 Welcome folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions, and it is now May, May 4th. And we've only got a couple more weeks of the legislative session, so our work is starting to wind down. Our bills are finishing up. And, but we still have some little outstanding issues, one being in terms of how we proceed to get the full body back working in person come January of next year. And that's going to be a heavy lift. There was a report of to get the conversation going, Freeman French Freeman report in terms of space and space needs, the short term, as well as the long term but one feeds into the other it's kind of like a domino you can take, you do one movement that then opens up something that you can then take the next step that then opens up from the next step. And it's figuring out what that first step is, and then figuring out what gets shifted so that it opens up space that then you take the next step. And also integral to all of this is our proposed HVAC system replacement and there's some frustration building that this is not being done quickly enough. And also the other piece that I think we need to spend some time with us a historical aspect of our building and when you're talking about changing walls. And changing the layout, there's some real historical implications that we may not be aware of for sure, and definitely our colleagues are not aware of. And that's why we have the director of the division Laura Trishman and to speak to us about some of those regulations and nuances and things we need to be aware of when you're when we're talking about doing any renovations, however small or however large within the capital building. So Laura, I'm going to turn it over to you. And if you could introduce yourself for the record. Thank you. I'm Laura Trishman I'm the State Historic Preservation Officer for Vermont. Let's call you director instead of the officer. Thank you. One of the primary roles of the Division for Historic Preservation under 22 VSA chapter 14 is to work with state agencies state government to protect historic resources. We like to work early and often on projects to make sure that the needs particularly safety and continued use of spaces are taken into account because we certainly don't want to get in the way of safety issues, accessibility issues. We don't want to turn every single building into a museum. With the State House, you have a unique situation where you are living in a museum, say living breathing museum and recording. What has happened there from day one to how you continue to use it is really important because if you even think back, we don't know the exact location of the first State House. And that's a shame. You know we have some idea of where it was. There's been alterations to the existing State House that are not thoroughly documented although I will give a shout out to David sheets in the book that he did about the State House but the space that you're in when it was originally constructed it was two stories tall, because it was the State Library and Museum. The floor that you're normally sitting on wasn't there until 1919 when the Supreme Court was built. So, these are histories we want to make sure that are properly recorded, and that we understand what elements need to be saved so that we don't completely wipe out our history, like we did with the first State House. I think my strongest message is change can happen, but change needs to be understood and examined because as you said, Representative Emmons there's HVAC, there's mechanical, there's the technology, there's space. You know you need some place to put your stuff and we understand that. And also taking into account how the building has evolved and how it needs to continue evolving will let us understand and identify those elements that are most important. I don't know if it's the most recent but definitely the most remembered renovation that recently happened was related to the work that David sheets undertook with the paint the carpet the lighting. He was, he was restoring parts of the building back to its historic period. I want to make sure going forward that whatever changes are made are well documented, understood, prioritized correctly. So that somebody another 20 years down the road doesn't become before you and say I need a couple million dollars to restore this space back to the way it was in 2020. We also don't want to completely wipe out the many dollars you spent on that recent historic restoration. So, typically what we do is, is create a hierarchy of character defining features character defining spaces. And we level them of most important. What could change. What definitely can change what cannot change. And then we start balancing the whole right so we need to properly understand everything that's going to happen. We can make sure we're mitigating and balancing things correctly. So there's a couple different aspects to it one we need to document before anything happens. And in that documentation we need to understand what happened before. So if you start moving around the walls. For example in your committee rooms, which used to be a two story height. We need to make sure that the structure itself is strong enough to hold any changes that are being made, because it already has been altered. And once you start altering something carrying weight a different way. It's going to move how the building responds. If you add a window to to the wall of your house, you're going to start seeing cracks. Or if you change if you widen an opening, which is done at my house, you're going to start seeing the cracks because the load bearing is changing and we want to be very careful to make sure we understand what is within that structure now. So we need to start jumping in and making changes that are going to cause more changes and more problems. Because I think some of the issues that you're dealing with are unexpected consequences of the growing legislative business. You know, and, and the more business you do the larger you make a resource, the more people are starting to come. And the simple you know I want to enlarge my dining room space so I can have more people come you do that and they're going to come. So you need to be ready to to feed them all. Right so taking into account that you're going to have more people you're going to have more activities. And over the years when the Supreme Court was constructed, the library, the museum, they all moved out of the building because your activities were expanding, and they're going to continue to expand. And I think also taking into account future changes and options. We don't want to just build out to what we can do now we need to take into account what could happen next. And that's where we need to be very careful of what gets removed, how it gets removed, how it gets altered. And I'm not so interested in, in getting into David's domain of, you know, paint carpet lighting I really respect the state curator, but through 22 vs a we have a role to review plans, proposals, and make sure that that things are really being mitigated correctly, because we don't want you to significantly alter something. Because it's been thoroughly thought out so that you don't physically harm the building and lose the history you're trying to present in the state house. Laura. Can you give that citation. I think you did at the very beginning by statute that you require your role as to work with state agencies to protect the install the historic aspect. It's 22 vs a chapter 14. Anything else, you have more, you have more right. Well, I just the, the skunk in the, in the punch bowl can always be archaeology. So, if you're talking about it, in addition, we need to make sure that we look at the archaeology. The back of the state house obviously there's, there's stone back there so that's not an issue but connecting anything and bringing it further out we need to really understand because we don't know where the first state house was. We don't know certain things about that site. So we want to make sure we don't miss that opportunity I don't foresee you know major digging and investigations and all of that but it's definitely something to keep in our minds. I also think taking into consideration the capital complex commission and the city of Montpelier for for additions, because both of those entities, regulate what your immediate neighbors do to their own houses, and we need to respect that this is a large historic district that you're in, Montpelier is the largest historic district in the state of Vermont. And we need to respect that, that the state house is the, the jewel piece of that. And if you're allowed to do alterations without certain oversight and review and consideration of all the many partners. We need to respect the Pandora's box for everybody else. I think the, the Freeman French Freeman plan has some really good elements to it. I only saw it last week for the first time, we did not participate in consultation with them. And we should have. And we want to. But I, I caution you that those are conceptual plans and ideas. And while we tend to really appreciate seeing plans at that early stage when they're just an idea so that we can give some feedback. I caution moving further and adopting those without further exploration of what the building can withstand what spaces mean the most to us. What needs you have as a legislative body and historic preservation's role is, is never to say no. I said that on the record. We, we want to work we consult we have conversations we want to figure out how to make things work. And so that's I think where we are with the initial idea that Freeman French Freeman put forward is to have those conversations. So the first thing I would, we advocate for the building, right because the building can't speak for itself. So I'm always going to go in with the highest preservation level, knowing that I actually have a lower level of comfort based on fire safety code use. I don't want to keep this as a museum. And I think that the people of the city who have been here since the beginning of the 1850s, they're walking into an 1858 building or a space that was altered in 1919. Another thing to consider is that right now because it is a historic building. There are code exemptions that exist now. You can no longer be excused from having ADA, accessibility, certain types of restrooms. And I know some of the plan that Freeman French Freeman had did bring some of that in, but all of your code exemptions will have to start over. Once you open that box, and then you might also be bringing in some energy efficiency. Conversation, which might not be all that bad with the windows that you've got, but, you know, those windows are not original. So how do we adapt this because originally they were two story windows. But what type of window would go in there for energy efficiency. What type of insulation would go into the building. These are all conversations that need to happen. And they need to happen collectively. When we were working on the Supreme Court alterations which ultimately didn't happen. We were all sitting around huge cables with everyone as stakeholders saying their bit. Even during COVID when we've been working on the state auditors fire escape. We're all coming to the table fire safety myself having these conversations, you know, with the proposal of the idea. This is what I want to do. That's not going to work for fire safety that's not going to work for ADA. This could work for historic preservation. You're bringing more ideas, but we also all have our professional lane that we can travel in and I think ultimately you get a much better project. And I know that's how Freeman French Freeman works as well. I'm so stressed that this is concept and needs a lot more conversation to it. And I would really hate to see the loss of some interior spaces before that is well thought out because once you start changing, you've changed it. And if you go back you are replicating and that might not be where you want to replicate and everything costs money and more money now than it did before. I'm Laura, and I do want to say that I think folks over the weekend, had a little bit of realization that the Freeman French Freeman report is a starting point for the conversation. It is not a starting point for the construction. People are beginning to realize that and that there are a lot of stakeholders involved here, and a lot of moving pieces. And what is really coming to the forefront is this all has to be vetted in one form, one way it's got to get vetted and what is the mechanism to vet that. What is the mechanism to simulate all of that information, then make recommendations to what group, what entity to start making some final decisions that you can then start getting the ball rolling. It's clear that it's very clear that I got a text from John so we just kind of threw me. It's very clear that the institutions committees need to be involved. It's clear that leadership is involved. It's clear that what entity is a recommendation going to be made to. There's thoughts right now of the legislative State House Advisory Committee would be the entity that would be vetting all of this and hearing testimony from all the stakeholders and all the aspects and weighing everything and coming back to some entity. We don't know if it's going to be joint rules. We don't know if it's going to be joint legislative management committee, or it could be something else completely different. No one knows that at this point. But we're in a different place today than we were last Friday, in terms of people are starting to see. It's a real complex issue. And it's not something you do without thinking through all the faces. And I think what Benning said it's like dominoes, once you start, you, you know, you're setting up. And there's a lot of stakeholders is not just us. It's not just let's counsel and joint fiscal office. It's the public. It's the press. It's the lobbyist. There's a lot of people. So how do we balance all of that. It's where we are. So questions, we do Scott, you have a question. Thank you. Hi, Laura, I just wanted to ask about where the Senate chamber used to be until 1919 was, was that the 30s and the 40s that were two stories. So it, it, it wasn't the chambers it's your committee rooms. Right. Right. Well, so where was that. The committee rooms. The committee rooms are now where where that where the committee rooms are now was a two story space that has a library and museum. Okay. I was sad in relation. I think to get our perspective here, Laura, when you say a two story, the two story was the lobby area. And the lounge, which is now the lounge, which used to be the Supreme Court. And the second floor was where the chambers for our now. And Scott's asking, where were the committee rooms, like, where our committee room is in the 30s. I'm talking about where your committee rooms are now. Right. There's two, there's two floor. There's the lounge on the first floor, the legislative lounge. Right. That is the 30s that's a set of committee rooms above that is the 40s and other set of committee rooms. So where the lounges now was a Supreme Court. Was the Supreme Court. Is that correct. Yes. Yes. And then above that the 30s in the 40s was a two story space. Yes. That's interesting. I didn't know that. And that was all changed in the night in the night in 1919. Yes. When the Supreme Court moved out, they took state archives and library with them. And then they made these smaller committee rooms inserted a floor and made smaller committee rooms. Okay, so our ceiling, our ceiling in the committee room for those folks in our committee room, our ceiling did not exist. Right. So it seems likely that that that ceiling and the floor, the floor for the rooms above is being structurally held up by the walls that created the committee rooms, the 30s. So, yeah, okay. I'm just curious to understand how it all evolved. Yeah, we, and I guess I had another question. We were you going to talk about also the conceptual recommendation or conceptual idea from Freeman French for Freeman about moving some of those walls. Well, last week when I first read the report. I was a little stunned. I was locating of walls. I'm not a big fan of that when you're talking about a historic space, but then looking at the Secretary of Interior standards for rehabilitation, which we work with always, you can change spaces to make them useful for today. I started to think, okay, maybe it's the corridor that needs to stay and the door openings need to stay. Right, so you still get the concept of, of those individual rooms. But then as I started to explore the history more realizing that that dates from 1919. I'm not 100% sure of, of requirements or for that. Well, whether, how preservation comes into that right so what are you protecting, what are you preserving. What is the history you want to tell there, because we've completely wiped out the history of the library and state archives in that space. Do we want to continue to alter it does it matter. And those are the conversations that that haven't happened and, and going into the space and looking at it from a perspective of what does remain from when it was two stories and the Supreme Court was downstairs. Sometimes it just doesn't matter we need to document and move forward, you know we do that document and demolish does happen. But at this point I'm not 100% sure I'm more comfortable with removing walls, but I think there does need to be conversation of documentation and identifying what's important. Okay, great. Thanks I was just curious whether moving those walls was was sort of an absolute no as far as as far as you were concerned but it's not it. It was a situation. It was a little bit of a no until I learned that that's not the first phase of what was there. So once you start altering something. It gives preservationists a little more ease to continue altering, but sufficient time has passed so that what's now is just as important as what was there originally. Okay, thank you. I'm trying to figure out what guidelines, what legal guidelines. We need to work within or legislature needs to work within changing this. So, first question. Okay, here's a code review or the necessity of having to follow code. In other words, if I'm changing a bathroom on the first floor and so we have to take that out and do something to it. And I can understand somebody saying okay, this bathroom has to conform to because you're redoing this needs to conform to current standards. But does renovating the bathroom or the first floor, how does that affect city halls or something outside. How much of what triggers a code review in one portion of building, as opposed to another question. I can't speak for code enforcement. I can say that if you're doing a bathroom or if you're in one part of the building you may not necessarily be opening up and affecting codes in other areas. But when you're putting on a pretty substantial addition, your exemptions are are going to be up for conversation. So the whole, the whole point of those exemptions is the preservation of a historic building, right so we, we shouldn't be putting a, an ADA ramp on the front of the State House. So therefore we getting an exemption to put it somewhere else that is unfortunately not as obvious to those that need it, but it's still there. Okay, my second question is, who has authority, ultimate authority in some of these discussions. In other words, whatever committee gets together and decides they want to do something in the US historical preservation officer say no, I don't think you should be doing. And you say no, you can't do that. And therefore they say, oh, I guess I'll have to think of something else. We do try to reach consensus of everybody. But it may not happen. And who has the authority with regard to the historical preservation or necessary necessity for the state. You're forcing me to show my hand to start preservation in Vermont does not have a permitting process. All we can do is recommend to the state agency or the, the, the lead organization so in this case it would be the governor, we can recommend best practices and what we think is best for the preservation of those, those materials features and spaces, you can say thank you very much and off you go. Okay, you are not required to follow it. Okay, thank you. That's why I wanted to take clear enough. So, I'm sitting here thinking of Kurt's question. And before we built the addition, which is the ramp going out to the cafeteria. We did not have a DA accessible bathrooms. And we did not have a DA access access to the building. That addition was put on, I believe in 1987, 88, and 89. So what that triggered was the bathroom downstairs in the lobby had to be a DA accessible. That's why there's automatic doors. That's why there's handicapped or a DA stalls. The same with the restroom up by the cafeteria. And because we had a restroom that was in house. Well, it's house education committee now that's where the woman's restroom was back then. So when that got all changed that triggers your code with division of fire safety. And I would think my hunch is that that is when these code exemptions were solidified. Back then for that work, because there's fire suppression issues in the building and other code issues. So when we did that major renovations triggered these conversations as my hunch. And the ramp of course had to also be handicapped accessible. And where the cafeteria used to be was where the mezzanine is, and that was not handicapped accessible. So, but you could get there at one point there was a ramp that kind of circled down but there were also some steps at the end of that ramp. And I'm wondering what the process was back then to determine what that addition would look like, and what, who went through that process. I know it came out of the institutions committees. I don't know what would have led up to it. I don't know if there was some work that was done with the committees with bgs at that point. I don't know if there was a small group of folks and leadership that was working with institutions committee I'd be curious to know where those decision points were made and who was involved in those decision points of doing that addition because that was a big addition to the and that's been circling around in my mind. I know from a historic. I know from a historic preservation point of view while I wasn't here then the addition has a very modest. effect on the historic building. Right because you're only going through one opening where the ramp bridge is, and the addition itself on the back is hidden in the back, so that you don't see it. And there's there's that space between the older building and the new addition. And that's how historic preservation really likes to work less effect to historic that new is easily identified as new, and does not take away from the original historic, but the proposal now is to build out beyond that a little bit and it takes a lot more coordination and thought because do you want something that's so new that it, it screams brand new and competes with what is historic in Montpelier that it, it draws your eye immediately to it when you're looking at the rendering, and I understand they only drew a box with no architectural design to it, but your eye immediately goes right to it, because it is so, so different. And that's what we want to make sure that it doesn't compete with the community, it doesn't take away from the pink lady, and it certainly doesn't take away from the architectural design of the main building and the subsequent additions because anybody can read, this is the main building, these are the additions. You can see the difference in materials, the way it was put together and, and that's the whole point of preservation is to be able to read the changes. And I think in note when that addition was put on, it was, it was intentionally hidden behind the main building. And that's why they produce the weight bearing walls and mechanical systems for a floor on top of the cafeteria. Yes. When you start going out on the sides, you're, you're triggering the Capital Complex Commission in the city of Montpelier, because it's an historic district. Correct. That's what a lot of folks don't realize. The city of Montpelier, having just done a new historic district update and created a design review district is now working on design review guidelines so that any new construction alterations additions are respectful of what's there but still read as new. So those are in production right now. So these are all things that have to be weighed in the question is, where does it get weighed within the legislative body in order to make a proposal that works. So, people are thinking through where that would it be the State House Legislative Advisory Commission Committee because that's where it rested back in 2007-2008 when the proposal came out to place the floor above the cat cafeteria and it was a pretty elaborate design. And some folks had a real adverse reaction to that the legislature say wait a minute here that's too elaborate. And we don't need to go down that road. But that was the advisory committee that worked through that. On that end. Okay. I guess my question is so much who is involved in making the proposal, but who determines which proposal is actually followed. Correct. And that's what people haven't figured out yet. Well then the question becomes who figures out who those people are supposed to be. That's conversations that are currently going on with leadership with joint rules with Joint Legislative Management Committee. I think the first hurdle is people are seeing there needs to be a mechanism to bring the stakeholders to the table, hear testimony from everyone involved that would be impacted by this. In here testimony that was given here by our historic officer that hey, it's not as simple as tearing down a wall or building an addition. These are the consequences. These are things you have to look at. The level of conversation that everyone needs to be asked, not the level of conversation of we're tearing down a wall and we're going to put these committees and these temporary spots for a couple years. We're not even there. We're back at the ground level. So, Kurt, you're muted, I think. Kurt, I think you're muted. I think you're muted. I think his mic is not working. Your mic not working. Yeah, you sound like you're underwater a little bit. Let me ask my question. What my question has to do with the temple complex commission and what authority they have, can they, are they a deciding factor in that they're not making recommendations they can actually stop the project or can they, or what, this is my question. Does anybody know that. I can speak to this better I would, I would defer to the commissioner on this, but I believe because they are a governor appointed commission, they do have authority over the exterior of resources in the capital complex and that includes the state house. Thank you. So this is really just the very first skimming of the surface. And I think we've made substantial movement in terms of saying yes we've got to really figure this out and be thoughtful in terms of how we move forward with the space needs in the state house and not make quick decisions in bringing people to the table. And that's where our leadership is that's where our speaker is that's where a senate pro tem is. And that's where it lies right now, but there really needs to be a lot more vetting of this more information needs to be taken in so we know the ramifications. And if you start to move people. That is a whole different conversation because once you start moving staff, they don't like to be moved and legislators don't like to be moved. So nobody likes to be moved so that also has to be dealt with as well. So there's a lot of layers to it. Anything else on this before we transition to a little bit of the Adirondack. Just want some questions clarified for the Adirondack. Anything else on this. So tomorrow we're going to be getting some language based on the conversations that have occurred over the last couple days with the leadership and also the management committee this morning. I encourage folks to please go to that YouTube and view that if you can prior to tomorrow's committee meeting of ours our house committee meeting. There was some discussions there that is laying the foundation the framework for what we as a committee will be talking about tomorrow with some language that Becky is working on. In terms of the one, the fifth floor swap. And also the legislative advisory committee on the state house for that. Anything else for Laura on this particular piece.