 So Senate government operations, it is Tuesday, February 23rd, and we are looking at a couple issues today, and our schedule looks a little wonky, but it has to do with the availability of our legislative council. So at 1.30, we're going to look through the cannabis bill, which is S-25 and we do not have that bill in our committee. It's in judiciary. It got sent there, but there are some parts of it that they have asked us to look at. Then at 2 o'clock, we'll vote on S-15, which is the elections bill, and then at 2.15, we'll go back to cannabis, because 2 o'clock was the only time Amaran had to be able to meet with us around the elections bill, and then at 3 o'clock, we'll go to the municipal self-governance bill. Does that make sense? Okay. All right. So let us, Tucker, do you want to, Michelle walked us through the cannabis bill a little bit, and one of the, our main concern, I believe, is around the vote that has to take place, but if there are other issues in here that either VLCT or you see that deal with municipalities, and then we have an amendment by Senator Ron that we'll be looking at. She presented it to judiciary, but they asked us to also take a look at it. Then in our next iteration of this, on Thursday, we will look at just to run it by this committee. It'll go to finance, but it's a bill on municipal share in the revenue generated by the new industry. But that bill is just being put on the floor tomorrow, I believe. So any questions so far where we are? Okay. So, yes. Yes. Senator White, I would just like to say last night in the Hartford town meeting, informational meeting, the issue, and you'll be pleased to know who brought it up is Michael Hoyt, who's a candidate for the select board, raised the frustration of municipalities not being able to benefit at all from the sale of cannabis in their towns. Well, I think that the answer to that is that they need to get to their house members. That's... I would agree. But we will get... Anyway, he could have dedicated that moment to you. All right. So, Gwen Tucker, do you wanna, are there, first of all, are there other issues in here in the municipal, in the bill that the municipalities would like us to address or that Tucker, you have some concerns about? Well, I will go first to Gwen, I guess. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is Gwen Zach of VLCT. So I, it's been a bit a few weeks since I testified on this, I believe. So I think the issues we brought up still stand that we kind of, the two issues that are of concern for us are obviously the mandate to have a vote by a date certain that's just right around the corner. And we oppose that. And we also have concerns with the language that towns have to vote on for ballot. And it's like for the language that they'd be mandated to use on a ballot for opting in. So I don't know if you want me to go into more details about why we oppose those two things. I can, I'd be happy to, or just let it stand. Can I ask a question? First, are you opposed to the idea that towns have to have a vote by a date certain? Cause that's the way we did it with alcohol. Or are you opposed to the date that's listed in here? Both, but I think the reality is, and this is kind of how we're looking at it, is that we don't, we don't know what the rules and regulations are gonna look like right now, right? So we have a very, very basic understanding of what towns and cities can do and then what rules they'll have to abide by once rules are set up at state level. And so towns are feeling like they can't make educated decisions and opt in votes if they're forced to by a date certain, even with date in 2022 seems pretty quick. So that's one concern. The other concern is that, the amount of licenses that would be going out for actual retail establishments, if you look at other states and how many retail establishments they have in certain regions, it's not huge, especially the highly regulated ones, like Massachusetts would be a good one to look at where you're not seeing a cannabis establishment in every town or every city. And so I think if you look at the reality of where retail establishments will most likely be operating, you're looking at more urban areas. I think we can all guess, Bennington, Brattleboro, maybe Barry Montpelier, Burlington area, if you have more, probably in Chittenden County and elsewhere. So we have those ones that are the obvious contenders. The interesting thing that's happening is that we're getting a lot of calls from smaller communities, not really small communities, but we're also getting calls from really small communities that are asking things like, hey, is there a possibility that we can do cannabis in our general store? We only have a general store. And our response is we don't know. We don't know what the state rules are gonna look like. We don't know how they're going to divvy things up. We don't know if it's gonna look like a department of liquor kind of structure or if they're gonna allow for incorporation of different things in an operation. So we just don't know. So I would tell those communities that would be less likely to host operations if those sorts of mom and pop smaller operations weren't going to be located there to hold off, to hold off until you figure out what the rules Chromogated will look like. And so, the Middleburys, the Burlington, the Brattle Burys, all of those that wanna get ahead of the game that have more professionalized staff to update their zoning, get their ordinances in order, figure out how they wanna set up their local cannabis control board by all means. They are doing it and they're going to continue to do it. And just the natural timing of things and how the state's going to be issuing their licenses after they go through the application processes. We're looking at months, if not years, before things start rolling. So I feel like even picking a date certain, even if we're rolling into 2023 or 2024, it's so artificial and it's not necessarily beneficial because we're already seeing about 20 to 30, probably even more because a lot of towns are now delaying their town votes until May. So, and as you know, the vote has to be done by Australian ballots. So these are very straightforward votes and they don't have a lot of time to, A, figure out what's up and down right now and, B, educate their voters and, C, we're already having confusion over what kind of operations would be allowed in certain communities. We were listening into the conversations in House Judiciary last week on this spell and the conversations about integrated licenses, which I found fascinating because how the conversations were going in that committee were actually diametrically opposed to the legal opinions we've been giving our community since September as we've interpreted S54. So that leads me into my second issue, which is the language that's being specified for the opt-in ballot measures. I think we've already decided that language is not. Perfect, okay, great, that's wonderful because what we wanted just to say on record is that if there was any language just make it really simple because the communities are not concerned about licenses. They're just considered about the type of operations that are gonna be operating. The state's gonna, they can call whatever, license, whatever they wanna call it, but at the local level, all they really have control over is retail. So just leave it at that. Yep. Do you wanna host retail? Great, and if you're one of those five communities that has a dispensary that might have integrated licenses to be issued, it's already rolled into that. That's at least our opinion is that it would already be rolled into it because you would have your retail license to go and they've already voted on, yes, we want retail or no, we don't want retail. So I think that covers our concerns and I'd be happy to answer any questions. So just in terms of, I'm gonna weigh in here just because I spent a lot of time on this bill as you probably all know. And the concern is that if there isn't a date certain retailers won't have any idea where they can set up a retail shop. They won't know if they can set one up in Putney, if Putney never has a vote. And so that impedes their ability to do business. And I don't know why for a small town they would hold off because if they voted yes, if they vote no, then it's just over. If they vote yes, and they only have a general store there are, they still may not be able to set one up there. And that's gonna be the business plan of the retailer not the town. If it says that they have to have a closed off section and I don't remember that this is in S54. I know we talked about it, but there can't be anyone under 21 allowed into the retail section. So they would, if they just have a general store they'd have to have a whole separate section over there that did that. And that would be the business plan of the retailer to say, well, I sure can't make a living in this little town, in this general store. So they're not going to do it. But I don't, so I don't see that holding off until you get all the rules is, because the rules are gonna apply mainly to the retailer and their business plan, but that's, those are the reasons that we put a date circuit and the date circuit might not be the right one at this point. They will start taking applications in January of 2022 if we stay on schedule. And there will be no proposals before April 1st. Anyway, so Tucker, oh, and then Senator Colmar. One of the questions that I have had since this language started being discussed in your committee and as this has been moved back and forth is whether this ballot question can be raised by petition because this language is addressing the issue of prohibition by omission. The legislative body never puts it on the ballot. Therefore, it's prohibited in the municipality. The legislative body has a tool to prevent cannabis retail establishments from ever operating in the town, right? But the language does not limit this to a proposal from the legislative body. It states that the municipality has to vote, which means a townwide vote. My question is, can the voters petition at any time and push the select board to put this on the ballot? I would say yes. Yeah, that's been our legal opinion through the league is that whenever there's a, even if it's not specified in statute, if there is a power that's given to voters, right? And it doesn't necessarily enumerate that it has to be done in a certain manner, that overall petition authority is automatically applicable. So just assume if it's silent in the law, that if you get the proper amount of signatures, you have to get it on the ballot. So that's been our opinion since day one. Senator Calmer, did you have? I did, and thank you Madam Chair. So Gwen, I'm just curious whether the league has any issue or concern about on page three, line four. In essence, it says a rescission of the permission to operate shall not apply to someone that's already operating, basically. So in other words, a community would vote to go ahead with a retail operation. Someone would open up and then at some point down the road, I don't know how quickly or long it would take. There might be considerable pushback that says, geez, maybe this wasn't such a good idea. We should take another vote and then we'll vote. We should take another vote and they do and they vote not to have it anymore. But that particular business seems to be exempt and could continue to operate forever. Is that an issue? That's in S54. I mean, so there's that grandfathering provision which also is kind of why we're telling towns, like if you don't get a petition and you're really uncertain about it and your community's having really like, you know, robust conversations, hold it off and either, you know, to next year, maybe if you really want to deal with it this year, maybe do, you know, we're in a special meeting. That's not that difficult to do. You know, there's ways of going about it, but if you don't know what's coming down your way and you can't make an educated guess, if there is a license that, you know, if the state issues a license, they've issued the license. You're now, you know, they're now going to be able to be, you know, in your community if you've had that vote. If you, and then, I mean, I guess there might be a way to not get it if you at the local level, when you have the local cannabis control board issuing their local permitting, but even then you're going by the state regulation. So who knows what those laws, you know, what those rules will say in terms of what powers the local control board would have. So we're just assuming, you know, better be safe than sorry if you really do have concerns. Cause again, I said this a couple of weeks ago, there are communities that are throwing caution to the wind and are saying, we don't care what the repercussions are positive negative, you know, in between, we're ready to go. We just think that this is an issue that we're willing to deal with. And there's a lot that are on the opposite side of the spectrum. And there's a whole ton of towns and cities that are right in the middle that are trying to figure out what's up and what down. And when you have the grandfathering provision, which we don't have a problem with that, which makes sense. It's not fair to an applicant to say, here, you know, here's your license. And then, you know, then you take it back from them. But at the same time, you have to give local communities the ability to make educated decisions for themselves. Otherwise, why give them the decision anyways? Because it's under duress and without information. So I think that there's a lot of the same kind of fear that we saw here when we passed the dispensary bill that there's gonna be massive crime around the retail stores. And there's gonna be kids laying in the streets. And I think that there's a lot of fear around this. And as with liquor licenses, the towns have the ability to not issue a liquor license if there has been a lot of fighting or a lot of selling to underage kids or things like that. And the same thing would be true here. It isn't that you're, there are issues, they have to abide by certain rules and those. So if they find out that the retailer is letting in kids and is somehow finding products that are appealing to kids or that are not allowed under the marketing, under the scheme in Vermont and they're doing that, that's illegal. So they could be shut down then. So, but I don't know, other than those kinds of things, I don't know what the repercussions would be. Well, I think a lot of the repercussions are that there's no guaranteed source of local taxes. And that's a bigger concern for municipal officials, less so maybe for the public because they're the ones that are having to deal with the local impacts. I think, and this is just my own personal opinion is that like I live in Brookfield, Randolph is having very robust conversations on our front porch forum about this. And nine times out of 10, it's about the impacts on the youth community and youth access and those sorts of things. And I'm sure there's other issues out there that people are concerned about, the ones that you mentioned included. But I think the bigger thing here is that this is an opportunity for public education and for public outreach and for public knowledge. And one of the biggest, biggest, biggest frustrating things that we have on our end is when we are asking, when locals are talking to their select boards or city councils and then the city councils are asking us or their town and city attorneys, what's going on? And our answer is, that's our answer, we don't know. And that's part of the problem is that you're not, we just don't have the information to give them to make them feel okay, to make them feel like they're making the right decision or an educated decision at a very minimum. So I don't know, again, I don't know what the answer is here. I think that a mandate is kind of, I don't know why expediting a date certain would be a good thing necessarily if we're already having, let's say even half of the towns that are having a go out to ballot this town meeting are in the affirmative. Let's just assume 15 towns approve it. That's 15 towns, that's a lot of towns. You look at how many licenses are in Massachusetts. That's like on par or above pace of what they have. So if you are adding more to that, it's at least done in a way where it's measured and it's happening organically and it doesn't matter what kind of things going on in a local community, they're always looking at their neighbors and borrowing from what they're doing. So they're gonna learn, Middlebury approves it, which are almost 100% of sure is gonna happen. They're gonna have other communities near Addison County saying, okay, what are they doing in their zoning? What are they doing in their local conversations? What kind of public hearings are they doing? What kind of informational pamphlets are they issuing? So I think it happens organically. So I think the mandate for a date certain just doesn't make sense. And if you were absolutely steadfast in having one and putting one in statute, 2023 seems the earliest that makes sense because 2022 is when things really start rocking and rolling and the rules are will be known and the first communities will be getting those applications for licensure after this year's pool of town's vote to opt in and it'll happen in a manner where within three years even thereafter, you'll know what's going on in communities. We'll know what the landscape looks like. So I'm gonna call in Senator Clarkson in just one second here, but I wanna say that this mandated drop dead date was a compromise for opt out because originally the Senate wanted opt out and the league opposed opt out and the house went with the league's position of opt in. This was a compromise and I don't think it would allowing it to just be an opt in forever and ever and ever. I don't think we'll pass the Senate judiciary committee. I wouldn't support it. The other thing is is that just because a town votes opt in does not mean that they'll ever have a store there because if the town of Dumberston opts in, my guess is there's nobody's gonna set up a retail shop in Dumberston because there's no Dumberston center. There's no retail kind of space in Dumberston. So just because they opt in does not mean they'll have anybody there. You are on mute and then I'm gonna- Yes, I would just flip that then and say, well, if you're a very certain Dumberston's not gonna host then why make them vote in the first place? It seems to me that- Because at some point somebody may decide some enterprising person may decide that putting one at the Senoko station makes sense and they should have the right to do that if they can prove their business plan and get a license. But anyway, and I don't know what all those towns are that may or may not have one. So Senator Clarkson. Yeah, I have to agree with Gwen. I think this is the cart before the horse. I mean, we have so many unknowns about this, about how this is gonna, and I don't think it's certain that this session will end without towns maybe having a recourse on income and revenue from a tax of some variety on, you know, and that would affect, and that would have a huge impact on a vote. So I think the vote is the cart before the horse. Too many unknowns are still unsettled until you don't wanna vote on something until you know fully what it looks like. And so I would agree with the league on this one. I would get rid of a mandated time and I'd also love to have us. I don't know whose job it is to revisit the town's ability to add a sales tax on this, but is it finance that would do that? We do not wanna have the town's add a sales tax on this. That would be completely contrary to- So whatever, however the municipality could benefit needs to be addressed in some fashion. That's the bill that I have. Right. And who's taking that on? Well, finance will, because it's a tax. Okay. Okay. And is that being taken up in conjunction with our work on this S-25? No. Could they attach it to S-25? If they wanna do, they can, I suppose. Yeah. Okay. But on the day, on the voting date, I think this is putting the cart before the horse. All right. The option is to have an opt out, to have towns opt out. So the presumption would be that if they don't vote to opt out, they are in. That's the... Anyway, we have Amron with us for just a few minutes, I believe. Is that true, Amron? I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I had taken off my headset for a moment. I think we have you for just a few minutes. You know, my last business was running ahead of schedule. So you have me for more than a few minutes. Oh, how excited. I am gonna suggest though, so that we can get this done before we lose you. That we go to S-15 and do a vote on that. So if you want to... And it was posted, the final document. And I think there were just a few changes that we had talked about. One was there were some technical changes. And then the major change, I think, if I'm right, was the addition of the report to come back around translation services. Yes, that was the one added section. So, committee, where are we then with this bill, S-15? And I do apologize and I sent it out right away to because I said S-51, I had just trans the numbers. It's okay, you called it quickly and we all knew by the end of the weekend that about before the weekend started was S-15. So are there any other... Are we looking at S-15 1.1? What? Yes. 1.1, okay, so make sure I do it. I have marked in yellow highlight, well, you have your reader headers are in yellow highlight and then any other text that's highlighted in yellow is a change from what you saw on Friday in response to requests for revisions by the committee. And the reason it is the graph was 1.2 and this is 1.1 because this is actually attached to a bill number now, S-15. The other one was just a draft. So we had, so this is the version 1.1 of S-15. Anybody have any questions, comments, concerns? Would it be helpful for me to point out the changes that I mean? Sure, it should be pretty fast. Yeah, because I just see sections with different names. That's all so far. So the, for the record, Amra and Amber J. Lee Legislative Council, you are looking at draft 1.1 of S-15. This is now a strike all that removed all the previous language of S-15 and replaced it with all of the elections bill language that you have been looking at in drafting request 2-1-0081 that you saw last Friday. The headers are highlighted just for ease of reading, but anything that is not highlighted has not changed. So I'm going to scroll down to page, page nine. This is in section six around early or absentee voting in the town clerk's office, subdivision C at the bottom of the page. It was pointed out that elsewhere in the bill, it said that boards of civil authority vote about whether to have the vote tabulator available in the clerk's office. So we added that in here that an individual who is voting in person in the clerk's office will be able to put their ballot into the vote tabulator or ballot box if the board of civil authority has permitted those to be out. So now I'm scrolling down to page, page 12 on page 34. This language used to say if a voter registers to vote for the first time in Vermont following the mailing to all active voters. And we changed the wording to the time when the secretary of state's office generated the address file to be used for the mailing of ballots. Because that is more accurate than simply saying the mailing. It's more accurate, it's a little less, a little more clunky, but anyway. Then I'm scrolling down to page 15. The provision of secure ballot drop boxes in subsection C drop boxes must allow for the return of ballots by voters at any time of day and must be available for the return of ballots not later than 43 days before. This used to say 45 and for consistency with other provisions in the bill. This has been adjusted to 43 days. Moving down to page 17. There was a discussion on Friday about what if there is not suitable municipal property for the location of a secure drop box, particularly where there's districts. So this sentence has been added to allow that an alternative location may be used with the approval of the secretary of state's office. Good. Scrolling down to... On page 19, actually, I did not put a highlight because I just removed something. May I just act before we leave that section? Yes. So really, do we have to go all the way to the secretary of state's office for that? Couldn't that just be the select board to approve it? I mean, the location of a drop box? I mean, really, do we have to go all the way to this? It does seem that it's a little... Will. I think they have to come to us, Senator Clarkson, for us to purchase the drop box for them. So that communication's gonna already be happening between our office and those municipalities. And so it would just be in the process of them telling me how many they need, also telling us, hey, this one's not gonna be located on municipal property because there isn't any available in this district and here's where we're gonna put it. I thought it was a good idea to have our office just know when that's happening. I also think it's gonna be really rare, Senator Clarkson, this only applies to a few towns or this would be the case. No, I couldn't think of a couple action. All of us can, I'm sure I think some in our districts. Senator Collmar. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm gonna agree with Will. I think Senator Clarkson also provides a bit of consistency in terms of someone making the decision. And I think if you're gonna do that, the only place to do that with a statewide reference is the secretary of state. I actually think that Will is right there. Gonna be very few and I brought up the example of Brattleboro. I think that there are three districts in Brattleboro but when I think about it, there are municipal owned properties in each of those three districts. Because there's a fire station and there's the town clerk's office and there's a police station so I think that there are gonna be very few of those instances. Okay, as long as Will's willing to thank him. I appreciate it. Okay. Yes, we are. Emron. Down on page 19, this is the section that's dealing with notification of defective ballots. There was discussion about the standard being that a postcard is mailed. And previously there was a subdivision, Romanette number four that I have removed. That was where it said that clerk shall use reasonable efforts within those five days and per the committee's direction I have removed to that section. So the section that said alternatively, they could do something else. Okay, good. On page 20, two changes. The first one, a small one we added in the phrase if possible from a different political party as that is more consistent with the title as a whole or the chapter. And then also per the direction of the committee we added sort of back in that concept of using a that a ballot shall be treated as a provisional ballot. If a first time voter who registered by mail or online does not have the proper identification. We included that. And Senator Clarkson. So I'm always puzzled a little bit by provisional ballots. I mean, so are they like not included in the, are they held aside? How do we, are they only counted once we've confirmed the identity of somebody? I mean, how are they provisional? I mean, and what if they're the vote that makes the difference? You, we all have, you know we all know about all the races that are decided by one vote. What does it mean to be a provisional ballot in terms of its integration into the vote camp? Will, are you with us, Will? I think you just froze. Can you hear me? Yeah. We can hear you now. You were frozen for a while. You were frozen. I'll kill my video because it might help, okay? Okay. Oh my gosh. This broadband bill faster and faster we need to get it done. Okay. Will. Now, can you hear me? Is that better? Yeah. Yes. We can hear you. Can you hear me? So I'll try and be quick. Provisional ballot is not included in the count on the night of the election. Then it requires a contact from that clerk to our office the next day to determine whether it will be counted on their official return of votes. And in this case, Senator Clarkson, it would be has the person submitted their documentation in time to include it in the official count 48 hours later. So may I just clarify and forgive me? I know I should know this serving on this committee but are all same day voter registrants all on cast provisional ballots? No. No. Okay. Okay. Thanks. I was thinking, oh my God. That is a huge disadvantage. Yeah. Right. This is a very small universe of ones that applied online or by mail and didn't include a copy of their identification. With the way you have this bill structured now with the new system where the ballots are all being reviewed within 72 hours it's gonna even reduce the possibility of these that much further because they're only ones that arrive on election they are the day before and don't have that information. Great. Thanks. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Moving on. Moving on. The next change is beginning on page 26. I did not highlight all of them but we added in the word secure to secure ballot box. So there are several of those over the next couple of pages I did not highlight all of those. Continuing scrolling down to page 29. This is when a ballot has been deemed effective and the voter has been notified the voter may cure the defect until the closing of the polls on election day by either and then you have subdivision A at the bottom of page 28 and then subdivision B on page 29. We added in the phrase provided the new ballot is received at the clerk's office or at the polling place prior to the closing of the polls to make it clear that someone can request a new ballot be mailed to them but that alone does not give them the right to cure their ballot. The new ballot does need to still be received by election day. Say that again, as long as the old ballot is... Say that again. Certainly, the voter may cure the defect by requesting a new ballot be mailed to them by the clerk along with materials for submitting the new ballot but the new ballot still needs to be received at the clerk's office or at the polling place prior to the close of the election. Why would you put at the clerk's office there because many of the polling places aren't at the clerk's office and we'll have the same problem with them bringing it to the clerk's office at seven o'clock? So this doesn't say on election day, this... We were trying to add the explicit right. So this is for anyone who wants to have their ballot mailed or their replacement ballot mailed to them. It could be in the day. It could be 10 days before the election. It could be the day of the election. If it's the day of the election then they have to bring it to the polling place. If it's before that. So this is consistent with everything else that's in the rest of the bill. Got it. It's so complicated, it's hard to say it succinctly in a way that people will read and understand but... I got that. The closest we got, yeah. All right, moving on. We're going all the way down to page 33 which is the edition of section 20 for a report from the Secretary of State's office. The Secretary of State's office shall consult with municipalities and interested stakeholders on best practices for increasing access to voting for non-English speaking Vermonters and Vermonters with limited English proficiency and provide recommendations to the Senate and House committees on government operations on or before January 15th, 2022. And those are all of the changes. Perfect, great. Are you ready for a motion? I am. I would move that we adopt S15 draft 1.1 and that we move it out favorably. No, first we have to... Oh, we have to... Accept the draft? To accept the changes to the amendments to S15. Oh, yes, because it's a strike all, right. I would move that we accept the amendments to S15 in the draft. Oh, okay. That's right. All right. Senator Rom, would you call the roll? Yes, I was just writing down the draft number. Okay. Senator Collamore? Yes. Senator Clarkson? Yes. Oops, so I haven't done this in a while. I'm gonna put this in the second column area on vote on amendments where Senator Collamore might not be. Yes, so I will see what I need to do. Senator Collamore, yes. Senator Clarkson? Yes. Senator Polina? Yes. Myself, yes. Senator White, Chairwoman White. Yes. Can I... Gail, did you have a question? No, I do have a comment though, and that is that the new rules this year for records of action is they request that we do a separate form for each of the iterations of the bill. Oh, that is so frustrating. I'm sorry, as a former clerk that makes no sense. Okay, but we'll do what we're told for today, okay? Oh, you're so good. So now does somebody want to move that we report favorably? I would move that we report favorably. S15 in draft 1.1 of... As amended. As amended with draft 1.1. Okay, just given that we're doing what we're told, I need to print out a new form. So just give me one second while you're voting. And I'd be glad to restate the motion. Yes, I think that you don't have to say draft 1.1 because we've already amended it with draft 1.1. Now we are just reporting favorably. I would move that we report favorably on S15. As amended. As amended. Thank you. It's our pleasure. You'd think as former clerk, I would remember all that. I just remember. So really on this, on this record of action, there's not a lot of... I don't have to put the reporter, et cetera, Gail. I just do that. I just put... I'm just going to go get the other form. Okay. That would be my understanding. Okay. They've made it really confusing, frankly. Yeah. They have... We may have been put on this. Okay. All right. Well, I can fill out the rest as we go, but I can be ready to take the vote now. So this, we don't need to say anything about a draft on this one. This is now being as amended. As amended. Moving out favorably supporting S15 as amended. Okay. I'm going to take the roll if you are Madam Chair. Yes. Okay. Senator Coulomour. No. Senator Clarkson. Yes. Senator Polina. Yes. Myself, Senator Rom. Yes. Chairwoman White. Yes. Okay. I'm not as a 410 vote to pass S15 as amended. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Unless anybody is... Excuse me. Yes. And you are going to be our reporter, Senator White. I was just going to say, I would love to report it unless anybody has a burning desire to do so. And in that case. And even if we did, would we stand in the way of our beloved chair? If you had a burning desire, I would stand aside. If you had a burning desire to do so, would you have a burning desire to do so? I'm just thinking of Johnny Cash on the Senate floor with a burning desire of Senator White. You mean the ring of fire? And the ring of fire. Yeah. But I can see us redoing that for, okay. Burning desire. All right. Can I ask a question? There is a section for amendment sponsor. Should I put the four of us besides Senator Coulomour as amendment sponsor? No. Okay. Yeah. I don't know if you have that. This is. We as a committee did a strike all. And, and, and so it's. The committee did the strike all. But yeah. Okay. I don't know. I'm just asking. I'll let John Bloomer yell at us later. Okay. That's okay. The form needs some work. Okay. Should you and I can work on this. Okay. All right. Done. Thank you. Well done. Thank you. Thank you. And, um, Amron, you did a spectacular job for your very first, very complicated. Um, long. Bill that started with nothing and ended up in something. So. Thank you. Is that, is this in fact your first poll. Out the door bill. Uh, no, it is the longest one I've done so far. Right. So far. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And it was pretty. Could be considered a convoluted way, but. So thank you. All right. Let's go back to cannabis. Thank you, Will Chris. Thanks committee. The connection, of course, is elections. All right. So we are Michelle. We've been having a discussion here about. What's going on. Hi, Michelle. Up in out. Provision and VLCT. Opposes having a. Well, if we're going to do it, they oppose the language and would like that changed. And if, but they do not support having a drop dead date at all. So we're kind of in the middle of discussing that. That we needed to do. I was a senator. Rom has a. An amendment and. Let's see. That's three at three o'clock. Are we scheduled to go. To the. Senator Rom, why don't you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just wanted to. Introduce your talk about your amendment first. So we can just get that in the mix. That would be great. And madam chair. I'm supposed to go to Senate education around three after their joint hearing to present something. So. Okay. Letting me say that. Senator White. So sorry. Maybe this is more confusing. I'm actually in another committee all afternoon. I just popped in because they're on break. I just. I don't know if there's any questions or anything I could help with. That might have come up in the earlier discussion. And I'll circle back around with you this afternoon to make sure I, I catch up on everything that you discussed and see what I could do. So. Sorry. Sorry. And then take off, but. They were taking a 10 minute break. So I thought I'd see how it's going over here. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. If we have questions and I. I'm not sure if Tucker is going to be with us or not. I think he's also moving back and forth. And it's that time of the year. So thank you. I will, I'll stay on and then I'll have Evan email me when judiciary is back so I can flip over. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. So Senator Ron, do you want to present to us your amendment? Sure. And I can work with Gail to have it transferred over to the Senate. I don't know if it's on our record, but the language is on. Judiciary list of testimony from February 16th in case that's helpful to anyone. And it has not been introduced. You know, publicly as a, with a bill number or anything, it was, I gave a heads up to Senator Sears. I was interested in this and he asked me to testify. And since then, you know, it's been a long time since I've been here. So I'm going to go back from the social justice advocacy groups named in the legislation. And I'll, I'll get into that later because they would like to see another sort of grant manager in state government. So the idea of this behind this amendment is that it would take. Well, I'll start with the big picture. You know, as many folks know and have experienced themselves in the last couple of years, I've been a part of a mod Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. A lot of our communities began having really serious conversations about what public safety and policing looks like in the 21st century in a multicultural community in light of what has been transpiring and what's been happening. Many of those communities have been having those conversations. They've had a lot of, you know, they've had a lot of, you know, they've had a lot of tears without a lot of resources to help them, to help guide them when they have come up with needs to, you know, resource people to have that conversation such as stipends for people to participate in conversations about the future of policing or to have a professional facilitator, because these conversations can be very emotionally charged. They then are running up against municipalities that are quite concerned about the health care pandemic that we're in. And so, you know, my idea was to start with a number at 20% of the cannabis taxes, going to small grants for local government to be able to have meaningful conversations and processes around changes they might like to make of how they engage in policing and public safety in their communities. And that those small grants be distributed via a state entity that works with migrant justice, the NAACP and the Racial Justice Alliance to help determine what is an eligible, an eligible application from a municipality. That entity right now that's named in this, in this legislation is the criminal justice council. The advocacy groups would like to see another entity that might be the sort of manager of the funds. And of course the 20% is very much a starting place. I know that I believe the Senate from following as a non-Senator last year, you know, would rather see that money go to the general fund and be used for general purposes, regardless of, you know, sort of that sentiment from last year. I would just say I have been talking to many communities, not just in Chittenden County, although I can think of examples like Richmond, Williston, Hartford, Virgins, Rutland, you know, Newport all over the place, there are individuals who want to have these conversations and they want to send or send to BIPOC residents in their community, but that really takes resources to do that right and not to further harm or deplete BIPOC remonters. And really so that officers, stakeholders, civilians can come to the table and have a meaningful conversation. You need resources to do that well. So that's the thrust of the legislation. And I'll be happy to take any questions. Are there any committee questions? I have some thoughts, but I want to hear from the committee first. Senator Coulmar. Thank you, Madam Chair. So Senator Rom, what, when you said 20%, what are you thinking the total might be? And what does 20% of that represent exactly? I believe there's some number in S-25. It already says 25, 20%, or it has percentages for revenues up to $10 million or something like that. I mean, you know, if it was, I'm going to say to you now on the record, if it was 5%, I think that would still be a really meaningful amount of money. You know, if it was $100,000 to $2 million, sorry about my dog, you know, that these could be very small grants that just supplement these kinds of conversations, help them pay for stipends or interpreters, even in Burlington, there's been documents released as part of the effort where they are, they have hired someone to go into the police department and start to look at reforms and changes. And when he started coming out with his materials, I said, this is great. Have you interpreted them into other languages? Because, you know, that is a real need to make sure you reach the populations most affected. And, you know, at that time they didn't have the resources or they hadn't committed the resources to interpretation. So, you know, it could be very small grants or it could be a large amount of money. I'm not contemplating, you know, needing more than $2 million for this kind of allocation. So it could be capped at a certain percentage. I know that we're looking at my sense from not being in the legislature for the beginnings of S20 of this conversation was that we're looking at a small amount of revenue at first, potentially to grow much larger. So I'm open to a cap, but I don't think it's a huge amount of money needed to support our community. Sorry. Sorry. I just like to look at the language is I, it's not posted. Where is it? I had mentioned it should be, it's on judiciary's page from February 16th. But I have to work with Gail. I, you know, I didn't sort of prepare to put it up on our website yet. And I apologize. No, it's okay. I just, I was trying. Yeah. Thank you. Michelle, did you want to add anything to what I had said about the. Well, I was just going to clarify for, for Brian. That's okay. So just the way that it works now is you have the 14% ex-Is tax on the retail sales of cannabis, and then you have the 6% sales tax. The 6% sales tax is designated for afterschool and summer programming. And then so you only are using the 14% ex-Is tax on the retail sales. 30% of that. Ex-Is tax is taken off the top for substance misuse. The 30 percent for substance misuse has the $10 million cap. Nothing else has a cap and then the 70 percent that's remaining goes into the general fund and so Senator Rahm's proposal would be that. So you have the 30 percent going to substance misuse and then you would have 20 percent going to what she is designated and so you would have 50 percent of the excise tax then going to the general fund. Then last year, JFO did do a lot of crunching the numbers with a range of what they expect the revenue to be coming in from that excise tax and I can say, I don't remember exactly what it was, but it's nothing approached $10 million cap. So I'll just say that it wasn't it wasn't a huge windfall. So thank you, Michelle. Sure. Any other questions or? Yeah, I just want to be clear. Kasia, you said that it would be the community that would be asking for the grant, not an organization, is it the town, the municipality? Right now it's flexible. I would imagine I didn't want to presuppose all the sort of parameters that someone under which someone could submit an application, but I would imagine that a stronger application would be a partnership between a community organization and the town with one or either submitting with a letter of support from the other. I did not get into that level of detail because I think there's a lot of possible combinations, including in really small towns where the town might not have as much capacity to hold the grant, but maybe they want to have a regional conversation in the Northeast Kingdom through the Northwest Kingdom collective. So you might not want to say it has to be municipalities. Right now the bill, the amendment calls for this happening through the Criminal Justice Council. Yes, and the advocacy groups who I had helping to make the decision around this wanted a different state entity. Would they be open to something like the Humanities Council, you think? I think they're open to a lot of things. I think this was a specific, I just want to make sure I share that, having talked to those groups, that was the one sticking point that they had right away, but otherwise were really in favor of continuing this conversation because they see the need as well. Right. Thanks. So I'm going to weigh in here. I actually do not support this amendment or in a form of a bill. First of all, I think that the I, I would have preferred not to specify earmark any of the revenue. I would have preferred to have 14 percent excise tax, 12 percent go to the state and 2 percent to the towns that are directly impacted by a retail or other establishment. So there is a connection there with what why, why they're getting it. The I, we did go along with the 30 percent to prevention and treatment because that's directly related to the issue of substance use and abuse. So we did go along with that and I did also. This is not this use is not directly related in any way to cannabis. And I fear that's what is happening is that there are. I can think of at least five, I think, suggestions right now from advocacy groups to tap into this new revenue source to your market for their, their particular. Interest, whether it's this or higher education, after school programs, daycares, subsidizing more. More reimbursements for parents for daycare. So there everybody wants a piece of this revenue. And my position is that it should go to the general fund and our appropriations committees are the most appropriate to decide where the where the need is. I don't necessarily disagree with a pot of money that could be used for this, although some of the language in there. Is Bob is troublesome to me because there's a sentence that says it communities that are transitioning away from policing would be getting priority. And I. I think that is. Transitioning funds transitioning funds away from policing. Well, okay, but. But I don't know that that's. I have a problem with that because I don't know that. That that is the answer in every community and in some communities where they're actually putting, for example, social workers into their police departments. They might be spending more money. By doing that. And so then they would not be eligible, but in any case. They would be eligible that wouldn't that wouldn't be seen as. That would be seen as transitioning funds away from policing as it is a method of public safety. But it's the police, but it is in the police department. There's a lot of language in here that I think. Is not clear and would be problematic for me. But my main concern is that I don't think that this money should be earmarked for special. Special needs. So that if the bill was presented in a different way that. Looked for another source of revenue. I might. Then I would then I would get into the language of the bill, but as it is, I, I can't support it. So that's just my. My two cents worth. Well, if I may madam chair, you know, I would just want to go on record disagreeing that the idea that. The war on drugs and the impact of criminalizing possession of marijuana among BIPOC communities is unrelated to the cannabis bill. And who's been most impacted by the illegal nature of cannabis in the past who's been incarcerated, who's been arrested by the police. And now what kinds of conditions they live in that make public safety look very different. For them and what policing means for them look very different. So, you know, I would just respectfully disagree that this is unrelated. Yeah, I do see that, but I don't think that this bill and I, maybe I don't remember the exact words of it is aimed only at communities where there are BIPOC. Populations. So if you had. That's not this is not this is talking about. Community. Policing the, the. How the community sees its need for policing. And that has that really doesn't. Relate just to BIPOC. Populations it's. I don't think it's related to that. I don't think it's related to that. But anyway, anyway, it does not. It relates. It's every community in Vermont would be. Well, they would be the three organizations that would help determine where the money goes are racial justice organizations. And I can't think of a community in Vermont. That's untouched by having someone incarcerated or arrested in their community. That's BIPOC. I don't. Maybe victory, you know, I'm not sure, but, you know, a majority of towns either have BIPOC residents or have not. I don't think it's related to that. I don't think it's related to that. Okay. Senator columnar. Thank you, Madam chair. I actually was going to. Read the actual language, but. Senator. I might have just answered it. So. If you look on page two of the proposed amendment. It just does say grants shall be prioritized for communities. Doesn't say. Any particular. Any particular community that has a disability or a disability needs to be reduced. I think it's a good idea. To reduce their police force or. Transition funding away from policing. So I took your point, Madam chair to mean. What you thought it did. There's no differentiation between communities in the language. And it isn't just funding. It's actually reducing the police force. It's either one, but. Yeah. So I don't. I don't know where we are. Well, we, it's the first time we've seen it. And so I would suggest we absorb it for. A bit. I had thought this was. I had thought that there was some move to, to actually have grants that were. Proactively into a disproportionately affected. By plot community in investing in. Cannabis cultivation and. And the opportunity to benefit to, to reduce the asset gap. With our by plot community. And actually. Grants that would go in. For me, a little bit more productively than this into. Into. Cannabis operation of some variety or cannabis retail or, you know. I thought there was a move for that. If you look at page. If you look at page five of S. 25. There is. That's where it is. The section on social equity. And there is. Setting up a low interest fund. To be available and judiciary is taking. More testimony on that. Section. Around. Setting some parameters around. What it means. And how it would be administered because what we've heard is that. Massachusetts and I believe it's Illinois. And maybe Michigan are used as the kind of. Gold standard for putting. Social equity in. In their bills. And in their laws. However, what we've heard. Is that the implementation of those were abysmal. And because the. While the law was good, the implementation was not. And what they've found is that there are many places where. People are corporations are setting up. A woman or a person of color as the. The owner. But they're just a titular. Head. They're not really there at all, but they're. They're being named so that they can. Have access to the funds and to the. Prioritizations and that there are. Places where people who are. Shall I say. May have. May have fit into the category of BIPOC or. Gender. Minorities are. Have qualified have gotten the. The loans are the priorities, but they are in no way. Have been individually impacted at all. They're very, they're wealthy people that are. Being given grants and interests. So the, we need to be really careful about setting parameters about what we mean. By. Marginalized and overly impacted disproportionately impacted. Communities so that we don't run into those same implementation. We've heard this. From everybody who's done research on. On Canada. This implementation across the country. So. Senator White, where, how are the, how are, how are those investments financed? Oh, I think I don't, I don't know specifically. They were different in different places. Some of them. Have just from the general fund. Set up a fund. Okay. Because I guess my interest is in. Could this be the vehicle for funding them? This amendment. Well. Conceivably, I mean, I'm just thinking of this. This, the excise tax is the, is the primary form of income. The revenue that the state's going to see out of this. So I guess. Is my question is in, in judiciary. Have you talked about the funding source? For those investments and might it be a piece of the excise tax? Is that what you're talking about? It might, it might be, but I don't think it's at this point. It isn't specified. It isn't earmarked. It would go to the. Appropriations committees and the appropriations committee would say. Of this. Of this pot of money that we have coming from everywhere. We're going to put this much into it. We're going to put this much into it. We're going to put this much into this loan fund or this much into this loan fund. And that that's a decision they would make as opposed to us earmarking. A percentage. And I feel very strongly that. That we need to allow the. Appropriations committees, the. The flexibility to determine when and where money is. Most appropriately. Committed. Looking at the entire picture instead of us just looking at one. One section and trying to put money there. Because, and this is. Well, this is. Anyway. Can I just add a couple of things? Senator Clarkson. I don't want my silence to also sort of be complicit in not mentioning that the racial justice alliance has an amendment. That they plan to introduce that further support. Grants for businesses that are BIPOC owned. I'm sure they've worked a lot on that language. And I support their effort as well. I think what the chairwoman is, is alluding to. Even if there weren't other issues that play. In the past. We've had a lot of, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of individuals, perhaps some who have been previously incarcerated because. Of marijuana or in some way impacted, but maybe others who have not been, but still benefit because they're BIPOC. Whereas there's been a larger community harm to many of our communities. Through the. Over incarceration of people related to marijuana. In the past. So, you know, this is more about the community harm rather than. It's a small amount of money should the larger amount of money grow. So. Senator Rom, if you'd be kind of to, to give us. To illustrate how you see at, you know, because I'm sure you've had an example in your head. To illustrate how this might. Productively help. It almost like restorative justice for a community. I mean, for me, this is like a restorative justice grant. Is that sort of how you're envisioning it and that a community. That this. So could you give us an illustration of how you see this productively. A affecting and changing a community conversation or a, I just like to see how you see this productively applied. Yeah, well, okay. So, I mean, let's take a community like virgins because they had a very public. Conversation around policing. That ended up causing a lot of harm as folks may or may not have seen in videos that have now gone out nationally. And so, you know, I believe the deputy police chief said something about, is this guy still talking while a local resident was sharing information about over, about who was being stopped and searched in, and we know virgins is a very major corridor for a lot of people from New York state. And often what people say, and I hear this from law enforcement all the time, right, because law enforcement needs the trust of the community to do their job well. Law enforcement will say we need to come to the table equally. It can't be people shouting at us from the streets and saying, you know, we need to change and we never get to, to share how we do our work and what it looks like to do our work. And the best way for those entities to come together as equals and sit at the same table and have this conversation is to have the resources to do that. Well, number one, you know, if you are appointing a group or you are asking community members to weigh in and to hear out the police and get more engaged in that way, you often need resources just so people have stipends to participate as, as equals. We've seen public hearings and other things where people can't attend because there's no resources for them to be able to participate in a community conversation. Two, you probably want to have some kind of facilitation to do, to have a strong public process. You want it to be managed, organized, well maintained our, you know, municipalities when they can often hire, you know, and consult with organizations to and get to manage their public process so that you can have a really equitable conversation. Finally, you might not pay people, but you might in the future post pandemic want to provide, you know, food, childcare, transportation, other in person supports and whether you're providing documents or you're reaching out to people, it may need to be in other languages. So you have a lot of other supports to make sure you have an equitable conversation. You have translators. I have to admit I have a little problem with paying people for public and civic engagement. I think that's their responsibility as a citizen to engage. Well, it might be, it might, the benefit might be childcare and a meal if you come to want to. Or it might be, but you might appoint a small group made up of stakeholders to keep meeting. And as, you know, you know, from other realms, you know, you know, you know, you know, there are not enough people of color in the state to, to keep asking them to participate in these processes. And I mean, people ask me all the time in any community. Do you know five people who live here? Who we could involve in this. And it's the same five people. I mean, I'm doing this right now with Montpelier, you know, and it's hard even for them to come up with a small amount of money. So, but I do think that that is the only way that we could be able to handle this, since this, The applications would come from the municipalities. And presumably in concert with a, with a local group, whatever that local group was, or just a group of people who were concerned. That if we, if we, in fact, gave. 2% of that. Exize tax to the municipalities. They wouldn't have to apply to any place to get the money. They would have some resources to be able to spend on those. So those communities who are interested would be able to use some of that new revenue that is flowing to them for this purpose. It's the same thing. I favor things that resource our municipalities generally and agree that and they are being asked to do more particularly in this realm without having the resources of Burlington to say hey here's but Burlington has now spent said here's $50,000 to try and have a community conversation around policing. You know that most municipalities can't do that. Senator Clarkson. So I guess I'm just such a Pollyanna or just not that I'm a Pollyanna, but I'm optimistic that that this bill and our work around cannabis and our work indeed in the future around legalizing drugs in this state will help cure this ill and this disparity. And I'm hoping we won't need this forever. And so I would be interested in entertaining this concept at a lower percent for a limited time because I don't see communities needing this forever. I see communities needing this for the next five, six years or whatever. But really I would want to see communities kickstart this kind of a conversation. I'd love to work on the language. I mean, I'm open to it at a smaller percent with a time limit and with more direction, I think, in terms of helping communities envision how they could use it, particularly communities that you might not think about. Why would you not just let them share in the revenue and then spend it? I would prefer that. I am absolutely support your belief that that the community should have two percent of the excise tax, but municipalities. You're not getting disagreement from me on this. If it propels on the table, I support that. No, I agree with that. And then the communities could spend it as they saw fit. And if we have that, I would think that we could add language about what we would hope they would make some of the things we might consider they might spend on. But I would absolutely support the two percent excise tax to municipalities that host these establishments. But to Keisha's amendment, I think it could do with a little bit of work. And I would limit it in time and I would limit it in percent. But these are just my first thoughts. We've only just seen us. So I think we should sit with it for a moment. Yeah, we have it on the agenda. We have cannabis on the agenda again on Thursday. Senator Colomar, did you have? Yeah, just to your point earlier, Madam Chair, it seems like you know me with analogies. S 25 could be the Christmas tree bill that rather than people adding ornaments to it, people are coming in and grabbing ornaments off it and wanting to take a little piece here and a little piece there until at some point there's not much left at all. And I I also support your view that I think the proper role and place for making decisions about that is the Appropriations Committee. And it just seems to make more sense to me. So let's imagine that one thing on the right. Yeah, you know, we know who our Appropriations Committee is now. You know, I don't always know what the values are with the Appropriations Committee 10 years from now or 20 years from now. I I I think if you have a value about wanting to write a wrong, you need to articulate how, you know, that and and put your money where your mouth is. And I think that, you know, yes, I have faith in our Appropriations Committees also, but but I think this is a a disparity and a wrong that we can help write in a very in a time frame and in with with some investment. And it doesn't need to be a large investment, but it kick starts important healing restorative justice. Senator Polina. And before you move on, I know you're ready for another topic. But I've been sitting here pretty quietly listening to all this. I just want to say a few things. Well, first of all, I agree with the 2% for local communities. I think that's that's a really good idea. And it should have been done that way from the beginning. I don't think there's any guarantee that communities would use it to have a conversation about race and racial discrimination. I think that's part of the problem with that. I also think that it would be pretty exciting if we could find a way to create a statewide conversation about, you know, racial justice, which sort of stems a little bit off of what Allison was saying about having a time frame and a smaller amount of money, but a time frame. Pardon my thinking, though, is that we don't even know when this money will start flowing, do we? I mean, that's right. You're saying I think we need to do something in the next year or two, not wait four years for the money to start building up. So I would be willing for us to consider ways. You know, this committee had something to do with hiring Susanna Davis and the racial racial justice office. And I think that we could play a role in sparring a conversation about racial justice around the state as well. I'm not sure exactly how yet, but I think it's worth us putting our more thinking into. Thank you. You know, there's a great advantage to going last. You know what I'm saying? Great. I think that there is no. I also think that I'm going to turn up, but I also think it's unfortunate that everybody is trying to glom onto this money from the marijuana sales from the cannabis sales. So that's how desperate we all are with different communities around the state, all different ideas and policies, groups that all want to glom onto this money when we should just be going into the general fund mostly. But I don't know how we're going to write that. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt you. No, that's OK. I think my my deal with that is just I'm going to resist every attempt to take any of this money other than into the general fund other than for the municipalities. I know that Senator Baruth really wants it all to go to higher education. I know there's that people wanted to go to increase childcare. I the loan fund for the workforce development. So there's a lot of people who have their eyes on this. And that's I'm going to regardless of who it is, I'm going to resist earmarking any of this money for anything except the 30 percent that's been earmarked for prevention and treatment and then the making sure that the towns get their share. So it's hard to avoid it. I just want to say watching an industry become legal and profitable and mostly benefit white people when it has led to the misery of so many black and brown people in this country is very hard to watch. It's very hard to watch for black and brown people. So it is absolutely an issue that's related to this bill. And I will stand by that. OK, so we are going to come back and if. And I will say that there is no no question that we have to continue to address the racial injustice in the state in many, many forms. So we will continue that conversation in lots of different forms. But and we will come back to this if anybody wants to work on changing some of the wording on this amendment or that that would be fine. And then we'll come back to the issue of the towns and whether opt in or opt out. And once that decision is made about whether there should be a drop dead date, then we can talk about the language. But it doesn't make sense for us to talk about the language unless we've made a decision about the drop dead date and the vote. Does that make sense? Yes. OK. So is it an appropriate moment for a break? We can have a five minute break and then we're going to come back and talk about municipal self governance. Right, we need to exercise. Yes. Or we need food.