 Hello everyone. Thank you for tuning in to the Straight Talk Vermont show. My name is Bruce Wilson. I'm Executive Director of Service Rendered, Incorporated. Straight Talk Vermont is one of our programs for many, many years and it's our leading cable show, but we also have reduced some cognitive work with Straight Talk Vermont and community work, work with the nonprofits, schools and other types of entity. So today, I'm very, very excited to have as a guest Charlie Blaker from the Chidney County Regional Planning Commission. And first, for you saying anything, Charlie, I just want to thank you so much for for help supporting and sponsoring our fundraiser at the Hotel Vermont, which was very successful. And we had a lot of fun and it wouldn't have happened if we were at the level of our called you up and asked for some support and you came right through for us. And so thank you very much, sir. Absolutely, that's good. So Charlie, why don't you introduce yourself or you can look, why don't you do that for our audience? Yeah, Charlie Baker. I'm the Executive Director of the Chidney County Regional Planning Commission. Glad to be here. And you're located in Winooski, Vermont. Yeah, our offices are in Winooski. So we moved there probably 10 years ago or so and but we serve all of Chidney County. Awesome. So a lot of people probably never heard of the Chidney County Regional Planning Commission. And so what exactly do you do? Yeah, so we really work for the municipalities in Chidney County. That's who makes up our board. Regional Planning Commissions were created in Vermont in the late 60s. And we were created by our towns in 1966. The legislature created them across the whole state in 1968. So it's been around 50 plus years. And and it's really it's been kind of a broad mandate to provide services to our towns, but also with a particular eye towards helping the region, helping our towns develop in the most responsible way possible. So we spend time on development issues, transportation issues, natural resource issues, more recently, energy, equity, climate change. That's a lot, Charlie. Energy, equity in our environment. Wow. That that is especially the environment, Charlie. You know, I saw we have in Vermont. How good are we? How good are we in protecting the environment? Yeah. Yeah. So that's a good question. And I think, you know, Vermont has a reputation of being green, right? It's Green Mountain State, but not just the Green Mountains, but being environmentally responsible, sustainable community. And I think I think that's a well deserved reputation. You know, as you look around the country and the laws that we have in place here to protect the environment, particularly around Act 250, I think has been a pretty significant thing across the country. It's very unique across the country and has been pretty effective at protecting Vermont. And maybe it's also because we're a little bit more remote. You know, we're not, you know, we're far enough away from Boston and New York and Montreal, but we don't get the, you know, we're not right next door. So we're not getting the sprawl right into Vermont. So you represent as the executive director of Chittin County. And what are those cities? Yeah. So, well, population-wise, it ranges from Buell's Gore, where there's about 20 people, to Burlington, where there's over 40,000. So it's a pretty diverse, you know, I think people around the state think of Chittin County and they think Burlington, but, you know, there's Burlington, South Burlington, Colchester, Winooski, Essex, you know, kind of what we call kind of the urbanized part of the county. And there's, you know, probably 110, 120,000 people in kind of the urban part of the county. But then we still have another 40-50,000 in the more rural part of Chittin County, which is still mostly rural. Our developed area is only about 15% of the county. So 85% of the county is rural. And that includes, you know, up to Milton, Westford, Underhill, Bolton, then going south, Huntington, Hinesburg, Charlotte, are kind of the outer bounds towns. Yeah, I see you have an incredible board and an alternative to those, alternative to the other members. Alternatives. Alternatives. Yeah. And where are their worlds? Yeah, so we have a board. It officially has like 29 people on it. There is a member and an alternate from each municipality. So Burlington, Winooski, you know, every town has a member and an alternate. And then in addition to that, because we're a federally designated metropolitan planning organization, which kind of brings on some more responsibilities and funding, we also have a pretty transportation-centric focus. So V-Trans has a seat, and there's also seats for Green Mountain Transit, the railroads, the airport. They all have non-voting seats on our board. And then we also have some just kind of sector-oriented. So there's a business seat, a socio-economic seat, an agriculture seat, and a natural resources seat. Hmm, socio-economic seat. Is that like, who's playing that? Who are those people? That's typically been somebody from like affordable housing organizations or United Way. So actually, I do have a seat open there right now for that kind of position. And Jesse Bridges from United Way has been the alternate. That's right. Jesse is the alternate. My good friend Jesse Bridges, this friend, he's the alternate being in charge of the United Way, but I get it though. It's a lot of work. To some extent, we kind of look at being some connective tissue, you know, not just between the municipalities, but also organizations, you know, like the United Way, the affordable housing non-profits that we have here, which we have, you know, a great system of non-profits for housing, and also like the business community. So the Chamber of Commerce or GBIC. So we kind of try to be a place where all those groups can talk to each other. Yeah, Chamber of Commerce is really getting going there. Since I think Tom Torti and Catherine Davis and Susan, all the incredible people working to build that up. Do you know how many members they have? The Chamber? Yeah. I'm a member, actually. I'm not sure. At that point, I heard like 2,500 members. That's a lot. Yeah, certainly. Yeah, go far beyond just Chittany County. But yeah, so they do work with a lot of, you know, businesses and all across. So I don't know if you said it's not, but the cities that you work with, the counties, did you say that you help with the technology, too? Or you just kind of? You mean like broadband? Yeah, like broadband. We've been trying to provide a little bit of support. The broadband issue, I mean, is a real critical issue for people to just have access. Sure. To school, to jobs, just the economy in general. Chittany County is fairly well-served with broadband and internet access, but there's still, I think we have about maybe 65,000 households. There's still at least 2,000 or so that have virtually no internet access or there's still like a dial-up, you know, like 3-1. Oh no, we don't say dial-up. Yeah, the good old days, right? Well, for many of us, but for some people are still stuck on that. And so the state created a system to invest a lot of the federal dollars coming to expand and improve broadband service, but they're targeting it to communications union districts, which are in most of the rest of the state. We don't have that. So that's still a little bit of a conversation we're having with the legislature about how to help these 2,000 households in Chittany County that have really non-existent. Wow. And what happens is they're not in one place. They're like a little dead-end road here with five houses, a little dead-end road there, maybe some of them aren't even dead-ends, but they're very rural parts of our county that the providers, it just hasn't been financially worthwhile for them to get to. So there's a good question out there about how can we get to those homeowners. So how do you work with the, so how many regional planning commissions is around the state? There's 11 of us around the state. Yeah, so every municipalities in a regional planning commission, we're kind of a mid-sized one. Some of them are only about 10 municipalities. Other, the largest one is in the Northeast Kingdom, and I think they have 55 municipalities. Sorry, I'm serious. Yeah, 55. And are they working on the same one executive director? Yeah, yeah, we're all, yeah, pretty similar aboard of our municipalities, executive director, staff. And we're all pretty similar in our, and we really work together in our relationship with state agencies. So we have performance agreements with v-trends, with the agency of commerce, with natural resources, with emergency management, to do various kinds of work for those agencies. Wow. And for our towns. That's something else. So do you guys work in like that, like as a chamber together? Uh, tell me what you mean by that. Well, I mean, it's like, you know, you can do it, you got the same mission goals and objectives. I don't know, right? So your mission goals and objectives for the Chinat County, is it the same, because, you know, you, it's the same principles or, or, I guess I'm trying to say, you're doing, are you doing the same things? You mean the different regional planning commissions around the state? Yeah. Yeah, I would say pretty much. And partly, quite a bit of that is actually mandated by the state. So the state has legislated in statute planning goals. And so we're all, we are all following the same planning goals for the state. You know, you may have heard reference about smart growth in Vermont, where we talk about, you know, vibrant center separated by rural countryside. And that's in statute. And that's one of the goal statements that guides our planning work. Now, so you work with, so I know you work with a good friend, Mara Collins from the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. You know, take care for coming to our event too. Thanks Mara. So that's our central level, right? Working on the central level with our up top there, because on the governor, he has five appointed positions on the FH8. Yeah, I don't know much about the internal organization of VHFA, but you know, I think they're one of the organizations and definitely worked with Mara a lot, probably 10 years ago, when we were really focused in on some housing issues. And she was really helpful at that time and continues to be helpful. But she's one of those housing, affordable housing support agencies. You know, there's VHFA, there's now Evernorth that does more on the development side, she's more on the financing side. And then locally, of course, we have Champlain Housing Trust and Cathedral Square and Cots, you know, all really strong organizations that do a lot of good work in our community. Are they on your board? They don't have particular seats on our board. For a while, that social econ seat I was talking about had somebody from Cathedral Square. And actually, thank you for reminding me that I need to reach out to those folks. So that's good. That's all right. That's good, because you got the networking, they need to be a part of it, you know. It's got, what's the house and all those individuals on Montaigne and Michael Montaigne and all those individuals. And Farrell, you said Cathedral, you said the housing development on North Avenue, I guess. Oh, the Cambrian Rise that Eric Farrell did. Yeah, he's a private sector developer, but yep. Good guy. So I guess my question is, could I have thought maybe that because you worked on a central level, like with Mara, with the Housing Association that you may work with Boyang as well with the Human Rights Commission. Yeah, I've been to a couple of her sessions, but not specifically, or maybe I should say, maybe not as much yet. There's more to be done. It's about to do, right? Yeah, we did just over the last year I hired a consulting team, the Creative Discourse Group, to spend some time really doing an assessment of how well we're doing addressing equity in our community and in our organization, and particularly racial equity. We just got that report right at Christmas time. I just reviewed my executive committee last night. So we're going to start moving forward with implementing those recommendations. So we have a lot of work to do over the next, you know, I don't know how long it will take to get a good start. Yeah, it doesn't stop. Me into the following. Yeah, and the big thing is, you know, we need to do more work there. I think we'll look at kind of a comprehensive way to systematize improving how we address equity, including a staff person, and then maybe we'll get, you know, committee, maybe representatives on our board and a representative on other committees, because we have a number of committees that do work and make recommendations up to our board. And then we just need to do more engagement and a relationship building in the community in general. Sure. Because a lot of these individuals don't need to be on your board, let's say, this on some type of committee, whereas that how can we help you do what you do, right? That's more or less, that's probably the best way to do this. Go. Oh, you're the doctor, lawyer, or Indian chief? Go ahead and do your thing. Right. We got your support. We can hook you up with such and such a person to help you, because they do similar or the same thing, or they have what you need. And so that's probably the best way to do things, you know, when you work, you know, check out others involved, and they won't get anybody on your board, because don't really don't, I'll tell you a quick start right here. So, you know, you know, our board members and people like executive directors like you and I, like, for instance, somebody want to learn how to do, like, these floors are beautiful here at the studio. And if somebody want to know, wow, how did you get these floors so shiny and beautiful? And then you are not going to know. We're going to say, what were you, we, you know, our maintenance person or our person, he comes in and he does the floor, he washed the floors, he scrubbed the floors, and then he had this incredible shine on it, you know. And that's how you get the floors like that. And then you ask the person to do the floors, and they say, well, you know, we wash the floor, we wipe the floor, we shine the floor, but as you come through the door, our heaviest traffic area, I have to go down over a brush and scrub it up floor to kind of make it blend in with the rest of the floor. So, you want to talk to the person who knows. Right. Not necessarily you and I. Right. You can tell you what it is, but he's going to tell you what it is. How do you get there? How you get there. So, if you've got people to tell you how it is and how to get there, that's all you need. You don't need to be, you and I don't really need to know. You just need to know the person who knows. I say that a lot about my job. I know a little bit about a lot of different things, but at least I know who to ask or try to know who to ask. That's so important. I could never, in my organization, we could never do it without people like you and the rest of the people in the community who know, because it just makes more sense to just know these people, and they'll tell you what it is, and you stand by it, and you stand by it, and then get the work done fast. You get it done easily. And so that part of it is like going back to, like I'm glad you know John from Greenmont Transit, he's on your board. Because he holds up, or he has this program called JetEye. Just as equity, diversity and inclusion, which I sit on as an advisory to Greenmont Transit and work with the community. And so that's real good that you guys do that, that you have that connection with him. The thing is that everybody, it's kind of weird that one time, one point, that there was nobody doing, you never heard of them, JetEye, or diversity and inclusion, equity, you know? What? What'd that mean? You know? And then all of a sudden, like when Floyd got killed, you got Black Lives Matter, you know, justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Everybody around the damn world was hiring some type of racial justice and, you know, a kind of diversity and inclusion directors. And so what do you think about that? I mean, I'll tell you what I think about what you tell me what you think about it. Well, yeah, and yeah. So, yeah, and I think, you know, I signed on to the, you know, racism as a public health emergency a year and a half ago, or there's that press conference down there in front of City Hall. And I think that did spur a lot of organizations. I think at least 30 organizations are so signed on to that. And that did spur, I think, some inward-looking efforts from a lot of organizations. Yeah, some went out faster and hired somebody. And some, like us, maybe kind of spent more time kind of assessing where we were. And now we'll make some of those moves to make more direct investments in that work. So, you know, I think it's been encouraging, you know, frankly, you know, these issues are not new issues that I'm not telling you anything you don't know. But and I think it really struck me 10 years ago, shortly after I got here, and we were doing a big regional planning process that we called branded as the ECOS plan. And, you know, we started looking at some of the disparities and, you know, they're stark, whether it's home ownership or household income, poverty rates, you know, there's we have real significant disparities in our community. And it doesn't help anybody. And in fact, I think, you know, the reverse is true. If we're if we get more equitable, it really helps everybody. And it takes pressure off of all kinds of other, you know, assistance and supports we're trying to provide. So there's a lot of work. I think there's a lot of opportunity. I'm at least optimistically hopeful at the moment that all that attention over the last, you know, year or two will result in some positive changes. And, you know, in that vein, I was just my attention just got called to some federal direction on this that came from President Biden last year, which I think I had just barely heard about. But it's called Justice 40 Initiative, where he's asking that 40% of federal investments get targeted towards disadvantaged communities. So the all the federal agencies are just now, I think, starting to come out with guidance about, okay, that's interesting. It's a nice idea. How do we get there? And so I think it should be interesting these next couple of years to see how that unfolds and how systems change. And anyway, I will remain hopeful until proof and otherwise. But well, share some with you about me. Come from South Side Chicago. Like I was raising the civil rights with my mother and friends. She used to take me to all these, you know, these meetings to keep people who look like me be more empowered and get some representation on ideas and investments that we wanted. And so Jesse Jackson and his wife, Jackie, and Mayor Washington, these people used to come to our house all the time. And I was on going to operation push operation, but SCLC, NAACP, all these meetings with my mother and blah, blah, blah. Moss Mary and Elijah Muhammad, each people, the newest for our kind. And this is, and so as I came to Vermont, because I'm like, probably a giant, not better than nobody of seeing racism and injustice. And I probably joined, probably was a part of every little thing that came up, you know, through the years. And I've been in Vermont since 1989. And so I was on like uncommon alliance. We helped create, this is one of the, I think the best things we've done, being the best things I helped do on these, on these, on these, on these revisories is we helped create data, data, data. So in line, you're going to back your ticket, you'll see all these black, white, just, you know, and, you know, your, whatever it is, you know, you, oh, you need to see that before, because we thought that was not good. And then I was on, Vermont State Police, Fair and Prostate Policing, the Governor and Attorney General at the time, TJ Donovan appointed me to be on racial justice and these type of things. I sit on a room in the school district, anti-racial board, advisory. I work with the chiefs around county about, you know, community engagement and Fair and Prostate Policing. And I'll tell you something, Charlie. And I sit on, and I sit on green mountain transit, justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, advisory. And I'll tell you, I think for right now, the GMT and the Winoosa School District, who's come on real slow, because they're taking like, they're not taking, I tell them all the time, you need to take the, you need to take the powerful steps. You really, you know what I mean? It's no, it's not a soft, you're not, you're not trying to be soft walking through the woods and catching, finding where the dares are. We're trying to make a point, make some difference and learn, get better and educate individuals. But we need to get there hard. We need to go hard. We need to be boots on the ground. And so I think we're getting tougher now. I'm sitting more, more better, more committees at the Winoosa School District, anti-racism piece, because I'm a little, you know, concerned about them. They're doing a great job. I just, I think they need to be more harder. GMT, Greenmont Transit and the just Jedi boys doing real good work, they continue to keep going to get better. But I'm telling you, through all those wars and commissions I've been on, all through the years I've been here, since 1989, to me, ain't really nothing changed. You know, it's pitiful. To me, that's, I want to use, I can use the words on my own cable show, but it's messed up. I can't explain how pitiful it is. Nobody's changed. Now, let me tell you something. You know, I've learned, like, I'm getting a little started. So one day I was going around, I took the ride around with the chief's police around the county. Just, you know, seeing, one time I did it, because I want to see what the community engagement was, not because I was on the verge of saying police, for I'm probably policing the community thing. You know, it was what their fair partial policing initiative was. I was curious, but I just wanted to know what the community engagement was, because to me that's more important, working with the people who you serve, and what they say that's what it is, you know, in theory. Not in theory, but for real, mostly. And so I was like going through the police department and doing the tour, and I asked one police department, this, I was in the detective bureau, and I just said, ah, let me just ask a damn question. And I said, have you, have you took the fair partial policing training? And he said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, that's good. You know, I'm happy. And he said, I was like, so what was it, what did he tell? You know, he gave me, you know, a little basic stuff. And I said, how long did it take him, you know? He said, oh, it took us about an hour. I said an hour. He said, yeah. I said, how'd you do? He said, we did it online. So he did a fair partial police training online, without people like me, they should do like a role play, you know what I mean? Well, people like me, they can understand why I was, why black people throw their hands around like this. It's not because we're no worse than the white person who don't do that. We're just just because that's how we are, you know what I mean? So that's why a lot of times, and I know it's for a fact, because I sell an FD email, I sell other things, is because while I charge this, like I said, normally we should get like a disorderly, not some simple assault, you know, but they feel assaulted. So, because we do that, you know what I mean? Instead of, you know, get the hell out, you know, instead of disorderly. So that's why some of my charges are higher than others. But so I thought, how pitiful is that to say you took the fair and partial police and training and put it in a website and said you did, you know? So I was in my art gallery in the University of Vermont. Art is still a wonderful gallery to show up in town, guys. We're about to remodel it. And he walks by with another chief, friend I knew forever. He used to be in the Bronx and just a nice chief. I don't know his name. He would give a damn if I did or didn't. But so I was talking about the same thing I'm telling you, Charlie, but that guy that did, that department did a one hour training, he said, Bruce, Bruce, we just, we've got to, we're about to change that because all of us take that one hour training. All those police departments, his chief telling me this, take that one hour fair and partial policing training online, man, online. And I bet you don't see, you don't see nobody or you don't see no, you know, like a black person like online, you know, like kind of like some cartoonist person, you don't see no, this question is an answer. You know, how pitiful is that, man? So they don't count. They don't count. Yeah, I think that's a part of the challenge that assessment pointed out to us is like, you know, we're not spending enough time engaging, building relationships, you know, in the communities where we should be to address equity issues. So, yeah, we, I can't speak to the police or the dynamic. I can't speak to him either, but I'll go about what I know. Yeah, and we certainly, there's more we can do. And I think one of the areas that, you know, I'm hopeful that we, you know, talk more about in the community and make some changes and is around housing, too. And housing opportunity, you know, is our zoning, you know, which is, is that really getting to the right results? Or is it, you know, protecting power and class in a way that is adding to our inequities? And those are, you know, those will be interesting conversations, because, you know, and some of them have bubbled up in some different spots already. You know, we talk about allowing, you know, well, some communities have said, you know, we're going to get rid of single-family zoning and allow, you know, maybe two units on every lot. Like, let's allow some increase in density. And there's been a lot of culture built up, at least in white America around, right? The, you know, single-family house on an acre lot with a white picket fence, right? Like, and it's really exclusionary. You know, it's not, we're not having, you know, the melting pot that makes us a healthy community where we have parts here and there and segregated. So that's going to be the opportunity and, you know, tough conversations I think that will be having over the coming years about housing policy and zoning in particular. And we've been trying to invest in, with our towns over the last few years in, you know, updating zoning to increase density options and have more flexibility. And I'm hopeful that that over time starts to make some progress on some of these issues, because a lot of it is really about, you know, who are your neighbors, right? I mean, if, you know, we're living next door to each other. That's a totally different relationship. You said it, Charlie. You said it. Because like few who look like me, when I've said this morning once, that I don't go to church with you. I don't go to school with you. We don't go to grocery store. You know, I might see you at the mall or something. You know, hi, bye. I'm your neighbor. Hello. But so how do you really get to know me or a person like me? You really don't, you got to go by primarily stereotypical ways that people learn about people who look like me, POCO, BIPOC. They learn about us through magazines, the TV, media. Media don't say, look at that nice black guy over there. They say, look, they live like this. They do this, they lose, and they're right. And then why people do this? This is as many as us. Do the same thing, you know. And so in order for people to really understand who people who look like me, they got to really actually know me. And then for my, when I came to the United States of America, I think it was like, somebody told me it was the third now. Wow, that's a big one. Maybe the second. So anyway, so I can get it. It's not necessarily that they prejudice anything, just that we all have prejudice. But I think because of education, they just don't know. And so I think that's a, that could be a lot. It is a lot to do with it. Yeah. If you went to school and it's 100% white, it's hard to have that. But still, if we look going forward, the fastest, you know, Vermont has barely been growing. Most of that's been in Chittenden County. And it's, but it's people of color. Right. We're not, we're not, our white population isn't really increasing. We're increasing through, you know, we're getting more diverse. And if we're going to have a healthy community and have a healthy economy going forward, we need to be more welcoming and have a better sense of community as opposed to exclusion. So, so we'll, yeah. Anyway, it's, it's been on my mind for sure. And we'll keep working on it. So I'm very hopeful, you know, for a father, one of the persons who lived in Vermont, one of the longest, you know, in Vermont since 89. But I still haven't, I still don't believe that black people or people of color BIPOC will get into the back room negotiating because it's like that one hour training in FIP fair and partial police and come up. And now you got to, you know, you got to stamp to say that I'm this way. No, because I don't, I don't see how you can even think about, you think of keywords or key points when you're dealing with a situation, maybe that come to mind when those, that one hour training, but I don't think you're going to use it. I think you're going to use what you've been using. And I don't think I'm, because you know, I'm believing black lives matter or you know, all these other different things that we're trying to equity and inclusion and diversity and justice, I think, because you might be, we're in through some programs, there's not going to change that getting me in your back room with you when you make a deal. Shouldn't be no damn back room, first of all. Right. You know, I think that's, that's really the issue. And I think it's, you know, how do, how do we open up these decision making processes, making more transparent. But also we need to change the systems, right? I mean, there's a reason we call it systemic racism. It's kind of embedded, you know, indirectly. And I think, you know, there's a lot of people that look like me that engage in, in their businesses or their practices or on their boards or commissions that don't even realize, you know, like there's probably some racist history of zoning, you know, back to like the housing thing, right? Like, oh, like, what do, what's single family zoning about? Right. Like, you know, and why do we have ghettos and nicer high income single family zoning? Well, that's, we zoned it. The zoning, people like me, professional planners supported that exclusionary practice. Did that help society? It benefited white people, but it didn't benefit our society broadly. That's true. And like, why would you think of people like me when being a second white in the state of America? Why would you think of people like me? It's not that you didn't, you know, let's bring Bruce in. You know, it's just not part of the thinking. And I think it would be the same way if you were just living in like a, high parking in Chicago was 100,000 people. It's one community. So you think about, you know, so that's all people who look like me probably feel, you know, not really a high parking was kind of mixed, but still. So you think about bringing those type of people in, but if you in Vermont, you know, everybody's white, why would you think about bringing in Bruce Wilson? It's just don't come to, it's just not because you don't want to bring me, you just don't, you don't come to the brain. It's not part of the. Yeah. It's not part of the habits for sure, right? Like, so yeah, I think that's, that's the challenge in front of us is changing some of those habits and. I don't know. So I don't believe that's going to happen. Yeah, I don't see it so funny because most of my advisory board members, all my board members to all, all these I have in, in all the, our major developers in the state, and they support my programs and they do because I know why because it just makes sense just for you for your support, give you from boards, forks, get them in the college, get some activities, art and music and dance and get them involved in things other than drugs and alcohol. The support and educating them around those issues. And so it just makes sense. And so when they get money for it, they give it to us because that's, it just makes sense. It's, it's not about Bruce is being black. It's about just make damn sense. Every time we have an event, he had 300 kids there or 300, you know, from the kind of high school, 800 college students. It makes sense, you know. And he has over 50 awards in his program. Something makes sense, you know. And other people, here's the people, people who support us, developers and blah, blah, and there's other people underneath them, which are wonderful people who do what the best they can. And they don't think of me, you know. Just like for instance, like the governors, all the governors, I've been, you know, and the mayors too that, well, yeah. They're like, Bruce, we support your program. I can't say somebody give you money because I'm just, come now. I can tell them to look out for you. And then, and then they look out for me. I get to sprinkle down if something fell through somebody's fingers because they got to look out for their friends and they're, and I mean it. I don't want to say what I mean. People can call me anytime that I want them to, you know. But I appreciate everybody for the work they do, whatever. But, and I'm not getting it. You got, you know, you look out for your friends. Let's think if you give me 20 grand and you don't give this person you already gave it to you for the last 10 years, they, somebody lose a job that they know of, you know what I mean. It's hard, you know, and it's tough, you know. And they don't care about what the governor said or the mayor said or whoever said, you know, they don't care because they got to look out for the people who they, they see the work that they do, you know. So, that bothers me, you know what I'm saying. How do I get on, you know, how do I, and then we, and then we have youth centers all around the state, or all around the state, man, all around the state. Free, fair haven, Rutland, you know, free for kids and family, they don't pay a dime. And then in Chenning County, all the malls in Chenning County, and they don't pay a dime. And our gals, they don't pay nothing. We still have youth events. They say, Charlie, help us out. You know, I need your help because we got no money to do this. Yeah. I ask people like you to help us. And then you come to it and say, this is nice. It's a nice event, you know, blah, blah, blah, you know. And so, you know, and we have all 50 awards. And so, but yeah, we have no money. But if you look at our structure and you look at our malls and things, we have millions and millions of dollars involved in what we do, millions of dollars, because people believe that we make the right decision and really help people for real. We really help them. You know, I'm a commissioner, I'm a former commissioner in Winniskey. I'm on the, I told you I was on the Winniskey Democratic Party. I'm the chairman of the Winniskey School District Anti-Racism Committee. I created the community justice, one of the founding of the community justice around the state, blah, blah, blah. So, you know, this is work, that real work that I don't get paid for none of that. I do it because I believe in the work that I do and the people who I serve. And if I didn't like white people, I wouldn't have been in Vermont since 1989, you know what I'm saying? So, I don't want to get sad about it, Charlie, because here's a few incredible budgets and they can't open them. Our use in this is like 7,500 square feet, you know, 3,500, 5,600 square feet, you know what I'm saying? And it's all free for you. The best stuff in our places, because people believe in us, you know what I mean? We can't afford it, but people believe in us and that's why we get it all. And if people got all this money in their budget and they won't even do nothing like that, it is, we're the ones, you know, why, why? Why they want? I don't know. They certainly can't afford it, you know? They certainly can't afford it. We can't afford it, but we do it. We've been doing this since 2003 in the state. Still going strong, have a few centers in our galleries and malls. That's great. So, I don't know, I get a little sad about that, Charlie, because that's why I know that things won't change much, you know, because especially for our youth and families, man, and I work with them on all kinds of levels, I'm helping our youth and families and I work with all our schools and it's not all about me, it's just the work that we do. We really, really work with the people who we share, I mean, that we serve. We really do. I get the answers from there. It's a dumb-ass thing, not to get the answers from me. I have youth advisory boards, let me tell you something. There's no one in the world I plan to be able to have a youth board. We're planning, before we go, Charlie, we've got five minutes. My organization created youth on boards for the city of Burlington in 2003 and they sit on the police commission, planning commission and all that. You got youth on your board? Well, you do not. That's all right. We just got through, we called it, we revised our resolution that started in 2003 to get youth on more boards in the, well, planning commission to the city of Burlington. So we just revised it. So now we're about to do two incredible events, which I'm going to talk to you about. You've come into the Contourist Auditorium and we're going to do big events like understanding what youth on a board means. First of all, DJA is going, you're going to have my coordinator, Avalina, playing this big like they're going to do like art. They're going to sell their own art and make money, too. But they're going to learn about one of you being, we can try to get them excited about being on boards. Then we're going to take it to them. We're going to fail in for him as normal with people at Echo. And then we're going to do a, check, I don't want to have a commissioners there talking about like Boyang and ACLU and ADOL, the job, what is it? Department of Labor? Department of Labor, D-O. Sorry. I don't know. Thank you. Department of Labor, I, they're already committed to it. And people don't like to talk about, so then that's going to be a big one. We want to get this youth excited about being on boards and committee and commission. Then we're going to do surveys and get them on, get them on, get them on these boards for the city of Burlington and any city. I'm going to work on SS, the city manager there, Turner and Milton. Milton. We're going to get youth on boards through, I got with Pamela from Tamela from SS High School. And we're going to, we want youth on boards all around Pamela and around Sinning County. And it's happening. And so you know what? We ain't better than nobody, but you should be on everybody's board making decisions on what it should be for them. How can they make a difference? Not us telling them what to do, because everything we do is for them. And so we've been doing this since 2003. And people don't know, I don't go around saying all the stuff about all the things we do, but on our revision of our resolution for the city, Brian Pines helped us, been working with us on CEDAW. Max Tracy, you know, these people were supported. It was signed up by Karen Nodap. Jane? Jane. And Karen Paul? Karen Paul? Karen Paul. And I feel the black girl's name. She's, you know, Hightar? Yeah, Hightar, you know. And Hanson. And so they're all signed off on a lot of, you know, and so on our new resolution. And so now we're working to get these youth excited by being on boards and committees and commission for the city of Brabantson. And it's going to, it's happening. And so, I mean like, yeah, some of us should take a look at, too. Yeah, we've got some different options. Well, I'm going to ask you about it. If it can't be no better. We changed a few things on our resolution. One thing was, at one point when we did in 2003, they couldn't vote. So not again. And we added more committee boards and committees. They can vote, man. We'll go to you and make any decisions, and you can't vote on them. Well, not again. So we're happy about that. So I'm going to say we ain't better than nobody, but this is work that I do. I don't get paid for doing it, you know. It's something I have to do. It's a passionate for me to do. And youth are getting better. We see different, our measurements are really good. I mean, from getting youth from boards, committees, jobs, job selling, mentoring, internships, that's what we do. And we don't need no zing dollar budget. I tell you, all you need to know is the people who know it. Like we talked about Dr. Lloyd or Indian Chief. You got it, bro. That's all you need to know. They'd be so excited to talk about the work they do, the youth job selling them, intern for them, all kinds of cool things, you know. Well, I know for a fact, because that's what I do. So Charlie, come on. Close us out. What's you got going on? What's coming up? What's you got? I really appreciate it. I don't know how I can follow up all that. Well, you ain't got to follow up on that, because we're a team, bro, let's say. Yeah. So I think one thing I'll give a plug for, we're having a public meeting on, I think it's January 26th that evening. I think it's 6 p.m. We've been kind of looking at what to do around exit 14 and just how that backs up at peak hours. What the hell is back exit 14? The Burlington exit on 89. Yeah, I was going 15, 40. Staples, Plaza. Okay, gotcha. Yeah. Right. Double tree. Right. And so we've been kind of taking a look at the interstate, but also what can be done to just reduce traffic in general. So a lot of other different options, bus, bike, walk, anything else, working from home. So we're having a public meeting that evening. So I encourage people to plug into that. And yeah, there's a lot of other things. Yeah, please check out our website, ccrpcvt.org. And then, you know, each year we're probably doing like probably about 150 projects around the county. So, you know, someone were pretty small. That one's a pretty big one. But, you know, again, ranging from emergency management and preparing for climate change and energy and transportation, land use. So lots of things going on in all of our municipalities every year. And yeah, feel free to get in touch any time. Can you see your website again? Yeah, it's ccrpcvt.org. No doubt about it. And then they can, people can look at your website and then they actually maybe have some ideas and suggestions that might be interesting to That'd be awesome. Awesome. Yeah, please get in touch. Happy to help. Thank you, Charlie, for coming on our show. Thank you, sir. And in support of our programs, Arts are Wonderful, our art gallery in the University Mall, come to Arts are Wonderful, our galleries are really nice. We're about to renovate it. It's going to be so nice in the back. We're going to put, like, another chill-out center. It's going to be arts and crafts for youth and families, free, of course, in the recording studio. And so I'm excited to get it going. Next week, I'm going to start moving some shelves. I'll start doing stuff. But I'll wait for my art director to come back. I wonder, do you like Query? I start miss you. All right, Charlie. Thanks, man. Thank you. Have a good one. You too.