where we would like to go. Is it perfect? No. Is it everything that everybody might want? Clearly not. But we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good and if it's that in the right direction I think that's better than doing nothing. And so no matter what you think of the ethics commission whether we have done anything or do anything or can't do anything or not, at least I think we've been in a unique position to diagnose what the needs are in the state. And so I feel very pleased that we're able to come up with I think a reasonable plan. And I am perfectly happy to change it. I don't have any sort of private ownership in this if people have a different way or another way of looking at it on all the years and be happy to do it. But I think we have an obligation to do something to make what we have more meaningful. So to channel my father, a problem clearly stated is a problem that's solved. So you have clearly identified some of the problems we need to solve. And at least that gives us a moment. I'm just, before we address the things that, I'm just curious of the 23. I think this has been great. I think your testimony was terrific for us and very helpful. The 23 complaints that you've had all over the state government, can you give us a notion of how they were resolved? Were they resolved? Were they, you've clearly given us a notion that some of them weren't, you couldn't do anything, that's really. They were, some were closed and not referred. Right. How many were actually, I think there were six that were actually referred for further investigation, discipline, sanction, whatever that would be. At this point, I'm unaware that there's been any action other than those being closed by the people we referred them to. And of the six that were referred, was action taken? No, in none. No action was taken with those? No. Do you know where they went? Yo, yeah. Where did they go? Whether in or out of a report. So some were referred to the AG's office, Department of Human Resources, and the Congressional Responsibility Board. Okay. And the reasons for that, one is that I get the complaint, I can't investigate it. So I look at it and I go, this sounds like something should be investigated and I send it off. So it may be that it sounds bad, but there's nothing there. I know I can recall one of them specifically that we refer to the AG's office, and they sent back in the civil insufficient evidence for us to act on it. So I have no way of knowing that when I send it over. So the fact that nothing happened doesn't necessarily, I mean, to the complaint doesn't necessarily mean that the people that they're receiving in aren't taking these seriously and doing what they're supposed to. Excuse me. Right. So Larry, I'm assuming since it was sent to the AG's office, it reached that level of criminal. Well, it was unclear to me, and this was probably my home failing in the early days of my tenure here. I didn't see any obvious criminal violations, but I didn't know if it was regulated by law or maybe there was another statute that they might enforce. So there was nothing that I saw as over the criminal that I refer to. Okay. So I have a couple of questions. First of all, I think that you did what we asked you to do today. Thank you. I would like to see if we can, next week when we start dealing with this, I didn't realize that the bill that Anthony Andrews just asked for permission to do, I would like to see if we can combine phase one and two so that we can actually have a debate about a code of ethics because, and get it resolved. And so in terms of advisory opinions, I agree with you. I mean, that was the intent. It was advice to the people who were covered about what our actions, how they might be interpreted. So my question is, I know there are a lot, you said there are a lot of municipal issues and municipal requests. Without thinking about taking those on, would you be able to give and extend the coverage of who you can give advisory opinions to, to municipal employees as well as not taking the complaints necessarily against them but and doing something with them, but giving them, so if you're a local select board member, I could call you and say my brother-in-law has a grater. Can I hire him to do the roads? Is that a conflict? How would I handle that? Well, as you know, each municipality was required to dump its own ethics code last, I think July 1st, it went into effect. And most of them look pretty much the same. They used a template. Did you give them a template? No, no, we'll see, we'll see, that's what I'm talking about. So they, most of them look pretty much the same. Some are a little more comprehensive than that. I don't recall any that I've seen that are less comprehensive. I sent a letter out to the town clerk saying, when you adopt it, would you send us a copy just so we could have it? They're not required to. And I think the majority of the town is actually sent there to us. It would be difficult for me to give advice based on their various different codes. If it was advice based on a statewide code, I could do that. But there are lots and ins and outs of local government that I'm unaware of. The problem I see with complaints that we get, the complaints that I've heard is people in town government select boards or town officials doing things they shouldn't be doing, not asking for help. Five or six years ago, there were quite a few complaints about lawyers and how they dealt with their trust accounts. And it was a big problem. And Mike Kennedy, when his role changed over the professional responsibility board, really did a lot of outreach and a lot of programs, training programs around the state to get lawyers aware of what their responsibilities are. And the number of complaints has gone drastically down. So if we had something similar for town, some way of having education for municipalities that would raise their awareness, then I think a lot of the things that we've heard about, I would hope that a lot of things we heard about and the Secretary of State has heard about would either diminish or go away. I mean, as I said earlier, our goal is education and what we don't wanna be as an ethics commission is we don't wanna be a gotcha organization. We don't wanna be parked off the side of the road getting the first person who goes by at 66 miles an hour on the interstate. That's not our goal. Our goal is to say, here are the expectations. Here is how we can help you lead them. We don't wanna send anybody out after you. I think a successful program, I put this in our annual report, the best sign of a successful ethics program is a low number of complaints. So if we can put our resources more into education, then maybe we can achieve that goal. I would, our resources are pretty limited right now. We ought to be able to influence at least some ethics education for incoming legislators when, through the Snelling Center, because the Snelling Center does all the orientation for new legislators and you would think that that wouldn't be something that they could incorporate into that. But we could also incorporate it. I mean, we have annual trainings all the time. We could incorporate it into the annual trainings as well and expand it perfectly. I mean, it parallels well with the other trainings that we get. Yeah, yeah, we could do that. There's no need, reason not to do that. Just curious, was VLCT not willing to partner with you on educating? We didn't ask, I mean, clearly no authority to enter that C or so. There was no discussion. Right, but we left out municipalities and so for requiring them to do it. And I have to say with our current staffing, I'm grateful for that. Right, but it strikes me that they would be a very good partner on helping the education front on the municipalities. Now that every municipality has a code of ethics, it is curious we required that but didn't require it of ourselves. I'm shocked, but do you think that's curious? Yes, I like consistency and I guess that piece just missed me. Well, we've required it, one place. That's the beauty of my vantage point. Yes, that's where you're very interested. So I can see some of these things. Thank you. You're welcome. Speaking of resources, I just wanna share a funny thing. One of the joys of my job being the only person in the office, I get to do a lot of administrative stuff and I got an email the other day, it said, could you send us your organization chart? Oh, did you do one? Yeah, yeah. That's it. That's good. I was gonna do the other one. Me and then that's it. And who is currently on the commission? Julie. Julie, you chair. She's the chair. And I would be remiss if I didn't say that she plays an enormous role in what we do. I mean, whenever I have a question, she's always there and she's here for these meetings. I made the work chart. And she made the chart. Oh, you made the chart. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to do this. And Chris will tell you, don't talk to worry about that. So who else is on? Let's see, Paul Erlbaum, who's from East Montpelier. Sarah, we all see from Dan, Joe, who's from, she's an attorney from Gratterborough. Chris Davis, an attorney from Burlington. And Michelle I, who's a CPA, who is from Wheatsfield. Those are the five people. So I just have to say that when this came out about how terrible we were as state of Vermont, I went into the report. And I went into all the questions that they asked and why we came up with things. And it was one of those things where it made my blood boil a little bit because some of the questions were really didn't pertain to us, I believe. And there were questions like, how many fines have you imposed? So if you hadn't imposed many fines, you've got a low mark. What was the biggest fine that you imposed? And they had fines in there like $15,000 or $50,000 or something, but we hadn't imposed any fines. So we got a low mark. And it covered a three year period of time. So we didn't even have any grades for those. So I tend not to trust. Any of those reports would come out. And I don't trust the ones that come up on openness and policies. The Sunshine Report that comes out from the, I think it's February, the Sunshine Report that comes out from the Big Press Association. Because they ask questions like, do you have a policy about nepotism for your legislative staff? Well, no, we don't have a policy because we don't have legislative staff, thank you. I mean, individual staff. But we get an app on that question because we don't have a policy. So I tend to think that we should just pay attention to what it is that we need and how we can address it here. And just forget about almost horrible reports that come out about us. That's my speech for the day. Oh, I agree. I mean, I think what's important is what we think. And if we see a need to make things better then we should jump on it. What I like about the idea if we can talk about an ethics code this year, it's 2020 and you can't turn on the TV or the radio without hearing about ethics somewhere. And this to me is the ideal time to grasp this. Ethics code for this national government. Well, they probably, it is the office. And you know who ranks really high on some of this stuff? New Jersey. I remember Rhode Island. Rhode Island. Oh, that's because they're all in jail in Rhode Island. Well, the reason they have such extensive codes is because they've had to react to some of the different kinds of scandals. But they still are. I mean, I've always been thinking for some time. Every time an Illinois state senator gets indicted on something, I get a copy of that article. It's cultural. What's happening there? It's cultural. One of the things that I read recently that I thought was really interesting is they were talking about if you have ethics, viewed with importance at the local level, it tends to trickle up. That people who serve in the legislature, many of them started serving in local bodies or regional bodies, and then they come up. So if we are eventually able to have a culture of ethics, awareness, and compliance at the local level, it really does filter up. And if people see their representatives, the ones they see every day at home in their towns, behaving ethical, and they trust them, then they're gonna trust other people as they go along. Swinwin, and the other advantage of having an ethics code at least at this point in this proposal is it doesn't cost any to do it. Why? So. But we like to pass things that don't cost money. I thought you might find that intriguing. And that big impact. Yeah. Where are any other questions? I'm not sure I'm gonna phrase it very well, but if you could characterize, just until this point, you're the only one, maybe not the only one that's seen the 23 complaints. Mm-hmm. How many of them, or what percentage of them are kind of like brain dead? Anybody should have known that that just wasn't a proper or appropriate sort of action. And how many were, oh gosh, I missed the deadline for filing that form by three days. And technically that's an ethics violation, but you know what I'm saying? Yeah, there were no technical violations. Okay. I didn't see any of those. So nobody said my purse, Mike, I didn't do this on time. Some of the, I think one of the misconceptions that some people have is they believe that anytime somebody isn't doing their job correctly, that it's unethical. Right. And that's a matter of awareness that, if somebody is performing poorly, that isn't necessarily an ethics code violation, that's a different thing. So there were some cases that involved that. There were some legitimate concerns and complaints about conflicts of interest. Okay. And the problem with conflicts of interest is there are some that are just absolutely obvious on their face and others that aren't. And there's always a line in the middle someplace and the question is where does any particular conduct fall? So there were complaints about that as well. So then we're kind of across the board. But people get, I mean conflict of interest, people really get that and it really rubs, you know. But some conflict of interest is pretty. Yeah. Like if I were to testify or introduce or vote on a bill that had to do with housing, is that a conflict of interest for me? I don't know, I work for a housing organization. I wouldn't stand to benefit by it, but it is, is that a conflict? No, but I think some people would think that's a conflict. So I think it is. I don't think it's black or white. I don't think so either. Here or there. I mean people think they understand when they see conflict of interest. I think they deal with what they see. So to Larry's earlier point, I guess what the trust of my question was, if we were able to enact a really good educational response to what you saw in those 23, how many of those would be cleared up and people would go, oh, gosh, I didn't realize that I shouldn't have been that kind of thing? Or how many is, hey, I'm gonna give you cash under the table, nobody needs to know. I mean, everybody understands that's not wrong. I haven't seen those, which is good. The ones that were most troubling were, where there was a perceived conflict of interest, at least to the complainant, there was a conflict of interest. Other people might agree or disagree and there's a huge area. And I know that with, there are different rules and it defines what a conflict is. And I didn't bring my face too, so I can't tell you what I have there, but not only is there a question of maybe divided loyalty, because usually conflicts of interest come down to your personal interest or the interest of family members or people close to you, versus the general public interest. So it's really hard to articulate that any more clearly, but the conflicts that I saw did involve complaints about personal interest versus public interest. And there were some complaints of failure to comply with sort of basic municipal, again, this goes back to municipal standards of governance, for some fairly outrageous conduct by local people. And in those cases, I've referred to complainants as best I could to other people who might help them to counsel. I said, you know, talk to the media, go to legal counsel, talk to, there are, without getting into details, there are some resources available for some of the people who suffered at the hands of local officials, but it's hard to say. But again, I think, you know, how many people are knowingly, willingly engage in unethical conduct? I think that number is very, hopefully very small. The corrupted versus the corruptible, maybe a few in the middle, normally we do the right thing, but might be enticed into, or not enticed, but through ignorance or neglect, might engage in something that they didn't realize. Those, that's our primary group. And that's the crowd you'll be able to affect with better interest, more interest. And then there are the incorruptibles who, great, we love them, and can't they help us set an example for other people. We've got somebody here. Do you want to play in, do you want to do that? No, I think you've captured it quite well, and would only just identify yourself. Julie Helbert, Chair of the Ethics Commission for the record. I think I would only just reiterate the pieces that Larry talked about, the education and the discussion that you've had around that. One of the things that I think has been interesting in terms of meeting commissioners from other states is that a lot of states have created their ethics commissions in a state of crisis, when the public trust was, there was irreparable damage to the public trust. And I think we are not there yet, but we're not immune to it. And I think through education and having a statutory code that we can educate to, we can get out of the crisis there. So that would be an advantage. Just one thing, I don't know if you're from, I have CAPS, I forget what the acronym stands for, but it's part of the Department of Human Resources, the group that does lots of training for state employees. If I wanna get training on how to use SharePoint or something on my computer, they also offer ethics training. And I think they offered three or maybe four this year to anybody in state government who wants to be there. And they usually average 10 or 12 people a class. So if we had mandatory ethics education, I hope that I know they would be able to do it as they have sexual harassment training. They've stepped up and done that. And we certainly would be willing to play a role in that, assist, take whatever responsibility we can, too. I think it's a shared responsibility. We're happy to do our part. Chris. Can you give me the scope of your practice, you know what I'm saying? Chris, do you, are you ever calling us to look at any of the municipal things or only state government, main line state government? By statute state government. No. But you can't remember about us and we've gotten complaints. And I have to say, I'm sorry there's nothing I can do, but I will be going to the legislature at the end of the year in filing a report and I'll let them know the type of complaints that we get without identifying an individual in hopes that someday we can do something to make it less likely to reoccur. I mean, it seems like they're not infrequently, they're concerns expressed in the press about no big contracts or the handling of big contracts or things like that, right, the municipal level. Yeah, and that's something I know nothing about. Right now, worse if we ignore it about that. I was just curious, do you ask people how they've found out about you? Yeah, I mean, do people know that there's nothing to mention? They, some do. I don't know where they've heard about us. You know, every time we get in trouble for doing so, I think people hear about us and they say, you know, bad publicity is better than no publicity in that regard. All the publicity is good. Yeah, exactly. It was interesting. I did, I participated in the training for attorneys who work for the same space again, AG sponsored training for property lawyers in Brown state government. And I talked briefly about what we do and what we can't do in the gaping holes and even that group, they were, I had no idea, they were shocked. To find out they were in these gaps, so. I have a question about the judicial, the candidates for statewide office can't be members. Or, yeah, for the offices can't be members. And you suggested that we also add judicial candidates. Would that be people who, attorneys who are applying for judgeships? No, the elected, judicial elected office. Judicial elected offices. They would only be inside judgeships. And probate, probate and assistant. Okay, great, that's, I wasn't. No, so candidates for judicial appointment would not be disloyal. Although, the minute they were appointed, they would be ineligible, so. Yeah, yeah, okay, that's all right. I know, I look at this and I say, wow. What do we do? I don't really change it. Any mark? Well, I just want to thank you. I cannot go to the chair's words. I don't hold my position in anything necessarily greatly changed from what it was, but you have me very interested in, I mean, I'm getting the impression that we gave you a car with three wheels. Or a car in a rainforest, a lot of windshield wipers, and you're kind of trying to get along. And so we need to help with that. So I'm impressed with what you've done. I think that's great. Maybe we gave him a bill card. Or a bicycle. And I think we're probably not at the point yet, or we can give them an electric vehicle, but we'll move. And I don't think the five of us were aware of the gaps that you've pointed out. It's just one of those. Well, you don't know how to do it. It's an unintended consequence. Got to get it out of the way and then we identify. And then we have somebody terrific, that already helps. Well done, well done. Thank you. So we will. What day do we have it on for next week? It is Wednesday at 3.35. Does that work? I'm committed. I think that I'm supposed to speak to, who am I speaking to? The state association and the CPA people, the ones who appointed one of our members. I'm supposed to see them, I think at 2.30 or three. Where? Across the street. Oh, Abbot, can you come over afterwards? Sure. I'll see what it is. Are you going to report later or later? I hope not. We do that. That's fine. But we can start the discussion anyway. We have your points here and we. You'll have our annual report by then also. And when you have a working draft of a potential understanding that it really is a working draft. Oh, it's very much a working draft. We can start looking at that, looking at Anthony's bills and getting testimony from. We'll take a lot of testimony that day. As long as you understand, you may have me open my 20 hours this week. We will. Ha ha ha. Watch your overtime arrange. How many sent employees? This is weird. I don't know how it works. I have to fill out time sheets and a couple times fill them out. Yeah, I don't know why. Everybody does. Everybody. I've written more than 40 hours for the paid period. A couple times I've gotten more pay. And then they said, no, you shouldn't do that anymore. She'd just write hours over whatever the schedule was. So I do that and I said, well, where does that go? And they say, well, you get calm time at some place. And I say, when am I going to use it? I can't get my job done in my 20 hours there. What the hell am I going to do with the company? That's crazy. It all has to do with the Fair Labor Relations Act. Yeah. And when exempt employees fill out their time cards, when I work as an exempt employee, I fill it out eight to five, eight hours every day. Eight hours every day. If I worked three hours, or if I worked 17 hours that day. Eight hours every day. Right. And then at the bottom, you swear that under the Payne St. Pendleton, it's a perjury that it's true. We didn't have that on purpose. As long as you're talking about things that can be fixed, on the forum it says, we, the undersigned. I'm saying, who's the other one? Why is it that way? That's just me. So I think that my work cut out for me. But I'm happy to get you something like this week. This is why we will start looking at these. And some of these changes seem to be pretty technical. The phase one and phase two are that big bite and then these other things really seem to be. Yeah, phase one is, can we give you an ethics code and the tweaks to the current statute, which I think are fairly straightforward. Phase two will be the actual draft. Yeah, well you can. And we can get that, I can get that to you hopefully by Wednesday. And then phase three will be down the road when we have lots of discussions about what the future should be. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we have a couple of people that have meetings at 3.30.