 Well, the supremacy of laws is a great place to start and it does play a role in this bill. And an important thing to note about the way that the Dylan's rule states operate in comparison to any other model of organization of local units of government is that the General Assembly in the state of Vermont can grant any specific power, delegate any specific legislative power that it sees fit to any municipality within the state, which is unique and potentially very powerful for units of local government if you grant them the power. The bill that you have in front of you is a rerun of S106 as it came through this committee and was passed by the Senate last biennium. There is one clarifying edit that was made for purposes of the draft you have in front of you. It's highlighted in the document as it was posted and I'll cover it when we get to that point. It's the only change made from the bill as it passed out of the Senate last biennium. The bill starts with a findings and intent section that describes findings of the General Assembly concerning the relationship between municipalities and the state. It begins by stating that the General Assembly finds that state law and policies at times inhibit or delay the ability of municipalities to adopt and implement solutions to local problems. That state law policies and procedures limit the ability of cities and towns to creatively work with the state in a timely and efficient manner. That municipalities lack the ability to make the best decisions to meet their truly local needs and that establishing the pilot program authorizes a limited number of municipalities to engage in self-governance within defined parameters and that that will allow the state to determine gaps in municipal power. It will provide a laboratory for cities and towns to develop local solutions and it will allow municipalities within the program to more efficiently respond to the needs of their residents. Moving on from the findings and intent we'll get into the operative provisions of the bill. Section 5802 is added to define certain terms for use within this new chapter and to cover the general eligibility of applicants to the program. This section defines commission, municipality, program. Municipality is the one that you'll want to take a particular look at. The definition of municipality is limited to incorporated cities and towns. No other form of municipal corporation in the state would be eligible to participate in the program under this chapter. The goal is defined here and this limits some of the eligibility. As a plan that describes the enumerated powers that the municipality requires for the adoption of ordinances that are not in conflict with the U.S. Constitution, the Vermont Constitution, federal laws, and the state laws that are listed in section 5805 sub-C, which we'll get to later, it's a long list, and that provide for the health, safety, and welfare of the population within the territorial limits of the municipality. This is another piece that gets repeated and hammered on over and over again in the bill. This is limited to the authority that the municipal corporation has within its territorial limits and later, it's expressly stated that any of the ordinances or powers that are granted won't allow a program participant to affect any other municipality. Further, that the plan describes the measures a municipality expects to pursue, including the adoption of any ordinances. Section 5803 contains the procedure for adopting a proposal that will be submitted to the Commission and later to the General Assembly. And this procedure is modeled after the Charter Amendment procedure that exists in Title 17, and I'll move through this somewhat quickly if there are any particular questions about the process. Happy to get into it. And I believe that this section was the first time in my career as a legislative counsel that I used the blackboard in the Senate Government Operations Room because we mapped out how long it would take to adopt a proposal. So a municipality that is seeking to participate in the program is going to be required to submit their proposal to the voters and follow the following procedure. First, that an official copy of the proposal shall be filed with the clerk 10 days before the first public hearing. There are two. The legislative body shall hold at least two public hearings before the vote at an annual or special meeting. The first public hearing shall be held at least 20 days before the annual or special meeting. The legislative body has the authority to revise the proposal in light of recommendations made at a public hearing, but that no revisions may be made fewer than 10 days before the vote. The second public hearing shall be held not later than 10 days after the first public hearing, so you have two in somewhat rapid succession. After the warning and hearing requirements are satisfied, the proposal is submitted to the voters at an annual or special meeting in its certified form, and the legislative body has permission to make technical corrections prior to that point. Municipalities are permitted to amend an approved proposal after it's been approved by the voters. By following the same process we just went through, it's the same as charter amendments. You still have to follow the charter amendment procedure. Upon approval by the voters, the legislative body shall submit the proposal or amendment to the commission, and that leads segues beautifully into Section 5804, which creates the municipal self-governance commission. The commission is created and consists of 12 members who are appointed as follows. First, four members shall be appointed by the governor, not more than two of whom shall be from the same political party. Eight members will be appointed by the general assembly, four by the senate committee on committees, and four by the speaker of the house. Of the members appointed by the senate, not more than one may be a legislator, and not more than two may be from the same political party, and of the members appointed by the speaker, not more than one may be a legislator, and not more than two may be from the same political party. The terms of members of the commission are two years. The commission shall have the power to review, evaluate, and make recommendations concerning a proposal submitted by a municipality. They'll have the authority to establish criteria for the evaluation of proposals, and that includes each municipality's population geographic location and governance structure. They will have authority to consult with state agencies that may be affected by the proposal, and to recommend to the general assembly the municipalities that should be approved to participate in the program. Subsection E states that the office of legislative council will provide administrative and legal assistance to the commission. The commission shall have its first meeting at the call of the speaker of the house, and that shall occur on or before November 1st, 2021. The commission shall elect a chair from among its members. Eight of the 12 members are required for the to constitute a quorum of the commission. Subsection G covers the compensation reimbursement of the members of the commission. G1 covers legislative members, and that per diem compensation is governed by two VSA section 406. All other members are their compensation is governed by 32 VSA section 1010, which is the section that governs all other members of commissions that you've probably reviewed many, many times, especially if you were on the boards and commissions review committee. Payments will be made for monies appropriated to the general assembly. Subsection H deals with required reports. So first honor before January 15th, 2022, the commission shall submit a report recommending at least one, but not more than 10 municipalities to participate in the program. And the commission is required to recommend municipalities that represent a range of populations, geographic locations, and governance structures. At any time after January 15th, 2022, the commission can submit subsequent reports recommending additional municipalities, but at no time during the existence of the program shall more than 10 municipalities be admitted to participate in the program. I will note that, of course, statute would not bind the general assembly's authority to admit more than 10 municipalities if that's how the general assembly decided to proceed. Honor before January 15th, 2026, the commission is required to conduct a performance review of the program and submit a report that contains evaluations of the effectiveness of expanded self-governance, a recommendation as to whether the program should be reduced, expanded, or terminated, and a recommendation as to whether additional legislation is necessary to modify the program, including any recommended additions to section 5805 sub-C, which is the list of prohibited statutes that the proposals cannot touch, and any other relevant matters. Commencing on January 15th of the year 2023, and each year thereafter, the commission is required to submit a report that contains all of the municipal progress reports, which we haven't gotten to yet, that are required by section 5805 of the chapter. So they'll be bundling all of these municipal progress reports and submitting them to the general assembly. The commission is required to hold program meetings with the attendance of representatives from each of the admitted municipalities participating in the program, legislative bodies of each participating municipality are required to appoint a representative who attends these meetings, and that is all for that section 5804. Section 5805, this is the critical operative piece of the bill, and where last biennium there was the most tension and confusion about how the program operates. It's also the only place where there is a clarifying change or edit from what you reviewed last biennium. Subsection A states that consistent with chapter 2, section 6 and 69 of the Vermont Constitution, the general assembly shall have the sole authority to approve proposals and any proposal amendments and admit municipalities for participation in the program. So the new language is the addition of shall have the sole authority. It is redundant as it was written last year. It stated that the general assembly shall approve proposals and proposal amendments. It was written to reserve all authority to admit the municipalities to adopt statute, which is an exclusive power of the general assembly, but this was added to make certain that those who are reading the bill understand that the general assembly has the final say in all of this. A municipality that is approved by the assembly for participation in the program will have authority to adopt or amend ordinances pursuant to the powers that are granted to them. And now in subsection C we get to the list that sets aside what a proposal may not touch. So subsection C states that a municipality's proposal shall not include the authority to adopt or amend an ordinance that is inconsistent or in conflict with the U.S. or Vermont Constitution, federal law, the public records act, the open meeting law. What is colloquially described as the sportsman's bill of rights? That's 10 VSA section 5227, 24 VSA section 2291 sub eight and section 2295. And to refresh your recollection, those sections deal with the regulation of sport shooting ranges and regulation of hunting, fishing and trapping at the municipal level. There are prohibitions. I would recommend going into those statutes if you're curious about what is being restricted here. State law governing the following subject areas are also set aside from the proposals here. Firearms, the environment, conservation and development, forestry or fish and wildlife. And in that sub be those terms were specifically selected because they relate to entire titles of the Vermont statutes annotated that were lifted from the program. Crimes and criminal procedure, cannabis, state lottery in games of chance, alcoholic beverages, except that municipalities here may propose to increase local license fees, health insurance, banking securities and insurance, electric utilities, workers compensation, minimum wage benefits and employment protections, elections, except for local elections, state highways, state sign law requirements of 10 VSA chapter 21. Standards for classifying town highways under 19 VSA section 302. I know that well. I live on a class four road. Procedures for laying out discontinuing and reclassifying town highways under 19 VSA chapter 27. Motor vehicle requirements of title 23, except for chapter 19 of title 23, which relates to parking. Aviation or railroads. All of those are pulled out and may not be contained in a proposal. Subsection D states that municipality shall only have the power to adopt an ordinance or bylaw that applies within the territorial limits of the municipality. They cannot adopt an ordinance or exercise a power that would require or prohibit action by any other municipal corporation. And to help you understand some of the discussion that happened around this particular subsection, this was about whether municipalities would be given authority over school districts. School districts as an independent municipality called out here, the municipalities would not be able to exercise that authority. Commencing on October 1st, 2022, and each year thereafter, the participating municipalities shall submit progress reports to the commission. And if you recall, the commission will start bundling those annual progress reports and send them to House and Senate government operations. Those progress reports shall contain the following minimum requirements, a narrative description of how the authority granted to the municipality has been exercised and what the results have been, a list of the ordinances that have been adopted pursuant to an approved proposal, the estimated fiscal impact of any ordinance that has been adopted, and a summary of any pending or active suits, proceedings or petitions that challenge those ordinances. And finally, any information that the commission may require for purposes of exercising their duties under this chapter. Section 5806 provides that the program shall terminate on July 1st, 2026, so it's only going to be in existence unless the General Assembly comes back and amends this for five years. Any ordinance that is adopted during that five-year period that the program exists and is approving proposals will continue to be in full force and effect until it is either superseded or repealed. No ordinances may be enacted by a municipality after the termination of the program. The effective date is on passage. Hey, so are there any technical correct questions for Tucker? I have a couple comments, but Senator Calamore and then Senator Clarkson. Thank you Madam Chair. I think I've figured out the answer since, let's see, page five is where the creation of the self-governance commission is talked about. I'm assuming that since the committee on committees and the speaker are responsible for eight of the appointees, they have to be from the General Assembly. In other words, they could not, could they appoint Joe Public? They have to. Yeah. Okay. Only one can be a legislator. All right. And my second question in the list of prohibited areas of government, education is not listed, but I think you sort of answered. In other words, if a municipality said to itself, hey, you know what, we think everybody that only goes to 10 graders should be able to be a graduate of high school. That wouldn't fly because the the other municipality, the school district, comes under the agency of education jurisdiction, correct? And bless you Madam Chair. I'm actually not sure how the relationship would work. The, if the school district controls those educational requirements, which again, I'm not certain if they do, then the municipality would not be granted any authority under this program to control the school district's area of authority. However, something that I brought up even when this exhaustive list was being put together, this list communicates to each of the municipalities applying to the program what the General Assembly does not want to see in a proposal, but it does not restrain the General Assembly from granting whatever authority they choose to give at a future date. So, I mean, that was an extreme example, but you know, a town or a city, I guess, could could decide what topics to teach in their own schools, but I still think they're under the the agents of the agency of education. I don't think they can independently decide that, so I think that word education does not necessarily have to be in the list. And these are municipalities that only are cities or towns. Are there any gores that, I mean, I know you're a gore expert, so I didn't know whether they would be part of this or not. I know the definition calls out incorporated cities and towns, so the gores would not be included. Thank you. Nor the grants. Senator Clarkson. Senator Senator Rom. Oh, Senator Clarkson first, then Senator Rom. Thank you. I had a couple comments, a technical one. You said that the commission shall elect a chair, and yet the word you have on page, whatever, on page six, line 11 is selected chair. I like the idea of selecting a chair, but anyway, that's just a tactic. You asked for technical things. I agree with Brian. I had education as one of the questions on the list and also revenues. The revenues of the state are a big issue, and we, having served on Ways and Means, we do not grant municipalities the opportunity to raise revenues of the state. I mean, in very specific situations, we grant them the opportunity to have a local option tax, and that's it other than fees. So that, I'm going to go to Senator Rom first and then because then we'll get into these discussions because I think that that goes just beyond, a little bit beyond, just a technical clarification here. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. I had those on the list. I had those two concerns, where revenues and education. But I just, so Senator Rom, did you have a clarification question? I was wondering if this applies to uniform code, like streamlined agreements we have with other states, interstate agreements with places like New York or Massachusetts or New Hampshire, or international agreements we have with Lake Champlain. What if someone, yeah, I'll leave it there. There's no prohibition here from a proposal from a municipality that might deal with one of those subjects and that is not already prohibited by the exhaustive list in subsection C, but recall again that whatever proposals come in are reviewed first by the commission, and then the commission selects the proposals that get advanced to the general assembly, and then you all get to have a substantive debate about whether to approve the proposals and admit municipalities. And because that is within your supreme legislative power, you have the red pen to strike out anything that might interfere with, for example, an interstate compact or the state's required participation in any of those um compacts or agreements. Okay, I'm not even saying I disagree, but what if one town on the border wanted to like do something with Canada, you know, and they get it really creative, or what if it was like a Lake Champlain related issue, you know, how would other jurisdictions then know who rules are? We would approve. Yeah, and in addition, they have to come with their package of changes. That's kind of like a change, isn't it? Well, it is except that it's um anyway, I'm sorry that we have to go through this horrible protracted process to give the towns any authority at all to make any decisions, but just given the nature of the general assembly, we this is what we have to do. And I have to say I think this, I have two things here. One technical thing is they can't even put stop signs on their town roads, on the town roads, that is ludicrous. But anyway, the I have a huge problem with this humongous set of things that they're not allowed to do, because I think that that's but people got all upset about it. And then the other thing I would do is I would drop the findings. As I remember, the findings caused a lot of consternation on the floor. People said, what do you mean the state laws prevent them from being creative? And as I remember, there was a lot of conversation about the findings itself, as opposed to the the concept of allowing more self governance. So I would I would just completely drop the findings. So, Senator Clarkson, I, I'm not sure. I mean, I can see streamlining them. But I think it's very important to clarify why we're doing it and providing tent for people to understand. Because I think most people don't have a clue about the restrictions at the moment that the municipalities face in making decisions and in doing things on their own. I don't think they have a clue. So I think that I think actually, even for the General Assembly, I agree, perhaps we would not want to do anything that begs more questions. But I think we should be very clear on our intent with what we're trying to accomplish in this bill. I agree. But I think intent is different than findings. And we can put an intent in there without having all of those findings that talk about how we don't allow them to do anything and how it curbs their creativity. And that that brought on a lot of discussion last year, as I remember. And, and, and I think it's our responsibility to let the General Assembly know. Anyway, anyway, I just, we can we can leave them in there if we want, but we definitely should streamline them and make them not not controversial isn't the word I'm looking for. But a lightning sometimes as Peg Flory used to say, she has she had seen bills actually died because of fights over the findings as opposed to the content of the bill itself. So and I've seen that too. Senator Collomer. I agree with you, Madam Chair. I think there are four findings. The first two are negative. And, and I don't see any negative. It says that, you know, we inhibit or delay the ability and we limit the ability. And I would like to see a phrase like it will allow the municipalities to be nimble in terms of trying to figure out on their own how to solve problems, which only affect them. Yes. I think if you turn it and you're in your positive, people will read it and say, oh, yeah, that sounds good. I think that's an excellent point. They all need to be flipped. And it needs to be more intent driven, clarify what our objective is with it and make it positive. This is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. But I absolutely agree. That's part of the problem. I think Jeanette's having with the findings. Senator Collomer and then Senator Rom. I mean, I mean, yeah. Okay, we spend a lot of time together. So it's easy to confuse us. And you're right on top of each other right now for my three. I'm going to ask sort of a rhetorical question. I obviously support this. I supported it last year. I support it this year, but I must admit revisiting that list of all the things you can't do makes me wonder. Maybe I'll ask Gwen or Karen. I mean, what else is there left to do? I mean, if you don't have an answer, that's okay, but it's just sort of bothering me that like we've limited it so much. I mean. Yeah, I think it bothers us too, but it became the way I described it. It became a bit of a Christmas tree where we were decorating with all the different ornaments of interested parties that were concerned about their own individual needs. And I think what everyone was missing in the larger conversation is that there is no exhaustive list like this that exists for charters. They can do all these things in charters. That doesn't mean it's going to get approved by the legislature. You're just artificially taking up a whole bunch of things preemptively. And so I think that's our biggest problem with it is that there wasn't that... I don't think that message was conveyed that not only are we going to the charter process, we're actually adding an extra layer onto the process. And then on top of that, we're adding a list of things you can't do. So it's definitely like a neutered version of what we would want, but I think it got lost in the messaging. So this looked very different from what we had proposed initially. And it's definitely not ideal. And I would agree that the idea of this is to basically create sort of a living charter because right now the biggest problem is that you have things that are written in law, whether it's general statutory law or charter that never get revisited. No one sees how they work. No one figures out if there are barriers to break down and kind of work things together, whether functions can work better between even just committees that are established in a town. Something really simple like that, like a cemetery committee or a library, whatever. I mean, it could be anything. And so this would be an idea to just get it rolling. And then if it's successful, then building off of that and seeing, wait a second, if we're not so prescriptive in general law or charter law, and the world didn't fall apart, maybe it's not so bad to just hand the range over to truly local things. So we share your concerns. Yeah, I didn't bring that up to derail things. I just was bothering me. I would cost them all off if they were up to me. Senator Rom? I think I'm more in that direction too. I was just curious historically in the committee, if there was a conversation instead of saying what you can't do, being clear about the areas where you can, and which I think are where it doesn't conflict with state or federal law or maybe some, I might add like some kind of interstate compacts and international agreements, but everything I can think of that community so far should do is somewhere on this list. That seemed like the experimental way to give towns the ability to be laboratories. So either I would say, I would just limit what they can't do or say in these broad categories, this is where you can experiment. Can I just say something there? I think that we explored that, and I don't know if what happened in committee or out of committee, but you kind of get to the same result because you say, oh, we want to do with local issues. And then you say, well, what does that really mean? You're like, well, you know, it could be zoning, it could be roads. And then when even you bring in that, you're like, well, you can't touch this regional aspect of things, or you can't touch the state roads. And then you're so you're still, even when you bring up a topic, for example, like, you know, oh, just like liquor license fees that have been set in statute forever, and no one's changing. And then they're like, well, we don't want you to do anything else other than that. So we have really specific carve out. So I think we wanted to do it that way. It makes way more sense to do it that way, but it still kind of got to the same result, you know, like you were still adding things to the list. Well, I think what happened is that it started out and I would actually like to have us look at what that section was when we started it before all the lobbyists got in here. The banking lobbyists came in and said, well, you can't have the towns doing their own banking laws that that isn't right. So then we put banking in there and then you had, well, you can't have towns deciding their own environmental laws. I mean, it just got nuts. And I would like to see us go back to those broader and see where we get with that. See if we can, the people, my guess is that the people who voted against it on the floor last year are the same people who are going to vote against it this year, whether it's got 43 prohibitions or three, they're going to vote against it. So I mean, and it is so insane the way we, I can't, I mean, I just was, when I was going through our elections through title seven. Well, we can, a town can have three select board members. But if they vote, they could have five, but they certainly couldn't ever have four or six or seven. Because we know that they're not smart enough to figure out how many select board members they need. Just drives me nuts. Anyway, Senator Clarkson and then Karen. No, I was laughing in appreciation of you. So Karen. So, yeah, I think there was a definite evolution in terms of the list of what you can't do. And there are a couple of things sort of strike us this year. There are two towns that have proposed charter changes that say that if any provision has been adopted in any municipality that that town, Winooski is one and Williston's the other, that that town can adopt it in their community because it's sort of already been proven in another community. And when we first started talking about this whole concept, it was more along those lines, you know, and and that that would actually also relieve a lot of make work for the legislature. So that anyway, that's a different kind of approach. So can we go back to some kind of language like that, that if a town, if we've already approved, the legislature has already approved something in a charter change for one town, then any town, well, that that's a whole different thing. We could that doesn't have to be part of the pilot, that could be any town could have that could if we've, if we've maybe, maybe instead, we should have a piece of legislation that says that if any town, if we have approved a charter change in any town, that that then goes into the general statutes to allow any town to do that with or without a charter, it becomes the what do we call it, we have towns with charters that are ruled by charters and then we have towns that don't have charters that are ruled by the general statutes. So if we've approved it in a charter, then it automatically becomes part of the the statutes that any town can, am I saying that right? Well, it becomes possible, possible for all towns. Yeah. May I read you the language of the charter change proposal and from Williston, for instance. It says that any charter change approved for any other municipality may be adopted by majority vote of the electorate as a charter provision in the town of Williston without the need to return to the general assembly for approval provided notices given to the Secretary of State within 30 days of the vote to approve the amendment. So you still have to get it through your electorate. That yeah and that's a little bit different than I because what I was thinking here was that it isn't a charter change that so Putney doesn't have a charter. Yeah. But if the town of Brattleboro has decided that if we've approved a charter change for Brattleboro to do whatever to put up a stop sign or to have representative town meeting or whatever, then it becomes part of the general statutes so that now Putney can do exactly the same thing because it's part of the general statutes because if we're approving it for a town with a charter, why would we not just make it general law that any town could do that same thing? Does that make any sense? Sure. I can think of a couple things though that you get pushed back on. Gun laws. Gun laws and the like. We haven't yet passed. We haven't yet passed that charter change. Right. Yeah. But I think in other words, if a community, I know my failure voted to allow is it 16 year olds to vote in local elections? No, non-citizens. Brattleboro has 16 year olds. So if they had gotten that approved as a charter, then Burlington could do that. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. What I'm saying is, yes, if we think it's good enough for Montpelier or good enough for Burlington, why isn't it good enough for Putney and Grafton? Right. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If we don't think it's good for anybody, then we wouldn't approve it in the charter change. Well, I'm not so sure. I think some things are very specific to certain communities. All the communities may not have that same need. I can't think of anything. I can't think of anything that if it's good enough for Burlington or good enough for Montpelier, it isn't good enough for Putney. And they wouldn't proactively have to adopt it, but it's there with possibility. And I think sometimes even within the larger communities, there's a differentiation between the downtown district and the rest of the municipality. Let's say you allowed people to drink openly on Church Street. That would probably be very specific to Church Street. Like it is Bourbon Street, but not all of Burlington. So how you might do that somewhere else would be challenging. But that, I don't think, is in their charter, isn't it? That's our ordinances. I don't know. I mean, we let a lot of people do that. Walk away with to-go cups. We're having almost everybody do that. I don't think that those that Burlington probably has in their charter that they can drink on Church Street. I think my guess is that that's an ordinance. Yeah, it sounds like it. That's Title VII. Title VII allows outdoor consumption permits for first and third class licensees in designated locations. And Burlington's charter may have something more specific that deals with outside consumption. And Title VII actually does not allow curbside pickup or delivery of alcoholic beverages from first and third class licensees, but it is happening. So it's happening because of the emergency order. Yes. But so go back to my contention here. If Burlington, if Title VII allows that, and Burlington has in its, whether it's an ordinance or whatever, that it can happen on Church Street, but it can't happen on Pearl Street. I don't know what. Why wouldn't it be allowed to happen in Putney on Main Street, but not on River Road? I mean that we, if I cannot think of one single charter change or one single thing that would apply so specifically to one community. How about cannabis sales? I mean, we're now in the middle of all these towns taking a vote on whether, I mean, to me that was a mistake in the first place to have an opt-in rather than an opt-out. I know when we will disagree on this, but you know, then the same would be true for that. Yes. Well, but that's not a charter change. That's not a charter. That is, they have the right to vote one way or the other. And we're giving them that right. But what I'm saying is that if anything has been approved in any charter for any town, it ought to go into the general statutes to be allowed in any town. And the town would have to pass it, one assumes. I mean, the town may not want it. Of course. But it's available to the town if they want, if they so choose. Yeah. Tucker, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I brought, I got this really derailed, but I'm so... The different formulations of this are all really interesting and they all trigger different constitutional analyses under the Vermont Constitution. The first formulation that would allow a chartered municipality to amend unilaterally their charter so long as powers were granted in another municipality's charter might be unconstitutional because they would be amending statute, which is your exclusive power. They can't do that. It would still have to come to you and allowing them to amend their own charter would be in an unconstitutional delegation of your legislative authority. Senator White's proposal is interesting because you are all in the driver's seat for general municipal authority. So if you want to, with any charter that comes up this session and future sessions, if you see a power that you determine should be a general municipal power, you can add it to the police powers listed in title 24 in section 2291 wherever you want to couch it and you can grant it broadly to any municipality in the state. There's also really interesting constitutional analysis that will have to happen with some of these charter proposals around if powers are granted retrospectively. If the General Assembly says, Williston, you get to have powers that we have already granted as of the effective date of this bill to any other municipality, you've incorporated by reference all of those other statutes into that statute and that might be constitutional. But then you are not binding future assemblies. So if a future assembly says City of Montpelier, you specifically get this charter power, it's not entirely clear whether that future power, which is specific and later enacted, would be accessible by a community that has a past authority to adopt any of the powers that have been granted through charter and you start to get into this area of conflict between are you actually granting special authority or are you granting general authority and what is the intent of that future assembly when they pass the statute and it becomes increasingly problematic for chartered communities. It would ultimately be detrimental to those that have their powers in statute if you had some sort of formula where chartered powers were available to any municipality because the chartered municipalities would be in a position of well we have specific state law that defines our powers. If there's any conflict there, we're going to have to amend our charter go through the process and go back to the General Assembly. So there's a lot to unpack there that at least for me is really fun and interesting and I hope it is for all of you too. Yes, it is very exciting. So I guess we should at least try to go back to the pilot project and maybe reduce the number change the findings and reduce the number of prohibited areas. I would actually I think that it's very interesting that if we saw something coming through in a charter that we could I think you're saying Tucker is just and it seems like something that any town ought to be able to avail itself of we could just approve that charter but we could also amend the general statutes to allow that particular thing without this kind of overbroad thing that I was thinking of and that that would be very interesting because it might I mean it took us four years to allow towns to have their what was it their town clerks to be appointed it took more than that. No that one parking meter money parking meter money oh my god parking meter so anyway that's right maybe we can do these are separate things but maybe we can do them both as we see charter changes coming that we want to put actually change the the general statute. Senator Collimer. Thank you Madam Chair. So as you were talking I had fun I went back to look at the roll call vote on s106 last year it was 218 and it's really interesting if you look at who voted no yeah to me no discernible pattern uh who voted no because we're on youtube all of course it's all public records who cares yeah so for instance senator baruth voted no uh senator brock voted no senator hardy voted no senator mcdonnell voted no senator mcneil of ruttland voted no so it was kind of like all over the place and uh but it did pass so I don't know that we want to change too much of it um you know what I mean I in other words not that we have a absolute certainty that we can get it done twice but I think I think you're right I think you're right I'll I'll keep my my idea for another day um I still want to pursue it but um well we will have an opportunity after crossover because we'll have some chartered changes and we can decide if we want to adopt them for everyone else I do have I would like us to look to um to look at the um are are we running over our time here I don't know no the next events at 3 30 okay um I would like us to look at the original um what was originally in our bill around the parameters and then um where we ended up uh bucker has sent that to us by the way by email okay okay but before we leave I know we're going to revisit this list but I think we should be clear about what is uh specifically a state power like revenue like setting revenue and stuff I mean those are specific to that we that would not we would not be able to I don't think grant uh of a more liberal view on those I like you're not going to allow I I can't imagine we would allow toll booth in brotland well that effect but that that doesn't affect just within their their boundaries that would affect people coming in from another municipality and that isn't allowed oh right of course okay well but every town is not an island on their own I mean every town has people visiting in it and whatever is in that town affect anybody who comes to it but the yes of course but if you the us and a stop sign on a town road is going to affect people that are driving through but it is within their municipality and it is it is designed to impact their their um locality their municipality right I mean we have state laws we have state laws that are different than New York and New Hampshire but the other people from New York come here and yeah the other thing I wondered about is with the extensive list of what you can't do what's the point of having the 12 the 12 member commission they don't have anything to do is because everything's prohibited anyway so let's not bother me except revenue yeah right no we got to come into bills yeah I would like us to look at these and to see why they really are if it says you can't do anything against the us constitution the vermont constitution or state law that already covers these things if there's a state law that says that you can't dump the your raw sewage into the Connecticut river that's a state law putney isn't going to be able to say we're going to dump our sewage in putt in the river when um thank you for bringing that up um chairwoman I think that that is getting lost in a lot of this so I think our proposal would to be just get rid of that enumerated list and really message it a little bit differently than we did two years ago when it was going through the chamber and saying you know we're essentially creating a charter process with actually more review so um there it's actually more honorous to go through this process than the than the charter process um and you're already going to have eyes on it and I think that already you know even when my towns and cities contact you know our you know vlct about charter changes they they it's not it's it's almost like their first step is like what will the legislature approve once they figure out where the temperature is or the barometer or however you want to qualify it that's where they start the conversation so I don't see any community going through this heavy lift of putting all of this together as a community and putting ideas out there that they know instinctively are going to get shot down so I think that um they you have to trust the process not only for what you're reserving as you're right as a general assembly but and obviously the you know the constitution was automatically there as a stop gate but also trusting that the communities are going to be smart enough to understand that if they're going to ask for crazy things they're going to get shot down and there won't be a recommendation from the commission to the legislature to say hey this is a good idea and so um I think that that that needs to be the bigger message rather than there's you know this you know Christmas tree ornaments that you're hanging that you're never going to cover everything and by the time you get to the end there'll have nothing left Karen yeah just following up on that another sort of fallback conversation that we had um over the last year was maybe just setting up the self-governance commission and um letting those conversations happen outside of the state house um and and so towns could would have that conversation with the self-governance commission and then if anything came of it the commission would you know come to the legislature sort of or the town would come to the legislature with the backing of the commission right there would be somebody that was sort of a political um local state a political that could support them in in whatever the proposal was so um before we wrap this up today what I think we should do is look at kind of two options here one is to go back to the original um under 58.05 I think it is um C and the original language there and the second is to Karen's suggestion which I think what you were saying was to just set up the commission and don't address these um issues at all right now let the commission work with the towns around that yeah yeah around what they think would be yeah appropriate local measures and just start the conversation basically right without setting up pilots you mean and let the commission come back to us and say you know what we think it would be great to have pilots because we have this need these are some of the needs that are cropped up and we'd love to have a pilot right right or yeah or have the town come back to you and say we'd really like to put these measures in place and the commission which has reviewed them thinks it might be a good idea but the decision is all still yours it just it it might just take the conversation out of what in the house seems to be a kind of toxic environment I know well but that change the composition of the house is such so radically changed I mean there if you look at that gov ops committee it's a pretty different crowd and I I wouldn't necessarily think that that translated into more um support for this idea I I don't know that for a fact but because if you look at like Brian just said if you look at who voted against this it was it was inexplicable I mean at least on face value right so anyway um so let's let's talk about those two options next week and have some the rewrites of the findings take out the toxic ones and and just have um well because make it more positive yeah that that that is exactly what the the two that Brian was referring to are what generated a ton of conversation on the floor last year as I remember it okay on that last piece uh could I ask you all to send some of your proposals for the findings and then since they are your findings which is my typical ask of all of you is to frame frame frame them as you have found the issue and express your intent and I'll put it in for you will do I I can take a stab at writing some of those and sending them to the committee and then we um can get that uh committee input I think that is what Brian and I had in mind yeah intent and positive great thank you thank you very much madam chair speaking of sitting on one so okay yes but before we before Karen and Gwen go I just want to um remind you of what the constitution says about this it says the no charter and corporation shall be granted uh except for each municipal charitable education penal or reformatory corporations as are to be and remain under the patronage or control of the state that old Ethan Allen didn't like both that and how much interpreted ever since has been very interesting yeah yeah it has it actually applies to schools and education and right towns and cities for example we are definitely not to live free or die stay but manage me or your death or not yes we can have a five minute break