 Well welcome everyone who is attending viewing especially if you're a student we are happy to have you here. This meeting is being recorded. Perfect now it's recording. I so I am the head of the QID slash CHIPS board for the Quality Youth Engagement Development Program which in part of that to get a ours community EWSD school district to a three star community is to have hold a webinar for all youth to attend with our local representatives and this is exactly that. So I my name is Liam Redmond and I'm head of the QID board and I would just ask if all the representatives can go around and share their name how long they have been serving in their community. Great I'll start. Hi everyone Laurie Houghton and I serve Essex Junction. This is my third term so they're two years. So I'm in my fifth year I just finished my fifth year and I serve on the house health care committee. And I'll go next Mary Beth Redmond I serve on house human services and this I am in my second term and I represent Essex the town outside of the village. I'll go next my name is Alyssa Black and I serve Chittenden 8-3 which is sort of the rural parts of Essex along with all of Westford. I'm in my first term so just have the one year so far under my belt and I serve on the house health care committee along with Representative Houghton. Hi I am Tanya Vihovsky. I am also just finishing my first term and am district mates with Representative Redmond and I am on the government operations committee. Hi everyone I'm Karen Gowan I represent Essex Junction along with Representative Houghton and I am on the corrections institutions committee and very excited to be here for this opportunity. Thanks. Perfect thank you all so much for attending today and agreeing to participate. So we will be asking questions from a variety of different topics but first we will start with a climate related question. So the question is 45 percent of Vermont's greenhouse gas emissions are from transportation. What is the legislature doing to address this and reduce emissions? So I can start and then whoever wants to jump in this was a huge focus of the transportation committee this coming session. They every year do what's called the T-bill it's a big bill of millions of dollars that focuses on transportation you know repaving our roads throughout the state because tourism is such a big part of our economy and so having good roads is really important but this year they really tried to put in more intentional incentives for people to buy electric bikes for people to of people within a certain income bracket to be able to access tax credits and incentives to you know when they buy a new car move to a hybrid or an electric vehicle there's a lot of money in the T-bill to replace all of our public transit with electric buses in the coming years. So yeah I mean we are the only state in New England who's who has seen its emissions rising in New England and so that is very concerning and we're really trying to make some good investments so I'll stop there if anyone else wants to jump in. Hi I'm happy to jump in a little bit too you know one of the things that we know is that Vermont is a state where oftentimes a lengthy commute is standard and we also know that this is an economic justice issue so one of the things that the T-bill really also looked at is where we can expand some of these incentives or make these incentives more accessible to people who maybe can't access a tax credit or perhaps you know can't afford to upgrade to their car being more efficient you know one of the things we're also looking at is expanding what public transportation looks like you know in a city like Boston you can have a subway and everyone can just easily access it but in a state like Vermont where we have rural communities that are many many miles apart having a set bus route doesn't necessarily work so one of the other things were some pilot programs for micro transit so that almost sort of acts like a public uber system where it's sort of set up that you can access that public transportation when you need it sort of lumped together in a group rather than having to wait for a public bus route so we're really trying to think innovatively for how we invest in infrastructure that meets the needs of the diversity of Vermont but is also decreasing the reliance on single person vehicle usage and so I think we're in a really unique spot where we also have a lot of federal money to really think about how we spend that to invest in that infrastructure so that going forward things are better both economically for people and accessible for people as well as decreasing our emissions in the transportation sector I'll just yeah oh go ahead I just wanted to add in that I mean you often don't think about it with transportation but we've made huge investments in broadband and the ability for people to telecommute so you know that also plays into that because most of our emissions obviously are through our transportation system. I just want to add one point in that we're going to expand zero bus fare for another full year which is huge we kind of experimented with that making all of the public transit buses free of charge and so we're going to extend that a year with some of the federal monies and look toward that being hopefully a long-term you know solution for equity and all of those other issues time you mentioned. Thank you all okay so this one is more related to the economy so as we all know small businesses were devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic what did the legislature do to help businesses recover going forward? I can focus a little bit on this one my husband actually is a small business owner and working through the pandemic was really hard and quite frankly it's not over in fact we were just talking about this morning how really stressed he has been and quite frankly he lost sales but he did okay it's a local business and people were wonderful about stepping up and buying locally when they could and where they could and he's a delivery business so it all worked well for him but for others it was it was devastating and I think we all have to remember it's not over so through the various amounts of money that we received or buckets of money throughout the last year and a half that we received from the federal government we provided grants to businesses there was a second round where we provided grants to businesses who weren't really eligible because they couldn't show a loss of business they might have just started or were in the works I don't know if you've noticed there's quite a few businesses that have opened up just in the past year in Essex which is great so we tried to help those businesses we also did things you know that aren't sexy but are really important to the businesses and that we altered a bit the way their unemployment insurance rates are handled in order to ensure that if we had left it in place their rates would have skyrocketed this next year and so it's things like that that you know the inner workings of a small business that we when we walk into a business don't really think about that we've been able to help them with I will say it's not enough and we know their business is still hurting and I'm hoping what we can do more when we get back in January I wanted to add here that the other way that we helped small businesses is by putting money in the pockets of Vermonters who can then afford to spend money in those businesses and one of the things that I think that we did that was really important was in once the federal unemployment runs out we increased the benefits for people on on that system but it's also about investing in individual veronters so that they can buy locally we know from history that when we do that that money is spent in in our community so it's also thinking you know again these things are so interrelated it's it's about thinking about every aspect of this another piece that's kind of connected to these that can you hear me yeah is um one of the roles that I found that I've played this past session is helping to be a navigator of communicating these things because with all of this federal funds and new great opportunities it's just been a flood of information and resources and so a lot of the work has also been communicating with community members to say these are the opportunities that are available because it's one place to have it there but if folks don't know how to access it or how to use it or how it can benefit them then it's not going to happen so I feel like a key part of the legislature with bringing those stakeholders together making sure community members know how to access the resources and that they're working for them so um I know that uh Representative Houghton and I heard from a lot of community members about it and there are still gaps in the system so I'm moving forward to hearing from folks what what still needs to be done like what's been working where are the gaps and how can we move forward because it's not over yet. I just wanted to mention one thing um Representative Houghton mentioned the unemployment insurance um also not very sexy but in the health care committee we did we unmerged our um health exchange the market which um will allow premiums for small businesses they will actually decrease next year um I think the estimated uh shaken Representative Houghton can correct me if I'm wrong and I'm just going but I think it was something on the order of about 16 million dollars to small businesses that they'll save next year in health premiums for their employees. And I'll just add one final thing uh just that we also were very intentional about putting grant money aside for communities that have had difficulty accessing um you know loans and investment in their businesses so we put aside money that was specifically for BIPOC Vermonters um you know running businesses you know smaller businesses that you know maybe don't have any kind of formal bank loans we really wanted to get money to those folks as well as um women we made you know women have traditionally had a really difficult time accessing capital investment in their businesses so we um set up um funds that were specifically for those and they were all completely subscribed so um we're looking at that going down the road you know what do we need to do to make sure that there's equity in terms of how this money is being spread around. Thank you all. Okay our next question is surrounding youth uh slash voting rights and that question is you voted this past session to allow 16 and 17 year olds in the city of Brattleboro to vote in local elections is this some is that sorry is that something you would encourage or expand statewide or not? So I can speak to that as that came through my committee and it was a charter change so we voted to support the will of the voters in Brattleboro that wasn't something that we as the legislature said hey Brattleboro we're going to give you this thing that was something that the city of Brattleboro put on their ballot and the citizens of Brattleboro voted to change in their charter and after the process for Vermont is that anything voted um on a charter like that then goes to the government operations committee to be vetted to make sure that it meets its constitutional and it's you know it meets all the laws that it needs to meet and then you know we if changes need to be made made we make changes and there were a couple of spaces in in that charter actually where we did make a couple of tweaks to be in line with other state laws um around voting and then it went to the floor to be voted on really what that was was like I said supporting the will of the Brattleboro voters and certainly if other municipalities want to make that charter change I would absolutely continue to support cities and towns to exercise what they want to do for their local for their local elections so that was also a local election bill it was saying that these individuals get to vote in our local elections so it's very local and Vermont being a state that really believed in that kind of local control of course we would support it if other cities followed suit and if I recall um you can correct me but I believe that was a student-led petition to get on the ballot in Brattleboro so I encourage any Essex Westford students to think about something like that and I know I would fully be in support of it I I had a conversation with Representative Kornheiser whose district that um Brattleboro is and she told me I didn't know this but this effort was an effort over like a decade to try and get this so this was a long-term project and the students who began it are now you know launched in their careers and doing you know they're they're not even there anymore so um yeah I mean the research shows that engaging um voters at younger ages is a way to kind of get them to engage in their local democratic elections and um and their democracy so um you know that's that's what the data shows and if there's interest in that here I think you know we generally as Tanya said you know it's supporting the will of the voters and if the voters overwhelmingly want that well then we will shepherd that through the legislature and I will just echo I think um it's a great example kind of how this forum is of engaging youth and getting ideas and hearing from and so definitely would support this as other communities take it on I brought this up I have an 11-year-old and a 12-year-old and when this was coming up in the legislature I talked to like well yeah that makes sense and um and that was just hopeful to hear they would want to be engaged and they feel like it just makes sense and that if a community feels like feels like that's a bit that we can allow that to happen and I think that actually is a positive way to do it like let's see how that works and maybe more communities go on and then it could potentially become something more statewide um and so I appreciate the charter change process for that it allows us to in some ways pilot things at a small level work things out and then develop it hey if it's okay just want to add another way to look at it um it's a really good example of the youth of Brattleboro are coming together and working long and hard for something and we have that happening in here in Essex as well we've seen it with the equity conversation we've seen it with the gun conversation you know the day or two before we left the state house back in March 2020 we had a group of Essex youth coming down and advocating for gun safety measures and it was started by a freshman in Essex who decided they wanted a local chapter and she and a group of people got it going and so so the youth can be involved in so many ways and should be because the decisions that are being made today by all of us who are nowhere near being youth are really going to affect all of you more than it's going to affect us in the long run so you know I think it's a good example of anything you're interested in whether it be you know a local community organization you want to try and get on the board you know advocate to get the the board um uh directions changed and that youth are allowed or whatever the issue may be and I know I can speak for the five of us when we were always open to talking to anyone about any ideas they have absolutely the other opportunity for youth that I just want to put out there that also came through my committee is the youth council which will be a group of youth that actually are going to be an advisory council to the legislature about the issues that are important to youth and that was passed this year and will be starting to get up and running so if people really want to be involved more directly in the government process that would be an opportunity as well thank you all thank you so our next question is surrounding gun violence and also the ewsd school system so there are many mixed there are mixed feelings among students about the presence of school resource officers on the premise do you think school resource officers are necessary in the ewsd schools I can start with this one as I'm sitting here at the community justice center and we work with the school resource officers um for me I feel like there's more conversation that needs to be had on this to figure this out and I think it is important to bring people together I don't think there's necessarily a a right or wrong answer for community I think communities need to have a discussion and figure this out as somebody who works for the community justice center and works for the school resource officers I I see probably a different side than some other folks do I see school resource officers that want to work with um you know folks who are having challenges and what do you think we get referrals from them to work through conflict I definitely think there are opportunities to maybe improve those pathways and maybe have it be more focused at school um and I can also see how that would be hard to have an officer present in the school it's like how can we navigate that I also see a lot of kids that come through and are scared about you know the violence that is happening in schools and for some it can be reassuring to know there's an officer there and for parents too I feel like there's many sides to it and the piece that I think is really important is to have a conversation and figure out where the community is at um and listen to each other um and figure out what is it that that we need I'll just add um back when we had the situation a couple years ago in Fairhaven and then there was a push to look at school safety throughout the state I remember attending a meeting at Essex High School um about what school safety should look like you know things like you know should the doors be open or locked or and it was a very well run meeting it was um well attended by um the youth that were there it was interesting I had conversations with them there and some people after somebody's after that they felt like their voice wasn't being heard and in that situation there are the ones in the school um there are the ones that should be providing you know the input and being asked for input and I think I think the school district does a good job of that but I think it's important for parents to remember we might be worried about our kids but there are the ones in the building and they need to feel like they are in control of the situation and if that looks different then from what I and I do have sun so I mean if it looks different from what I as a parent would want that's something I think I as a parent have to grapple with grapple with um so it's just a different way to look at it to Karen's point we we really need to get the voices of the youth and but then I think at the same time we need to understand to Karen's point there are some some youth who need help and having the resources is important but what does that look like I think it will be no surprise given that I'm the sponsor on a bill that would actually stop education funding being used for school resource officers that I that I feel that that is not the best way to get resources to people I have deep concerns about the school to prison pipeline and we know that that kind of thing is happening even in Vermont and that that access with law enforcement in its current structure adds to that and so I while I and we also know from research that the presence of a school resource officer in the building doesn't decrease violence in the building and so I think that it is it is exactly to the point that Laurie and Karen have made it is yes we know that kids need resources and we need to have the conversation for what that looks like that ensures that every student in the building feel safe including the students who do not have positive interactions with with law enforcement or don't that isn't what their view is so I think we really have to be bringing everyone into that conversation and really re-envisioning what school safety looks like yeah I I think the points that you all made are are really great the youth voice you know we have we've heard from a lot of people who don't even have children in the school system about this issue and many others and it's always good to for people to weigh in but we really need to facilitate some conversations at the youth level as far as what they want and I'm I am concerned about the research and data that Representative Vihovsky references that shows that children of color students of color are disproportionately interacting with resource officers and so you know how do we how does this shake out I I do think Karen's point about having some deep community conversations about this and really getting to kind of people's sense of things looking at the data too I think a lot of people aren't aware of this data too and what goes on so I think there's an educational component for the community as well if I can add one more quick thing on it just because it was legislation that was passed this year that I feel like is related around exclusionary discipline in schools and somebody else might have the exact details better but as somebody who at the community justice center we work on situations that happen in the schools we see that suspensions and being expelled can happen for instance at school and again speaking community justice that's not restorative it's not helping folks get to what they need in getting folks in school and so we passed legislation that really limits that and has schools look at it in a different way I'm not remembering the specifics right off the top of my head if somebody has more of it but I feel like that's important that did take into consideration what is actually the most meaningful for youth and for families moving forward having them expelled or suspended from school doesn't solve a lot of the situations that we're trying to address thank you okay our next question goes back to climate and that question is the legislature passed an important bill this session s 20 which bends PFAS a forever flooring chemical found in water in the environment can you tell us more about this legislation and why it is so important so I can speak to that one because that came through the human services committee that consideration and we spent a long time on this bill as did the senate really looking at PFAS related to several consumer products so we we banned PFAS PFAS are these forever chemicals as you said that are flooring based and don't degrade and they do something that's called bioaccumulate in the body so they don't you know if you drink water that has trace amounts of PFAS the levels of it keep building on each other and increasing and PFAS are cancer causing chemicals and we use them in a lot of a lot of you know furniture that is scotch guarded and firefighting you know the outfits that firefighters wear to fight fires is just layered in PFAS so we essentially banned it in terms of firefighting foam firefighting equipment ski wax has PFAS in it a lot of people who do Nordic ski racing we banned it in that and also in any consumer packaging that has contact with food amazingly up until a few years ago the little waxed wrappers that go around your hamburger at McDonald's or Taco Bell they all they had trace amounts of PFAS in them and so all of that will be banned going forward which which is a good thing I mean a lot of these chemicals have been developed we don't really understand their impacts and now we are beginning to and we have a lot further to go on this we I'll just say that industry was very loud and robust in pushing back on some of what we did and you know industry has to focus as well but public and human health is is paramount so so one of the things that we weren't able to ban which we wanted to was the firefighting foam used at the airport which you know comes under the Department of Defense because of the Air National Guard is there they kind of oversee that so we were not able to ban that but we put a lot of pressure on them and they're looking at substitutions to be able to use all of Europe Heathrow Airport in London they're all using these flooring free foams so we are going to continue to push for that you know our pristine state is we have to protect it we have to protect it for future generations so I'll stop there others might want to add I'll share I think you covered it Mary Beth I will say I did not know a lot about PFAS before this session and this is what I think is a important part about being a legislator is legislator is you don't you can't know everything you can't know all of this you have to understand what your values are what the values are of your community the state and hear what these committees are doing on these topics and you know support what aligns and this was a clear one once I did learn what PFAS are and how it was like okay this makes sense this is what our community needs it was it was easy to support so thank you Mary Beth for the work your committee did and I'll add one thing to your point Karen you know we come from different parts of the state legislators and we have different communities and experiences and one of the key people on our committee was a legislator from Bennington who has lived through all of the stories in the news you've you've heard about the PFAS contamination of their drinking water down there so due to a plant that many years ago was producing Teflon pans you know that coating of Teflon on a pan well it ends up it's ripe with PFAS and those are harmful to human health the the whatever that process gives off it has gone into the environment and polluted it so he was an incredible wellspring of information and quickly brought our committee up to speed and it was a really really important issue for his district and they're finding PFAS now up in Coventry where the they'll are one landfill in the state of Vermont is so this is becoming a statewide issue but really it started in Bennington as you know kind of putting it on the map for us I wanted to expand a little bit on something that Representative Dolan had said not but this bill to me was the sort of a wake-up call in a way of how the legislature works as a new member you know you really do it is it is not possible to know everything and it's not possible to follow everything and the real work is done within committees and Representative Redmond's committee spent you know weeks months taking testimony on this and crafting this and you know when it came to the floor just like Rep Dolan said it was a no-brainer and the other thing that I learned there is far more consensus in the legislature than I think people imagine this was a unanimous vote so this was every political persuasion every region of the state this was a unanimous vote on the house floor so this that was a big bill that I thought oh wow that's not what I thought happened thank you okay so our next question has to do with health care and LGBTQ plus issues so recent data shows that LGBTQ plus and BIPOC Vermonters have less access to health care and less equity when it comes to their treatment what are you doing to address that issue I can I can talk about this a little bit so in our health care committee this well we did two things um directly regarding health care and health inequity we had a resolution declaring a public health emergency and as well we put through H 210 which was a bill on health equity and what this bill does is in this first year it establishes a large task force to advise on setting up an office of health equity within our department of health I mean it's clear with with the data that we've seen health inequities of black indigenous people of color disabilities LGBTQ plus all all these you know different levels of health and particularly COVID-19 the disparities between who it affected and who it did not necessarily affect as heavily um so a commission was set up which will advise the legislature and will advise the department of health for standing up in the office of health equity that you know really can start looking at these issues having a you know a directed department who will be advising across the state to make sure that we're addressing these things the only thing I'll add uh to that um very important bill is we were able as as um Mary Beth I think it was had said you know we targeted grants for businesses for women we also worked in one of the COVID relief packages to target specific money to um to LGBTQ and and peer support organizations specifically around mental health to say during the pandemic we want money to go specifically to those groups to ensure they're getting the wellness care they need so you know again it's um when you work through the process um you can do things bits and pieces there but this year with the amount of money we had coming from the federal government we were able to really do some targeted um outreach to different organizations thank you both okay um so lately as many of you may know our school board has been dealing with the critical race theory and that being taught in our school system um so so our school our school district has been at the center of a lot of debate around critical race theory and the way history and other subjects need to be taught going forward what are your concerns about the situation how do we evaluate um student voice in this debate it's mainly co-opted by some parents and people from out of state what are strategies strategies for centering student voices I'm happy to speak to this a little bit um I think that student voices are incredibly important and I think that making sure that we hear the stories and histories of all people truthfully is incredibly important however we label that um and I think that the manner in which we need to to move forward is in really connecting to the community and making sure that the community is connected to those student voices and finding ways to lift up the experiences of our students and and make connections I think there's a lot of fear you know I know that um change can be hard and the way that I that in my in my work as a social worker that we work through changes by making connections and building relationships and helping people who maybe come from very different backgrounds understand one another and I think that I think it's a multifaceted engagement of our community in these conversations and these dialogues to understand why this is critically important and it is it is utilizing the privileges that we have to carve out space for the voices that we're not hearing to really lift up and and create room for those voices and I'm really hopeful that that through a combination of education for our community as well as these the making space for these deeper conversations that we can move forward in a way where everyone's voice story and history can be honored and recognized I would echo those thoughts I think it's community conversations although um you know the past couple months with these the equity conversations that have been out there have been challenging and hard um personally I feel like that that's a step in the right direction you have to break through that and have those difficult conversations and it is kind of like oh that's what's needed to continue it because you can't move forward through something until you have those challenging conversations it really opens up okay this is the situation that we're in and um it kind of makes things ready to to dive a little bit deeper and um sometimes I'm really happy to be involved in is with the voices for inclusion in Essex and Westford which is a group of volunteers that does involve student voice folks in the community and come together right now we're kind of volunteer run trying to figure things out we're looking to move into being a nonprofit soon um and the whole goal is around education and awareness on topics of equity and inclusion and I feel like that's the piece as um Tanya was sharing like having conversations understanding that everybody is at a different point in that journey and understanding of what the equity needs are and how we can be an inclusive community and having some events that reach those folks that are at one point and some events that are reaching folks at another point and hopefully that we can all come up to speed and really embrace it together so that's what I'm hoping for it's going to be work though it's not going to be easy go ahead Alyssa I just wanted to add um because and I'm speaking as a Essex resident now and as a mother who had three children go through that the school district um I was I know it's been a very difficult couple months but I'm just so heartened by Essex Westford and the response and you know the community standing up to this you know student led um push and supporting students and I don't think in my 25 years of living here that I've ever seen the community so engaged on what is happening in the school district and like I said I know it's been a difficult past few months but it's it's really shown me um just you know how this community will will stand up and do the right thing I'll just add quickly that um you know for someone my age there is so much history true history that I just never received we never received in school and so you know for a lot of us we're we're playing catch up like really trying to learn and understand the true history of this country and things that have gone on and that have really oppressed other people um and so I would really challenge youth to you know challenge the adults in your life you know to really get up to speed to learn the history to read this book you know we you know we I know that it can be sometimes difficult to push adults on things but I think more than ever before we're listening we're open we're we're trying to you know move ourselves and really understand the the true history of this country and some of your teachers have been really incredible in exposing you to important texts and things and so push your parents push push the adults in your life you know tell them to learn and get up to speed and challenge them on some of the ways they talk about things you know help them um you know they're I think now more than ever they're we have never been more open we're open um you know and and protect yourselves you know protect yourselves from adults that don't feel safe or that are you know find adults who where you can be yourself and and really push them and challenge them so anyway that's just a little little addition I just want to commend the youth in our community that are already doing this the student you know the social justice union and the youth working with voices for equity and inclusion and the youth who have challenged our school board to to raise the Black Lives Matter flag like the youth are really standing up in so many spaces on this issue and so many more on climate on gun control and so I just want to commend the youth for who are doing this and for those of you who aren't sure how connect with those youth they will they will guide you connect with any one of us I'm sure in this instance I can speak for all of us and we will lift your voice off and support you I agree I already spoke oh go ahead Laurie no go ahead I just wanted to share an example of it that came up but I know we're taking more time on this but I do feel like it's a really important topic that's really relevant but the Juneteenth event that happened was it just a couple of weeks ago or last weekend um I think was a great example of how um one growing up that wasn't even on my radar screen at all that was um something that's part of our history and to celebrate and um Essex had its first annual celebration um this past year and I think many of us were involved in it in different ways or supported it and if you were there you saw youth were um kind of leading the way for that whole two hour event um it was amazing to hear youth embrace three quotes uh we had it was an Essex faithful student who was hosting the event um like it is there and I think as others have said that we need to take that momentum and continue with it thanks Karen and I agree with everyone said I'm gonna take a little bit different um make a little bit of a comment on it this conversation would be difficult no matter what but this is also a really good lesson that politics are at play so this isn't just about an equity conversation in our school district it is the fact that there is a national movement to um with an agenda and it has hit our little community um and quite frankly I think we're really lucky it's taken this long to get to Vermont you know other areas of the country deal with this a lot um so we need to learn the history I agree absolutely with what everyone has said I think we also need to learn the politics of it and make sure that we realize who's talking in our community who lives within our community and who supports our community and to Alyssa's point we had a groundswell of support in this community and I think youth hopefully see that and I hope they can separate out what might be the national voice that's coming to us now um you know we I think as legislators and as community members and as youth have to think about how we're going to deal with that as we move forward on this conversation and others because I don't see that stopping unfortunately thank you okay so another issue that many are engaged with in the community is the merger separation debate this debate has gone on for a very long time many residents are tired of dealing with this how can we put this division behind us and build a stronger and healthier community I'll start because I think I've I've just because of what I've done in the community I've been involved in this conversation longer I actually ran as a trustee 10 12 years ago as a village trustee on collaboration with the town and and worked really hard to get to where we were collaborating with the town so I am saddened to see the way we're moving but to answer your specific question I've always thought and and have seen with my eyes that it is the youth that is going to keep bringing us together so our school system the various clubs the sports the arts um you know my son is an ADL but he has friends in the town and vice versa and then in a couple of years everyone mixes up anyway in the high school um you know there's a lot of loud loud voices from a small number of people who are causing a lot of the division and I think this is is a little bit like what I was saying about the equity conversation there's a lot of loud national voices um affecting that conversation in our community so you know I think if we just keep doing the community events like Juneteenth and we do the things that we've always done and we go to the fireworks and we support our kids and the activities they're involved in um we're not that different um but we need to respect what's happening and what our each separate community values so where they want to move but at the same time we can still we can still be friends I think it comes down to healing and relationships as as Representative Hopen is pointing to it really comes down to making the spaces and and really coming to those spaces with openness to understand where someone else is coming from and openly in both directions and and really rebuild and heal from there I mean I will say I'm an Essex high school graduate and this conversation has been going on was going on when I was in high school and has been going on longer than I've been alive and so I don't know all of the ins and the outs of it as as intimately and closely as Representative Houghton does having worked on it but what I do know from from my work in mental health and as a social worker is that the way that we heal divisiveness is by connecting and seeing where we what we share and how we are in most instances more similar than we are not and then we can celebrate the spaces where we are different so I think that that's really what it comes down to is us all of us creating the spaces where we can all come together and and recognize each other's humanity and what we each bring to our communities I think I'll add I mean that that's yeah what you both have said is beautiful it's it is about relationships and connecting and conversation and understanding each other and I think it's really really important that you know we have those opportunities to have you know to have those kind of conversations I think that some of the debate and social media you know back and forth has been really divisive and really mean downright mean and and I think we as a delegation have made a commitment to really model like good civic behavior and collaborating and getting along like that's a really important value that all of us share and you know you're not going to see us devolving into screaming matches you know with each other and and some of that has happened and I I frankly have found that a little embarrassing especially for our youth and you know we're telling our kiddos not to put you know inappropriate things on social media and and this is what the some of the adults are doing so I really think like getting back to a place where we can have civil conversations and respectful spaces and really hear and understand and and sometimes agree that we're not going to we're not going to agree agree to disagree so to speak thank you you okay so I know we are running out of time but this is a question for all representatives to answer and that question is what legislation is top of the list for introduction or working on for you in the next 2021 session I'll start um so I don't have any particular pieces of legislation to introduce um in our healthcare committee we have quite a few studies coming back to us um that are going to be really important for us to focus on and you know kind of happens in the legislature is you know we don't have a lot of time and we can't get to all the answers so we create studies and then sometimes when the next year comes we don't even do anything with those studies and my priority this coming January is that we focus on the things that we put in place and a lot of it has to do with mental health and affordable and accessible healthcare which are top priorities for me so that's where I'm focused I'll I'll follow up since some same committee so I'm really interested in working on affordable and accessible healthcare I feel like this year we we did a lot of we had to spend an awful lot of time on um COVID related health issues so you know we weren't able to really do any deep dives into I mean we did a few things but to Representative Houghton's point we ordered an awful lot of studies so it'll be interesting to see those and I personally um I'm really interested I'm not sure I'm going to introduce anything but I'm interested in advancing some pieces of gun safety legislation there were there were two bills that moved one moved in the Senate and one in the House but neither you know there's still to be dealt with next year but they weren't advanced and I'm hoping to um put my efforts in in a topic that is very very important to me I can go next um so let's see as far as legislation um I I don't know for example Houghton and I could be introducing the first bill that I would be a part of and that would have to do with as extension independence depending on what the vote is this November so that could lead to a bill introduction um again where as extension it's but it's going to be up to where the voters decide we want to go so that could be a piece of legislation um as far as other initiatives I again I don't have a plan of certain pieces I want to introduce but there's a lot of time between now and the end of next year um one thing that I found interesting is about being in the process of the legislature is where you also start to see where some of the systems gaps are in opportunities so this past session um we in my committee took on a bill that was around criminal justice reform but really opened up that there were some potential gaps in how services are received for victims and so it made me curious to see okay how can we prevent situations like this and gaps going forward because I really do believe in criminal justice reform and at the same time it's important that victim voices are heard and um really buy into the steps that we're taking so not that I have legislation planned to it but I am looking to be more curious and understand that system better so that we can support criminal justice reform going forward um other than that I feel like we have a lot on our plate to follow up from last session COVID recovery still and looking forward to uh you know boosting boosting our state going forward so I'll jump on your response Karen because the the issue that's really front and center for me is criminal justice reform I feel like your committee did really good work and I feel like there's so much more work to do in terms of really transforming the system and so there have been conversations about looking at um like particularly with people re-entering communities um those issues are more in the human services and housing areas and so affect those committees and so I've been talking to the speaker and others about like how do we get these committees kind of working together on this issue so that it's not just in the corrections bucket but like it affects services that wrap around people and it affects housing and affordable housing where people can find safe um you know places to go and and re-enter communities so I really I really want to start to figure out how we get committees kind of working side by side on this issue because I feel like we used to lead the way in this area and we we've kind of fallen behind there are a lot of states like Maine and Washington that are doing amazing work and are really forward thinking so I'm that's kind of what I'm championing um there's so much that we know we need to do and there's and I'm pulled in so many directions but when I think about the building on the work from last year and going into next year you know one of the things I really want to fight for is is moving forward with a fair and sustainable pension system once we hear back from the the task force that is supposed to advise on that um I also am going to be putting some effort into looking at our education funding system and how to make that more fair and equitable um and you know what that looks like and how we do that the tax commission put out a report last year saying that the property tax funding mechanism really isn't the best way to do that and so that is something that that I actually have a bill that I introduced last year with another um with I think actually 22 other legislators um that I want to do some organizing around that and really see if we can move that forward um and then I really the other big thing for me that I really want to be focused on is our larger public safety system and and redefining what that really means and looking at the pieces within that structure that we need to change so that all Vermonters feel safe in their communities and feel like they can access the services and supports that they need and so some of a specific piece that I'm looking at is sort of how we do police oversight um and I also want to just be clear here that when I speak about public safety we often equate that to police but I think it's much bigger than that I think that when we talk about public safety it's actually about all the things we've talked about it's about safe schools and it's about affordable housing and so really looking at how we redefine what that means and make sure that every Vermont voice is heard and able to to feel safe within those systems so we have reached our one hour mark so I want to thank all the representatives for participating today anyone watching especially all the youth who signed up to watch thank you for listening in and submitting questions um but other than that you know thank you for everyone attending today and I'm glad we're able to put this on um I think we can end recording and you are all free to go thank you so much