 So let's get started. First item is any changes to the agenda. And Mike, let me know if you want me to pull anything from the packet up onto the screen. Okay. I'm good. I don't know if anyone wants to see the agenda or anything else, but I've got my agenda over on the left side here. So let's next we have public comments opportunity for anyone from the public to make address the board with any concerns not on tonight's agenda. Is there anyone from the public. Guess not so we'll move on to action on the consent agenda. And we had some items. I'll move we accept the consent agenda or approve. Okay, Jim. I have a second. Okay. All those in favor of the motion and approving the consent agenda, please say aye. Aye. Or raise your hand. Anyone opposed. Anyone want to abstain. Okay. That's approved. We'll move on. Next item is minutes of the October 21st, 2020 meeting. I'm looking for a motion and a second to approve those minutes with corrections. If there are any. I'll second. Did you get that Amy? Okay. Any corrections or edits or comments on the minutes? Certainly look good to me. Wow. Hey look good to me too. Okay. Hearing none. All those in favor. Signify signify by raising your hand or saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed. Any abstentions. Okay. I'm sorry. Barbara is abstaining. Okay. Any other abstentions. Okay. And we'll move on. We have next the FY 20 audit report. We have Fred with us tonight. Charlie, did you want to say anything or is Forrest there or Forrest before I hit it off to Fred? Well, I guess I'll start with a thank you to Fred and to Forrest and Amy. And Fred, let me know if you want me to pull any, the document up or I assume everybody has poured through every page of the audit. Maybe he hasn't memorized, but do you want, do you want me to pull it up so you can refer to specific pages Fred or. I mean, I can see you so no, I'm thinking, yes, Charlie. You are. That's what I'm thinking. I may be the only one though, Fred. I mean, Jeff is shaking his head. No. What's the matter with you, Brian? All right, never mind. I'll open it up from the website. Maybe everybody's not using two computers and that would be confusing. Never mind. I'm only the alternate tonight, but most people have two screens, Mike. No, no, no, no, no. That's what I just corrected myself on Jeff. Yeah. Well, anybody, if Fred's talking about something that you want me to pull the screen up, I'm happy to do that. All right, with no further delays, Fred, let's throw it over to you. Thank you for being here tonight. Thanks, Mike. So we've gone through this at a draft stage with the finance and executive committee. And so this is a final audit report that's been delivered. The only last step to do is to submit it to the federal audit clearing house, which will do that tomorrow. Just in case there's any issues with board tonight. So that's that's the last step. Once it's there. The board of state or state agency can download it from there and get access to it. And that's, that's the main way of transmission at this point in time. So this is a multi part document in the past. It's an audit done under generally accepted audit standards. It's also done in accordance with government audit standards, which are a little more stringent. Same level of standards that all of your cities and towns have to be audited under. And that's a vision to that because the commission spent more than $750,000 in federal funds. It also has to be done under what's called uniform guidance, which are federal standards and that that's additional standards. And includes it requires both governing standards and the uniform guidance requires us to include reports on compliance with laws and regulations and internal control. So it is a complete document includes all of those things. In terms of the financial statements, our opinion, which is on page two, but simply says that you. It's a clean unmodified opinion means you presented prepare your financial statements in full conformance with generally accepted economy principles. So no changes this year. There's been some changes that have been deferred because of the pandemic. I don't think anything that will affect you too much. So it shouldn't be significantly different next year. What I typically read in what I'm looking at an auditor or a new client is I go and look at the management's discussion and analysis and that that runs about seven pages and it really is a good snapshot of the year it's written by management. It's a narrative format. There's some summary financial information in there, but in about six or seven pages you get a really good sense of what happened for the year. And our responsibility is to make sure that everything in there is consistent with what's in the audit report and it is. I don't know that I'll spend a lot of time on the numbers the only difference this year. And I don't know, Charlie, if you want to put up exhibit one certainly look at that that's on page 11. So, your, your net assets is going down each year, but it's primarily due to in fact completely do to your participation participation and be much the municipal employee retirement system. I actually had a discussion with gas we was just the standard setting body and we are requested that we we could show the bottom section broken out between what the impact of viewers is versus what your operations are and I don't know Charlie you can slide that down a little bit to the bottom of that page. This way they were shrink it go a little further. We're getting close there we are. So, in total your, your total net position is 89,426 second on from the bottom. A year ago that was 185,989. But if you look and you can see that without your participation in the evers that's almost $500,000 if that wasn't there you'd have almost $600,000 net position. You'd have to work with because the gamers is simply being paid over time based on normal rates over many, many years in the future. And that's that there is volatility in that it's it's affected by their actuaries by them by the stock market. So, I think breaking it out will give you a much better, better picture of where you really stand at the end of the year. I was hoping to convince them not to be able to include it, but they, they, it has to be there. It's, it's a requirement and generally accepted government on standards for accounting principles but they did not have a major concern they had some concern but not a major concern with breaking out like this so you can see what things you control and what things aren't under your control and that's the biggest. And I think this is a little better presentation. And if you start comparing that other line over time. So last year that was about 560,000. This year it's 588 actually went up by about $28,000. And so, you know, while your total went down, based on operations, you basically held your own and left just a little bit. So I think it really gives you a much better picture. Just in the report, there's a lot of footnotes that, that, you know, tell everybody what you are, how you operate, what your various assets and liabilities are. There are required schedules in the back to schedules on the beaver's participation. There's a budget actual report that shows that you basically plan to take in and spend about $5.3 million. You both took in and spent much less than that, but a lot of it has to do with projects that simply don't don't happen so in total. What page is that? That's page 30. Thank you. Yeah. So while the variances look large on the total, when you get to the bottom line, the budget was to actually increase your net position by $8500 and you did by 33. So that's kind of the 25,000 we were talking about on the balance sheet. So basically, if the revenues to come in, you don't spend them because you earn the revenues by basically spending consultant and contract services. And then they really wash. There's a number of schedules that are required by the state to show them how we calculate your indirect cost rate. The agency of commerce and community development requires a schedule to show how they're grant funds. And then finally, there's a schedule that shows each and every one of your federal grants. So if they're required to be in the report, the state and feds will use this to make sure that all of their money is accounted for and included in the report. And then Charlie, maybe if we go to put a page 41, the very last page. So page 41 is a required schedule that is the summary of all the findings and you're going to see at the top the financial statement findings as we said there was an unmodified clean opinion. We had no material weaknesses and significant deficiencies and internal control. We have no non compliance at the financial statement level. And then when we had to do the federal work. Again, we had no material weaknesses, no significant deficiencies, and no compliance issues. So no, no findings that need to be reported under federal standards. I think this is the same program we tested in the past that you made your program, I would find a construction. And the bottom line is, is, is key because you've done this for continue to do this but do this at least two years in a row. That means you're deemed to be a lowest quality, which from a federal and state perspective is an indication that you have the systems and controls in place to be able to appropriately manage state and federal funds. So they look at this, this is an important thing it gets. And you continue to get this year after year. We had no management letter findings, no other recommendations. I think we have one last year that was dealt with. So everything we've raised in the past has been dealt with and there were no issues to raise this year. So a lot of information I went through pretty quickly, but I'd be happy to answer anything specific that anyone has or any general questions. Anyone have any questions for Fred. Mr Chair, I just know I'm the alternate tonight I'd like to say something I mean this is a real credit to our staff. It's been this way now for several years. And I don't have to remind everybody on this commission that it wasn't always that way. We've worked well with our auditor and I really appreciate friend Plessis and his staff for how they interact and they're up front with us and you know executive committee members and finance committee members are able to, you know, speak with Fred to make sure that everything came across this you know 100% above board. And I really think that this is something that the commission ought to be proud of. And with that, if it's parliamentary inquiry. Mr Chair, as the alternate, can I still make the motion that the board accept the audit. Who's the parliamentarian in this group. I. So, is the Essex rep here. Yes. Okay. But the alternate is serving as the rep tonight, but I still attend. So, so I, I think the answer is no but I will allow myself to be overruled on that. No one's overruling. So I think, I think I would, I would just for the sake of, of making sure we do it right have a motion from a non alternate member. In that case, I'll move to accept the audit report. I'll second this is Sharon. Okay. Andy made the motion Sharon seconded. Is there any further discussion. Thank you for hearing none. Thanks Jeff for your comments. Again, Fred, thank you for your help, your work on this and to staff for staff. Another great audit. One more year. Let's keep it going. So all those in favor of the motion. Please say I or raise your hand indicating. Hi. Hi. Any one opposed to the motion. Any abstentions. Hearing none, the motion passes. Okay. We'll get that submitted to the clearing house tomorrow and that should wrap it up. Great. Thank you very much, Fred. And again, thank you to Amy and for so they're the team that really makes that happen. So thank you. Thank you. All right. Okay. Next item is legislative briefing. Alternatives. Charlie. Yeah, so we had some conversation at the executive committee that, you know, given COVID and we were not going to do our traditional legislative breakfast. That maybe we wouldn't even do a zoom meeting. And so we were kind of kicking around some options a couple of weeks ago in that meeting and then wanted to bring the conversation to the full board. In the meantime, I did reach out to the legislators. All. I think we have is it 49. I'm not sure 4950 51 something like that. Including the ones that represent Huntington from other counties Barbara in case you're going to ask. Sorry, she always asked. But the, and really to see what they would prefer, you know, just getting something in writing from us, would they like to have the kind of early December event. I heard from about half of them. And I should also say that we have 10 new legislators. So which is a significant chunk of them. And of the ones I got about half of them responded about three quarters of those would like to have an early December conversation. So, as much as I was thinking that we might do that, it seems like there's actually that they're interested in having that conversation. So, at this point, you're kind of happy to take some feedback or some other direction but at this point I'm thinking that we do offer it to the legislators to have that conversation, like an hour. We had been thinking and in credit to Emma for trying to schedule some things. She looked at what other organizations were doing. She looked like the morning of December 8 was free, which would have been our kind of typical breakfast morning is Tuesday, December 8. So we're kind of thinking of one hour zoom meeting from eight to nine that morning. But I guess I can just open in terms and and I should also add for the new legislators. I offered and will follow through on just one on one meetings with them. Just so we can cover some of the policy conversation but also give them more of an introduction to the RPC. You know the legislators that have been around for a while, I think know us well enough but the new ones. A couple of them know us pretty well but many of them don't. So I'm actually looking at doing two things one of those individual new legislators meetings and then the policy meeting, and maybe we'll do the. Well, yeah, so I think that's what I'm thinking at the moment what any thoughts reactions to that and then I want to ask you about the subject matter. I would suggest that we go ahead and do it I think it's compliment that they are interested. Yeah, it says that we're offering them something that they want that helps them. So, if they're asking for it, I think it's in our best interest to go ahead and do it so I would strongly suggest that we follow through. Okay, that's that's easy enough. Except for the substance of it. So let me talk about what what I've got on my list see if you see if you all have other items that ought to be on the list. And I don't know that we can cover all these. But you know Act 250 again, still, I'm not sure what other to put on that but active 50 definitely be one topic. And if you have suggestions about, you know, whether it's you or somebody in your municipality, or a partner organization that you think would be good to address these topics. Please speak up and throw that on the table. The active 50 I think between Regina and I we felt you're comfortable enough that we could probably speak to that one. And we did have a committee that spent quite a bit of time coming up with a position that you all voted on a year or so ago. So, which, you know, the fourth or fifth iteration of our position on that. But so that one we would speak to then housing, you know, the housing bill did had some pieces taken out of it at the end of last year. At the end of the session. I don't know if it's coming back up. I haven't had the conversation with Senator Sirotkin who is the real champion behind that bill. But that was one topic. And then I got some other requests from the managers and municipal the town managers about dispatch or capital funding for dispatch setup. So that was another hard request. And then I've got some others, a racial equity. I'm not sure who should speak to that or if it's just kind of a commentary. Engaging the partner we're interested in the conversation or committed to the conversation. So I'm throwing any reactions to anything so far. Yay, nay, who should speak to him. Jim. Thank you for speaking Jim. You're welcome. I think they're all good topics but I would add to the housing. In addition to things that might have been left out. We, I think we need to closely look at the things that were put in that aren't necessarily good. Or in the best interest of our communities. I think we have to look at that as well and the suggested edits, I don't think goes far enough. The deed restriction. Yeah, language. And there are a few other things as well that we can potentially talk about, but we can talk about them ahead of time and make sure that it seems appropriate. So I think there's two sides what we take out what we add in. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's a good conversation. Yeah, I'm also kind of curious with the housing piece. If there's some tie into the racial equity work. Also, you know, providing more opportunity for housing. And then I got a few other topics. You know, we have typically talked about water quality funding. I'm not expecting any new funding. But I also looked at the VLCT policy platform. You know, and I think they kind of make some statements about wanting to make sure the state continues to fund water quality investments at the municipal level. And also we have, you know, like wastewater for villages. You know, Westford as one example where they're trying to get their wastewater system. Let's start it up. I know Huntington's been looking at that also and a couple other places. Then transportation funding. I don't know what to say about that except yes, do do it. And then the energy climate, you know, they did a lot of climate work last year, but there may be some more things coming up. I'm not sure the status of the transportation climate initiative, which may bring some some resources, but also will be some wholesale tax that will probably be invisible to the to the users. So, you know, that's something we haven't taken a position on. But we're, I think, interested in that conversation. Another strong point that was in the VLCT policy platform was municipal self governance. And a couple of our municipalities. I know Winooski and I think Williston, and I don't know, Eric or Mike, if you're aware of this but you know that I think they did have their voters past charter changes. That said, you know, we basically, we get the rights that any municipality if the legislature grants one municipality, the ability to do something, then every municipality should be able to do it. I'm sure it's, I'm sure it's phrased better than that, but but it's an interesting tactic. And I don't do people have opinions about any of those last few topics. Yeah, Elaine. And it's based on that self governance item. So that is something that actually has been attempted by VLCT for several years, and it actually made it through Senate Government Ops and the Senate this year, past year. And it's also a pilot project to allow a handful of towns to explore, allowing particular charter changes to stand at the vote level and not have to go to the legislature for approval, not all of them, not significant ones but smaller ones and so I'm on the VLCT board full disclosure. For what it's worth of CCRPC wanted to get behind that it would be a really valuable thing for all Vermont municipalities if that passed. It started out in West Virginia, it was so successful in West Virginia they went from a pilot to granting those that authority to every town in West Virginia within a year or two so it's it's, I know it's hard to no longer be or to consider not being a part of the Dylan's rule philosophy but on the local level it's it's something that people want to change so yeah. Other perspectives or folks comfortable with us at least mentioning that. I know I know some of our larger towns have been very interested in that conversation. Jim. It sounds interesting but I personally don't know enough about it. And I don't know how much our other representatives know about it. So I'm, unless we can have a discussion and all that all agree on it like we've done for active 50 and other things. I'm reluctant at this point in time doesn't mean that I don't support it but I, I think we really need to have a discussion before we make a position. I have no problem just mentioning that it's something that they should look into, and that we will provide them more information later, as long as we don't take a stand at this point in time. Yeah, and some of these yeah we don't necessarily have positions on but there are things that we're interested in. I don't know, you know, somebody like and I don't know Lane if. Yeah, if you might want to speak to it. Just, you know, with definitely a VLCT perspective not not a CCRPC position right. Right, I mean, right now, or would you like me to bring materials to the next meeting. I say it would be really helpful to understand this issue better. Just what it means for us. So, because I haven't actually heard about this very much before. If I could have two minutes to just pull a few things up, and you could talk about some of the other topics, and then I'll give my hand when I'm more prepared. Yeah, let me, I'm going to give you presenting abilities if I can. Yeah, I also, if I could Charlie, want to caution us I don't know a ton about this either I have a long standing state perspective on things due to the work I've done in my career. I understand the issue to some degree, but I want to be careful that this is our being the CCRPC meeting and no offense to the LCT it's a great organization that I support but I don't know that we want to use our time shelling and having a representative of their board then come and shelf for them as part of our meeting I'm not so sure that's the best way to approach a meeting like ours. Again, no offense to any of the organizations is more of a practical matter for me than than anything else. And I'll just offer. I don't, I'm not bringing this up because VLCT took a position on it john I'm bringing it up because our larger towns have taken positions on it. I know, at least a few of them have passed actually taken it to the voters. And I think there's at least a few others that are talking about doing that I don't know if they have or not yet. Maybe it failed at some towns to but there is definitely some interest amongst our municipalities in this, but it has been very much more of the urban towns. You know, I think South Burlington when you ski. I think Colchester may be interested I don't know Jackie if you guys are taken to the voters assets. So, Charlie I can tell you from when you ski standpoint it passed, but there wasn't a whole lot of information and understanding of it. So I think that's an important piece that that you know has been discussed earlier so. Yeah, Elaine if you have information to share that would be great. I can tell you as a voter going in and just reading the ballot item but not really understanding the pros and cons of it was not an easy thing and like I said there wasn't a whole lot of discussion out there in the community about the item on the ballot. So what I do have is actually some very wordy documents that wouldn't necessarily translate well to being shared on my screen but the initiatives that were in this the towns this year. We're not necessarily a part of what VLCT was promoting at the legislative level. I think that's sort of a additional route that some towns are taking individually that the awareness of the need. So I'm not exactly sure Mike how worded for you and like you said there doesn't sound like there was a great deal of community outreach to ensure understanding, but again it's a different tack that's being taken on an individual town by town basis for some towns. VLCT's proposal is based on the. They're fostering self governance as part of their municipal platform year to year to year and the limitations that some towns have on trying to get things done when they have to go to the legislature to get things done we're not talking about big things like charter changes like what like Essex is trying to do right now it's that's not at all what it is. And I apologize for not having everything at the tip of my tongue here but um, it has to do a lot with voters approving initiatives and having them struck down. It could be something like having non citizen voting ability. That's something that happened in Manuski and Montpelier. Having a. I'm so sorry I didn't I didn't prepare for this so. So I'm sorry. Let me just see if I can't find. Yeah, this is more of a philosophical approach. Okay, so the bill that was put forward and was approved by the Senate government ops committee was s 106, and it started to propose a commission that would establish a 12 member self governance commission that would consist of members who would approve the laws by pilot towns to put charter changes on their ballots and allow them to implement them without going to the legislature. And the bill would task the office of legislative council with providing administrative and legal assistance, much as the state Board of Ed is attached to the agency of education. The governance committee would be a more logically attached to the agency of commerce and community development or the agency of administration. And unfortunately, the letter that I'm reading to you from this. Oh, there it is. Okay. Look like it had been cut off. One of the bases for this is also the the legal objections to forced mergers of school districts and that kind of thing. So it's based in a desire for more local control. And I truly apologize for not having more specific talking points but what I can offer is Karen Horn, who is the legislative director for VLCT. I would be happy to come talk about what this is and not from a perspective of encouraging CCRPC to take up the cause that was something I suggested as a member of CCRPC and a member town, but rather to explain to the board, what it means, what they're asking for in this bill. So I'm sorry I'm doing a terrible job of explaining that's fine. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know I've been hearing about it probably for a good year and a half. I can do I can pull some material together Charlie and you can email it out to the group afterwards that would be a lot easier for all of you to read at your own leisure. Yep. Hey Barbara. It just seems to me that we won't have time as a commission to talk about that between now and the legislative breakfast or I guess it's bring your own breakfast. So I would suggest you're not going to bring it for us. I suggest we not include that in the agenda. But have it as a perhaps an agenda item for January for the board. Yeah, okay. I have to agree with that. I think that's a prudent way to go forward. Sharon. I'd like to find out more about what's going to how the climate council is going to work. I know we haven't plugged into that much. I'm not going to talk about that. I'm not going to talk about that before, but they're being asked to do a huge lift and planning to meet our energy goals. So they're supposed to be developing this plan. And I know that the council has two regional planners appointed, which is great. But not a planning emphasis. So I'm hoping that we can at least track that if we. If we can do that. I'm not going to talk about this. But I personally like to hear more about what, how that's. Folding out. In December, if there's information. Yeah. Are you thinking that we touch on it in the legislative briefing? Right. That's something that we're, that we're going to track. Yeah. I mean, given all the work we've done on energy and stuff, we're going to be able to do that. I think that's something that we're going to be able to do. To participate to what extent we can. Yeah, I'd like to second that with the, which Sharon said about the climate and energy. I think that is very important. To follow up because it does. It's a very large committee. And how is it going to work and things like that. But I also agree with Barbara that. I think it would be good to learn what the VLCT is talking about with the charter changes because I have not, I had not really. Paid attention or know anything about it as well. Yeah. Got that. Yeah. I wrote down the self governance. Conversation. We'll talk about that. And maybe our January board meeting. Any other thoughts. Comments for. Legislative briefing topics. Discussion areas. Yeah, Eric, you raised your hand. Look at that. I think you did. Eric, if you're talking, we can't hear you. Still can't hear you. Sorry, Eric. Maybe put something in the chat. Any other. Comments. So Charlie on the legislative thing, this is something that you're going to. Provide a link to all of us. To attend as we wish, just like a. The annual. Yeah, except for we have to serve our own breakfast because Barbara has refused to. That was not Barbara's responsibility. Oh, you're right. You're right. I'll talk to you. We'll see if we can get each of you an egg McMuffin or something. It's a good year to offer to, to provide breakfast because you only have to bread for yourself. Yeah. So, and, you know, I don't give them based on the response. I'm expecting we might have about 20 legislators. Which would be good given everything going on. Now, in terms of, of legislators, especially the new ones and the one on one meetings, will you invite the reps from their town to join you? Yeah, that's a really good idea. I'm like, yeah. I would have eventually thought of that. I'd like to think that. And of course there will be bacon and sausage, because all you have to do is bacon the legislators and you will ever saw such a crowd. Sorry about that. Yeah, we've also been typically inviting. You know, the town administrators and managers to so. I do all of that, Mike. Yeah. Jim. Is it possible to find out. Which representatives responded and which did not. And any that did not. Then. We can contact them, you know, if there are ours. To see if they're interested and get information or to find out why they didn't or just have a brief talk with them before the eighth. Yeah, you're representative responded. Jim. Okay. I think he might have because he told me that they were really good, but I think it would be helpful for everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Know that as well. Yeah. Like I said, I, you know, I only heard from half of them. But, you know, who knows how distracted they are. Right. You know, I think some of them may not be doing a lot of email. How about Bolton Huntington? I'm glad you invited them this year. I think we have invited them every year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah. So. Yeah. So. Yeah. So, Teresa would responded, but I didn't hear from Tom. Steve. Okay. We can give them a poke. Yeah. And yeah. Then Barbara, I didn't hear from that too. As in County senators, but. No, I don't think I ever have. You haven't. No. Okay. How about the senators? Charlie. Oh, sorry. Eric is bringing up an issue. Oh yeah. Yeah. The senators. Yeah, I heard from. You know, half of three of the six. Including the two new ones. And Eric is bringing up an issue about zoning regulations related to cannabis retail. Which is a good topic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that should be high on the list. Oh. Was that just upon Mike or was that a really a policy position? What'd you say? Just upon. Just upon. All right. All right. Yeah. So Mr. Chair, that's, I guess, I don't know. Okay. Thanks everyone. So we'll move to item seven chair executive director report. And I'll hand it over to you, Charlie. Yeah, just. A couple of quick items here really. I think I mentioned real briefly. We did put out and a request for qualifications. For. Racial equity consultants. Partners that we could. Contract with and kind of help us guide our work. And the, we initially. Had a deadline of Monday. Credit to Johnson Coney for properly predicting that they might need more time. We've sent it the deadline to the coming Monday. The 23rd. But we do have a handful of folks that are interested. And so looking forward to, we'll review those and review the. The qualifications with the executive committee at their December meeting. And hopefully pick a consultant or a consultant team. That will help us, you know, the next year or two. With racial equity work. And then. B is just a heads up. As, as we do about, you know, right around every Thanksgiving that the UPWP applications will be going out. For FY 22. So heads up on that. And. You know, I'm sure you're. I've gone around to just about all the select boards and city councils. I haven't. I don't know that I've brought this up in every meeting. But lots of them I have. But those conversations and credit to the staff. And you all representing your municipalities. I felt pretty good after all those conversations. With how our select boards and city councils are feeling about the services we're providing. So. Thank you. Thank you for the role you play in that. And thanks to the staff. For the work they're doing. Very, very little about me really about. Everybody else. So. And other than that, we're. You know, I think status quo in terms of operations and budget. Everything seems to be. Going okay. We're doing. You know, working remotely and things are progressing along. So any questions for me? Yes, sure. With regard to the. Racial equity stuff, is that going to work going to be done through the executive committee with staff? Or do you envision some kind of ad hoc committee. Of the commission working on that too. Yeah, that's a good question. And we're not even sure if it may end up being a separate. Group that we end up setting up. You know, just kind of an. Equity committee. That gives advice on that word. So. I'm kind of curious myself. I think, you know, I prefer that it be a little bit more open. There's. We have made some investment in a. Transportation equity committee that kind of has started up like. But more focused, I think. In the old North end and Burlington. But where they're getting some more diverse voices. There. And maybe that's something we can build upon. So the more county wide. But any suggestions you have about that? You know, I'm the other thing that keeps going through my mind is. There's a lot of organizations. Engaging more deeply in this work. I'm seven. I'm seven. I'm seven. I'm seven. I'm seven. I'm seven. I'm seven. I'm seven. I'm seven. I'm seven I'm seven. And scene this in this work. I'm seven and some of them are setting up advisory committees and things. Um, I'd like to. Duplicate efforts if we can. Yo.準備 and housing trust has a group or. CBOE has a group where, you know, I pick out two names of organizations that have. Yeah, maybe we combine forces in some of the work. Yeah, I was thinking too along the lines of how we actually integrated into planning work, you know, things like exclusionary zoning or, you know, the stuff that we work on with communities. How we can better address that, not just an outreach and participation, which is really important, but also in actually what our policy impacts are. Yep. So I was going to bring that up within VPA to I don't know if that is doing anything but yeah we did try to write our criteria for selecting a partner that it goes beyond the education and training that we look at policy organizational but also public policy. Okay. So, because I agree with you, Sharon, like we're not addressing systemic racism unless we get to those things. Right. And so that is an important criteria for me anyway, but there will be some group dynamics in this. Thanks. So on that note, Charlie, I believe we left it that the executive committee will review the applicants and help with the selection process. Right. And I mean, I don't know if I, I'll say that if anyone else is interested in listening to that and giving input, you're welcome to join us at the executive committee on December. What is it Charlie? December 2nd. Yeah, Wednesday, December 2nd 545 p.m. which is on the second page of your agenda if you're looking forward in writing. I was too slow to get there. Okay, anything else charlie is at it. No, that's all for me. Thank you. Okay. Next item is committee and liaison activities and reports. Those reports are in your packet. Does anyone have anything they want to say that's on a committee or about any of those reports. Okay. Then we'll move on to future agenda topics. Charlie, I'm looking at you. You want to. What I know we have is, is in January talking about the, the bill, I forget what he's called now. The municipal self-governance stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And then January is our typical year or meeting where we look at the mid-year adjustment. So we have had quite a few things get added to our plate in the last couple months. I credit to the municipalities and staff that have been working on those projects, but some new grants have come in. And so there's quite a few changes to our work program. So we'll have to do some juggling to see if we can make everything fit. Oh, and that little pesky 89 study is also, sorry, I'm blaming a lady, but it's really my fault is costing some more money. So it's going to cause us to kind of have to shift some things. I think we're keeping everything on the plate, but some timing may have to shift on some projects. We're probably going to want to also put on the agenda some discussion about the racial equity and where we're going to go with it to Sharon's point about, you know, how we're going to deal with that. Yeah. And I think probably not January, but February will probably have an 89 study update also. I think we'll get to the next stage by that point. Anybody have any other topics? Yeah, Jim, as always. On the agenda, it talks about new legislator introductions with a question mark. But I think at, depending on what our meeting is, we might have some feel on new legislation as well. Because the session will have in theory started. So I think that would be something good to just know what's in the pipeline and what we might want to react to so that we can begin to formulate like ad hoc committees and things again like we did last time for act 250. Yeah. Yeah, good, good point. I will tell you, I got pushed back from the legislators about the that date. And you can see the executive committee, we're having some conversation like, oh, maybe that would be a good time to have new legislators just meet the RPC and come to our board meeting. Well, that's the night of the Biden's inauguration. So apparently, apparently, people are going to be distracted with other things. So you can everybody's going to be here though, right? Like, we don't need to change the date or anything. Okay. I'm withholding a comment so. Okay, anything else on the future agenda topics. Yeah, if I could, in the discussion that we had regarding the sort of local control issue for January, it would be great to have both sides of that coin represented. I like I said my time with state government I, I probably understand the belief that that's not the best of ideas perspective more than I understand the local perspective. I'm not one that would want to speak to that I don't know it that deeply. We're going to have sort of an understanding of a topic, especially one that have two sides it would be nice if we don't just get one side in that presentation that we actually get both of them. So that from what that's worth that would be my suggestion if we're going to have a sort of a show and tell about that particular topic, just so we have a full understanding because there's always two sides to every coin. And so Burlington made it Townsend as one of our reps I trust she's still doing the government operations, but I think she'd have a keen perspective on it that I would find it more. I believe rep Townsend is now on house appropriations. I don't think she's on government. Paper right. So, it is a new session all have to figure it out. I'll sign on them out and maybe they can put us in touch with the head of government operations who would probably have I would think a good person oh six may not be a great idea. Repel excuse me repel Colston of Wilson is on the government committee Chittenden County so that's another option. He's he's Winooski and he, I'm not sure if we're looking for the other side as john suggested how was also in the city council and was supportive was supportive of this. So, yeah, I mean, I think if you want to get someone who's got a differing opinion on it. You might try someone else. I mean I can talk to how to and find out where he stands on it but I think I know. Also rep Ganon is the vice chair of the committee and he's kind of the dean of changes. I don't know. I don't know where he stands on it at all, but he is very highly regarded in the subject of charter changes. Okay, anything else. Okay, hearing nothing we have members items or other business. Any other business. It looks like we want to get out of here by seven o'clock so hearing no other business. I'm looking for a motion to adjourn or move. Second. Anyone not in favor of adjourning. Hearing nothing I guess we're adjourned thanks everybody. Thank you. Thank you. A couple of months. Thank you. Enjoy your Thanksgiving. Yes. Thank you.