 Let's switch gears to two more Senate bills and we have Tucker Anderson with us and welcome Tucker and thank you so much for sticking with us. I understand that they are consecutively numbered as 222 and 223. So I would love for you to orient us as to the status of 223. We currently have possession of 222. So I will turn the floor over to you to fill us in on the contents of these bills. Good afternoon, everyone. Tucker Anderson from the Office of Legislative Council. I'll start with the update on 223. According to the bill page, it has passed the Senate and has been messaged to the house as of today. So it should be sent over to tweet suite. Starting with S-222, you all should have a copy of it. And from what I understand, it's been posted on your committee information page. Large overview of this bill, it contains the open meeting law temporary provisions that you all passed as a component of Act 92 and a few other subsequent acts in 2020. That authority was tied to the declared state of emergency. And now that that authority has expired, the Senate determined it was appropriate to set up the temporary authority again, this time through the year 2022 and until January 15th, 2023. Walking you through the sections. The first section declares the legislative intent behind this temporary authority in particular that public bodies should be able to organize and hold open meetings in a manner that will protect the health and welfare of the public while providing access to the operations of government and that accordingly certain provisions of the open meeting law should be temporarily suspended under the terms of the bill. In section two, we have a few operative provisions that I'll give you the overview and walkthrough of. First, a temporary suspension of the designated physical location requirement of the open meeting law. This starts in subsection A, which not withstands one VSA section 312 sub A until January 15th, 2023. It would permit using the underlying open meeting law and this temporary suspension a quorum or more of the members of a public body to attend a meeting by electronic means without being physically present at a designated meeting location. It would suspend the requirement that the public body designate a physical meeting location where the public may attend. And third, that the members and staff of the public body shall not be required to be physically present at a designated meeting location. Those three requirements add up to temporary permission for a public body to hold an all electronic meeting without having a designated physical space. In subsection B, we have some requirements that are attached to these electronic meetings. There are three of them. When the public body meets electronically under the authority granted by this act, the public body shall first use technology that permits the attendance of the public through electronic means. Second, allow the public to access the meeting by telephone and third, post information that enables the public to directly access and participate in meetings electronically and include that information in the published agenda for each meeting. This language is slightly different from what was initially introduced as part of the state of emergency and that this requires that the posted information in the agenda give the public the ability to access the meeting directly. And this came as a result of some discussion about communities where their agenda would say we're meeting electronically, please call the town clerk for information on how you can access the meeting and then the town office close and people can't get their Zoom link and password. Subsection C, this is a record requirement that is built in to this temporary authority. It states that unless unusual circumstances make it impossible, the legislative body of each municipality and school board shall record its meetings that are held pursuant to this section, this temporary authority. Subsection D, until January 15th, 2023, in the event of a staffing shortage due to COVID-19, the public body is permitted to extend the time limit for the posting of minutes to not more than 10 days from the date of the meeting. So you have a contingency there. If there's a staffing shortage, then the public body can determine it as appropriate because of that shortage to publish the meetings, the minutes of their meeting, up to 10 days from the date of the meeting. Subsection E deals with the posting of notices and agendas under current general law municipalities are required to have designated physical locations where they post these notices and agendas. This subsection E would temporarily suspend that requirement until January 15th, 2023, and permit the municipal public body to post these agendas and notices in electronic locations in lieu of the physical location. On line 20, we have a very specific requirement that is built in for physical locations. A municipal public body shall post the notice or agenda in or near the clerk's office. And second shall provide a copy of each notice or agenda to the newspapers of general circulation for the municipality. The authority granted by this act shall expire on January 15th, 2023, some belt and suspenders, but making sure that this actually does expire on that date. And finally, this temporary authority will take effect on passage. And I hope you all appreciated my Australian shepherd chiming in the walkthrough. That certainly added a good flavor to that walkthrough. Thank you so much. Questions from committee members about the words on the page, representative Lefebvre. Thank you, Madam Chair. So some of my select boards in my towns that I get to represent have expressed to me that they have a very hard time with people having access to computers and electronics and even select board members themselves. And so again, I wanna just confirm this is permissive language and this is not a, just this permissive language correct? That is correct. Each component of this is permissive and public bodies would still be permitted to hold physical meetings in accordance with the open meeting law. Also, Mr. Anderson would, so my personal select board has three members. So a quorum is two. If two of us wanted to meet in person, one of us wanted to meet remotely, that's still okay. That is still okay. And that is permitted in the underlying open meeting law. Members are permitted to meet electronically. What's being lifted primarily here is the requirement that if a quorum or more does meet electronically, the law says that you have to have a physical location where the public can attend. And this is saying public bodies of the state, you don't have to do that. You can hold an all virtual, all electronic meeting where the public attends through those electronic means rather than at the physical location. One last question. Could I get an example of what an unusual circumstance would be to make it impossible for legislative body to record a meeting? This question came up when Act 92 was originally being discussed in committee and the one that came up over and over again would be some sort of systems outage because of a storm where your technology literally had no power. And in that case, you'd likely call the meeting off anyway but something that stops the recording equipment from being able to function at that time. Thank you. Representative Gannon. Thank you, Madam Chair. Tucker, on page three, subsection B, I believe it says if you're gonna hold a fully remote meeting, the technology has to permit attendance to the public through electronics or otherwise, but also requires people having access to the telephone. So if somebody's having challenges with the internet or technology, they will still have the option to participate in the meeting via phone. Is that correct? That is correct. And that is another tweak that was made in this temporary authority that is different from what was passed in Act 92 that used to say that you had to allow the public to access the meeting by telephone whenever feasible. Senate go-op struck whenever feasible. If you are going to use the authority granted by this bill, then you must provide public access by telephone specifically. Thank you. All right, Rephihopsky. I just had a quick question around the recording piece and recognizing that there's language around if you can't record. Does that also include or is there a language around the instance where we did record and then say my hard drive was corrupted and I no longer have access to post the recording in that interim period? Would that also just be covered by that language? That instance is post facto. So the unusual circumstances talks about the process of recording. What you're talking about would actually be part of the Public Records Act. And the only thing that is prohibited there is the intentional destruction of a public record. So if it's out of the public body's hands and is part of some natural or technological phenomenon, then this bill isn't gonna touch that. Okay, so that already exists. So it's not needed here. Thank you. Rephma Rikki. Thank you, Madam Chair. I actually have a question from one of my select boards that I wanted to offer here and I wanted to share while Tucker was here because he already answered my question to a degree. The question from the select board was, would it be possible to add something in here which would allow the select board, a three member select board to meet in person but close the meeting to the public except electronically? So what that would mean is they had been meeting in the library where they could be spaced out or distanced, maybe spaced out's not the right term to use. That has a pejorative connotation to it, doesn't it? Well, historically accurate. It would. So the question is just to get some feedback to canvass the committee as to whether, how do people feel about putting such an option in here? I think it could be covered if they would just pass a, we gave them the power to pass a masking bill if they were concerned about people coming in with that way and Tucker did share that it might not be unconstitutional but might not fall within the spirit of the bill that we're putting out there, is that accurate Tucker? Correct, it would not be unconstitutional to amend the bill in that way. And there are no legal barriers to the committee amending the bill to provide that there could be a physical meeting of the public body where the public access is electronically. My advice is if you want to go that way that you amend the bill to make that express because the bill is silent on that point and the open meeting law underlying this likely would not allow that. So you're in ambiguous territory. If you decide you want to go this way I would recommend you amend the bill to make it express. Yeah, well, I wanted to, on behalf of my select board I wanted to put it out there and I'm willing to go where the committee will take this. So I'm looking for feedback. Representative Anthony are you offering feedback or did you have a separate question? A separate question, so I'll hold on. All right, so committee, let's explore this a little bit. I think at first blush to me it feels contrary to open meetings that members of a board would be able to meet in one format but exclude people from the public from being able to meet in that same format. It's one thing if everyone has access to hybrid or in-person and I guess I can understand the concerns around you know at some point, the more bodies you put in a room the more COVID risk there is. However, I think there's other mitigation measures that communities have at their disposal to, for the select board to feel safe. So I just wanted to open that up to discussion. Representative Lafave. Thank you Madam Chair. My perspective would be not to support something like that while I do respect representative Murkey's software coming forward with that question. I would just say the members that didn't feel comfortable around the public, they could go remote and join other members of the public in that form. I do respect the concerns of people around that have compromised news systems or that don't wanna be exposed. But also I would definitely feel if I was a resident in that town that my select board was giving themselves a higher pedestal than a while I need to come in but they're allowed to be in. Thank you. Other committee discussion on this question. Representative Anthony. Yes, thank you Madam Chair. Tucker, it's not unusual for my Barry City folks to have a hybrid meeting where some folks are in person some are electronic. We have run because the traditional council meeting is not a large space have run into issues without protest where the number of people is limited. Now, that doesn't go where I think you were worried about people going namely on mass excluding the public but nevertheless some members of the public an unknown number may be prevented even in a hybrid context. And I'm not sure it has happened in Barry but I know it's potentially possible this is not a big space. Representative Gannon. Thank you Madam Chair. I'm a little concerned about having basically a dual track one for select board members being able to attend in person and then everybody else being shut out of that meeting and only permitted to participate remotely. It seems there's inconsistency there and I am concerned about that. I don't understand why all the select board members cannot participate remotely or telephonically. I understand people have challenges with technology but now that the way this bill is drafted they can participate by phone. And I think making sure that everyone has equal access which means the same type of access is important. All right, Rebecca does that give you a sense of where folks are on that question? It does and I appreciate you entertaining and considering this and I think the bill as Tucker said remains silent on this and I think it should remain silent. Yeah. All right, other questions, comments or suggestions on S222 Representative Bihowski. I have another quick question and I'm just wondering if it's a change. So currently we're allowing towns to do these kind of hybrid meetings where some people can be in person and some and other people can be remote. Are those meetings required to be reported and posted or is it only if it's all remote? So the requirement here, the trigger here is that a quorum or more of the members of the public body are meeting electronically. And under the open meeting law, they can do that. They have to have that physical location. If the public body or public bodies that you're speaking about want to have a quorum or more of their members meet electronically and do not want to designate the physical location, then yes, they will have to record. If they have a physical meeting location and some sort of hybrid electronic option, then it sounds like they're providing the physical location and this bill doesn't even come into play. They'd follow the open meeting law requirements. Right, I guess I'm trying to understand if the current open meeting law like if the recording requirement is a change from the current open meeting law. Yes, it is a change. Okay, so thank you, that is helpful. And does this, would this apply to committees like if our trails committee is meeting, would this apply to them as well? Yes, the open meeting law covers all committees and subcommittees of any public body of the state. Great, thanks so much. Municipal Corporation Political Subdivision. Technical term, Representative Anthony. Thank you, Madam Chair. What I'm about to ask probably is a similar challenge under the current statutory structure and that is to say, because I view the status as sort of backstop under the open meeting law and various other requirements for doing the public's business as if you will. Pardon me, a sort of conditional permission. What's the backstop if the locals are simply either innocently or willfully not following either the traditional language and obligations or indeed using this new flexibility to some, how shall I say, stretching it to some extent beyond the spirit or the letter of it? How do we retain some kind of backstop where a community or leadership of a community is not respectful of either the letter or intent behind this flexibility and protecting the public's access to participate? What if they're doing something nefarious? I mean, where does this change the obligation on whom to make sure that communities do not misuse this flexibility? So the answer is that all of the existing enforcement mechanisms are still in place. The bill doesn't touch them. So an open meeting law violation under the general law or under this temporary authority, there's still gonna be that enforcement mechanism in place, typically the way that works out when an open meeting violation is reported and peeled is that the public body has to go back. All of the final action that may have been taken is undone and they have to go through the entire meeting again, but this time complying with the open meeting law and availing themselves of the public. Thanks, that's reassuring. Other questions from committee members. All right, who would you like to hear from in terms of getting some other perspectives on this bill? We should aim to get these moved out of committee as soon as possible. So I was thinking tomorrow afternoon would be a good time for us to hear from anyone else we wanna hear from. Go ahead representative Anthony. Do we have or do you know a witness list for the Senate so that we can sort of get a census to who participated already before the bills came over? Does that would help me answer your question? That is something that could be called up from the Senate government operations page probably pretty quickly if... Okay. If Tucker doesn't go off the tip of his tongue who testified on this bill? That would be Jenny Prosser from the Secretary of State's office as well as Deputy Secretary of State Chris Winters. Then there were two representatives from the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, Gwynne Zachov and Karen Horn, Carol Dawes, I believe briefly testified on this and Senate GovOps as well as Catherine Demitriuk who I believe was representing at least one of the regional planning commissions. And the Vermont Press Association was there as well. Thanks. Representative Lefebvre. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Anderson, do you know how this was voted out of the Senate GovOps? 500 in support. Thank you. And clearly was well supported on the floor of the Senate since they suspended rules in order to get this over to us pretty quickly. So committees, should we get the whole run of show lined up tomorrow afternoon? Don't all jump at once. Yes. All right. Super. We will work on getting those folks in next open spot in our committee agenda Tucker, can you take us through S-223 and remind us where it is in the process at this point? Sorry about that awkward silence. I had too many PDFs open in the background. S-223, I led in with this, has passed the Senate and was messaged to the House today. There are two operative provisions in the bill, pretty straightforward. So you won't have to listen to my droning monotone for too long. These are actually two provisions that were attached to some of the previous annual meeting work that this committee and the General Assembly at large did last year. They were handled separate from this year's annual meeting bill by Senate government operations because they were viewed as separate substantive topics that needed their own discussion. The first is a temporary suspension specifically for annual municipal meetings. So this is the annual meeting coming up in March of the voter signature requirements for local candidates. Subsection A says that not withstanding 17VSA, section 2681, sub B or any other provision of law to the contrary in case we have charters out there. A person shall not be required to collect voter signatures in order to have the person's name placed on the ballot as a candidate for a local election that is held at a 2022 annual municipal meeting. That's the first provision. The second provision is a temporary suspension of co-mingled ballot counting for school districts. To give you some background, there are provisions in our general education laws dealing specifically with union school districts and applying to one other particular type of school district. And there are provisions in school district articles of agreement that require that all of the ballots that come from member towns get co-mingled and the groups or the school district officers and board members will then count the ballots together as they come co-mingled from the municipalities. Subsection B of this bill is proposing to temporarily suspend that for the 2022 annual meeting. It states that not withstanding 16VSA, sections 706W and 711E or any other provision of law or any school district article of agreement that requires the ballots of member municipalities to be co-mingled by the district, the legislative body of a school district may vote that ballots for the 2022 annual meeting shall not be co-mingled before counting. The ballots may be counted by each member town and the results reported to the school district clerk for the determination of official district wide results. The act is proposed to take effect on passage. Now, as I recall, the requirement to co-mingle ballots between different communities in a school district, you know, is perhaps intended to not highlight that one community might be in favor of a particular provision or budget item while another community is does reporting those separately to the district clerk require that the district clerk release publicly the fact that one community supported something and another one maybe didn't? That is a fantastic question that I have not been asked yet. My immediate response as a records attorney would be that if a record has been produced or acquired that contains that information that yes, that would be public. And there's likely not an exemption out there that would allow that district clerk to withhold that information. Now, I don't know how else it would be reported besides on some sort of formal record, but I can tell you that this particular language was actually temporary authority that was issued, temporary guidance that was issued by the secretary of state's office. So this provision did not exist in temporary statutory language passed by the general assembly. This was part of the emergency procedures that were put in place by the secretary of state's office. And they're very talented and hardworking staff may have some answers on how they have handled the discreet reporting and counting of member municipality voting results. All right, other committee questions? Representative Lefebvre. Thank you, Madam Chair. So in 2021, when we had language similar to not having candidates obtain signatures for their petition, it also gave permission to those that were seeking funding from towns to not collect signatures on their petitions. I have been asked by some towns and I've reviewed the language that if they're not asking for anything more than what they have previously that is the town's purview to accept it without signatures. But is there anything or would it be something that we'd have to add if we wanted to make it that they could ask for something more without a signature? So this was a very complicated subject the first time that it came up. And my recollection is that the legislative body of the municipality can actually wave that particular signature requirement for budget items without any further authorization from the General Assembly. It is something that is inherent in their powers as a legislative body. So what I will do is just go back through my notes from last year and make sure that that is accurate and I will send you an email confirming that that is the case. But the legislative body should be able to waive that requirement and put those requests on the ballot for both. Thank you. I feel like the dog is saying, just throw the tennis ball, just throw the tennis ball. Oh, that looks like Rudolph, that's very cute. Snoopy, yeah right. All right, Representative Anthony. Thank you Madam Chair. Tucker, my only conversation with Clerk Dawes on this particular one of commingling had to do with security issues. If the ballots, because they will be collected in say three, four or five locations depending on the union district, career center, whatever. If they're not tabulated, counted somehow numerically aggregated, then they have to go to some central location to be mixed, unbundled and counted. And there is a potential security issue, I guess. Again, I'm mimicking a conversation that I had on the fly with Carol Dawes, but I didn't come up at all in the discussions on the other side. Security issues, who's got custody of the ballots, et cetera? It took me a moment to catch up with you. I do not recall from the committee time any discussion about the chain of custody and any security concerns there. My recollection of the testimony was in the other direction that there were concerns about under the current law having all of the ballots brought to a central location where they would be commingled and counted by a large group of people. So that is perhaps something that you wanna investigate further. Representative LeClaire. Thank you, Madam Chair. I noticed that when we talked about the waving of the petitions, it was only for local elections. Was there any discussion about waving petitions or signatures on petitions for House and Senate races? There was not. And the discussion specifically about these provision and perhaps the need for expedient passage out of Senate GovOps was that this is targeting the annual meeting and trying to give those particular candidates who have to file certain papers within the next few weeks the lead time to know that they won't need signature requirements specifically for the annual meeting. It looks like our chair has disappeared and is frozen. She just asked me to take over until she can return. Are there any more questions for Tucker about S223? Well, thank you, Tucker. Hold on two seconds. I think we can take a brief break but we do have a witness coming in at 3 p.m. on the Budget Adjustment Act. Is that right, Andrea? Yes, it is. Okay, so let's take a brief break and hopefully Sarah can get back with us for the Budget Adjustment Act witness we have coming in who's gonna testify on the Cannabis Control Board.