 So I want to introduce Councilor Jane Stromberg. She is a former Burlington City Council member, was the youngest city councilor elected into the Burlington City Council in history, and also a consistent strong climate activist. Her day job is working with B. Perk, and I am just so excited to have a fellow organizer and advocate joining in co-hosting today. In terms of this call, we are going to ask the speakers today, the elected officials who generously joined us today, just to ask you to keep your remarks to under two minutes to make sure that everybody has a chance to share and that we can help people get back to wherever they need to go next after this. We're going to leave this Zoom room open for 15 minutes past the half hour for folks who just want to hang out and chat informally and we'll stop the recording at that point. I have these little cue cards. So one says 30 seconds. When you have 30 seconds left, it's the blue. And then another says zero seconds when your time is up. And the nice thing about Zoom is you can click mute, but I really don't want to be doing that. So please just be mindful. We'll give a five or a 10 second race period. Let's see. What else should we say? I think Jane, that's about it and I'll pass it over to you. All right. Thanks so much for that very kind introduction. So yes, my name is Jane Stromberg. I'm a former Burlington City Councilor, youngest woman elected just to make sure we're not taking credit away from other folks. And I am just so grateful to be able to share the space with you all today. We're probably going to fly through this because there's a lot of information and a lot of voices to hear. So yeah, we will be hearing from leaders from impacted towns, from state senators, and this is a collaborative informational session. So if you have any tips, tricks, advice, links, donations, volunteerism, otherwise, please just throw it in the chat. This is the best way to kind of get as much information out as possible, as quickly as possible. And we're happy to share that on the back end as well. So it is my pleasure to introduce to you all. I'm sure you all know him to some extent, but Barry City Mayor Jay Kemmerich. I am just so impressed by your leadership, your compassion of being on the front lines of this tragedy that is unfolded in Barry. It has also been really meaningful to see the community's strength in Barry, too. And you're highlighting that very well as well. So I'm just going to pass it over to you. Great, thanks, Jane. It's awesome to be with so many great climate thinkers. I was just going to set my timer, make sure I'm on track. Yeah, Barry has definitely been a very hard hit, perhaps among the hardest communities in the state of Vermont with this one. For those of you who may not be a little less familiar with Barry, we are the largest community by population in Washington County. We're a working class town. We're not a rich town. We have a median household income of less than $40,000. We have the second oldest housing stock in the state of Vermont behind Fairhaven with a median all-mage of 1945. And we have among the least resource and most vulnerable people within the regions of flooding, the heat events, the security risk, the noise and air pollution, the access to healthy food, transportation, essential things that we all need as humans to have dignity. And right now, Barry is still very much in a response mode. We have downtown apartments that have been without power for seven days. We have evacuated homes clinging to the sides of our road and banks. We have solar fully emptied. And we know that mold risk is really high at this time. And we'll be doing a lot of work on thinking about after this, what has worked and what's not working in terms of how we can bounce back from the other side of that. But one thing is clear. Vermont will have to adapt and withstand to future climate crises. And that will take more than just investments in decarbonization and renewable energy. And those are really important, but it will take some shifts and how we invest in the places where we develop, how we move around, how we protect the ecosystem services like greenways. And one thing that I'm thinking about a lot right now as we're just getting ready for recovery is that it's about building back better. And that's not just for Barry, but that means better governance, emergency response, better streets, roads, all parts infrastructure, better greenways and better blocks and sites and buildings. So I could talk a lot more, but those are some of the things we're thinking about. And for the leaders on this call, I hope you go into the next legislative round with those things on the table. Thanks. Thank you so much, Mayor Jake, for your participation today and for all of your leadership, your work in Barry and being right there. Jane was saying very kind things about you before our call when we were getting ready. I think the next person that we wanted to hear from, and by the way, you did a really great job modeling, keeping your remarks concise. Thank you. There's so much to say and we just have a few minutes today. I want to next introduce Representative Connor Casey, who is a representative from Montpelier in Washington County, one of the Washington County districts. I had the good fortune of connecting with Representative Casey, I think, first on Twitter. And then I got to meet at the State House a couple of times. Most recently, I think it was at the, there was a youth climate rally. Earl, you may have had something to do with that. It's great to see you here. I know you're involved in the sunrise chapter up your way to the County area. Really good to have you here too. But Representative Casey, I want to hear just from you being in, from Montpelier, you sent me photographs of just your own home and the river and really glad that you can be with us today. Thanks very much, Isaac. Thanks everybody for putting this together. I think it's important we come together during a tragedy like this, which is certainly affecting all of us. I think it takes a, it's sort of a statewide trauma when you go through something like this because we all know somebody who's suffering right now. And it's very surreal to walk down State Street and Main Street in the state's capital here. And it looks like a bloody war zone, shops, restaurants, and residential areas. And it always feels like Jake was going to touch on this. Oh, he feels like the lowest income houses who are like hit the hardest and something like this. So I think we went through a period of initial shock and disbelief, which went to anguish, obviously, for people who've lost all their possessions to now sort of being like, okay, what do we do now, mode, which I think after a week is kind of where we're at. But it brings out the best in people. It's, I think, neighbors come out, communities come out and help each other at a time like this. And in a time when we're increasingly snarly and isolated post-pandemic, I think if you hauled a slimy couch out of a basement with people down the street, you sort of look at them in a new light. And I hope that endures, but great volunteer effort. We've had 2,000 people sign up through Montpelier alive. So if anybody wants to help out, I would direct you there. And I found like the one thing we're switching to is rather than just having like a hub where people can come to us if they need support, really going out and finding people, right? Because not everybody knows the resource, not everybody has electricity still. So we've been canvassing. We got from the Vermont Democratic Party a list of phone numbers within phone banks just seeing what people need. And really trying to educate people about the sort of health repercussions here of what's going on. Because when it first happened, I think we were all the same. It's like, let's just get in the basement and get stuff out of there. You don't think about like the mold issues, as Jake was saying, I spoke to the Commissioner of Health yesterday and I said, what are we going to do for testing? He said, the good news is you don't really have to test because mold is definitely in all of those sellers right now. So we need to have a big education effort and I see the card there, Isaac. So I'll wrap up, but just want to thank everybody for their support and we will come back and we'll have the Capitol cleaned up for you when we reconvene in January. So thanks so much. Thank you so much, Representative Casey from Montpelier. I'm really glad to hear your voice and I see that Jane has pasted in the chat the Montpelier Alive link. And I want to just give a shout out to folks from Sierra Club, Vermont, who I see Sonia Riley here, who's a fellow Executive Committee member of the Sierra Club, Vermont chapter. Thank you for being here. I'm participating today in my individual capacity, but really appreciative of your leadership, Sonia. We next want to hear from our state senators who are able to join us today and want to start by introducing Senator Nader Hashim and Senator Hashim. I have known to be somebody who is always thinking about people who are most vulnerable. And when I was talking a bunch about people around the world who are dealing with issues having to with clean water and access to food and stuff like that, he said, you know, there are people just down the street in here in Wyndham County who don't have access to clean water. And that was before the flood. So just really appreciate that perspective and also your commitment to climate action that's been consistent over the years. So Senator Hashim, the floor is yours. Awesome. Thank you, Isaac. I appreciate that introduction. And thank you, everybody who's on this call today. You know, I wanted to just keep this short, mainly because, you know, I feel like, you know, my role here should be to hear from the folks all around the state who've had a wide range of experiences with this catastrophe that we've experienced there. You know, kind of go into what Mayor Hemmerich mentioned earlier. You know, I want to hear about what's worked and what hasn't worked. And she said. All right. Anyways, so, yeah. So I really just wanted to hear from folks who, you know, who were the hardest hit to find out what's worked and what hasn't worked. You know, Wyndham County, we did have several towns that were hit, not nearly as hard as Montpelier and Barrie, but, you know, one of the first things that stood out to me was there was a bit of a disconnect between local volunteering and state volunteering and, you know, local volunteers, not quite knowing what resources were coming from the state. And then, you know, there was this concern about duplicating efforts or, you know, not sending resources to the right area. So that was one of the first things that came to mind, at least down here in Wyndham County. So, yeah, I look forward to hearing about any other discrepancies or any other areas that need to see improvement when it comes to climate resiliency, which is, which goes hand in hand with reducing carbon emissions and addressing our role when it comes to climate change. So thanks again for organizing this, Isaac. Sure thing. Thank you so much, Nader. And I realized that I meant to put an agenda in the chat at the beginning. And so I'm going to actually put that in now so that you all can see where we are, that we're going to hear from Senator Bihowski. And then we're going to have a moment for folks to, just to connect in the chat to share reflections, want to hear what's resonating with you from what you've been hearing and maybe anything that's inspiring to you. I know that Senator Wendy Harrison, also here from Wyndham County, I forgot to mention Senator Hashim and Senator Harris, are my senators down here in Broadlebone. They, Senator Harrison is attempting to join in. We'll see if the Zoom link that I sent her works. All right. So back to you, Jane. Thanks, Isaac. So it is again my privilege to introduce Senator Tanya Bihowski, just so inspired by the work that you've done over the years with gun safety and child care and mental health and reproductive justice and of course the climate crisis. So I definitely want to give you a moment to introduce yourself and share your thoughts. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you so much, Jane. I'm Senator Tanya Bihowski. I represent Chittenden Central, which is when you ski Burlington Essex and Colchester, which arguably was not as hard hit as a lot of the state, but I know some of our Chittenden County towns were. But I also know that there's a lot of people here who want to know what to do and how to help. And so it's really helpful for me to hear what opportunities there are. But I also, I'm a systems thinker and so zooming out some of the things that I have not been hearing and it has been reflected here. We are in the early days heard a lot about how businesses could be reimbursed. And yes, we want to support our small businesses, but I found myself thinking about people whose mobile homes had floated away or people who are working class or living in poverty who are now homeless or who don't have the ability to front the repair costs that they're being asked to by FEMA to be reimbursed and really starting to think about how we can support those people who we know as it's been said are the most impacted by the climate crisis and often the least thought about in how we rebuild. And I also really want to think about as we go into the legislative session how we are as the mayor said, thinking about how we rebuild more sustainably, more resiliently, and because the reality of it is is these catastrophes are likely to happen again. And we need to really be thoughtful about how we keep people safe and we keep our cities and towns from being this devastated again. So that said, one of the things that I actually just put out where an op-ed will be coming out later in the week our attorney general is actually suing some of the largest oil companies for their knowing dishonesty and their contribution to what we're facing now. And so I think really getting the public's support for that so that the people who have caused this are investing in helping us to solve it and respond to it. I think it's really critically important that we're thinking both how we respond right now but also how we create stronger and more resilient communities going forward. I will be going into the legislative session thinking about a bill that we worked a little bit on last year in one of my committees that is around emergency response and how we make sure our critical supply chains can quickly get back online in instances like this one. And I think that we're seeing pretty clearly with people without power for a week and people who are not able to access food for days at a time that that is really, really important. So I'm really here to hear from everyone how I can be helpful and how I can help send people here in Chittenden County where we've been a little less impacted to you to be helpful. Thanks so much, Senator Wieckowski. We have Senator Harrison is here. Senator Wendy Harrison is one of my two senators here in Windham County. Thanks so much for joining us and love to hear from you about the floodplains in Brattleboro and anything else that you'd like to share here. Thank you, Isaac. And thanks for organizing this. It's super important. I want to talk about resiliency a bit and how to prepare for these storms. They are going to come more frequently. After Hurricane Irene, the town of Brattleboro was faced with a decision on how to handle a affordable housing development that was in the floodplain. There were a number of homes that were still in fair shape. They had been inundated by flooding. The town did not want to rebuild in that location. I don't know all of the details, but I do know that there was controversy and some folks did want to rebuild. So it wasn't clear that it couldn't be done. But the housing authority who owned the homes also agreed that folks should not be located there. It was a year long or many years long process. They had to find another place for the folks to live. They actually ended up building a large building downtown in Brattleboro, which was just completed a couple of years ago. And then restored the floodplain and it's on the Westone Brook. I don't know if any of you are familiar with that, but the Westone Brook is actually the body of water that has the highest differential in elevation in Vermont. So when it does rain in Marlboro, which is where the Brook is from, we get a lot of flooding here. And the floodplain was restored, as I said, a couple of years ago. It has demonstrably reduced the limits of the flooding. Engineers are working there now and we should have some determination of the benefit of it. But it's certainly a huge benefit. In the meantime, the town started working with the Vermont River Conservancy on a second restored floodplain closer to the downtown. That one is in the process of being acquired by the town and that's another few years in the making. But I'm really proud of the town for taking this initiative. It wasn't required. I will be looking in the session for ways that the state can support these initiatives because it's just crucial. I'm so sorry to interrupt. That's fine. I'm good. All right. And thank you so much for talking about the floodplains with us today. I want to turn it back to Jane. And first of all, thank you, everyone who just shared at this time and want to turn it back to Jane. All right. Thanks so much. Well, in the spirit of sharing, please put in the chat any thoughts or feelings you have from anything people have said today, any ideas that you have kind of jumbling around up there, or just observations of what's been going on in the state over the last week. There's nothing wrong you can put in the chat. And we'd just like to collaborate a little bit on that front. Jane, I'm also wondering if there's like, I know we have a couple of young people here who are involved with Sunrise and other youth climate organizing. And I'm just wondering if any of them would want to just say a few words about what you're up to. That would be fantastic. Earl, would you mind if I put you on the spot, my friend? No. Yeah. Hi. My name is Earl. I'm a high school student. And I run the Sunrise chapter, which is a youth cloud organization in Vermont. Yeah, we've just been sort of, we're trying to figure out how we can get like Sunrise National help with sort of stuff. I'm really glad that a lot of our elected officials talked about how that a lot of different groups and people are really hard hit. And we oftentimes don't sort of talk about that. And I'm really glad that there are a lot of people that care about this. Thanks, everyone, for like, I don't really have anything much to say other than I'm just here to listen and see how we can support, I guess. Yeah. Thank you so much, Earl. Appreciate that. Anybody else want to hop in and just introduce yourself or say anything? No pressure, of course. Either way, I'm just going to pop some resources into the chat if you're looking for outlets to donate to for volunteering. I, you know, again, I'm taking off my work hat in this moment, but I do work for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. And we are working on the Make Big Oil Pay campaign. And that actually goes really along the lines of what Senator Vyhovsky had brought up about holding those responsible for this climate disaster and mass accountable. They've known big oil companies have known for decades the impacts of climate and, you know, the damage that they have caused. And so we are trying to do something about that this summer and going into the next legislative session. So just a little nugget there. Thanks so much, Jane. And these are really great resources. We put together one option to donate when and what's listed here is the Vermont Community Foundation Vermont Flood Responsible Recovery Recovery Fund. It also includes a number of economic development programs, specifically the like, for example, Southern Vermont Community Action that are focused on helping supporting low income people who are hit first and worst by disasters like this. We have the volunteer link for Berry City. Thank you, Mayor Jake, who spoke earlier. And also we heard about Montpelier Alive, which is another weighted plugin. There's the link to the Make Big Oil Pay campaign where you can sign the petition and join Vyhovsky's campaign. And then finally tonight, 350 Vermont is hosting a webinar from seven to eight o'clock to talk about the climate justice movement in Vermont. And there's a registration link is included there. What I'd like to ask us all to do in just our last two minutes, and remember you can stay on past 1.30 if you would like to stay and just chat, connect informally off, we'll turn the recording off. But I want to invite you right now to just to put in the chat one thing that is either on that list that we just provided or one thing that's not on that list that you're going to do after this call to support our fellow Vermonters who are most affected by this flood, but also making sure that we're thinking about people down the road and protecting our fellow, our neighbors, our friends, our family members and the people we don't know. So we'd love to see you put in the chat what you're going to do. I will say that right now I am going to, I promise that I'm going to join the make big oil pay campaign. I just wrote an op-ed in where I put a plug for that campaign and I look forward to actually signing up there. I'm curious what other folks are going to do. I see that I already see some comments in the chat and look forward to seeing more about what your plans for action. We want, you know, I love what Greta Thunberg said is that like when she would ask something about like what, you know, about hope and she said it's not like you sit or it's like the idea is you don't sit around just like trying to find something hopeful is actually we take action, we lean into action and we get hope from that. The action is inherently hopeful and it's inherently, it's very hopeful to me to see all of you who've come together and who come together today from across Vermont, from so many towns and cities to care, to take that time and to really show up and to connect. And that's where community is all about. That's one of the reasons why I love Vermont and that's why I've decided to make this my home where I'm originally from but to come back here. I want to just see if, Jane, is there anything else that you want to say before but it's 130. Yeah, I quickly just want to really express my gratitude to each and every one of you for taking the time today during this lunch hour. I know that it's been a particularly heavy week in Vermont and I am just so impressed and inspired by the communities and the strength and the spirit and the motivation that people have to just build, rebuild, keep going, connect with others, check in on others. It really has brought me to tears in multiple occasions over the last week and I just am so proud to live in Vermont and be here and be among you. So thank you so much. I personally have to get back to work so I'll have to hop off before that extra 15 minutes but it's been a pleasure. All right, thank you everyone.