 This is not government operations. It is Wednesday, January 5th. Thank you, Senator Collamore. And what we're doing today is looking at the open meeting law. And I know that there are some, there are people that would like to make changes, and there are probably changes that could be made and should be made permanently. But the intent of this is very similar to the intent of the town meeting bill that we just passed that would extend the ability for entities, to public entities that are covered by open meeting law, to meet remotely without necessarily having to have a person at a physical location for a period of time. And that's the intent of this, is not to open up the open meeting law and start making major changes. But we have had information from towns and regional planning commissions and others that there are a couple issues. One is an issue of staffing and the cost of it because there are safety issues involved with having one person sit at the town hall all alone and having to let anybody in who wants to come or at the regional planning office or wherever. So then they have to have two people there for safety for their employees. So there are all kinds of issues. So what this is meant to do, and Tucker correct me if I'm wrong here, is simply extend what we did last year to allow for a period of time to allow public entities to meet remotely without having to have a physical location, a person at a physical location. Am I, committee, am I right there? And Tucker and Chris. Seems like it to me. I would just say, Madam Chair, for the record, Chris Winters, Deputy Secretary of State, it depends on what your meaning of extend. It's not in place right now, but it would be going back to what was in place and I think expired, trying to remember when the state of emergency expired. Yeah, I think, yes, you're right. It is extending. We're reinstating it for one more year. Yeah, yeah. Okay, Tucker, is that right? The only other correction I would have is that it was almost two years ago that those went into play, so. Oh yes, thank you. Time is very ephemeral right now, right? Right, but we did it, but town meeting had already taken place when we went into lockdown. So it wasn't actually for 2020. This was, this doesn't have anything to do just with town meeting. We did open meetings after that, right? Right, right, right. This is for the Regional Planning Commission, the Library Board, the Tree Committee, whoever it is. Select boards. Select board, whatever it is. Those people have to have, they're under the jurisdiction of the open meeting law and they have to have somebody at a physical location and that this just would reinstate that. So with the draft has been, I asked Tucker to give it his best shot so that we could have something to start working with. It is posted. So if, I don't know if everybody has access to it, it is on our website. I don't know where it is because it's not unturned today, or at least I have to refresh if it's not. Senator White, I did not post that because I know that people were making changes and I wasn't sure if we would get an updated version. I will post it right now. Okay. And then we just hit refresh. Okay, good. Thank you, Gal. Right. So initially just as we're waiting for that, it was tied to the state of emergency. Is that right? And it expired with the state of emergency, with the emergency operation. Katherine, you're hardly ever in this committee. Thank you for joining us. I still follow your work, even though I'm not there, but I'm happy to join you today. So I think that what I'm going to do because there are a couple of other people here who are not with us all the time, I think I'm gonna ask the committee to introduce themselves. I'm Jeanette White from Wyndham County. I'm Anthony Polina from Washington County. Brian Callamore from Rutland County. Allison Clarkson, Windsor County District. Keisha Romhins, Stiltshipton County. And if you see my arm jerk back and forth, my dog is insisting that I throw the ball down the stairs for her. So apologies in advance. All right. So Tucker, would you like to, does everybody have access to this now? Actually I don't, but I can just listen very closely. I'm on an iPad and I don't know how to go from this to a document yet. I'm learning. Brian, on. Tucker did email it to us as well. Yeah. Okay, I'm just gonna go to Tucker's email because I'm not, it's not popping up under documents and handouts. My internet is really slow. So it's taking its time this afternoon. You should live out on a dirt road instead of in downtown Montpelier. Then you'd have faster internet. Sorry. Okay. So I see Karen is in her place. Oftentimes Karen joins us from her car in front of a library or something. Anyway, so let's have Tucker start to walk us through here. Got it. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. Tucker Anderson office of legislative council. I circulated the draft just to make sure we're all on the same page. It's draft 22-0532 draft 1.1. And this is a starting point for your committee's craft work on some temporary open meeting law procedures for the year 2022. You've already discussed some of the background, but each of the operative provisions that we'll move through were taken directly in text and form from the temporary open meeting law procedures that were passed as parts of three different acts related to the state of emergency. Instead of linking those provisions to the state of emergency, this draft allows the temporary authority to be used during the year 2022. And then as a placeholder for your discussion, there is a default expiration of the authority on April 30th, 2022, at the end of the bill. Starting on page two, section one, we have an expression of the legislative intent related to this temporary authority. This legislative intent section is exactly the same as Act 92. And I did a quick check and Act 92 was the first government operations temporary authority that was passed. And it was signed by the governor on March 30th of 2020. So we are almost two years in. So this intent section states that it's the intent of the general assembly, that during the continued spread of COVID-19 in the state of Vermont, the public bodies should organize and hold open meetings in a manner that will protect the health and welfare of the public, while also providing access to the operations of government. Further provides that public bodies should meet electronically and provide the public with electronic access to meetings in lieu of designated physical locations. Section two contains the operative provisions under this temporary authority. Subsection A starts by setting aside subsection A of one VSA section 312. That is the open meeting law procedures. It states that during the year 2022, first, that a quorum or more of members of a public body may attend a regular special or emergency meeting by electronic or other means without being physically present at a designated meeting location. Second, that they will not be required to designate a physical meeting location where the public may attend. And third, that the members and staff of the public body will not be required to be physically present at the designated meeting location. So under current law, meeting law, public bodies are permitted to meet electronically, but they have to have a physical meeting location and they have to staff that location with either member of the public body or a staff member. Subsection B. Any questions about that committee? Okay. I'd just like to make a comment, Madam Chair, which is what is astonishing to me is I know we're still in the throes of COVID and of course now with the freight train, train of Omicron coming at us, it's increasingly, but I'm amazed how in the meetings, I've been chair of our parks commission, everybody still is attending remotely. I and the town manager were usually the only anchors of our meetings in town hall, which is interesting. So people really have appreciated this ability as we can take you through COVID. Thank you. Dr. Subsection B carries on from this initial authority and sets out some requirements for the electronic meetings. It states that when the public body meets electronically under the authority that is granted by this bill, that the public body shall use technology that permits the attendance of the public through electronic or other means. The public body shall allow the public to access the meeting by telephone whenever feasible. Further that the public body shall post information on how the public may access meetings electronically and shall include this information in the published agenda for each meeting. Each one of these pieces was brought up during the discussion specifically of Act 92 in committee to make sure that throughout the state, regardless of internet access that people could have access to the meetings and that they would know from the posted agendas how specifically members of the public could attend the meetings that were being held electronically. Subsection C states that in less unusual circumstances make it impossible for them to do so, the legislative body of each municipality and each school board shall record its meetings held pursuant to this section. Again, this is another carryover piece from that act. The next operative provision, Subsection D in the event of a staffing shortage during the year 2022 due to COVID-19, a public body may extend the time limit for the posting of minutes that is required by the open meeting law to not more than 10 days from the date of the meeting. And this question comes up frequently whenever I talk about days unless it is specified otherwise a day is a day. So weekends count there. Subsection E, not withstanding subdivisions C2 and D1B of 1VSA 312 during the year 2022, municipal public body may post any meeting agenda or notice of a special meeting in two designated electronic locations in lieu of the designated public places in the municipality to bring us back to the discussions. This was in a separate act from Act 92. These are typically grocery stores outside of the municipal clerk's office. There are a minimum of two in each municipality where they have to physically post these notices. Line 19, if you continue on, municipal public body shall post the notice or agenda in or near the municipal clerk's office and shall provide a copy of each notice or agenda to the newspapers of general circulation for the municipality. This is one of the pieces that was discussed as part of that separate act, specifically dealing with the physical posting of notices. So these pieces were added in to make sure that there was a physical copy of the notice at town hall, clerk's office, and provided to the newspapers of general circulation in the municipality. Hucker, that's in addition to the two electronic postings. So it's really four postings essentially. Correct. Okay. It's also interesting to me that they may do this and they may do that. That's assuming we want them to, but we're assuming if they don't do it, then they have to revert back to the current law, which says they shall have to designate notices up. So the may is okay. This is permissive so that if any municipality wants to forego posting at their previously designated physical location, they can choose to post electronically. And Senator Polina actually believed that I skipped a piece. It's very specific that you requested at the time this came up in late spring 2020. And that is that they can co-mingle. They can do one electronic location and one physical location if that's what the municipality wants to do. And to direct everyone to that language that is the last clause going from lines 18 to 19 on page three. They may post in a combination of a designated electronic location and a designated public place. Section three contains the expiration language. Again, the placeholder date here, April 30th, 2022. The authority that's granted by the act will expire on that date. This act is proposed to take effect on passage as it stands right now. So committee, any questions for Tucker? Yes, Senator Clarkson. So I'm just curious, we talked about this being a possibility for the year of 2022, but we're ending it April at the end of April. I mean, wouldn't a natural thing for it to be to go to at least June or all of 2022 if we're talking about it as a year long opportunity? I mean, why choose April? What made you choose April to end it? I can respond to that. I think we will be going out of session sometime around the end of April. So if it looks like there's still a need for this, we can extend it, we could take it up and extend it, but if things hopefully by the end of April, we're doing this because of COVID. I think that we do not want to make this a permanent thing and to put it all the way through the entire year of 2022 without us knowing what the situation is going to be in the summer and fall is not the right thing to do. Got it. So I understand that we may want to make some of it more permanent, but that's another conversation. I believe is what you were saying at the beginning. Yes, we are not making any permanent changes. Yeah. Right. And we're pretty certain we'll be here at least until early April, so we could make it extension if we needed to by then. Got it. Okay. Is that right, Tucker? I was going to say that this wasn't a choice that I made. I just keep occasionally very meticulous notes of what is given to me. And that was the date that was given to me as the starting point for this discussion. Got it. Thank you. Any other questions committee for Tucker? And then if not, we'll go to, we'll hear from Chris. Maybe we can hear from you. And then we'll go to Catherine and Mike and Karen and Sarah go over the place. Thanks, Madam Chair. A lot of work in this committee already and it's only day two. It seems like it's been more than just a few days. So thank you for getting off fast of the starting line. I appreciate the approach of putting an end date on this toward the end of April, not making this permanent. We think there's a lot more to consider if you were to think about making something like this permanent. I think you all need to think very carefully about the public's access. We're all well used to being on Zoom meetings now, but there are a lot of people who can't do it, don't do it, don't want to do it. They would rather have an in-person meeting if possible. So it makes a lot of sense, I think, to revisit this in April in light of the health crisis and what it's looking like then. And if we don't need it, then we make it, you all make it go away again. The, there's one piece in the bill where it talks about phone access if feasible. And I think that was put in place a couple of years ago when we weren't sure how this was all gonna work. We barely knew what Zoom was. It seems to me that phone access should be mandated. If you can do a Zoom meeting, there's a phone access option. If you're doing it by phone, obviously there's a phone option. I don't understand the need for the if feasible language in there anymore. Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like you could take those words if feasible out of there. And then the other, just the other two things I know I was sent this this morning and had an opportunity to comment on it a little and I didn't bring this up. But I think the committee maybe ought to consider whether extension of the time for filing of minutes is really necessary. Back at the time, maybe we were in a different time two years ago. I'm not sure that that's absolutely necessary or a reason to change the agenda postings. We've all been dealing with this since the state of emergency expired the agenda postings and the posting of minutes. And I think that's working okay, but maybe Karen and Gwen have heard otherwise from their membership. But I think the committee ought to consider maybe not including those two things in the bill as well, just to keep it simple. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the bill. Thanks, Chris. So I think I'll jump to Karen because I know Karen had some comments about the telephone if feasible. Thank you, and thank you for doing all this work so quickly at the beginning of the session. This is clearly another issue that we've gotten a lot of calls about in the last few weeks as Omicron takes hold. It's interesting to hear what Senator Clarkson's committee's doing on my planning commission. We said only one person needs to go to the town office, but nobody felt like the other person should be the sacrificial lamb. And so we've all been going until tonight. Nobody's only one person is going tonight, but there are the security issues at the same time going to a vacant building open to the public at night. That's a concern. So we're strongly in support of this bill. I would urge you to keep in the extension for providing minutes. We had 1,700 new cases yesterday and 887 new cases today. We're at a 12.6 rolling average positivity rate. I mean, people are not able to work in a whole host of occupations right now. And I think that to the extent that you can grant them some leeway there would be most welcome. The other point that I'd like to make is that we would urge you to consider making the expiration date the end of 2022. You'll be out of session in the summer. What we've seen with surges is that they decline in the summer and then they start to climb again in the fall. That is definitely a pattern with COVID and from what we're hearing from the health experts likely to be repeated. And you won't be in session in the fall to address the issue. So we understand that the need for the temporary provisions right now we'd like to have the other conversation at some point but we would urge you to go till the end of 2022 with this bill. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for Karen? Katherine? Thank you very much Sean. Thanks to the committee for taking such quick action. Will you get the first two bills voted out of committee since you were first yesterday? Well, this won't be the next one. Very impressive work. I would echo most of what Karen said in terms of my experience with the temporary provisions that were in place. They worked very well and in many cases for the fully electronic meetings we had, we saw more participation from members of the public than we did when that wasn't an option. And we do know that although towns and other public bodies are working on hybrid meetings they are not the best. And so it's still a learning curve and there's still a lot to be done in that but we saw that there was actually a great increase in public participation with the remote option, which has been wonderful. We support this bill as drafted. It looks great. I ran it by my RPC colleagues and they're very appreciative of this change happening. Like Karen said and for all the reasons that she noted we would ask the committee to please consider extending the time period to the end of the calendar year 2022. I don't think any of us can even know in April or May what the fall might look like. And so we think it makes sense for those reasons and also to give municipalities and other public bodies some continuity and able to plan and think ahead for the year as they plan their meetings. I would wanna put a fine point on the security concerns that we've had. I've actually had the experience of being alone in an old office in a quiet street and been the only one there except for a member of the public and felt extraordinarily unsafe, ended up getting that person to leave but call the police shortly thereafter. So I've had personal experience with this and I would say it's not a comfortable place to be. So this change will be really, really, really helpful. I would agree with Karen also about keeping the minutes to 10 days, although we all strive to achieve the five days with staffing shortages, it is possible that there will be times where that 10 days is needed. And then, although I support the leaving in the where feasible for the bone access, I think it's going to be feasible pretty much 100% of the time and it would be hard pressed like Chris noted to think of a time where it wouldn't be feasible but maybe there is something that I'm not thinking of and so having that could be helpful at some point. And then finally, I very much look forward to a conversation about long-term changes to the open meeting law. As you may know, the climate action plan included a recommendation to make this fully remote meetings permanent option as well as some other things related to the open meeting law. So I really look forward to that conversation when there's some space in the community. Thank you. Any questions for Catherine at this point? Sarah, you don't join us very often. No, I don't. I happen to be in contact with Allison a day or two ago with regards to this specific question. So she sent me the information, sent me the link and I very much appreciate that. I didn't come to speak, but I had previously written to my senators, Clarkson, Nittka and McCormick last summer when I was a two month along and the chair of the local energy committee and then I had to shift back to this in-person and what we did was hybrid. So I'm the sacrificial lamb at the library and yes, I'm a little nervous. Sometimes I have my clerk with me, sometimes not. So I do, I think that issue is a problem, but also nobody on the energy committee wanted to come. I mean, they're all pretty focused on virtual. And the last thing I would say is I agree a lot with what Karen Horne said and also Catherine Dimitruk, I guess. And in particular with regards to coming from an energy committee, where we're trying to really focus on the climate action plan and how are we gonna reduce greenhouse gas emissions? But one way is to drive less. And we can't tell people they can't drive to work or to school, maybe public transportation, but they gotta get there. But a meeting like this, it's so simple to have it virtual instead of six or seven or eight or 10 trucks and cars, single occupancy vehicle driving to the meeting. So I just think this is important on multiple levels. Thank you. Thank you. And either Senator, one of your three senators did forward your letter to us, I believe to the full committee. I got it anyway. Yeah, yeah, but that's your, you're our chair. So I am embarrassed to say I just sent it to you. Oh, okay. It had some nice arguments in there for it. And when we look at permanent changes we can hear from you more. Yeah, and if you consider the message and it can be sent to everybody, that's fine. But I actually in the summer had looked up about the relative increase of attendance at Heartland Select Board meetings. I think it was like two months, no, six months before March, 2020. So before the pandemic and six months before March, 2021 during the pandemic. And there was better attendance on Zoom. But I absolutely agree with the other person who said there are people who don't use Zoom, can't use Zoom and don't want to use Zoom or Microsoft Teams. And so that's a big question. I agree. Thank you. Thank you. Mike? Thank you, Madam Chairman. I'd start off first on the, since I'm just seeing this first thing, the issue of the phone, if feasible, I would support Chris Winters on that striking, I think that portion. My computer today is acting up and it's freezing up and everything like that. And I just think that people should be able to call into a meeting, listen and not have to worry about whether they're on a screen or not on a screen and whether it freezes up or not. But I've listened to a lot of Zoom meetings just without having to watch the things. So I would certainly encourage that. I guess the question most pressing to me is how do you get towns and or schools or governmental boards that are refusing to do Zoom and have refused to do Zoom? How are you gonna get them in compliance with having their meetings from afar? Well, I think this is permissive. It isn't mandatory. And I don't know how, I did have an email from, and I don't remember what town it was, but they said that their select board absolutely refuses to do anything remotely or on Zoom and short of mandating that they do it. And I'm not there yet. I don't know how the other committee members feel, but I guess you reelect new people. Senator Calmar. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to, it was Dan B. It was referenced that this well constituent of mine actually is very frustrated because the local legislative body will not go virtual. But you're correct. The only way to do it to Mike's point is to mandate it. And this is not a mandated situation. This is a permissive one. So I don't know, we could pass this, but it's not going to change anything down there. So there's an election in March. Yeah, I think the election method is a good one. Yeah, but when you have a three-member select board, only one is up. So that's not, you're going to have to wait two years to get things, it's happening in Islemont. They did Zoom briefly and they didn't like it. They had to borrow equipment, computer equipment, and they just, somebody asked them the other night with what Karen said, with all the numbers spiking and everything like that, when are you going to go Zoom? And they said, no, we're not interested. Very few people are interested in our meetings. And the people that are interested show up and, you know, there were about 12 people at the select board meeting the other night, probably 10 or 12. So there are going to be some that aren't going to do this. Are you suggesting, Mike, that we actually make it mandatory that every town has to? I wasn't going that far. I'm just asking the question. Okay. You're getting a big box for that mandatory thing. Oh, right, right. I forgot that. And it probably will come as no surprise to you that we oppose the 10 day extension for minutes. As you know, that was not, that was a real problem the last time around. As drafted, you don't even have to document that you have a staffing shortage. And I don't want to recall your words. And I warned you that the league would be back asking for the 10 day at some point in the future. And you told me it would be over your dead body that that would happen again. So I don't want your dead body to be out there. Thank you. So Mike, a question. Have you seen public bodies not post there? I mean, just to take the 10 day because they have the ability to go to 10 days, just go to 10 days? Have you seen that used a lot? It was because the law is not in effect right now. We haven't seen it. And I know that we had some cases where towns said, oh, well we have 10 days, we're gonna take it, rather than trying to be transparent to getting the minutes out and everything like that. So that was our concern at the time and remains our concern. Mike, you're at least consistent. We treasure that about you. Yeah. So Senator Clarkson, did you also have a question? Because I saw your hand up earlier of Senator Collomer. Thank you, Madam Chair. I do. You haven't expressed any opinion, Mike, about the effective exploration date. I'm kind of curious. Was that directed to me, Mike? Again, my computer froze up. Well, we certainly would like the sooner the exploration date the better. We could never support having it for the whole year. I mean, as everybody said, things could be turned around here in a week or two or a month or two. And to have this in place, we'd be opposed to it. As Senator Polina and some others said, you're going to be around in April and if things get even worse, you can extend it another 90 days or whatever. Could you have a trigger on there at all so that if, and I don't know how you would do this, but if the cases increase to a certain level or something that it triggers it and it goes back, I don't know if that's even possible to do. That would be a Tucker and Chris question, I guess. Yes, you could craft some effective provision. It would be contingent on case counts. And there's an example from the state of Nevada where they on a county by county basis have effectively a rolling mask mandate that is tied directly to a CDC data published on a weekly basis. Interesting, Matt, I was just going to say, we were trying to think about this, like how else could you tie this to the actual cases out there because that's why we're doing it. And because there's no declared state of emergency and probably isn't going to be another one, you can't use that, but tying it to case rates in a certain way does make some sense. I just don't know what that metric is that would make the most sense to trigger this kind of a change in the meeting law. Senator Clarkson. Tucker, would you be kind enough to send that to us, the Nevada rolling mask? We talked about it. I feel like we've talked about it. I know we talked about it somewhere. Just as joint rules looks at this also, I think that we're all looking for triggers for different things and that would be great. Yeah, I know we've talked about this in some other contexts, but I don't remember what it was, but it makes me nervous to think about and remind about county. And if we were going to go with some kind of a trigger, I would do it at a statewide so that it, because I mean, we have, Bellows Falls is really in Wyndham County, but it more closely relates to Springfield, which is in Windsor County. So, and it's closer to Springfield than it is to Brattleboro. So I'm nervous about tying it to counties, but. Yeah, so is that something that we, yes, Sarah? I would just ask you to consider one other thing if you do something like this triggering, and that has to do with appearance of new variants. As long as this virus is replicated because it's being passed around, mutations gonna happen, variants are gonna arise, and natural selection is going to select for the variant that is most advantageous to the virus, which means potentially worse than Omicron. So I just, I mean, it's a terrible thought. I don't like to think it, but I would just have you consider it. So it might not be case numbers if you had a more lethal variant. Very tricky, very tricky. I don't envy your job. Well, I would say if we're, oh, yes, Catherine. I just wanted to add about the triggers that it's a little bit different than masks because masks are simple. You put it on, you take it off. Public meetings have to be warned in some cases up to 15 days ahead of time. And so you may be in a case where you've warned a meeting for a fully virtual and then the case counts drop. And then what do you do? And so it's just the mechanism, but that might be very complicated, even if you find a good measure. So, Mike. And one other item, as far as the agenda goes, we've seen some towns clearly put their access codes and how people can attend a meeting right up there. And then others have said, if you're interested, call the town offices. Well, what happens is town offices closes at four o'clock and the meeting's at seven. There's a three hour window where people can't get access to the meeting. And they may or may not be able to get access, you know, come seven o'clock. It depends on whether somebody looks at the email saying, how do I get in and everything like that? And that has been an issue I know where people... And I know that by putting it on the agenda, it leads to Zoom bombing. Well, I haven't heard too many complaints about Zoom bombing that we had early on and everything like that. But I think please make, if you're gonna have access through the agenda and everything like that, that you make it clear that it's... Here's how you do it and not make it an extra step of having to call. You're attending a public meeting and it's like somebody driving by the town hall and in Woodstock. They can just, they see that they're meeting and they pull in and attend a meeting on their own. They don't have to give three hours advanced notice to attend a public meeting if they wanted to. Thank you. Thank you, Tucker. Can that be tightened up a little bit so that it's pretty clear that it's the that they should... I don't know how I've been trying to figure out wording there while Mike was talking, but... So we actually have written that language already. It was in the Senate government operations off the shelf bill that you used out last year. And I believe it came from someone in the press association and the language was essentially that information on how the public can access the meetings directly must be posted in the agenda for the meeting. Perfect. Anthony, Senator Plena, did you have a... No, I was gonna say something similar. It says in the draft bill that they shall post that information and shall make it available on the agenda. So it's a shall. But it doesn't say directly. It says the information could be that you call the town hall. That could be the information that they shall put in there. So I think Tucker's comment about directly is, okay. So any other, it seems to me that we have a couple of issues here. We have the if feasible, the directly, the 10 days for minutes and the expiration date. Are those the issues that we... Yes, Senator Carson. I think we could take care of those this afternoon and I would urge us to consider trying to get this out today if we can. Well, that's why I'm... Yes, I brought up those. I think those are the things that we have to decide on. So I think it must... If I just, I'm just gonna tag onto that, which is if we are wanting to revisit this at the end of April or April at some point, I would suggest we keep April then for the temporary measures and we can discuss it further. Well, of course, we'll be totally squeezed for time in April, but I'd keep that if that makes people feel more comfortable. We'll certainly have a better sense of where we are by the end of April. I think the telephone is included in every Zoom invitation. So I think it's kind of redundant at this point. There's always a telephone number to call with the numbers for access. So it's, to me, the telephone piece is redundant. So I would agree with Chris. I don't think we need it. Keep the date and keep the 10 days. I think as long as this virus is hitting us upside the head, I think we need the flexibility of the 10 days. Sorry, Mike, but I support the April thing at the moment for a temporary measure. Okay, Senator Polina. I, the only one that bothers me at this point, even though it might be contradictory to what I said earlier about, we'll be here in April. I do feel now nervous about ending in an April given what people have reminded us about what can happen over the summer and fall. So if I were asked to vote on it right now, I'd say give me a minute to think about it, but I worry about ending in an April now because I think it is possible that something can happen over the summer, certainly over the fall when we're not around. The other things I would agree with the telephone part in the 10 days and then directly, those are all fine changes. Well, Senator Jeanette, rather, I think that the April is only okay with me if we agree to revisit it before because I would first choice, as you heard initially, I've first choice, I'd like to make it for the whole year. I'd make it through January of 23. So we give this committee time to look at it as a permanent measure. I mean, my first choice would be to extend it through January 23. But if we're gonna promise to take it up before the end of April, I'm okay with that as long as we are willing to do that. I'm sorry, I should have said that initially. I just, Senator Colomer. Thank you, Madam Chair. I agree about dropping the prepositional clause if feasible. I agree about putting, I don't know whether or not to call it stronger language but clearer language that says that the way to get into the meeting has to be on the agenda. I don't know exactly how to word that but I take Mike's point. You can't close town offices at five and then have somebody at 6.30 say, well, I want to go and there's no one answering the phone. They get shut out of a meeting they want to go to. So however we want to phrase that. I'm okay with the date. I think we will be back in a position by the end of April to at least look at this again and say, you know what? And I don't know what the metric is. If it's case counts, well, maybe that's true but from what I understand, even as they were going up again, the hospitalization rate was going down. So you can pick any metric that you want and it's always going to be a rolling situation. And if at the time you pull the trigger, it could be different in a week. So I don't know what to do with that but I'm comfortable with the April 30th. And then just to, I don't know, suggest a bit of a compromise, the date, the number of days for the minutes. How uncomfortable would people be if we moved it from 10 to seven? Just a question. I'm sympathetic that there are probably our staffing issues still but I still don't understand how you can't have something turned around in a seven day period to just sit down at a computer and do it. I just don't know. I remember the, yeah, the minutes are just, they can be, as we heard from our town manager when we were first looking at extending the time, not even due to COVID. She often just scans people's handwritten notes and puts them out as the, so they don't need to be minute minutes and they aren't approved anyway. So, Senator Arson? Yeah, I mean, you talk about staffing issues. A lot of these minutes are done by volunteers. So staff are at least paid to do them. The volunteers are trying to fit them into their extra time. So I guess I think we ought to remember that as well. They're not always done by paid staff. No. No, and I didn't mean to apply that either, Alison. I'm just saying, if you volunteer to do something, then that's what you're supposed to do. And if you don't, maybe they could find somebody else that wouldn't be willing to do it. Yeah. Well, my guess is that most people when they're, when they attend a meeting and they're the person that's supposed to take the notes and publish the minute, do something with the minutes, that they do them pretty much right away. I mean, why would you wait for 10 days to do your, to write up your minutes from a meeting? I mean, I don't know, but... I can tell you, Madam Chair, that as a reporter, you want to write your story right away while it's still fresh in your mind and everything is there. You don't want to wait 10 days. So same with minutes. And God knows I've done enough volunteer minutes. So I can appreciate what Allison is saying, that people are volunteers, but they volunteer to be on the board and doing minutes as part of that. So we haven't heard from Senator Rom-Hinsdale yet on these four points. Well, first of all... Or anything else? Well, I'll stick to these four points or this bill. So I think first of all, April 30th of last year, I think we thought we were in a much better place than we were at that time. Restrictions were loosening. We had a plan to loosen restrictions. We keep doing this. It's like wishful thinking this pandemic. We keep putting a date certain believing that we'll be in a much better place than we are. And I just think that has caused a lot of extra layers of bureaucracy and burden for our local communities. You know, I just always think of... I was just reading through the bill and I always think of this with the lens of making sure that people who need ADA accommodations or some other forms of access can continue to enjoy access to these meetings. And I just don't know if... I mean, the state has often not posted ADA designees as clearly as it needs to someone people can call if they feel like they're having an issue. So it's a somewhat separate issue, but I'm just reading the bill again and wondering if those on the phone have found that there have been any barriers that people have faced that aren't explicitly addressed in the bill. I don't know. Oh, Karen, is that your little hand? Yeah, thank you. I would second Senator Rom Hinstell's comments about we never know where we are anymore. And I mean, my experiences that you all are rather busy at the end of April and needing to revisit this may be difficult as well. I just wanna say, and I've waded into this with Mr. Donahue before in this committee, but I'm the person that takes minutes for my planning commission. I don't always get them up within five days, not that anybody's bringing them anyway, but there's only 24 hours in a day. And to the extent that we want people to actually participate as volunteers in local government, I think it's helpful to give them a little bit of flexibility on issues like that. We've gone, I know it's anecdotal, but we go begging for members on planning commission and select board and any number of other local committees. Okay, so committee, where are we here? Let's look at the language if feasible. And I think both Karen and Catherine suggested that it may be redundant and unnecessary, but there might be the situation out there. They couldn't figure it out, but it doesn't do any harm. Does it, committee? No, I agree, it doesn't do any harm. I'm confused, it wouldn't do any harm to leave it in or take it out. Leave it in. Because it says whenever feasible, and all of us are saying, well, it's always feasible. So we say whenever it's feasible, it's not gonna make it any more different. But a phone number is listed in every Zoom information. Yes, I think that Karen and Catherine's point was that there may be, we don't know, but so my question is, does it do harm to leave in if feasible? Yes, Chris, you're shaking your head. Thank you, Madam Chair. I do think it does. If you don't have a phone option, you don't have a way for certain people to attend the meeting. You shouldn't hold the meeting, I think is the bottom line there. I don't understand. I suppose a public body could use if feasible as some kind of an excuse. I don't, phones weren't working that day. Well, then someone who was planning to attend by phone wouldn't be able to attend by phone. I just, I don't understand the need to have that language in there at this point. It would prohibit someone from attending the meeting, I believe. If their phone is out there, computer is probably also, internet is probably also out, so they couldn't attend it either way. But I don't care one way or the other. Absolutely, landlines last when electricity fails. One of the reasons to keep one. Karen? I think that's our old hand. I say take it out. Senator Rob Hitsale? Well, now I'm confused. So what Chris is saying is there should, there should always, I mean, if you're doing electronic, all of those have a phone in option. So if we specified this, it would, it would be more, it's reducing access to telephonic means potentially, because we're just saying it's when it's feasible, rather than there just should be a telephonic access option, which should be feasible with any of these electronic means of accessing the meeting. Okay, Sarah, Paulina? It's just confusing. I hadn't thought about it until the way Keisha just suggested that Chris, or Chris meant, feel like we're playing a game of telephone, trying to figure out what different people mean by this, tell you the truth. I think ultimately, frankly, I think ultimately it's not that important, but I think that Chris's comment now interpreted by Keisha makes sense to me. But if you, so I just want to ask this question. If you put, I have never had a Zoom meeting or a Teams meeting that didn't have a telephone number there. Right. So the telephone number is there. So why is it harmful to take out if feasible? Because they're not going to publish that without the telephone number. Correct. I don't understand, Chris. I'm not saying take out if feasible. I'm saying there is always a phone option when there's a remote meeting. But isn't there always a phone number on there? There is. And this language in the current bill says, have phone available if feasible. And I don't understand why that needs to be said. Yes, Chris is saying it's always feasible, right? You're saying it's always feasible. It should be. For what it's worth, I've been convinced. And if it's not feasible, then a member of the public might not be able to attend a meeting that they want to attend. Mike. There's no phone option. Why don't you just say up above, what the computer link is and the phone number to call. Put it in a, make it a positive. Don't make it if available, but then say, how people can call it. And that'll make it clear. Tucker. I thought we were taking out the whole sentence because it didn't seem necessary. I didn't know we were just taking out if feasible. The whole sentence doesn't seem necessary. I think that was the suggestion. Okay. I do just think it needs to be clear that there's always a phone option. Even though we know there's always a phone option for Zoom or Teams or other video conferencing, but I think it needs to be clear. There's always a phone option available for somebody who can't do Zoom or Teams or something like that. Okay. In the moving forward here, I'm going to say committee members, should we take out if feasible? Leave the rest of the sentence there that says that they have to be allowed to participate by phone, but take out the word, the clause if feasible. Raise your hand for yes. Can I just say something? I mean, this is where, to me, you would, like, then you would say, you should always have TTY. You should always have interpretation available for someone who requests the meeting interpreted. You know, I don't know where else that lives. I know, actually, Tucker just sent me something about the matrix. What is this? It's just virtual meetings matrix that I'm still, I'm still trying to understand if we're, I don't think, I feel like a telephone is an outdated way of saying someone should always have access to a meeting if they can't use the internet. I think that isn't a stand-in for lots of other barriers people face to participating in an open meeting. So I'm not sure I understand here how you would, if they don't have a phone and they don't have a computer, I mean, these are meetings that are not held in person. Right. But a phone or a computer are a basic channel to then have a tool built into them that allows someone who doesn't speak English or needs an accommodation to access that tool. A telephone or computer don't, in and of themselves, say that the meeting is fully open and accessible. That's all. A telephone isn't a stand-in for this is now an accessible meeting because someone couldn't use the phone. You're right. And I don't know where to go with that because I'm not sure that we can require every, every meeting to have translation at this point anyway to have translation available for people. I think TTYD is different. I think that that almost everybody has TTYD numbers. But I translation, Jenny, did you? Yes, Jenny Crossler, Secretary of State's office. I just want to note that the open meeting loss still does require the public participation provision, I believe, but it still requires that boards comply with political accommodations law found in outside law. So I do, when folks call me, I do tell boards to be thinking about that if someone specifically asked accommodation to really be aware that that's there, that's outside the open meeting all separate requirements and they should be working with their counsel on that. So that is already an underlying law. Tepper? Jenny's absolutely right. Title IX under Vermont law, the public accommodations provisions apply to open meetings and the Americans with Disabilities Act will always overlay these meetings and meeting requirements. And to go back to what Senator Rom Hinsdale said, I did send her a copy of the virtual meetings matrix that was put together by the Disability Aging and Independent Living Agency in Vermont. They put out a chart that explains for public bodies and others what each of the virtual meeting platforms has for accommodations and shows you, for example, on Zoom, whether that's something that has to be attached externally, whether there's another app that the public body has to use, TTY is one of the categories under there but so is text and image enlargement. So that is at least a starting point for public bodies to understand how they can use their current platform to accommodate different needs from public participants and further Dale, which is that agency also has resources available to individuals so that they can access meetings. I know that the Sergeant at Arms for the purposes of the State House is kind of our repository of all of those technologies so that any individual can ask for and receive an appropriate accommodation when they arrive at the State House so they can attend our meetings. So let me get this, understand where we are here. The ADA and the public accommodations the accommodations require meetings to follow certain guidelines. And if I see that there's going to be a meeting and I need to have TTYD, I think that's available, I can request it or I can request that somehow the font be enlarged or but people, am I understanding this that people request it? And then the entity figures out how they're gonna do it by using either what Dale has sent them or what the platform itself allows is that instead of, is that, am I understanding this right? Yes, and it gets a bit complicated depending on whether the individual has to request which is technically a barrier to access or whether it's automatically provided. But it's my understanding that with most of these platforms this is an option that you can automatically set for the meeting so that those who are attending have access to that feature automatically at their own discretion, they don't have to request it. Oh, I see. And depending on the platform, that's either something that's native or the platform will automatically work with whatever technology the individual is using to access the meeting and, you know. Tucker, you just froze. So while he's frozen, I'm just gonna ask the question here and maybe, oh, he's back. You froze there for a minute. So do we need to put something in here or is it already in the underlying open meeting law? That's what I'm getting at. Do we need to add something here and how would we add it and how detailed do we need to be or is it already covered under the open meeting law? And I guess that's a Chris, Jenny and Tucker question. Somebody? They're thinking hard. Well, while they're thinking about that, can I add something? So I just want to make clear because I feel like we glossed over it a little bit. My read of the Civil Rights Act is that when someone requests verbal interpretation, you're required to produce it unless it's some kind of hardship, particularly if it's a discussion about something that would materially affect them or involves emergency services. If you're asking for something in writing, you have to have a threshold of that number of people who speak that language in the community for them to be required to produce it. But local government is required to respond to a request for language access to meetings and they can respond to that at some kind of hardship, but it would be more likely to be required if it's something where it involves, you know, a material impact to that person in the community. So I'm still a little confused because do people have to request it or does it just, is it there? Is it one of the requirements? And do we need to put anything in here? I just don't want misinformation to be out there. I think when you request a local government to interpret a meeting, they have to do it. So the committee, the town of municipality would have to provide the support, whatever we call it, the access. So if we were going to put it in the bill, I think what I would suggest is we think about, I'm not saying we should need to be in there, but you would say that the meeting has to conform with ADA or public accommodation standards. But the question is whether that's already the case. Do we have to say that in this bill or not? Because if it's already the law, then we don't have to say it. Right. That's my question. Isn't that assumed? Well, that's what that's, well, I'm assuming it's assumed, but I'm not the lawyer in the room. I just don't want us to put, to, if that muddies this bill at all, I don't want us to put something in here that would not be the exact same language that is already in the public accommodations and how towns and entities deal with it and how they know they're dealing with it. They already, they already have to deal with it, whether they have a public meeting in person or. Yes, Tucker. I apologize for freezing. I think it was me, not you. I'm going to step back and take this one step at a time. First public accommodation laws already apply. The duties are already applied to these public bodies. Full stop. Most of the technology that they would use anyway, such as zoom has the technology and tools available for them to meet those duties. Full stop. For the language access part of this, it was just brought up. I am not familiar with that. My knowledge of language access requirements ends at the workforce innovation and opportunities act. And I have a smooth brain beyond that. So my apologies. That is. What I know and have available for you. Chris, do you want to. Do you have anything? I'll just say what he said. You know, the. The accessibility law is there. I'm not well versed in it. Maybe Jenny can, can speak a little bit to the questions she's answered. I'm sure she can't. Site chapter inverse off the top of her head. Either, but we do get these questions from time to time about access to meetings. And there are questions around that are raised around remote access. And there are even further questions. Raised around. Public bodies that still are insisting to meet in person without any remote access. For people who might want to attend remotely. So Jenny. So I guess. Yes, I will say. I think that's a good point. The open meeting law, as, as everyone has said, explicitly cross references, the public accommodations act for months, public accommodations act, that's there. I don't give advice about what. Boards must do to comply with it, nor do I give advice to members of the public, specifically about what they're entitled to. That's sort of, that's beyond my knowledge base as well. I think my point was to say that, I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that applies to everyone for the open meeting law. There could be additional accommodations. That. Boards are obligated to provide that individuals are entitled to. Based on their individual. Status under the public accommodations act. And so that could, that could mean like what Chris said, that could mean. Technological. Accommodations. That could apply if a board only has an in-person option and somebody is asking for a remote option that could, that could apply if someone is offering a certain type of remote option and somebody needs a different type of remote option. I just, I just mentioned that any time people, these questions come up because I want people to know that they might be entitled to something more than what the general public is entitled to based on their own particular status. Okay. So I'm confused now about where we are because it seems to me that the public accommodations. Law already applies to all. And that most of the. Platforms that are used. Have something that can provide those accommodations. The language question is somewhat different. And I, I do know. That the. Language requirement is that you provide translation services. If you're, if you have a certain percentage of your population that has that language as it's first language, translation is written interpretation is verbal. Well, well either, but you, but I think that the, the. That's as far as I know, that's the law. That's what the law is for like housing authorities. And that's the only place I know, but you, you have to provide. Interpretation verbal interpretation if, if you have a population over a certain percentage that has that as it's that language as it's first language. And that if there's individual. Individuals who need. Translation services. The, the. Entity can provide it. At its cost or can provide it at the cost of the, the person. Or can get a volunteer to come and do it. But, but I think that's, I think that's the. And I don't, I don't know that for a fact, but I, I just hesitate to put something in here. I don't think we should put it in, in here. I just didn't want misinformation to get out there. I think it's good. We're doing a language access plan to clear this up. For folks, but I, I, I'm looking at this with a critical, I actually, especially to what I feel like has just been said, which is. I think that it's a policy decision as to whether or not we want to ensure that there's a remote option for people right now. If the body decides to hold a meeting in person. That is not a consideration of this bill right now. And, and I think that's a policy decision we should discuss. I think everyone should have a remote option right now. For a public meeting. I'm, I. I don't know about other committee members, but I don't think that I'm prepared to mandate that they have. Remote options. I mean, it would be nice to do that. But I'm. Not prepared to mandate it. Senator Clarkson. So that's. We're trying to do this quickly for, for meetings now in the middle of Omicron. I think that that's a cut that, depending on when we put a date end. To this particular provision, we can revisit and I think that Acacia goes to the argument about whether we make this permanent. And I think. What we're trying to do now is extend this to get us through Omicron. And that we will either revisit it in April, or we will revisit it in January 23. Strikes me. Those are the reasonable options that we have in front of us. We either do it for the whole year and review it again in January, or we do it. Just through April with the promise that we are going to be revisiting it in April. I think the permanent, the permanent thing. Acacia is a big conversation. I think with the open. It is, but during a health pandemic, I think is when you'd want to make sure that you have a remote option. Right. And that's what we're talking about. No, no, we're not trying to make sure that everybody has a remote option here. What we're trying to do is we're trying to say. That people, that entities. Can have their meetings remotely without having a physical location. And having somebody at that location. That's all this bill is doing. Right. It's just saying those, those towns who have remote options or who have their, their meetings virtually or remotely. Do not have to have a physical location. That's what this bill does. This bill doesn't say anything about people who are having their, their meetings in person that they have to provide a remote option. And that's a, that's a different question. And we can go there if we want, but that is. I just have a question. What if there's a three member, you know, select board and two people want to meet in person and one person doesn't want to meet in person. Are they overruled? They can't participate then. They can, the, the select board can make that decision, whether they tell somebody that they can participate remotely or that they're not going to do it or they're just out of luck. I mean, I, I'm. This bill does not address in person. Meetings. And I guess we could go there if we want to, but I don't know where the, the rest of the committee is on going there that, because that's a different, different question. I also thought that the, aren't we going to take up an English language access bill and sometime in the next couple of weeks or so. Yeah, but now we're the case. The last question that Kasia asked was very different. So if you haven't, for the towns that, I think it was Mike was talking about the, or no, Brian, the town does not want to meet remotely. They're not going to do that period. They're going to have their in person meetings and that's the way it is. Are we prepared to tell them that they have to provide. A remote option for people. That's the question. That, that goes to Brian's concern about the mandate with Dan B. Right. Right. So I, I, I don't think. I thought we were trying to do a very narrow solution. For Omicron right now to me. So I think the larger questions are ones that we should be taking into consideration. I think we should be taking that into consideration. I think we should be taking that into consideration. I think we should be taking that into consideration at the end of April or in April. To either extend it or next January 23 and extend this for the year. I think. I think that those are bigger conversations and it's. There are a lot of issues around open meeting law. And we can take those up. We don't have to wait till the end of April. To extend this. I think we should be taking that into consideration at the end of April. I think we should be taking that into consideration at the end of April. A bill that says. Every public meeting has got to have. A remote option. We could take that up. But that's not what this bill is. So we could do that. But I think that that's a larger. Conversation. Great. I mean, if a community was, was going to meet ADA accessibility requirements, they already have to do that anyway. Right. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know why it would be such a barrier to put that in the bill. But that's just one. One. Okay. I don't know that they have to. That they have to provide a remote option. I don't think they do to meet ADA requirements. I'm not sure they do either. As long as you accommodate them. With an in-person meeting. To me, the law is satisfied. And I'll just go on to say. I'm not going to vote this out. Well, certainly today. Because we're going to have to take a lot more testimony. And it'll probably just delay things down the road. So. I don't know how the rest feel, but. I thought the idea was to craft this to. Move it along as quickly as we could. I agree with that. I'd like to get this piece done. And review. Other changes to the open meeting law. I think accommodations are. A given as Tucker has said, I really, I think. You should just do this. I mean, I mean, for right now. Right. So we had. If I may. We had four issues here. Now we have. Five. That. Can we add. Directly. As Tucker suggested. We had, we had a certain. Line somewhere on line. Five, six on page three. Right in there. Can we add the term? Directly. How they can access. The meeting directly. As opposed to as Mike said, having to call the town. Hall and no one's right. Do we agree on that? Yes. Tucker, you've heard that. Now, if feasible, we want to take that out. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Oh, 10 days. Go keep 10 days for the time being. Anthony. I would keep it. Brian. Senator Calmer. Yeah, I realized the offer of seven wasn't particularly palatable. So I'll yield to the rest of the committee on 10. Senator Romhinsale. I have no problem with that. Okay. So now we have two outstanding. Do we add anything in here about accommodations for in-person meetings? Or do we leave that for another day and the expiration date? Those are the, okay. So committee. I would leave the other stuff for later because I think it's under the law. You have to provide accommodation. That's not understanding. Right. And I would tend to go with extending it till the end of the year. So let's get the accommodations one. Do we want to, Brian, is that your hand or is that your thing? No, but you've split it perfectly so we could take each one separately. Yeah. I'll agree with Anthony on waiting for the other piece a little bit later on. For the accommodations piece, you mean? Yes. Yes. I would agree. I think that's a more fulsome conversation. Senator Romhinsale. I mean, I'm just comparing it in my head to us meeting and saying we don't need to have a remote option. Right? Like this is their local governing body and what if someone didn't feel safe going into that room? They don't have a disability that they can request an accommodation for. And yet now they might have safety issues. They might have kids at home. They might have, I mean, be immunocompromised. They might have another sick person at home and they don't feel safe or comfortable anymore walking into their town hall and going to a public meeting. And we're saying we don't have a remedy for that. We don't have the ability to say right now in a pandemic, you should provide a remote option. That should be available regardless of whether or not you could demonstrate that you have a disability. But it's what I mean that we're telling every town, every tree committee, every library board, everything that they have to provide a remote meeting possibility. But everybody is doing that pretty much now. It's one town or they're very few. It sounds like they're one or two towns that are being recalcitrant in this regard and seeming to fly in the face of science. So, I, you know, Mike spoke to one and Brian spoke to the other. If we- We know that to be true, just because we heard about two or- No. There may be more, but then I think we have to be comfortable saying that we, you know, that we want to mandate remote, that the ability to have remote meetings. I mean, they're already doing it. The vast majority of everybody's already doing it. So, I don't know, I'm comfortable with it. If I were, if I had a disability that made it impossible for me to attend a meeting and in person, and I brought that up with the select board, let's say, and they tried to blow me off, they would be violating the ADA. And if I took them to court, I would probably win. In other words, I'm supposed to have access to public meetings. So, I don't think we're abandoning people by saying we're going to look at it in greater detail later because my understanding under the law is that- We had somebody the other night say- I'm sorry, what'd you say? There was somebody at the Isle of Mott meeting the other night and he said his wife could not attend because of mobility issues where the meeting was. So, it is happening. But that's- Yeah, but that's illegal. Right, that has nothing to do with a remote. That has nothing to do with remote. He was asking for Zoom to happen so that his wife whose home could in fact participate in government. Right, but that would have been the case in January, in November of 1919. The same request would have been made and we didn't even think about remote meetings. I'm just saying there are people with mobility issues. Yes. Like Senator Isha Ram said in the sale, sorry. That there are people with different disabilities. Yes. Who want to reach out, be involved in government. And I agree with that, but why is it different now in the midst of a pandemic than it was before we ever heard of the pandemic? That same person at that point would have made that same, could have made that same request because it wasn't related to the pandemic at all. It's related to her mobility issues. So I just really hesitate to say that to mandate that every single public meeting has to have a remote at this point, but I can be outvoted. I mean, it looks like I'm the one outvoted. It's almost five o'clock, but my concern hasn't gone away and I'll keep raising it. I'm not gonna vote no on this bill, but I really think it's a concern that yes, the technology has changed. We're in the year 2022 now. It is possible and it should be possible it's helping a lot more people participate. You don't have to go to court and might not be able to prove that they have some kind of disability that requires accommodation, but that they have poor eyesight or they don't like to drive at night or something short of that, but we now have the technology to allow them to participate. And we should be ensuring that people have more access. That's what open meeting laws for. Right, and that's I think what we're trying to do here in this enable this for this particular piece during Omicron and the rest of the law is still there. I mean, this is just a subchapter of a law that this already exists in context with. I don't know, how do we go forward? I mean, I don't mind- Like I said, I'm outvoted but I'm not done having this concern. So that's all. No, and I have the same concern. I'm just concerned about what we really needed to do here is to make sure that people did not have to have a physical location. That was our main concern on this bill. And whether we want to mandate that people have a remote option in my mind goes beyond that immediate question and that we should take it up. But I'm willing to take it up. I think that it is something that we should be looking at but not in this bill. That's my concern. Okay, for the record, I'm willing to accept that. I'm fine. It's almost five o'clock and I'm willing to accept that. I'm glad that we've gotten to the point that we're willing to take that up soon after this because I think it's worthy of consideration. It might be that given the new technology and everything that that would be part of the public accommodations in general under the open meeting law, that we don't need to actually mandate that it's something that is considered like having a wheelchair ramp. You just do it. When we take this up, we will have Dale in and the disability rights group into discuss what's changing and what is possible and what's going on. I hate to belabor this, but just like having kids at home and not being able to go to public meeting, it's not a disability, but it's a really nice thing to have a remote option and be able to participate in government. That's all. It's changed to the way we can participate in government. I think that's really critical to keep. And I think the vast majority, I would say 245 towns are doing that. I mean, I think what we're talking about is at the moment, very few, like on one hand that are not enabling remote participation. And you're right for people in those towns, but they should be, those are people who all know each other. And if they can't appeal to each other and say, please accommodate me, it's pretty shocking that people aren't willing to be that generous with their friends and neighbors and fellow townspeople. Well, it's happening. We know it's happening. So people are not always generous of spirit. Okay, so we will, yes, Senator Plena. Well, I just wanna say, I agree. I'm not opposed to like mandating that all meetings have remote access. I just don't think it's this bill is the place to do it. Okay. All right. I would not be opposed to doing such a law, a bill, but I just don't think trying to do it at five o'clock on a Wednesday night when we're talking about other things is the way to go about it. And when we're trying to extend an opportunity for all the thousands of meetings that hopefully are wanting to be remote now that are already hybrid, probably most of them. So, yes, Mike. I'm just wondering, the league hasn't weighed in on this. Do they have a sense as to how many towns aren't providing Zoom or anything like that? If they hold, I know Senator Clarkson says 245, but. Well, I mean, you know, I'm just trying to understand. I just wanna leave to see it quickly, quickly. Do you have a sense, Karen? We do not have an accurate number, I would say, of everyone who's providing remote options. It's interesting that this conversation started completely on the flip side of this end of this discussion, but yeah, I don't believe we have an up-to-date number. I'll double check. But, and how can I just chime in? I think that a vast majority that aren't, I mean, I would say there's more than it's count on one hand that aren't providing it. A lot of it has to do with technological capacity, having cameras that can circle the room and get everybody, having microphones that can actually accurately hear conversations. It's actually technologically pretty difficult and even getting access to these cameras because everybody's buying them. Everybody's buying for this technology. There's a lot of things at play that are actually preventing towns from doing it just because it's hard to implement not only financially but getting the resources to do it. And then having boards, again, it's really teeny tiny boards. It's not just select boards and city councils. We're talking like ad hoc little committees that have to follow it to meet that threshold. And so you're seeing a lot of them not leaning into it. I'm sure there's a handful that are doing it because they wanna be, you know, they don't just don't wanna provide access. It's really just because it's really difficult for some smaller communities with really small rooms or really small technological capacity to actually implement it where it works. Yeah. Or municipalities with broadband access. I mean, if you think about a lot of parts of the state, you don't have the broadband access. In my condo. Like Arlington, Arlington did invest like, I think $18,000, $20,000 or something, but I do know another town and invested $250 for cameras and microphones and they've got an excellent system. I'm gonna stop this conversation right now because we could beat this to death, but we've decided that we're not going to deal with this in this bill. So there's no need to talk about it anymore, okay? I hate to be dictatorial here, but as Senator Rom Hinsdale says, it's close to five, it might be after five now. I have no idea what time it is. I do know that my stomach is growling, but we will talk about this later on, okay? In another context, okay, done. Now the date, the expiration, I mean, yeah, the expiration date. Does anybody wanna throw in their position here? Senator Collamore. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm gonna stay with April 30th. Senator Clarkson. Oh, Senator Paul and Polina had your hand up. Yeah, it doesn't matter. It's okay. Like I said before, I would vote for the extending it through the year. Senator Clarkson? Well, she's thinking. Let's go to Senator Rom Hinsdale, let her think. I vote for the end of the year. So I guess my question, the reason I'm thinking and the reason I've mentioned January of 23 is that we're not in business in December of 22. And it doesn't give us an opportunity to do anything. So I mean, to have it end when we're not a, it seems an awkward time to have it end. I'd either make it end of January 23 or in April, but I also would vote to have it go through the end of the year, but I'd rather do it to a date when we can actually affect it. Okay, and I am going to vote for April 2022, but I guess the majority here has voted for end of the year. So January 15th of 2023. I mean, that means that we would be back or somebody would be back. Maybe some of us won't be back, but somebody will be back and can take it up then. Yes. Anybody want to comment on that? I would just say this does not preclude our doing more work and coming to consensus or doing more work on the open meeting in between. So I would hope we wouldn't put off our work. No, this is nothing, this is only for this one thing. This has nothing to do with all those other issues. We've talked about under the open meeting law and we would trust that the VLCT would encourage people if we aren't in a situation where we are in some kind of a pandemic, that they would encourage towns and entities to actually have physical meetings again, that they don't need to use this as an excuse not to go back to real meetings with real people. I don't mean real meetings, but on in-person meetings with remote options that we would encourage people to not use this as an excuse to not have physical locations. Our senses that local officials really do want to be meeting in person in the same way that you do want to be meeting in person. And this is a measure that's just protecting people's safety in the meantime. I agree with you. That is, when did you? I was just gonna say that the vast majority of towns, a lot of the members of a lot of these committees and boards just sort of had a natural, even if they were allowed to have that one person on at the physical location, you saw more and more people showing up physically during the summertime when the numbers were down and the minute they started to go up and feel a little less safe, that's when they started retreating a little bit more. So I think it's like people are just naturally making these decisions based off of what they feel safe within their community and their local counts for COVID cases. Okay. All right, so what I'm gonna do is Tucker, if you would add the term directly, however you do that, leave the 10 days, take out if feasible, change the date of when the authority expires to January 15th. January 15th. And then we can maybe see a clean copy and vote on it tomorrow at the very beginning of our, because I think, I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel a little bit wrung out and exhausted and would like to make sure that we see it and that we're all okay with it before we actually vote. Sure. It's always good to know what you're voting on. Yeah, I know. So what I would suggest- Whenever feasible. Whatever. Whatever. So what I would suggest is that any of you who are here with us today, we will meet tomorrow at 1.30. I believe this when we're tomorrow's Thursday, so 1.30. And if you want to join us, please let Gail know and she'll send you the invite again, or if you just wanna watch, but if you wanna join us just so that if there's something that comes up, please let her know. And thank you. And I think that this was a very robust conversation. And I think that it's going to lead us to some other issues and some looking at some other potential solutions or maybe the solutions are already there and we just don't know it. So we'll have the conversation again.