 We are going to shift gears now to hear from some reps from Brattaburl to talk about 535, which is the Brattaburl charter change proposal. So we can certainly hear from one or both of you if you would both like to join us. Or are you just here for endorsement and support? For endorsement and support. I'm just getting on with the game right now. And that's what you want to do. That's what you want to do. I just gave those for reference just for some news articles. So it doesn't matter. I'm not actually going to talk necessarily to those. Those are just for reference, just to see the plenty of news that was put out about them. Yeah. Great. Thank you for being with us this morning. Thank you, Madam Chair, Representative Mollieberg, Brattaburl, for just being gone by 335. So I'm here to support this charter change. And just to give you a little context, on March 5, 2019, Brattaburl voters approved a proposal to allow 16 to 17-year-olds the right to vote. The right to serve as town meeting member is a member of Brattaburl Town School Board or Brattaburl Union High School. It's a member of 6th board and to vote on local issues. Two youth members could serve simultaneously on the school board. And this initiative came from a group called Brattaburl Common Sense, a group focused on election reform and other progressive issues. But it was really spearheaded by students. Students really took the lead on this and collected many signatures and went through the whole process and had to jump through a lot of different hopes when they were given different deadlines. But anyway, the vote on March 6 was 908 to 408 in favor. Now, here's 908. This is at our, so I don't know if you know, but Brattaburl has sort of a unique town meeting form. We have on town meeting day, first Tuesday and March, we have town elections where we vote for a select board, school board, et cetera, and for town meeting representatives. So our town meeting, the only one in the state, is a unique form of, it's sort of like a little mini of a legislature. So there's about 145,150 members and from the three distinct legislative districts. And we convene on the third Saturday in March to vote on school and town budgets. So it's like what people would do at regular town meeting only. And this was, I think, put into effect in 1960, I think, under the leadership of former Senator Bob Gannock. Thinking that this was a way for people to participate in a town of 12,000 where it's very, very fairly unwieldy to have a town meeting, a full town meeting. So that's just a little background for that. So on March, so March 5th was this general election and this was a ballot question on that in the March 5th election. So this doesn't really have to do with our town meeting, although this bill would allow youth to be elected to that body. So the measure was endorsed by the two Windham County Senators, all three graduate representatives, all candidates for school board, Lieutenant Governor Zuckerman, and others. And in accordance with their own statutes, Title 17, on August 24th, 2018, the Brattleboro Select Board agreed to hold public hearings on a petition that was filed earlier on August 20th to amend the Brattleboro Town Charter to include youth voting at age 16. Public hearings were held on October 2nd and October 9th. And then it was put on the ballot. And according to the youth, if you look at some of those links there, they were, one of the things that they were concerned about is that youth pay taxes, a lot of them work, and the youth spoke to the Select Board. And all recent data from the Tax Foundation show that Americans under the age of 18 paid $730 million in income tax in 2011. But the other thing that they were really sort of concerned about, and that they felt that there was sort of a problem with the apathy in the town, a lot of older voters who don't care about politics, and they don't feel like they have enough time to even bother to go into town meetings or attend the school board. And they felt that they, as youth, were very involved and wanted to be involved and wanted to participate. Ratifying this amendment would make Raul be the first town in the state to lower the voting age, but not the first in the country. A handful of towns have already lowered it. States like Oregon and California lawmakers introduced bills. In 2015, the town voted against the amendment by a two-to-one margin. And a lot of the opposition was rooting questions about how something like this would work. And also, I think at that time they were receiving an opinion, a legal opinion, that it would violate the Constitution because of the issue the voters of. But our crack legal expert, Betsy Ann, has addressed that issue and said that it's really a policy question within legislative control. And the Vermont Constitution does not, and she can talk more about that, does not have purview over local elections. So that's all I have to say. I have my two other, we have three distinct legislative districts in Browber, a town of 12,000 fits neatly into the 4,000 ideal number for representation. And we are all here supporting it. And hope that you will look favorably good on this. Questions, committee? Rob. I have a couple. One, the math is it looks like about 1,300 people are so actually voted on this. Is that? Yeah, 908 to 408 that was. How many registered voters in Browber? I know, sorry, that's in my legislative procedure. Let's see, about half the population? Yeah, I was gonna say some of that. About 6,000, yeah. So about 6,000 out of 12,000 registered? 6,000 registered voters. In our last primary election, I'll remember, what was the voter turnout? I'm trying to think what the voter turnout was. He's pretty low, if that's all I'm looking at, what do you mean? Well, for that election, I'm just saying in general, like in primary elections, the number of people who generally vote, I can't remember now, I'm sorry. I just wanna add, I think this may be a Betsy Ann question. Is it, my recollection that if these folks are given the right to vote, then they're also given the right to hold elected office as well? Yes, that's true. Okay, so theoretically, you could have a 16-year-old run for an elected position and get elected now and be allowed to serve, right? We had a 13-year-old running for governor, right? Yeah, they couldn't serve if you wanted. Thank you. Jim. So if I understand that charter changes is also on school voting? Yes. So, I have no idea how a 16 or 17-year-old would vote, but I guess you could come up with different scenarios that different age groups might vote differently than the average, I don't know, I'm just putting it out there. In with school budgets being sort of the way our funding formula is, state-funded and then some local portion, how would I address a constituent in my town or my district that in a small way might be, if you spent more, be subsidizing school spending and rather more? I'm not sure how to answer that question without some poor thought. No, I just, you know, it's one of the things that we do. Well, Tristan has a... Representative Tristan Plano for the record. So, I think that the fundamental question is that, is there some different way that a 16 or 17-year-old's influence and impact on democracy is judged as a different standard than somebody who's over 18, especially since we know that some of them are, in fact, taxpayers? Because I would answer the question very simply, like anybody who is legally able to vote has a chance to influence the system that they're in through their votes and that's what the foundation of participatory democracy is and we're just, we've allowed for the limited access to certain kinds of decision-making from a younger population because we believe it will help us make better decisions and there's lots of shared governance models with young people involved in decision-making when the University of Vermont has student trustees, there's a high school person on the State Board of Education that makes probably more impactful decision around merged districts and other things on tax rates than just about anybody in the State who will be able to get influence and they're not over the age of 18. So, we have other examples of this through our system. I would focus on the value, the values piece, which is getting an engaged citizenry to participate. Yeah, and I appreciate that. It's a broader conversation. I think we try to be sensitive to what local communities are bringing forth to us through a vote even though it's only a percentage of their voters. Nonetheless, that's our system, but we're, you talk about legal aid, we're asking us to change the legal aid requirement for a subset of issues that they might be voting on and then if the next community comes to us and says we'd like to change it to 14, why should we say no to that? And additionally, we're talking about voters of legal age but then we heard the Health Commissioner yesterday talk about the brain of a young person not being fully developed until age 25. So, how do you balance all that too? So, I think you and I would agree that each two year old is not the right age to start a vote. But so, where do you draw that right now? We've chosen in our constitution to draw to 18. For statewide, right, it doesn't, it doesn't, as we said, this constitution doesn't speak to there. And this is where that's our legislative. And we've given legislative authority through the State Board of Ed to a number of persons to make impactful decisions on the state education system. So, we have already, in some ways, said that there's some capacity there. We've changed that line. We don't have a hard and fast line at 18. We have a soft line on our own. Both two year olds I know are who's the dictators. I don't know if you want to speak. I've got Bob, Hal, Mike, and JP. Bob, oh, Rob, sorry. I did say Bob. I meant to say Rob. It's okay. It's just a column crispy. It's kind of like a... Crispy. That's exactly what I was thinking. It's more of a question, I guess, to Kristen. Is those positions that you had referred to, are those voting or non-voting? Because any boards that I've been on that there was, say folks under the age of 18, which are school board and stuff, they were all non-voting positions. I'm not sure. At UVM, they're full voting members. Now they're, and I don't think it requires that they're 18. It's when they get elected to access students. Is this a show on a state board? I do not know about whether the state board position is voting. I believe it. I thought it was because I thought I remembered that that person had voted on the merged plan at the end of the F-26 cycle, but I'm absolutely not a position to say it. Okay, great. Thank you. All right. Hal. So I support this charter amendment. And what I think it really gets at, it teaches young people to really get involved with the democratic process. I think it's a challenge for 18-year-olds who end up going off to college. So they're 18, they do they vote? Maybe, maybe not. But I think this is a way to teach young people to be involved and that their voice counts. And I just like to add that these, some people who are at the forefront of getting this resolution, it was the youth. They were at the primaries collecting signatures. They were at the co-op collecting signatures. They were very, very engaged and they want to be engaged. And I think we really want to encourage that kind of engagement. We've seen drop-off in civic engagement among adults. So to see this was very, very inspiring. And I think the vote in the town really reflected that people recognized that it was a real, they were just like, yay, we want to vote. They were very, very knowledgeable in the issues. They learned a lot from doing it. And so, Mike, JP, and then Bob. Sure, I'd just like to share my support and approval for this as well. We've seen those students, we've seen some of them right here. Wonderfully articulate and dedicated to learn. And I think what we're doing here is similar to the privileges we give them as drivers. This is a graduated process here. And we want to get them into the habit of voting and starting on local elections. I think when the concerns about brain development and the maturing of the frontal cortex and executive functions comes up. Mostly, I've heard that talked about when the behaviors are lethal. We want them not driving, smoking, using drugs and making decisions. And those in regards until they're 25. I'd like to hope voting is not gonna be a lethal behavior, but it's something we really want them to get in the practice of doing and becoming full citizens here. So I appreciate this hope this can grow. JP? I just wanted to clarify from my own. The gentleman said that 16 and 17 are on their boards are voting members. And Rob mentions that it's understanding as I believe is what you said, that 16, 17 are on boards. The truth is 16 and 17 are on boards who are not voting members. Well, I knew that I'd been on they weren't, but that doesn't mean it rise to all. And that's my understanding, such as like a school board where you have a 16 or 17 year old student or a crew that's elected to the board. But I always thought that they could participate and items for action items for discussion and everything with the board, but they could not vote. That the vote was actually done by the five board members. Is that, is my belief of that correct or? That's been my understanding and my experience. But again, it could be different depending on what board it is, but yeah. Okay, and do you agree with that? I'm not aware of any, I don't know for sure, but I'm not aware of any under 18 people who can vote on school boards. I'm not 100% certain. Because this question was recently asked of me when the 16, 17 year old vote was coming up for discussion and everything. Excuse me. And again, it was my understanding that they were non-voting members, but I had to tell the person I could be wrong, but I would get a chance to research it. And I had to get back to that person. We can look into that when we can find it. Nelson. I served on the SDSU board when there was a student that came in, for example, just who was doing in the student environment. I always counted the meticulous, well-versed, and knew what he was doing. Maybe they didn't have voting right on their board. He showed extreme intelligence and what was going on in the school system. So I supported this bill. I think we need to get these younger people involved. And every time I've served with this, the younger people involved, it's worked out very well. Yes? So the charter, the most charter also designates up to two youth members to be elected to the school board and the senior high school board. I'm curious as to why we're, we don't, everywhere else it's voters. Whoever's a voter, whether you're 18 or whether you're 92 and get elected and served. We don't categorize. So I'm curious as to why we categorize here. Does that mean 17 year old can't be a third member of the town if people want to vote him or her in? I'm not sure I understand your question. Okay, so on the last part, up to two youth members may be elected and defined youth members as 16 and 17. So, but I'm not aware of anywhere else. We categorize any of our voters by age. You mean to say that, you must have two people over 50 and two people under 50. We don't do that. So why are we doing that? You know, I was not party when the resolution was written. I don't know what the intent was and we might be able to find that out. I think it was just saying perhaps that they weren't allowed to be on the board and that somebody might say, oh, what if we had a school board of all youth? You know, so it's limited in a way. I get that. But voters, we kind of like all kinds of people. We kind of like sheriffs, even though they're not certified law enforcement. Tristan? Just to follow up on my order bed statement, let's see how we find the statutory reference. And there are two members appointed on a phone that can be a, is a voting member, but after the first year of their two year term. So, and it's, there's no age requirement. It's a secondary school students. And it says, student members shall vote during the first year and shall be a full and voting member during the second year of his or her term. So we already have, in this case, given that authority to a secondary student at the state board of that, and they are that student from St. John's, where he was a voting member, was voting on the merger plans for Act 46, so impactful decision making, not just, I think that in answer to your question, I think we could, I could find that out from our town attorney. I remember it was involved. I believe that Paul Gillis was involved in this resolution. Emily? I'm going to point this out from the other one. I just want to add that we have a larger project, I think, in the state of retaining Vermonters and attracting Vermonters, and youth who are connected to their community, the more they're connected to the community, the more likely they are to stay and the more likely they are to return. And so I see this as a really great way of further rooting youth as they're sort of beginning the process that usually leads to disconnection. Any other questions? Morning. I'll just point out something in H535. It says that two youth members may be elected to the school boards. It doesn't say that they have to be anything. They may be. Ross, how large is the school board? Is it the typical body? Five. Okay. But of course now, all that's up in the air too, because we don't know what's going to happen with the first murder, six murder cells. You know, all that's our office too, it's going to happen. If that happens, we'll be like a nine board, member of the board probably. I think so, and actually what I do know is that Rattleboro is going to have equal representation, is not going to have proportional representation. We have a unified board. There's only going to be equal representation among the other towns. So there will be only two Rattleboro members on that unified board if we have a unified board. I think she can answer my question. The same thing's happening in my district where the schools emerge and go into five different commentaries, but they only have equal representation, which is two. So I guess the question I would ask here, would this only, if there's two people that could be elected, would they be the two representatives on this board, or is it up in the air, and we don't even. I don't, you know, I mean this situation was not contemplated when the resolution was proposed, you know, this has all been, you know, late breaking developments about, you know, are we going to delay our merger date? Are we going to have, we did vote on a school budget on town meeting day, so we actually have a school budget for our town. One of the other towns in our district has not put it on their school budget yet. I think the Dumberstern planning vote for theirs, I think, I'm not sure where we're at, but anyway, we're sort of in limbo right now. So I think that that's a question that would have to be addressed, but I don't think it can be addressed until we do. It would be addressed through the articles of agreement between the municipalities, and. It's unknown. It's unknown, but I mean, obviously if there was, if Radovro had the capacity to appoint two student members to, or elect two members to a board, but then the board is being redefined, that's going to influence how they negotiate for their, whatever their equal representation looks like, but that still giving them the capacity to try to do that doesn't mean that that's going to be the part of the plan that emerges in the articles of agreement, it's just. No. This is written specifically, if I read it correctly, for representation on certain school boards, and if those boards no longer exist. That's right. The authority would almost certainly disappear. Yeah. It would disappear. If there's something in a charter, and that entity becomes defunct for some other reason, then obviously no one can serve on that board. It's not there. It's not there. And perhaps down the road though, I'm in the charter to change that, but that's up to the town of Radovro. So it's going to go way up. Jim. So, my pillar has a proposed change in who can vote in their local elections, but it specifically doesn't touch the school side of things because they're part of a union district. And I don't remember who my pillar is in. Roxbury, Roxbury, Roxbury hasn't voted on that. So I'm a little bit lost now that you mentioned, you know, you got an Act 46 merger potentially coming. I'm lost as to how this impacts it when the town or towns that may be joining with you haven't had a chance to vote on this. So I guess I would say. I don't think that, I mean, I'm not a legal expert and I think we should defer to legal counsel. I tell, right? So I'm not a legal expert either, but I'm going to take a shot at what I think John just said and see if he agrees with me, which is that until there is a merger agreement, Radovro can change its own internal rules that if it's allowing an appointment to boards that go away within the article's agreement or merge district, then it effectively just disappears. It's a no longer relevant part of the charter. It doesn't give, you know, it doesn't substantially impact the other towns in any way. They have an agreement with the town that they reached on what representation looks like on board and the town of Radovro can choose its own methodology for putting people on the board. But if the authority is granted for boards that no longer exist, then that authority goes away too. Yeah, no, I think Tristan's right. I mean, if you have a, just to give an example, you have a Radovro school board and all of a sudden you have a unified school board, then there's going to be an agreement as to how that school board should be constituted who's allowed to serve on it and that would trump anything in the charter, especially if the charter would not probably specify a unified school board. I mean. I'm not talking about the school board, I'm talking about who can vote in the district. I thought we already heard that once it crossed town lines it was no longer local and that was the reason it was deemed to allow it in the constitution. But it'll still be governed by the agreement between the towns as to how the school district should be constituted who can vote in the district. Oh, okay. I think. Are you getting that? Got it, got it, got it. You can take clarification now. Sure, let's see. I had a co-counsel tougher but just to confirm, represent Harrison, are you asking about the legitimacy of this charter right now allowing youth members to vote in a school district that crosses town lines? My overall analysis is that the legislature, if you vote to allow it, would allow everything. So it's under your control. What are you thinking about there? There are two issues here. One that I'll get to later during the walkthrough. The first is whether through a charter amendment approval specific to one municipality you can allow something extra municipal and that question cannot be answered until that distinct municipal corporation is developed. So the question would be when this unified school district is formed, does Brattleboro locally elect representatives that then go to that board or do they vote directly to the board of that unified municipal corporation? Two different questions that can't be answered until that governmental structure is developed. The second that I will reserve for the walkthrough is how voters is defined here and that may be problematic not only for those offices that may or may not exist in the future but also potentially for the intent of this amendment within the confluence of Brattleboro. Okay, so I'll put it up all my questions. And I'll be decided. Right. Didn't clear up mine. So maybe I'm just, because this is a school issue theoretically if there's a particular juncture, I mean, if that, I don't recall. I mean, if the Articles of Agreement specify how it can look and should look, that wouldn't be a matter that would come here anyway. Right? Am I missing something here? You know, I think at this point we should move on to the walkthrough and get the experts testifying. You're asking questions that I can't answer. Yeah, I think we have the wrong people trying to answer. I'm just here to support it to give you a little background context and to say that I hope that you will look favorably on it and see it as a positive development for our democracy. Thank you very much. All right. Good morning, Tucker Anderson, the Office of Legislative Council. First, I'll say that I'm very excited because it appears as though I have some very interesting research to do. And I will round my previous comment in an opening statement that is this issue of how local voter qualifications affect the unified school district system is one that is unique, that has not been presented so far because the first voter qualification amendment that we have seen explicitly set aside those municipal corporations. So this would be the first instance that we'd be encountering that question. So I apologize if I did not fully answer the questions of the distinguished members, but I promise that research will be done that will clarify those points for you. To begin the walkthrough, we'll start with section 2.1 in the definitions. The amendment adds a subsection C that defines voters. And the first thing that I will note is that it attempts to define voters for specific elections and for specific offices. However, it does not cite sections of the charter and it does not open with a clause for example, it says four purposes of this charter or four purposes of section 6.1 of this charter. And that the term that is being defined, voters is used throughout the charter outside of the context that is set here. So there could be, and in my legal opinion is some confusion around where and when these voters will be participating. So subsection C starts by saying for the purposes of voting at town meetings and serving at representative town meeting, and I will score that the opening clause is for the purpose of voting at town meetings. That is the broadest form here, voting at town meetings. The rest is added in conjunction to those town meeting votes. And serving on the Brattleboro Town School Board, Brattleboro Union High School Number 6 Board. And then here are the qualifications. Shall meet all persons resident in the town who have reached 16 years of age and taken the voters of. There are three qualifications here for voters as a term that is used throughout the charter. And only because the committee has spent a great deal of time discussing certain voting qualifications in another charter, I will note that it does not require that you are a citizen of the United States. Subsection D, youth member shall meet a representative town meeting or school board member who has reached 16 years of age, not reached 18 years of age on the day of election who has taken the voters of in the office. I believe it was representative Harrison earlier who noted that this is something that is defined and distinct from the voter and is used in the instances where youth members would be on school boards. I will pause here to- Rob, you have a question. Well, I think the comment that you made about not having to be a citizen of the United States, so does that mean that you could vote in Brattle World's? Tell me if you weren't a citizen, I think if this charter passes it, that would automatically allow you to vote as long as you met the other criteria. Without giving an affirmative response while there is an expert five feet to my right, I will say that there are three express qualifications here and they are resident of the town, 16 taking the voters off. It is silent as to whether you have to be a citizen. There could be a separate question there about whether you could register so I could have a 16-year-old non-resident run for elected office in Brattleboro and theoretically win an after-serve or be allowed to serve. No, it's not what I said, sorry, president. Sorry, that's what I meant, thank you. I am not prepared to answer that question because I have not fully vetted the Brattleboro charter to see whether it has unique voter registration requirements. I don't want to deflect the question, but I'm doing an actual job of it. Yeah. I think that's just an opinion, but I don't believe this was part of any of the conversation. I think it was just not thought about. The focus was on the youth vote and I think that it just wasn't, the intention was not to provide the opportunity for non-citizens. In my recollection, I don't think there was any discussion of this at all, but I wasn't present at all the meetings or anything like that, so. Okay, good. Taking a step back for those questions, one of the reasons that I highlighted the definition of voters and that first clause is that we use this just as an example in section 2.5 of the Brattleboro charter and in section 4.1 it states that the select board members are elected at large by the voters of the town and in section 4.1 further states that they are elected at large by voters from among their members. So a voter at town meeting could be elected to the select board. My interpretation of how the charter operates would allow a voter who is 16 here to vote for and serve on the select board, among other offices where the voters choose from among their members. Section 2.2 opens with one such clause stating that this is already in the charter, that on the meeting day the voters of the town shall elect. So there voters is being used. Subdivision 4, union high school directors who shall be elected for terms and in numbers as required by state law. And then there is the amendment here, which is the addition of this clause by the leadership votes. That's what we need in the agreement. Voters as defined by subsection 2.1 is the C of this charter. So there's an interesting legal structure here where the term voters is used twice and there is the intent to have a distinct definition in subdivision 4 that is different from the opening clause. Well that is to say that one thing that the committee may want to look at moving forward is dividing some of the intent here and then if there is supposed to be a distinct role beyond filling positions but also with voting rights for youth voters that that definition be made distinct from the term that is used throughout the charter. Section 6.1 in subsection C here allows up to two youth members to be elected to each. The Brattle Borough Town School Board, Brattle Borough Union High School Member 6 and allows youth members to serve simultaneously on each. So on both at the same time. So does that mean then that they could only serve on those two particular boards in that capacity as opposed to being elected to be a representative to their town meeting or on a, or I guess on the select board? Could you rephrase your question? I think I need to. So looking at, are we talking about them only being able to serve on the school boards or are there other boards and other capacities that they could be elected to and serve? I think that is some of the clarification that needs to come from the town around what the intent is here. The way that the definition is currently structured for voters would allow voters as they've quoted, 16 year olds end up to serve on other boards, including the select board. That may have been, and this may have been a clarification that in addition to those boards that they may also serve on the Brattle Borough Town High School Board and they may also serve on Brattle Borough Union High School Number 6 Board with certain limitations only to members. There's some investigation. Bob. Later in the story do we get to the point where if there are three seats available and three persons under 18 get elected, what the process is for disqualifying number three? The story is over as far as this amendment is concerned. I am, I'm not sure what would happen in the case that more than two are elected and how they can go about selecting the two that would fill that limited capacity membership. It's just possible under this right, that there are that number of vacancies out there. A bit more than two could be elected. Who doesn't know? Soon, following up on that issue. So I mean nothing prevents if there are three seats open, nothing prevents three people under 18. Right? Only two of them can win. Only two, I'm sorry. Good sir. Maybe elected to each. So, okay. So putting it aside, are you familiar with any other charters or election law where we categorize an age by age? Any other? Who can serve by age? Voters by age on elected office, select boards. Give you the short answer and then a three-part longer answer. Short answer, I'm not. Okay. Three-part longer answer. I was prepared for you to ask that question because you so often as an astute member ask me if there are other charters doing the same thing as the charter we're looking at. So in the future, I will be able to answer those questions because I have been creating a spreadsheet that categorizes every single charter section entitled 24 Now, accidentally you ask. We will be able to do a comprehensive search on the iPad for that section. It's not a U.S. thing. We will list what charters contain similar sections. I feel bad for you. You feel bad? As Betsy has seen and checked in, I am very pleased to put on my headphones and work on my charter spreadsheet. So the final part of the longer answer is that there are qualifications that are put around certain appointments and you see them all the time when commissions and boards are being established. So I'm not aware of any that require that, for example, a 55-year-old from AARP be appointed to a certain board, but I am aware that certain appointments come with contingencies that the appointment shall be made from an individual who is a member of the justice community shall be a member of the bar, for example. Those are typically appointed. Correct. Nelson? My question was based on what I heard from Robb was in your answer. Does that mean, I know what you just said about the school board. What if three of them ran for a slack board? It just wasn't a pass. Would they all be able to take seats on a slack board? There is no limitation built here. I mean, the cap is put on the school board and meeting High School Member Six board members. There's no limit put elsewhere in the charter. Can I respond to that question? I think you have to give the voters some credit for thinking through their choices and who might be the best person to represent their interests on the slack board. So I think we can't eliminate the intelligence of the voters in whom they would choose and it's cool. Nelson? My response to that is you can't eliminate the intelligence of some of the 16, 17, and 18 year olds we have out there. I know personally the one that I'm circling on is the SU board, that they so chose to run for a slack board seat and get my vote. Yeah. So I think if people want to run whatever the age of this goes through then it's up to the people to decide. I agree that there could be some people that are very well conserved there and probably serve well. Not a question, but just a comment to expand on what Nelson said. I also personally agree, emphatically agree that the voters have intelligence and enough common sense to hopefully vote in a qualified and I use word qualified in quotes, person to serve whether he 16, 17, 18, whatever. Now 16 and 17 year olds voting and holding public office would be very new to me. I have not yet formed an opinion on that I'm considering it. But putting that aside, I really think the voters should elect the people that are tasked with their responsibility to represent them whether it be at the top level of select board or a school board or on the state level as representative or a center. I firmly believe that, in fact, I said that at a previous select board meeting last Monday night. So I do agree with what you said that the voters have common sense and can make intelligent decisions. And again, I haven't totally formed my opinion as for 16, 17 year olds, but again having said about the voters making the decision, this is a broader world and a broader world, a broader world in my opinion voted this in where they were certainly interested in having 16 and 17 year olds. And that's a broader world decision. And that was one of my concerns before that the 16 and 17 year olds in the state that the, I believe the towns should have the ability to make the decision. Again, the voters making the decisions on what happens in their town. I'll shut up now. All right. Thank you to Tucker for running us through the bill language and thank you to the three members from Brow to Pearl for being with us for a good, thank you for your consideration, well, for consideration. Thank you. Thank you.