 And then we will get started talking about communications union district needs. So good morning. This is the Vermont house government operations committee. We are meeting this morning to go over some language that would make some adjustments for the benefit of communications union districts. Who may have some some challenges operating remotely and and conducting their business during the pandemic. State of emergency so welcome and thank you for being with us. I think I'm going to ask since John Ganon was working on this to begin with I'm going to ask you John if you would just sort of frame up the discussion that we're going to have here for us. Sure. So this initially came up in our window after our Wyndham County delegation meeting last Saturday. When we met virtually with Genette White and I met virtually with Laura Sabilia. Who told us that Rob Fish had informed her that some CUDs could not form because of the challenges of holding a special meeting during the COVID-19 crisis so I mean this is something we've heard. With respect to other issues such as and so that that was the main issue that came up was and there was at least three areas of the state, Lamoille, Rutland and I'm forgetting the third one where this could be a potential issue for them forming a CUD and for people who are not familiar with it what a CUD or communication union district is. There's no way for towns to organize to bring broadband into their communities. It basically creates a separate municipality that allows them to get grants from the state and potentially set up a broadband network in their communities. I remember them already established across the state and so that was one of the main issues and then when I started looking at the statute. There was a couple of other issues that needed cleaning up with respect to this. For example, appointments after you form a CUD in the legis in the in the statute said you couldn't actually appoint people to it until a year after it had been formed, which I don't think was the intent. When this was passed because that would basically have you'd have a year of of nothing happening. So that's a modification that's proposed in this language. It also the statue is very written towards forming CUDs at town meeting in March. And so there are a couple of modifications with respect to making it more clear that if you're establishing a CUD either by special meeting or by select word that you know you can appoint members to it within a certain period of time after that, and you can hold your organizational meeting within a certain period after that. So that's what this proposes to do I think it makes it strengthens the statute and, you know, allows CDs to form this year and I think Rob fish can explain why that might be important. So thank you. Thank you so much. So, let's throw this over to Rob fish, who is the rural broadband technical assistant specialist at the Department of Public Service. Thank you for being with us this morning Rob. Thank you for having me Madam Chair, thank you for this opportunity. And thank you for addressing this important issue that's coming up in these unprecedented times as a little background in the initial legislation. In order to form a communication union district, you had to have a vote at town meeting. This was designed as a way to ensure that the community has been involved in the process. In the wake of coven 19, there is no way to have such a town meeting. I can also say that for each of these different groups, especially the group in Lamoille County, they have been meeting with their community for months now. The intent is still the same and this change as well as the other housekeeping changes are necessary to keep things moving along and to allow these groups to potentially participate in some federal programs and to just keep moving the state along during this unprecedented time towards expanding broadband. I'm happy to take any questions. I also sent over a few maps showing where the current communication union districts are and where things are going if that's if that's helpful to share. Great Andrea has posted those on our committee page so if any folks are following along and would like to take a look at those maps. They are available in our documents. Does anybody have any questions for Rob or or more generally. I am not seeing any hands. So I'm going to invite Leah Kilva Diava. How did I do. I appreciate the help with your name pronunciation and I understand that you are, you are looking at some communications union districts in Lamoille County so please share your thoughts with us. Now I am not hearing you because perhaps you're muted. You don't appear to be muted. The broadband isn't the greatest up there. Yes, absolutely. That sounds better. All right then. Technological issue, a small one. Thank you very much for having me today. I am going to speak about the work that we have been doing in Lamoille County. And Madam chair you nailed the pronunciation of my name. My name is Leah Kilva Diava and I work as regional planner at Lamoille County Planning Commission. Our commission serves 10 towns and five incorporated villages in Lamoille County. We are involved with broadband planning on municipal and regional levels for about dozen years now on and off. And the momentum for broadband that exists throughout the state today is amazing. I'm very grateful to have an opportunity to testify on the proposed legislation for an alternative way to form a communications union district. In the past, the proposed legislation will help our municipalities in pursuing the creation of a CUD. Additionally, as also Rob fish had mentioned a while ago, I have confirmed with the executive directors of Addison Regional Planning Commission and Rutland Rutland Regional Planning Commission. It's amazing that their member municipalities could also benefit from this legislation. A little bit more about our work. Following the enactment of Act 79. LCPC has been working with Lamoille County towns to understand the opportunities that this broadband legislation provides. I'm educating ourselves on the status of connectivity in our region. We studied examples of successful broadband deployment, both in Vermont and New Hampshire. And our communities health presentations and conducted broadband surveys at the recent 2020 town meeting. As Rob had mentioned, I believe that this essentially community engagement work has prepared as well for applying for a broadband innovation grant. Also enabled by Act 79, which we were just awarded so we are very pleased with that. Community engagement work prepared us very well also for approaching our select boards with a request to create a governing entity to coordinate broadband deployment in our region. And this special town meeting is not an option at this time, and select boards would likely be hesitant to organize a public vote via Australian ballot, which is an option that exists today. However, the hesitance stems from the fact that the select boards would prefer not to expose poll workers and the general public public to the coronavirus. This legislation is really the best way for our municipalities to move forward. I can speak more on the hesitation of holding an Australian ballot and provide an example if that's going to be a question. I would close by saying that our municipalities really wish to be an active player in a broadband deployment. And at our most recent meeting of our regional broadband working group, which we held as recently as last night, this desire to form a CUD was reaffirmed by our groups representatives from six lamoille towns. I have a small example again from the town of Waterville, providing a statement in support of my testimony, which I will read out. And that statement attests the readiness of our towns to move forward. Before I read the statement. Thank you for your for your work on this legislative proposal. It's very much appreciated. And here is the statement from Jeff Tilton from Waterville. Claire, thanks for hosting tonight. I think the takeaway I got was that there is community interest in forming a lamoille area CUD, but it is clear that it is going to take some considerable effort to gain momentum towards doing so, especially in the current climate. I'm fairly versed in the basics of CUDs and have a good feel for the Waterville community interest. I know the select board would like to see this go through as well. To that end, anything that I can do to help in the meantime, please let me know. Thank you. I think that is very helpful context setting. I think what would be helpful right now is if we could switch over to Tucker and have Tucker take us through the language so that we can see exactly what it is. We are looking at for language and then I would love to hear from Karen or Gwen. I think we have Karen with us and. We can hear the perspective of the League of Cities and Towns. So Tucker, take it away. Absolutely. So the bill you have before you has three operative provisions. One is a temporary provision, and the other two are permanent amendments to statute. We are in section one, which is a temporary provision governing the entry into a communications union district during the COVID-19 response. This section states that notwithstanding the provisions of Title 30 that govern the formation of a communications union district that requires a vote by the eligible voters at an annual or special meeting. We are also considering the declared state of emergency due to COVID-19 that the legislative body of a municipality may vote to enter into a communications union district under the provisions of 30 VSA chapter 82. That is the chapter that governs communications union districts. One piece that I will note here, I did not draft this bill and Maria Royal who did draft the bill may be able to help you further with this. One question that I have is whether this needs to be clarified that the communications union district can be formed in this manner. I believe that the legislative body may vote to enter into a communications union district, and the way that that section 3051 is constructed. There is a difference between authority to form the district and to enter the district formation of the district requires a simultaneous vote by two or more municipalities. So I will put that note in there for you. Section two is an amendment to statute. This will be a permanent change and representative Ganon noted it earlier. First 30 VSA section 3059 deals the section deals with the appointment of represent representatives to the CUD by municipalities and the amendment that is made here as representative Ganon described. It removes some language that required that appointment to be made in the year following the effective date of the district's creation and allows the municipality under new language that you'll notice on line 11. The initial appointments may be made within 60 days of the vote to form the district. And the initial terms may be for less than one year. Essentially what this would allow is if the CUD is formed municipality enters into it. The next appointment date is less than a year before the next appointment date that a member can be appointed within 60 days their term would expire at the next opportunity to reappoint. Similar change is made in section three to 30 VSA section. Section 3060 this deals with the organizational meetings of the CUD and the language that is added here starting on line 20 of page two allows the board's additional organizational meeting to be held within 90 days of the vote to form the district under subsection 3051 sub B title 30. As we walk through the bill would be effective on passage. And again, I would note some focus maybe on the difference between entering into the CUD and forming it. And I would direct the committee to some of the background here outside of chapter 82 Union municipal district districts in general. And the reasons that govern them are in title 24 chapter 121. And there is some more specific requirements there for how the union municipal districts are formed. And there are cross references in 30 VSA chapter 82 to powers that are conveyed when these districts are formed under title 24. Thank you. Thank you. Rob Leclerc. Thank you Madam chair. And I, I'm not sure Tucker if you can answer this or not as far as I know there's underlying language that this is connected to. But my question is, does anybody know, because I understand what we're trying to do here but does anybody know what this commits to municipality to as far as to become a member of this. Meaning, there's been some other things whether it be regional ambulance services or emergency services or other things like that that the community can get committed to some pretty substantial costs and obligations. Initially and I'm just, does anybody know by allowing by getting into this what it commits to the community to. So that's sort of along the lines of question that I had and I was hoping that maybe Rob fish could help us understand, you know, some of the context around the formation of communication union districts and I can very much appreciate the desire to make sure that you know that there's broad participation among the members of a community in entering one of these but Rob what how enlighten us on this. Certainly, so the idea of a communication union district is to allow towns to work together, as well as protect towns from the risks that's associated with expanding broadband with constructing and operating communications plant. The communications union districts are currently prohibited from receiving tax derived funds from a municipality. So to answer about what the risk is the financial risk to a municipality. It's incredibly limited. I get the municipal these districts are funded entirely by the revenues from what they produce from what their assets are. Ideally it's going to be revenue bonds or grants or loans. Um, well, that's that's down the road, correct, as far as how you're going to stand it up and how you're going to operate it. But let's just say hypothetically, you make the decision to become a part of this. And then for whatever the reason, you decide not to pursue it. Okay, it is easy to also withdraw from a district via a select board vote. Okay. And does the community is there any substantial financial investment on their part to get to that point. There is no financial investment up to that point to get to be able to withdraw the communities are protected. Okay, thank you. Jim Harrison. Yeah, it's a question for Rob. So, how do these districts address. Who participates. For example, in my community, which certainly has some big gaps and broadband. Those that have cable for example might have no interest in participating or funding this and those like me who have limited internet capabilities might be very interested so how do you make the numbers works if it's it's only a segment that you know is is is willing to participate. Well, that's one of the reasons why to create a communication union district. There are a lot of towns where the center of town may be built out with cable, but the outlying areas only have DSL or less. So segments are going to be bordering on segments in other towns across across the municipal boundaries when it comes to broadband expansion. Municipal boundaries don't matter it's a matter of where the roads go and what the topography is. Does that address the question. I think so I guess through their planning they would need to know whether or not they have the critical mass to pay for obviously you couldn't set up a district with, you know, one potential subscriber. The numbers wouldn't work grants or no grants, but so I guess that would be part of the planning, then is what you're saying. Yes, so that's part of the planning each of these districts are going to have to undergo some feasibility and business planning and that's why we were happy to provide LaMoyle County with one of our broadband innovation grants. As soon as the papers are signed they're going to be starting on developing a feasibility plan to show that such a project is feasible in their area. Okay, thank you. Great Leah do you have some information to to share on that. I would just add that in one principle of communication union district is that they do have an interest of the entire community in mind. So the approach towards a potential build out is from is to focus on areas that are underserved or unserved right now. And that would be defined as not having a connection with the speed of 25 or three megabits per second. In fact, the communications union district so far that I've seen another reason why they're focusing on that on those areas is because it's understood that the take rate in areas that already have the connectivity of 25 over three, the take rates might be lower. So, and as Rob said, yes the feasibility studies will help to determine what is the size of the area and whether the area can make a business case. Great. Committee any other questions for any of the witnesses we have heard from so far. Great. So I am going to ask Karen Horn if she would like to share the perspective of VLCT on this language. Thank you. This is Karen Horn for the League of Cities and Towns we do support this language. The communications union districts are one very effective mechanism to actually get broadband to all the parts of the state that need it. So Rob, I think Rob's map will show you that all the communications union districts that are in place already. I do know that there's a really substantive planning process that goes on as a communications union districts tries to assess where to build out first and what kinds of services they're going to need, you know where they're going to derive their finances for, for building out the system. And it's very true that a lot of communities it's just a portion of town that's underserved. And so they, the part of their part of the issue that they need to address is how is this going to work in those areas of town. And I would say that it doesn't obligate the community financially at all the municipality I mean that's the town, because it's not going to be municipal tax dollars that support this, this community union communications union district. We do support the bill we we think it's important. I do think that the section to because we've been involved in these discussions legislatively for some time and I do think that if the if the language reads that you're supposed to appoint your representatives a year after the creation of the district. That's not really what the intent was the intent was that you would be able to create the district appoint your representatives and get moving. Thank you. Thank you Karen committee any questions on what we've heard so far. So I guess I have a question for, for Rob fish, I would love to know, were you involved in the, in the initial passage of this language out of house energy and technology. I was not involved in the initial language, but I am a beneficiary of it as my, my position was created in act 79. So I've been on board since November. Great. Well, we thank you for your work and I'm sure that there are a lot of Vermonters who are eagerly awaiting the benefits of having formed a CUD and now more than ever. Rob Leclerc has a question. Just a quick one I think for probably Tucker, I just want to make sure I under section one is considered temporary. The other two would be permanent changes, meaning section one would only come into play. Why the coven 19 emergency period is in effect, correct. Correct. The authority to enter into the agreement is temporary and tied to coven. However, the community would be bound under the CUD terms in chapter 82 beyond the coven response. Thank you. Great. Any, any other thoughts from committee members on this. Just one other thing I want to what Tucker said in terms of clarifying the language to make sure it's about creating a communications union district, I think is incredibly important. Currently a community can vote by select board to join an existing district, but not create one so I want to just reemphasize that that point that that's one thing that should be clarified. Absolutely. So, I appreciate that very much and, and thank you to Tucker and through Tucker to Maria Royal for working on developing this language. I think what we'll do at this point is shift gears to the other topic that's on our agenda and my intention with this language will be to make sure that we have given the house energy and technology committee and opportunity to take a peek at it and tell us if they have any red flags. And if they have any other improvements that they would like to offer to the language. Again, and since you've been working on this, would you be available to, or would you be able to make yourself available to house energy and technology for that conversation. Of course. You're the best. So thank you to Leah and Rob for being with us on communication union districts this morning and we will intend to get this language through the committee process to appear on the floor of the house within the week, I would think. So by hopefully by next Friday we can have it on its way. And so, stay tuned and, and please do participate if there are other House or Senate committees who are working on this language. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks have a great day. You too. So committee we are shifting gears right now and we have representative Barbara Murphy from the transportation committee and I think they were, they were able to review the language that we are looking at this morning. And so we will ask Barbara to give us sort of a review of what what her committees work on this language has been but the, the language is being proposed by representative Maslund. Andrea is trying to track him down at the moment so that he can join us and and tell us a little bit about the rationale for why he introduced this concept. And, and then we'll go through some of our other witnesses on it so if everyone wants to hold tight you're welcome to turn off your camera and stand up and stretch for a moment and we will get back to it as soon as we have representative Maslund with us. Hello Jim. Hi there Jim how are you. They live in the dream right like all of us. Yeah. I'm zooming in two places at once but it's nice to see all, you know, ways and means is if you hear some chatter in the background I'm trying to move far enough away from my other device so I'm not confusing things here. Yes. Thank you Jim for for jumping from one zoom to another. You are multi talented to be able to zoom in two locations at once. Must mean that you have, you have good broadband signal if you're able to double zoom. Easy fiber. Good enough. Oh, that is good stuff. Yes. So we are just beginning our, our deliberation on the proposal that you are making around the use of town general and highway funds and so I wanted to give you the first word on this. And then we will hear from the, the transportation committee on their consideration of it and also legislative council so go right ahead and tell us what this is about. Okay, nice to see you all. If I'm looking sideways this because I'm trying to figure out how you can see me well, you know, working on this iPad but don't worry about that. Yes, ma'am. This idea came from first from the Thetford slack board, who given the current situation with funds wanted to know if they could transfer money, use money in the trends in there. Me back up. Thetford votes its highway budget, and it's town general fund budget separately and as I understand it there are a number of towns that still do that, although not all towns do. So, the separate select board chair Nick Clark wanted to know what would it take so that they could move money from one fund to the other. And I originally asked ledge council to propose an amendment that would delete section 312 from title 19, which is highway funding. Yeah, from wrote me back that if we were to do that we would have to not withstand some other parts of title 19. And so I elected talking with Kurt, or maybe was emailing Kurt and, and several other people to try to craft a narrow bill that would be good for this, this year to enable some, you could say joint use of funds are moving from transportation to general and back and forth. I would not try to tackle this year. Getting rid of section 312 all together. And as I learned, not surprisingly, in house transportation earlier this morning. There are kind of crazy things here and there throughout the statutes and in some municipalities as, as we learn as we spend our time in the halls in the State House. Getting rid of section 312 all together, kind of complicated. I think it was Barbara know it was Patty, who pointed out that in both told me they have a town in the village. They vote their budget separately in those categories and I was not interested in running a fowl of town traditions or making the amendment so complicated. But the whole thing would fall apart, given the circumstances that we find ourselves in this year so hence the fairly narrowly crafted amendment, which would enable towns to use town raise tax money only. That is raised in the town for the town general fund and the town highway fund to move them as they would need to balance budgets and as as representative Murphy may describe. VLCT would be interested in scrapping section 312 all together but there are a number of things that would have to happen before we got to that point in time, which was not my intent for this year so there we have it. Madam chair that's the whole soup the nuts I think. Excellent. Mike Berwicki has a question. But I just, I was having trouble following because there was a lot of background noise there. Let me let me move further away from the other zoom meeting. Okay, so I think that Mike did you want to, did you want to ask Jim to repeat what he said to us, or are you just letting us know that it's not an easy to continue I would ask for. If he was going to continue to I would ask for something different but if he's done then let's. I can ask any question answer questions at an appropriate time. Great. Thank you Jim. Does anyone have questions for Jim on the rationale for for what he is proposing here. Okay, I think what would be super helpful is to look at the words of this narrowly crafted amendment concept and I don't know if and the or Tucker want to jump in on on sharing with us what the effect of this is. All right, and the against the quick draw either that or you and Tucker had already negotiated who was going to work with us on this. Thank you, and the welcome so for the record and the extra Cooper office of legislative council. I already ran through this for house transportation this morning. So I think I'll I'll start off and Tucker can chime in with all of the unique quirks that municipalities have if that is something that the committee is interested in hearing more about. Yes. So, Andrea, I don't know if you could put that up or give me sharing abilities. I think it is posted to the committee page. All right, your co host. Great. Okay, so this is drafted as being an amendment to 345 which would just strike section to the effect of dates and insert a new section. The lead in language is very similar to language that this committee has seen in terms of some of the other temporary municipal powers you've created, except we're adding in a specific call out to not withstand 19 us a section 312, which is a statute that you look at the, you know how in online, it says at the end of the statutes when it was added. It makes it seem like the statute 19 BSA section 312 was added in 1986. Tucker and I have done some digging and we think that the statute was most definitely not added in 1986 but rather that's when title 19 was recodified. And this statute, which talks about town highway taxes is probably a relic of the way that revenue used to be raised by towns but as I learned this morning listening to some of the members of House transportation talk about their different municipalities it seems like there is a number of different ways that municipalities talk about their town highway taxes. So 19 BSA section 312 is the piece that we know we need to not withstand. Subdivisions one and two are laying out what municipalities can do for this temporary period due to COVID-19. And it's borrowing in both directions, allowing money appropriated from property taxes for the highway expenditures to go to general fund that subdivision one at lines 11 down to 13. In the reverse lines 14 to 16 with subdivision to allowing the money that's in general government expenditures to go to town highways. Subsection B gives what the municipalities need to do in order to make this borrow the trade. This language is just like language you've seen. And I want to say it's S 344. It requires a majority vote of the legislative body and the power expires on January 1 2021. And then just to be safe in subsection C. We are clarifying once again that it really is just the town highway budget that's raised from property taxes. And saying that it is not any state aid for town highways that's distributed under 19 BSA section 306. So that's the town highway aid that's done by miles, along with the town highway bridges and the town highway structures grants. So we're saying in subsection a, it only applies to the municipal property tax money. And then we're saying in subsection B, and it doesn't apply to this other pot of money. So we're saying in subsection D that this section does not alleviate the municipality of any matching obligations that they have if they have federal or state money that they're matching with local funds. Subsection E explains how this is just a borrow and that any of the money that is borrowed under this section needs to be paid back. This is December 31 of 2021. So giving them a year, and it's at a rate that the legislative body of new municipality shall determine. And then since we have struck out section two of 345 with this amendment, we're adding it in a section three, and saying that the entire act shall take effect on passage. Great. Thank you much. Committee members, any questions for an the on the words on the page. All right, Mike, you've got your hand up. Super. Okay, so, um, let's throw this over to Karen horn and hear our excuse me. Actually, I'm going to, I'm going to ask Barbara Murphy to, to characterize for us some of the conversation that the House Transportation Committee had on this so thank you Barbara for being with us. Thank you for the record representative Barbara Murphy from Fairfax, Vice Chair of House Transportation, and we were very pleased this morning to hear from Representative Maslin. The rationale for requesting this amendment when we hear that people want to play with highway funds we get a little concerned. So it's good to know what the rationale is, and it truly is something that's hopefully going to help some of the small towns be able to use flexibility in the funds they do have to meet their obligations and we appreciate all of the brackets on it that would have these funds be paid back to their proper accounting line and make everything whole. And I think that the committee did take a straw poll vote on on the amendment and supported it 11-0-0. Great. Thank you very much Karen horn. Thank you. Thanks for taking up this issue as well. I'll say that we do support that this amendment in light of the current situation with COVID-19 and the fact that some towns are not going to be able to use all their locally voted line item dollars this year but they are being asked to do some things that they never actually anticipated purchasing personal protective equipment addressing split shifts you know cleaning supplies those kinds of things. So we we do welcome the flexibility that this provides and we agree that it needs to be very clear that it's only relating to the town property taxes that are in the locally voted budget and not any state dollars or federal dollars around transportation. As I said that I would ask you to keep in the back of your minds talking about eliminating section 312 of title 19 maybe next session and we don't In this town highway taxes anymore we raise property taxes and in some cases local option taxes. General accounting practices, allow for transfers between line items and municipal budgets and in state budgets that's what you're doing with the budget Adjustment Act. And standards for how you account for those and how you make the funds whole. So I realized particularly after this morning in-house transportation that this is your conversation and more long-term conversation but I would ask you to keep in the back of your mind that this is something we may want to revisit in the next session. Thank you. So Tucker Anderson can you join us and and help us with the historical context around the separation of highway and general funds for municipalities. Sure I can offer a very small amount of information. My initials are on this amendment next to Anthea's but it's kind of like Ringo Star getting songwriting credit. I was I was in the room but wasn't necessarily putting any notation on the lines. Anthea pretty much covered the general information. We did a little bit of digging and the notes for when the section 312 was added to title 19 harken back to the recodification of the title and there are no earlier notes in the records that we have available to us remotely for the origin of that particular statute. Some of our best guesses based on the information that we have is that this is actually tied to something from the early 20th century perhaps late 19th century when town road and highway taxes were required by statute. That is no longer the case. The issue that comes up when something like this lingers for the better part of a century is that since it was not repealed or altered there are likely other statutes that are dependent on its existence. We have a lot of cross references in the VSA and because these funds have been historically segregated. There may be programs and I'm not familiar with any of them really that are dependent on the existence of a segregated fund. And one of the things that anthea mentioned in the amendment is when towns are required to dedicate matching funds to secure certain state grants. There may be some connection there. So that's a little bit of history and just a general comment that sometimes you only find the first part of the worm in the apple. And when you dig you find a little bit more. Well, now that's that's a vivid description. Does anyone have questions for either Tucker or Anthea on on what we're doing here? All right. If there are no questions, I'll open it up to a committee discussion about favorability, unfavorability concerns, more information you need, etc. So feel free to jump in to committee discussion. Yes, Jim. Oh wait, sorry. You didn't have your hand up. Jim Harrison always has his hand up first. So I'm just conditioned to call on him. All right. Can anyone enlighten me as to the on the agenda? This says S345. I'm not remembering what that is. John. Thank you. So S345 is a very short bill, which changes the notice requirements for warning meetings and allows that instead of having to notice meetings in two physical locations within a municipality to electronic notifications can be utilized instead and that the municipal body should post a notice in or near clerk's office and also provide a copy of the notice to the general circulation newspaper. Okay. So it's all about notice. This is something that we took testimony on probably more than a week ago. Yes. Good, good. All right. And what is the status of of 345 at this moment? Is that a is that a new committee bill that the Senate sent over to us that they created post COVID or did they strip some language from another bill? Where is it in the process? Pass the Senate. Okay. Great. All right. So committee that it that completes the folks that we needed to hear from today. And if you don't have any other questions, I think we can thank Representative Maslin for multitasking this morning and and let him get back to single tasking. So thank you, Jim, for being with us. Thank you. I don't I'm muted, I guess, but thank you. Yeah. Take care. Joe. All right. I think we'll remute him. There we go. Good deal. Okay. So, uh, Tucker, where did you go? There's Tucker. Hi. So Tucker, um, is there a concern about this being germane to provisions of S 345? I do not have enough guidance on the parliamentary basis for a germane this challenge being upheld. And from what I understand, whether or not an amendment is germane is a question for the body as a whole to determine and is not a question that is readily answered prior to the body assembling for that question. Okay, then committee, do you have any concerns about that? I'm I'm thinking that because these are all COVID response amendments that we're making to statute that that nobody's going to call foul on it. Jim? Yeah, I mean, I guess if you wanted to feel more comfortable, you know, Bill McGill issues about giving you a heads up whether he would see it as germane or not germane. And obviously it's germane until someone asks. Right. Assumed to be. So if we don't have any red flags, then that's then that's a good sign. John Gannon. Thank you. So, you know, originally the idea with this UD language was to make it part of H 948. And I know representative McCoy raised a germane issue with respect to doing that. And that's why I think we left it as a separate bill. So in our current environment, making sure the rules committee is is fine with adding this to 345 and allowing it to move forward. It might be good to check in with them. I can appreciate that because nothing bums me out more than having having something crash and burn on the floor. And crashing and burning on the zoom floor is probably even worse. Rob Leclerc. Well, I'm just going to say in light of the dance we had to do on 948. Anything we can do to alleviate that would be very. I think wise indeed. All right. Well, let's let's give this a little bit of time to work its way through that process. We'll have some some conversations offline about it. And I will be in touch with committee members about when we want to come back together to take an official action on this. Any other questions, thoughts, concerns, perspectives you think you'd like to hear on this? Nobody's nobody's diving for their for their unmute button or raise hand button. So that completes the business that we have before the committee today. So I think we can close down the meeting and we'll see each other virtually tomorrow on the floor.