 Claire Wool's got to get on as quickly as possible. So my name is Joel Fitzgerald. I'm going to moderate the meeting tonight for the Ward 6 Neighborhood Planning Assembly. I'd like to welcome two new members, Caroline Hauser and Nelson Martel. This is their first meeting. Thank you for joining us. I'd like to start the meeting off with public forum. We have 10 minutes for public forum. Is there anybody that wants to speak in the public forum? Gail, are you raising your hand? Yeah, I am. Hi. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. So it's Gail Rose. I just wanted to comment on the no-cause evictions topic that's on the agenda for later, just in case I have to hop off later. So the point of the no-cause eviction rule is to protect tenants. Obviously that's really important. But I just wanted to point out that a no-cause eviction policy could have unintended consequences that haven't been thoroughly thought through and which might dissuade good landlords from owning rental properties in Burlington. And I just want to be clear that I'm not talking about just-cause eviction, which allows a landlord to remove a tenant for things like non-payment rent and breach of a lease. But a no-cause eviction is where a landlord doesn't renew a lease at the end of a lease term and doesn't give a reason. And there are many good reasons and examples of why landlords need this tool of no-cause evictions. Just because a tenant pays rent and doesn't breach a lease doesn't mean that they should be allowed to rent indefinitely. So for example, landlords should have the right to place family members in their apartments. And personally, I rent out a house that I used to live in and I may want to live in again or maybe my kids want to live there. And I should be allowed to, you know, let the tenants lease expire when that time comes. Also sometimes landlords need to make renovations that can't be done unless the space is unoccupied. And there are circumstances where no-cause evictions would allow landlords to protect other tenants when there are problem tenants. So, you know, I could go on, but my point here is that landlords should be able to retain control over their own properties. And it's my view that a lease is a contract with an expiration date. And when the contract expires, the two parties are no longer obligated to each other. Thank you, Gail. Anybody else care to comment in the public forum? Mary, can you let me know when you feel comfortable? We can let Claire on if, you know, if we, if there's nobody else. I think we can- Sandy is raising her hand. Oh, okay. Hi there, can you hear me? Hi, Sandy. Hi, how's everybody doing? Good, how are you? I'm good, I'm good. So this is Sandy Yusin from Champlain College since I'm sort of a disembodied voice. And I did just want to let our neighbors know that we are going to be sharing some information on Front Porch Forum tomorrow. And the information is posted on our website as well about our plans for the end of the semester and the next few months and then the beginning of spring semester. So we are continuing to share information with our neighbors. We are going to be shifting to fully remote instruction after Thanksgiving and remain remote through the end of the semester, which is in alignment with current state guidance. So all of our main campus residential students will be departing on November 22nd and then our residence halls will be closed. And then our spring semester classes begin virtually on January 25th and they kick into in-person classes, February 8th. So I'll have more details on the website. As I said, I don't want to take up a lot of time, but I did want to let neighbors know that that was consistent with what we've shared in the past, but a little bit more information as our plans have evolved. Well, thank you. That's very informative. Sandy, do you mind if I ask a question about how things are going with your monitoring of students and everything? Yes. So we have been very fortunate that the number of cases on our campuses is quite low. The last time I looked at the dashboard which I think was this morning, we had five cases to date and none within the past couple of weeks. So we continue to test students and our employees weekly. And we've found that our students are really, it's been an all-team effort across campus and our students, we've just been really proud with the way that they've taken on the responsibility of staying safe and healthy and following protocols and just caring for our on-campus community but also our larger community surrounding us. Any specific questions, Matt, or? No, that's great. Thank you very much. And that dashboard is available right off of our main homepage at Champlain.edu. I can only look at so many dashboards. I know, I hear it. I hold my breath every time. Okay, thank you. We have a couple more minutes. Anyone else care to chime in on the public forum? You know, I see we got, we have Joan, I'm not sure if Joan is listening to us yet but we were thinking about having some of the developers for the downtown project come in in December. I was wondering if you have, what do you think about that, Joan? Is that probably something that's okay to bring into an NPA at this point or are people wait for that kind of thing or what's your feeling about that? I'm sorry to push you on the spot but if you say, hey, let's talk about it privately, that's fine. I think it's fine for the NPA to bring people in. We are in litigation, so that is to be kept in mind. But I think, yeah, the NPA is separate, a separate entity from the city was intended to be that way. So I think you should invite whomever you please. Okay. We thought, Joan, that maybe, you know, it was, because of the excitement that it would be, it would be really nice to get them on really quickly because, you know, we think that everybody else is kind of excited because of the project. Well, you know, you'll hear, you'll kind of hear, if you invite them, you will hear one side of things. So that's to be kept in mind. And yeah, so that's all I'll say on that. All right, thank you. Sure. Hey, thank you. We have Claire. Well, hi, Claire. Give us the. Brownton school district update. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I'm sorry. I missed last month's meeting due to an extended meeting. My apologies. We are very excited to be here or myself and Jeff Wick to give you a word six update. Okay. Knock on wood. We have opened up our schools. As of September 9th. It was eighth and ninth. And for the last, we're entering our third month of school and things are going very well for the pre-K and K to five elementary schools and our sixth and ninth grade middle schools. And then in the last week, we went to our fifth grade classes. And then in the last week, on the 20th, we went four days a week with our third to fifth grade classes. So all now K to five classes in the city are meeting four days a week in person with their teachers with Wednesdays being a synchronized day for faculty and staff to get together. And so we're very happy with that success. On the other spectrum is we are very disappointed and concerned about our high school and our technical center. The good news about the technical center for those families that have are familiar with it. We were able to relocate the technical center all 228 students throughout the city to continue the Burlington technical center programming. And those students from ascending schools. And we were able to accommodate that because the number is so low. We spread out the, that those programs, those 12 different programs. And then also our on top, our alternative high school, we were able to find a home for at rock point and our intensive special needs students. We were able to find locations here in the city. And the reason why I'm talking about it, if I haven't explained it, our high school was, we had, we made the decision to close the high school due to air level qualities that were above the Vermont Department of Health's recommendation. Due to PCBs that were discovered. When we completed our, our environmental state testing. One and two that are required for the construction project, the size of the construction project that we were, we are planning to do, or what planning to do. And so it's a long story. And, you know, in going backwards, we can. We actually met with the governor today. A lot of our requests and conversations at the state level, the federal level have been on hold and sort of pausing. I think honestly, because of the election and people were extremely busy and remote learning was just accepted so that, you know, we had been challenged with how much do we, how much do we disrupt and cause commotion? Like as if this was a hurricane that hit the high school and we need FEMA funds. And that we were approaching this difficult situation on our own as a district looking for alternative space to. Resume in-person learning as soon as possible. So we have an extensive list and we have, we feel poised to be able to get to in-person learning for our 970 students and 100 roughly faculty and staff. And so we're looking for alternative space to resume in-person learning as soon as possible. So we're looking for alternative space to resume in-person learning for our 970 students and 100 roughly faculty and staff. At the beginning of this coming school year, I mean new year or January. But that has taken a tremendous amount of effort from us, which is great. But we have asked for help. We've asked for help from the university of Vermont. We've asked for help today was the first time we were able to actually have a meeting with the governor. And we were able to make as a school board what those alternative sites look like. And we had a survey that we sent out to families. Hearing about their priorities of in-person learning. What was important to them as families and students. And we have that information that we're going to talk about tonight at a board meeting that begins at seven. So many things to discuss. And I think it's a great opportunity to talk about that. I think it's a great opportunity for the community at large. But the good news is, is that we finally, finally this week was an important week. So I was excited to be able to be on the NPA agenda because. We did speak to UVM and we finally spoke to the governor. And so that's good news. Yeah. And so. I think it's a great opportunity to talk about that. And I think it's a great opportunity to talk about that. And hopefully some decisions next Monday at our normal. A monthly board meeting, which is having a special one because. As boards, you know, open meeting laws, we have to have meetings to discuss. And so that's what we've been doing a lot of. Strategizing and organizing our thoughts of next steps. Do we want to open for questions? Is there, is there a line for questions? Okay. Well, the first question is you spoke of FEMA and funds. And I don't know if it was, you know, in conversation, but it brings up a point. How does this affect the current school budget? I mean, you know, the budget's all planned out. And then you get hit with this hurricane. Now, does this come out of your general fund? Or are we hoping for state aid or federal funds? Okay. So that's what we're working on right now. Two things. One, the repair to, to move these students to the satellite sites, because it's obviously going to cost some money. Yes. So that is what we're working out now. We have isolated these costs, the preliminary costs that were being paid for out of the re-envisioning fund, the bond for the new high school. But now, uh, given this, the severity of, um, the cost of the school budget, the cost of the school budget, the cost of testing to see the scope of this contamination. We know that the contamination at the tech center, um, is great. And so we have to, as a city and a community, have those conversations of what it will take to bring that, that building back on. And then what we want to do as a city, um, with our, our current situation. We're going to be testing again in October, April, once all the testing is done on the campus to let us know. So it's really layers of, of, of next step. So the first layer is identifying, uh, the testing that we've done. We've done subsequent testing the end of September, September 29th and 30th. We did testing again in October to see about the levels where we were trying to look and see if we could get into a building, if we could get into the gym, if we're looking for the auditorium potentially to use that, that core building, even if we have satellite space for winter sports and for, um, necessary operational needs. And so the budget, what, where we'll fund it. We are looking to similar to New Hampshire. We have reached out to the Vermont environmental consortium. Uh, we have reached out to, um, the University of Iowa, who studies PCBs. We want to go after these, this chemical company, um, you know, for these abatement and mitigation costs, we do not want them to come from educational program dollars. This chemical was, you know, banned in 1979. And, um, you know, we find ourselves in a predicament that, you know, many federal state school buildings. Um, this is a known contamination that, uh, if you're lucky, you know, we just completed $7 million renovation on Edmunds campus. We did not run into this situation, this contamination there. So each building, uh, is unique and, and they're, the makeups of those building materials. So we found them out Flynn. When we did Flynn, we found them at Flynn. Yes. Yeah. I had heard that. And, and we feel that, um, through legislation similar to lead and drinking water that was recently passed that buildings will need to get tested. Um, and the funding for PCB testing and mitigation is another long conversation, but for the here and now we are absorbing these costs. We are keeping a ledger. Uh, we will be able to show the governor these costs associated with this contamination and try and get federal funds with the support of Leahy and Sanders, um, because it was unbudgeted. And then the future, like I said, of the tech center, because it's, um, it's numbers levels are so high that will be another conversation. And we did ask, you know, again today without divulging too much is that we don't want to pay for, uh, alternative space with our school budget. We want those dollars to go to educational purposes. And so we're looking for the state to help us in these alternative costs of for on the costs of finding an alternative space. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. Nelson. Do I, do we see any hands? I do. All right. Thanks, Nelson. Claire, thank you. Little did you know when you ran for school board that you'd also be real estate locator developer extraordinaire. So thank you. I mean, really, I know you guys have been working so hard behind the scenes. So can you comment more on UBM, or is that an announcement in the future? Yeah, they were again, they are dealing with an active campus. They are going, I think, to help us out in a temporary capacity. So I don't, you know, we, my dream was to take, you know, a building or two offline and potentially have us be there. But knowing the information that was shared with us, which is very positive university is has 11,000 students on campus and knock on wood. They have been incredibly successful. They have tested every week for students. There were roughly 2000 students that did not come back this semester due to COVID and remote. And now those students are coming back for spring semester. And so they are going to accommodate it even more students because of the success of our state and the university and managing COVID and students feeling confident to come back to Burlington. So that then increases their need and their footprint to spread out six feet wide and all their buildings. And so capacity in the long run for helping us out just doesn't seem to be there. But in short term capacity, you know, hopefully we are going to make some arrangements during their break period to be able to utilize that. And so we're just in the beginning, like again, yesterday was the first time they were able to meet with us. We have been pursuing them since September. And I know they had a, you know, an incredibly extensive list that we had to go through to be able to have those conversations of reality and logistics to make it happen. But we feel very fortunate with that, with, you know, hopefully that it can work out. And even the half days Wednesdays at Edmunds or such a thing. Yeah. So that was proposed. That was just proposed last week. I think we're going to, we're going to revisit that based on potential conversations of which we are just literally today, yesterday and tomorrow. Tomorrow going to be having with the BHS faculty and staff and our community. And so we did propose that because again, for those of you who don't know there, because there's no school on Wednesdays, the BHS team had proposed that we use Edmunds campus because it can accommodate all of our students. And that we would go in on that asynchronous day and teach our Burlington high school students starting this month on Wednesdays. And so we are still things. We went out with it just to tell people, look, this is our plan. And we, we had heard from the community. Just give us a day of in-person learning wherever, whenever our students are hurting. They've been out of school for eight months. So 14 to 18 year olds have been navigating an incredibly challenging situation where remote learning for college age students is one thing. Remote learning for 14, 15, 16, 17 year olds is not at all a positive, impactful way to learn as a high schooler. 50% of our population is not at all. It's not a positive way to learn as a high schooler. 50% of our population is at risk and free and reduced lunch. So those students are our greatest concern as well. Parents, we know we're full time. So learning math and science remotely is just not something that we want to continue anymore that we have asked a lot of our families and our students are at the high school level. And so like I said, we do not sleep at night. We are focused on this and we are committed to getting these students and freshmen who have never met their teachers. So that's a community. So the whole child, the social emotional needs of our students are not being met. And so we recognize that. And we are in an emergency situation. We are working on this daily to figure this out. So I just want to clarify. So is that not a certain team now? They'll have days at Wednesdays. We are, no, we, we, we put it out to the community on that. Superintendent Flanagan did, but right now, because of our conversation with UVM, we, we are, we will be updating the community shortly. So we're, it's, I would say right now we're holding on to that, but it is what we hope for more rather than just that. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Wow. That's, that's a lot. Wow. You know what it is. I mean, I'll go deeper, but yeah. Here we are. I think it's important to see that supports capital improvement for their public schools, of which we have nine physical schools and 11 school programs to alternative high school programs. The citizens of Burlington have been so supportive of our public school district in passing a capital improvement bond to fix, you know, our, our aging schools. We have to find and shoulder the cost of a new high school. All of us in the last year have gone down to Montpelier to speak and testify on the importance of construction aid, which most, if not all states have for public schools. They give 30 or 40% construction aid to your project. Vermont has had a moratorium for 10 years and we understand we live in Vermont because of its beauty and we recognize that its low population creates a limited tax base. So we don't have the revenue that we could potentially put towards something like this or have to put a moratorium on. So we know the cost of living, we know our taxes are high, but what happens is when your city then commits to improving the efficiencies, the ADA accessibility, we all know why we were all excited to have a high school. And then to be faced with this situation and then be put on hold all in the effort that if we hadn't had these dollars to do this work, to do this testing, we would be sitting in a school with these contamination levels unbeknownst to us. And I think the call to action is, that's really intimidating. That is something that as a state, we have to address. And I feel bad because students, faculty, past faculty, they all feel, they're not very positive about having the time spent in that building and we have to be able to share with them as we did with the Department of Health that PCBs are all around us and they're in our food and we have that, like we're just, we are now stuck with a situation that we will get through this for sure and we will determine where it's coming from and the tech center, again, we can sort of put things together that were used in that building, I think from the initial conversations we're having, but be proud of the fact that we were, on the road to improvement, this is our obstacle, but we will get through it. And the best part about getting through it is now knowing our situation, even though it's unfortunate, I feel confident that we will get support some way, somehow from the government. And this is the beginning of an awareness to looking at our other schools and making sure that they're all safe. So. Yeah. Well, thank you, Claire, and thank the board for all the work that you're doing and all the citizens of Burlington, like you say, for getting behind this whole effort for the education of our children. Yeah, and I appreciate the parents like you, Mary, who are sticking with us because we will get through this and we will get our students in person and learning. And I just can't thank those families enough that have helped us and reached out in every capacity to help us deal with this very difficult situation. Yeah. Thank you very much for all you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Can I ask a question? Oh yeah, John. Yeah, we're up. Claire, I just wanna really express my gratitude to you because I can't even imagine sitting in your seat right now and dealing with all of this. And I am really, really glad that you're there. Because your commitment and capability just can't be matched. And I'm also really sorry for the students like yours, Mary. This is just so rough on everybody. I have a question that's off the topic of the immediate emergency and a little more forward looking and the answer may well be you haven't had the bandwidth but it's an important issue that we kind of both took up, I don't know, a year ago with the school funding formula. And I wonder if there has been any, my understanding is that we are again hoping that that's brought up at the legislature. It makes a huge difference to Burlington's budget. I haven't been hearing from our legislative delegation on this issue. And I'm wondering if you're hearing anything or if the school board has been able to have any focus on that. Yes, so to give everybody perspective, the agency of education asked for a study and it was done by Tammy Colby here in the University of Vermont on the way for people waited, how we fund our school districts and districts that require more support for students in need are not the same as a community that is better off with less needs. And so they really decided that it was really draconian how they were waiting the per pupil formula and it hasn't been reviewed and looked at. And so we testified all last year as well to the Senate Ed committee and Phillip Baruth who leads that, heard us loud and clear on our needs. And Kendra Sowers commissioner here on the school board, she's leading the charge with that committee and sent an email out to all districts asking for their support in the review of this weighted per pupil that it absolutely has to be updated to reflect 21st century learning costs per district. So we are on top of it. I'll connect you online with Kendra Sowers for this letter that we took the initiative to do. And then we do have to follow up with Phillip Baruth because we'd spent a lot of our time down in the state house talking about this and having formal presentations about this and requesting a review and action. So we are on here. We had asked for a report back from our legislators and maybe we can coordinate so that we That would be great. You're back. We greatly appreciate the city council's declaration on reviewing that. That was a huge support and a sound sign from our city of collaboration and acknowledgement. So thank you for doing that and leading that initiative. You're welcome. And thanks for your kind words. I really feel lucky at the local level for everybody on the Zoom call when I look out and see all of you and especially during this incredibly challenging time that you're my neighbors and citizens and I'm not sounding sappy. We have to get through this together. And it is really important, the sense of community and level-headedness and honesty that goes into our work. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Claire. I'm gonna leave because we have the school board meeting. Oh, yes. Thank you for your work. Okay. Okay, well thank you. So next up we have the legislature update with Barbara Rachelson, Chittenden 6-6, and then I see your name. Barbara, are you there? I am here. Can you hear me? We can. Oh, great. I don't know if you can see me. Yeah, Barbara. No. You cannot see me? No. Okay. I don't know how to make you, let me just see. I think Barbara is under an attendee. Joel, if somebody can promote her to panelists, I think we'd be able to see her. Help IT. She's been promoted. No, there's bottom left hand. Is the camera? There's a camera at the bottom left hand. Matt helped me through it. Hey. There she is. Yes. She's still muted though. She's muted. Yeah, Matt, do you have an radiator? If she can't unmute herself, sometimes it's the computer, and if you plug in headphones, she can make it work if she can hear us. I don't know if she can hear us. Can she see us? We could go, we can't hear you. I can hear her a little bit. Hi. There we go. Oh, good. It looks like I had a choice of being seen or being heard. So... So I was going to also comment on the school staff, which I still can do, and I'm sorry, Claire jumped off, but I can catch up with her. So I'm Barbara Rachelson. I don't know who's out there, so I don't know who I'm talking to, but I represent part of the MPA Six Award, and thank you for re-electing me this week. And it's nice that we got the vote count right away. So I didn't have a chance to talk to folks. I don't think I've been at an MPA meeting since the spring. And usually I come in before the election, but this is great timing because I know that we'll be starting on January 6th, we'll be getting a legislative all-day briefing on December 3rd, which will include a lot of information about the budget. You may have read that the speaker of the house has a recount going on now. So depending on the outcome of that, we may very well be electing a new speaker at the beginning of the biennium. But I can say a little bit about some things that I know and there's some question about if we'll be meeting remotely or not, but either way, we will be doing business. We have had the great honor and of having Joey Donovan and Mary Sullivan representing part of this district for many years. And my first term, I served with Joey as she chaired the Ed committee. So she was really carrying the torch on a lot of the issues that Claire touched on. And I am happy to re-engage on those issues. I have since not served on the House Ed committee, I've served House Judiciary. I don't know what my committee assignment will be, but it doesn't matter. I know that since March, we basically were doing work that had a clear path to being approved, one chamber had already approved it probably and otherwise we were doing COVID relief and budgeting. But any work that Claire was referring to that's been done, we start at ground, the clock sets back, everything goes back. Every bill that we introduced, it's wiped out. So we're starting again and it's really important now that we're putting in bill requests and starting that work. So January 6th, we're out of the gate and ready to get action. We have two years to do that. There's gonna be a new speaker, a new head of the Senate and it's just gonna be really key that we have our ducks in order. So I just wanna make sure we're connecting and I'll wanna try to connect with Kendra too to make sure we're doing this work in the House and in the Senate that will make it go quicker. I know we spent some time last session looking into lead in the water at schools, which was something that I don't know why we weren't looking at it earlier. Obviously what happened in Flint, Michigan made a big difference in terms of raising people's awareness. And I also was involved in our committee with legislation related to PCBs contaminating the Bennington area. And the concern being that if we were just relying on the EPA website, we were really doing a disservice to people. Their bar was very low. And so we were working to hold companies responsible that did this damage and that bill ended up getting vetoed. But it's a serious issue. I think just like the lead in the water we need to be making sure that our public buildings especially for children and youth and obviously the staff are safe. So that's like not even negotiable. And we put so much money out to test and fix lead that I can't imagine we're gonna turn our heads on the PCB stuff. So I just wanted to put both of those issues out there. While the moratorium on construction has hurt, it also I think as we're trying to figure out why we have a gazillion school districts and it's been better over the years with submergers for the dwindling number of students. And so it hurts Burlington and other districts that are growing, but we really need to look at Burlingtonians too getting charged with many, many schools going in to do construction projects that may or may not make sense at this juncture. So I just wanna present that side as well. In addition, so I wanted to get three things across tonight. One is just say hello again and meet people that I haven't met yet. Encourage people to reach out to me. I have spent a lot of time this summer helping people who are having either difficulties with their unemployment or other difficulties either accessing some COVID relief programs or whatever. Like one really great thing about being a legislator is we can help get people predicaments with the state moving quicker and there's something that I find like why should somebody have to have a legislator call on their behalf to get something moving? But on the other hand, it's really important to know when people are experiencing these difficulties and in addition to helping them, we can look at the system wide issues and some of them have been related to DMV. I mean, they've been all over the map, but it's really just important that people feel comfortable reaching out. And I'm hoping people know about what the COVID relief programming has been. I'm happy to send a link with more of that information for folks. And then right now I can start putting in bill requests. And again, I will talk to Claire and Phil up and Kendra about the per pupil formula, but I'd love to hear from you all. I mean, I have my very long list of bills that I'm passionate about, but I wanna make sure, especially since I wasn't able to go door to door, like what are people feeling frustrated about? Or on the other hand, you might have heard about a great idea in Colorado where your kid lives or something of a law that they're doing. So I really wanna hear from all of you, whatever thoughts and ideas you have and try to make coming to the NPA more of a regular event for me, especially since you're doing it on Zoom now, because it seemed like during session, I would be a Montpelier, but this makes it like very easy. So I don't want this to be like a twice a year thing. Great, I'd love to have you more. Do we see any questions? Joan has had her hand up for a little bit. So Barbara, I'm a facilities director for a small school district in Bristol. And a lot of the things you spoke about are true. I mean, we are struggling on closing schools and per, you know, the same, we're actually going in a different direction than Burlington is, you know, we're shrinking, they're growing, and it makes a lot of sense, which you said that, you know, with the moratorium on construction, it gives a lot of people to think about what projects, you know, are important, which ones are not important. And we actually are talking about that now. We have five schools, you know, do we do this project at this school if we're gonna close it in five years, you know, and we have to leave it in good shape for the town, but how, you know, what kind of shape does that mean and all that stuff. So there's a lot of conversations about those things. And I really liked the fact that you, you know, you brought that to the table, because, you know, people, our superintendent's curious of what we're doing here all the time. And so he's pretty excited I'm on the committee because anytime we can get some information from Burlington is really helpful. That's great. And I don't know if there's more info, I used to actually work at the counseling service of Addison County. And so I'm really familiar with the school district that you work for. I have been, and many people have heard me talk about this. I have been a fan of really looking at having one school district for the state. And I'm not trying to take away the type of role that I think people want to be doing when they are on a school board. But do we really need all of those school districts, which cost a lot. And I know it's been a few years since I've been on the Ed committee, but there used to be 50 schools in Vermont that have fewer than 90 kids in them. And, you know, we had taken testimony from people where somebody was the only fourth grader in their school, for example. And I really think for the amount of money we pay per student, if we sort of created a system from scratch, we could put so much of that money towards the education, the teacher, the fact, the salaries, you know, we always hear about all the unions. And it's like, you know what? Nobody is talking about how much it costs to have the lawyers negotiate those contracts. You know, they're always sort of taking it out on the union. And Hawaii has one school district. They have way more students than we do. And as you know, they have the ocean between their islands. So we could certainly work it out with our mountains and roads. And I think really improve education. It's, yeah, it's a lot. I mean, our schools are half full. Right. We're down to like 75,000 students, I think. And I will get that figured at the December briefing, but it's way down from the all-time high of 129,000. Yeah. Do we see any hands up? No. I have a question. No questions? No, I have a question. Is there more to do with the decisions around retail sales of cannabis? Is that, what's going to be happening in the next session on that? I'm not sure so much will happen in session. There's a board that will be set up and a bunch of different organizations, et cetera, working on it. But there's, I don't think that will take much of our time. Towns have got to decide if they are willing to allow stores in their district or in their, yeah, I guess I'm gonna use the word district for municipality. And so I think city council is gonna be busier on it than we will be. I'm sure people will want to, I mean, it wouldn't even really start until like about a year out, I think. I've got to look back at that. So I'm not sure what, I don't think so. Yeah, all right. But if there are concerns. I just want to let you know, we've got around 16 people in the meeting. You're talking to a lot of people and we've got at least four or five others on the YouTube channel. So it's pretty good. Oh, great. Pretty good. You know, starting with the new session, what would the timeline be as far as Burlington actually receiving funds? Right. Okay. And I know that you said that, no, you didn't say it. Claire said that there have been conversations with the secretary. So if there's already money in the secretary's budget, which I am not aware that there is, but let's say the secretary has some money, that could happen. We'll end up doing a budget adjustment in February, probably. So if money exists already, it could be coming to Burlington this year. If it's starting, if it's looking to have it appropriated, we're on a July one fiscal year. And so unless it were connected to COVID somehow, which I don't see how, but maybe we can give that more thought, it's possible there's money sooner. There's also other types of funds that the school can apply for. And I must say I'm not familiar with what has been pursued. So there's CDBG money. Burlington is, the rest of the state goes through the state department to get CDBG money. Burlington has its own CDBG pot of money, which goes through CEDO. But also it's possible that through whatever sources the lead money went through. If let's say there's money sitting there that they tested all the schools, but they didn't need to do as much repair as they thought, it may be that some of that money can be repurposed. Again, if it's a new bill and it requires money, it's gonna end up waiting until FY the next fiscal year to get that money. Unless there's some emergency situation, I'm just trying to think of what that is. And I would have to look into that. I can inquire, but I can't think offhand of, I mean, I don't know. I shouldn't say that because there have been other state facilities that have had other emergencies. We've had hurricane damage. So there are ways that things can happen. And part of it probably means really working with the governor's office. Well, great, thank you. I'm a parent of a high schooler who's looking to go to school. You've never known a 16 year old boy who wants to go to school more. You know what, I cannot, I must say, I cannot imagine how hard it is for, I see my neighbors scrambling every day, which day is what, but I can't imagine how hard this must be. And it's dire, I have to say. It's really, just because it's not COVID, because they see every other kid in town going to a different high school. And those high schools are proceeding relatively normally and they're all stuck in their own little world of their house. It's like such a bizarre, you know, situation. But as Claire said, I can't, you know, what if we hadn't found out, you know? Right. Yeah. Well, thank you. Oh, well, thanks for raising that and I'll see what I can learn. Wonderful. Okay. Thank you, Barbara. Oh, thank you. So moving along, next up, we have the Burlington Tenants Union with the topic of Just Cause Evictions Proposal and it's Tom Proctor. Welcome, Tom. Thank you so much for having me. And just clarify, my group is Rights and Democracy, but I'm here tonight on behalf of Burlington Tenants Union, Rights and Democracy, CVOEO and Legal Aid. And yeah, thank you so much for having me on to speak today. So a quick introduction of myself. Yeah, Tom Proctor. We're for Rights and Democracy. For those who don't know about Rights and Democracy, we're a political nonprofit that's based in Burlington, but we operate across Vermont and New Hampshire. And we're grassroots people, powered movement. And we look to push for progressive change on local and statewide levels. So I'm the political organizer for Chittenden County and obviously Burlington is one of my bigger spots. I'm also a Burlington resident myself. I've lived in Ward 1 for the past three years, but I've been a resident of Burlington for the past five. And I have been a tenant for pretty much all the entire time of that. So this, a lot of what I'd say is gonna be taken from personal experience, but also a lot of the work that's been done, that has been done on this, it's been done by Legal Aid and CVOEO who have really come and done a ton of research and brought a lot of really important facts to this issue. So first of all, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about what just causes and what the current tendency model is in Burlington and Vermont in general. So in the state of Vermont, we currently can evict for three reasons, non-payment rent, breach of lease, and for no cause. So this means the landlord of a property does not actually have to give a reason for an eviction and can evict a tenant, even if they have paid rent and being a complete model tenant and never breach lease, never do any material damage. They are legally allowed to evict for no cause. The majority of the time, this comes in the form of landlords deciding not to extend a lease. They're telling tenants that they're required to move out at the end of the current lease. The exact figures of how many people per year affected by this is unclear. While we know no cause counts for about 10% of eviction cases that reach the courts, this does not paint an accurate picture as the vast majority of the time when presented with an end of lease eviction, tenants will not contest it in order to avoid having an eviction on their record and leaving them with a blemish, preventing them from managing to find other housing, which especially in Burlington is, you've got no chance to find another apartment. I'll talk about that a little bit in a minute. So just cause has many models depending on municipality is very much in place in a lot of different areas around the country. Essentially though, it means tenants would be protected from being evicted for no reason, which provides security stability for good tenants. Just cause does mean that tenants can still be evicted, but it would have to be for that, a just cause. So what is it exactly? So what is a just cause? It entirely depends on the landlord and it entirely depends on the lease. Obviously you could still get evicted for non-payment of rent, so that's never gonna change. You're still gonna get evicted for material breach. If you burn down the kitchen, you'll probably still get evicted unfortunately. But you will also be able to get evicted for a breach of lease. So say you're a smoker and you smoke in the living room, the landlord finds out that very well could be a breach of your lease. As a landlord is the party that draws up the lease, it would be up to the landlord to decide what would constitute an eviction threshold. And it would be up to the tenants to decide whether or not they wished to sign a lease based on the stipulations of the contract. So I wanna talk a little bit now about the hidden damage of no cause eviction because a lot of people hear no cause and like, well, in a lot of ways, it makes sense. It's a landlord's property. They can decide what they want to do with it and who gets to live there. But there is very much a hidden side and a dangerous side to no cause and the things that can lead to and has led to in the research that's being conducted by Legal Aid. So as we probably all know, being a landlord puts an individual in an inherently powerful position. And with unfettered power to take shelter and housing from the tenants, it can lead to some landlords abusing this power. In Legal Aid's research and research from other housing groups who are around the US, who studied no cause, they have noted that the ability to evict without cause has perpetuated discrimination and harassment against tenants, especially those from marginalized communities. With no cause landlords have been able to evict after they find out the sexual preferences of their tenants. They've been known to evict after the tenants have got pregnant or adopted a child or managed to get custody of their biological children. They have been known to evict because that child has developed behavioral problems like autism. They had been known to evict after tenants have got pregnant or become unemployed or even eligible for Section 8 vouchers. Some landlords even have evicted tenants after the tenants have fallen ill and become disabled. I think especially in a time of COVID where if you do catch it, it can be absolutely devastating for months, maybe potentially years after we don't know yet. This could really become a concern. There's another side to this corner as well and that's landlords that use no cause as a cudgel and a tool to prevent tenants from importing them for bad housing practices or harassment. Tenants fear eviction for many legitimate reasons. In Burlington, there are barely any affordable housing. In fact, there's barely any housing at all. As I've mentioned, we've got a vacancy rate right now of about 1.5%. And evictions can lead to huge uncertainty for tenants. Lack of stability, increased anxiety, and it can lead to homelessness, loss of employment, being forced away from your family and ultimately potentially suicide and depression. Often for many tenants, especially around here, it is easier not to mention that mold in the shower or the faulty railing or lack of heat in the winter or even harassment from your landlord because the consequences of bringing up these legitimate grievances will ultimately result in a no cause eviction at the end of your lease and having to go through that cycle of trying to find housing again. And especially those in the lowest rung of the socioeconomic ladder, those from the most marginalized communities feel these effects more and it allows unscrupulous landlords to get away with some really horrendous housing practices. So, Tom, we have about five minutes left and I've been running five minutes over. Can I take a quick poll to see if there's any questions? And if not, we can let you continue, but if there's some questions at this point, I'd really like to get them in. Is there any questions? Okay, I guess you're okay to continue. I have a question. Okay, go ahead. Neil Groberg, I wonder if to your knowledge, the universities or Champlain are taking a position regarding the bills since they have so many students who live off campus. As to the universities, I don't know what their position on this is at the moment. I can tell you that there is a number of larger property companies that are taking a stance in favor of it. Northgate have been a recent one that have come out in favor and the board has unanimously decided to back just cause. So there is larger housing groups that have come in favor of this bill, but as it comes to the Champlain and UVM, I'm not sure yet they are part, we have reached out to try and find what the position is. We have reached out. Yeah, recently we reached out. So I'm still waiting on reply to that. You could be waiting a long time unless you nudge them. Well, if anyone knows anyone that I, yeah, if anyone could help us out with that, that would be really appreciated. I'm gonna be trying to use my own channels, but I'll always take advice and help. Well, I think Joan who is supporting the bill and online, I think Joan is, she's not. No, Joan's pretty against it, yeah. Okay, nevermind. If you wanna contact me offline, you could just Google me, I can give you people who you can contact and Sandy's staying pretty silent here, but maybe she has some comments about Champlain, but it's really more UVM that would be interesting to see if they have comments. I'd really appreciate that Neil, I'll get in touch. UVM, I'd certainly love to hear from them. I think students really are the ones that suffer a lot when it comes to this kind of housing practice. So thanks for your comment. Thanks. I'm happy to run through this a bit quicker. I understand that obviously I didn't realize how long this meeting already run for, so I'll try and get through the last part if that's okay. Yeah, we were running a little over, but go ahead and continue. Thanks. So, state law does prohibit landlords from retaliating against tenants who seek to enforce their rights, but in practice it really does little to shield tenants. Protections are limited in scope and almost impossible for tenants to access and practice. Inhability cases, tenants need to have a rebuttal presumption that landlord's determination is retaliatory, but only if a state or local agency issues a report and landlords also rarely discriminate in writing. Vermont Legal Aid 2019 report, eviction in Vermont at Closer Look reveals that 75% of eviction cases, the landlord is represented and the tenant is not. So often when this does kept to court, the landlord does have all the power because money-wise and just knowledge-wise, because it's their business, they carry all the cards. We got some recommendations for this Just Cause ordinance. This has already passed through a charter change, so it's going back to the full council, but we want it to cover as many landlords as possible. It defines Just Cause quite narrowly, limited to material breach of lease and non-payment of rent. In case of material breach, it requires landlords to give written notice of the breach and opportunity to cure it, requires landlords to inform the terms about civil and legal rights, such as legal services for Vermont and Vermont Legal Aid. It limits landlord's ability to mimic no fault, no course of vision by raising a rent and unreasonable amount. And yeah, just kind of my last and part of my conclusion, overall, we really do believe the measure will be good for tenants because it will reduce some of the power balance as well as provide stability, safety and security to Burlington's most socioeconomically and marginalised people. It will be a boon for homeowners and taxpayers as landlords will be more likely to stick to housing codes, meaning there'll be less street and cone enforcement and a crackdown on slumlords within Burlington, meaning nicer neighbourhoods and happier neighbours. It will be beneficial to first-time homeowners and potential small-time local landlords as we predict some larger landlords will sell off some housing stock as return on investment slightly narrows thanks to the need to repair and bring up housing to code. It will help Burlington grow as more people be able to stay in Burlington and put roots down here. And it will benefit the good landlords that treat the tenants with respect. They deserve as many already lived within these rules self-imposed, such as Erhard Menke, who's a big advocate of this and it will create a level playing field in the industry. And I would also like to note that since, so as you kind of put this out, we've also said that we would also entertain a exemption for owner-occupied buildings, which I think would be really important to kind of still preserve that small landlord bond, whereas while kind of putting the owners on the larger landlords. But yeah, sorry, that was a little bit long, but I'm happy to answer any questions. And yeah. Well, I think we can squeak a couple more minutes if there's a question or two. Is there any, there's a lot of names on here and I didn't know if that meant a lot of questions. Okay, well. I think Michelle just raised her name. Oh, okay, go ahead. Hi there, thank you for your presentation. My question is what are the opponents to the just cause evictions? What are their complaints in general? Or what is the nature of their opposition to just cause? Yeah, so that's a really good question. We have certainly had a fair amount of oppositions from landlords on this. And there's certainly a case to be said about there's a lot of landlords saying, you know, they're good landlords and they want to be able to do what they like with their property. And so by imposing just cause, it means that they don't have full control over their property anymore. So I think that's somewhat legitimate, but I think it doesn't really look at the balance between the power between landlords and tenants. There is been a issue when it comes to a lot of landlords claiming that this partly rent control that as I said, there's a provision that says in this ordinance that says landlords can't raise rents over a certain percentage because what we were gonna see is a major loophole that landlords would get rid of tenants by raising the rents in a reasonable amount. And then once they got rid of those tenants they would basically put the rent back down to normal again. So we did have to put that provision in, but I believe it was 25% of the last year's rent. So we didn't consider that rent control ourselves because it was a still pretty hefty hike. So that's been another issue with landlords. And then landlords have also said that if a tenant has been abusive themselves they should have the right to be able to evict that tenant. But we've been saying you've fully within your right to evict that tenant because that for us would be a breach of lease. So there's definitely been a lot of opposition and pushback on this, but we feel that some of the arguments have been a little bit spurious. May I speak to Michelle's question? Thank you. Was that a yes, please? I was just saying thank you for the response. Okay. Yeah, John, go ahead quickly. So what Tom said about the 25% rent increase is not true. That is not in the, that's not in the charter change. It's unknown what the allowable rent increase would be. It's also not true that owner occupancy is excluded from this. In fact, I had offered an amendment that would have done that, but it was rejected in the charter change committee. And there's a list. This is not a comprehensive list, but some of the things that were raised and not answered prior to moving this forward is do we have data indicating that no cause evictions are a significant problem in Burlington? Is there a distinction between forced evictions and non-renewal of lease? Will this cause undo hardship for small landlords, possibly leading them to sell to large landlords? Some of the things that Tom said about large landlords selling, I don't know what that would be based on. We don't know if large landlords would wanna get out of business. The people we're hearing from primarily are small landlords actually. Will this prevent me from moving a family member into my apartment? The answer is yes. If I have a tenant who is harassing another tenant, but doing this, doing things that are hard to prove or hard to prove or not illegal, such as displaying Confederate or Nazi symbols, hate speech, lewd comments in ways that are offensive or threatening to other tenants, will I be able to get them out? No. If I sell my duplex and the new owner wants to move in, can they give notice to the tenant and move in? No. What does a lease mean if not a limit on tenancy? Should a landlord be required to give a tenant a lifetime contract? Isn't that something to be negotiated between landlord and tenant? There is a long history of cities that have tried to construct lifelong obligations and rent control only to see properties suffer from poor maintenance and decreasing value. How will that outcome be avoided? Are there solutions that could accomplish the same goal? So I'm not gonna, I think you're kind of short on time. So I don't wanna go through all of these, but they continue and these are things that were raised by people in the Charter Change Committee and in just communications about concerns that were raised and these concerns have not yet been addressed. I can give one minute, that's the, I can give one. Thank you. And just because I just wanted to clear up a few things, a couple of misconceptions and correct the record a little bit. Yeah, I completely agree with Joan in terms of the kind of line that we're drawing in with owner-occupied buildings. That was not, that did not go up in Charter Change. That's something we wanna address when it gets to the city council. It's something we've been discussing over just the past couple of days. So fair enough, you haven't heard that yet. This has kind of been a Ward 5 exclusive on that one. I just wanted to address another couple of issues that you did raise when you said, what if your tenants are displaying hate speech, confederate flags or whatnot. We've considered a breach of lease if it's in the lease that they can't do that. So that would be a lawful eviction. And then the day an eviction should have to go through court and you have to prove that your tenants have done something wrong in order to be able to get rid of them. You just heard small landlords have mostly been turning up to these meetings. I think that's because you decided to contact every small landlord in Burlington and get them all to come to Charter Change using city data without doing the same for every tenant in Burlington, which we've already discussed, I think it was a little bit unethical and would like to see that redressed. And lastly, when it comes to lifetime contract, we've seen many other groups, big housing groups that have got just cause already in their leases like Northgate and they do not have these issues that you're talking about. So there is obviously still a lot of debate to have on this, but it doesn't help when various accusations keep getting tossed. I'm frozen. But thank you so much for listening to my presentation tonight. I would love to sit down with anyone and talk about this in more detail. I do understand it. It's a really meaty topic and this sort of conversation often takes more than 10 minutes, but if anyone would like to talk to me further on it, happily arrange a meeting. My email is tomp at radbt.organistic, and the chat as well. And feel free to reach out and I'll happily sit down for many an hour and talk about this. Perfect. Thank you, Tom. May I just speak to the ethical issue that Tom raised? Panel, tell me what to think, panel. Matt. Matt. Of course. Just to go ahead, of course, Joan, real quick. Go ahead. So this issue had been brought forward at the CDNR committee through tenant advocacy groups. And at that committee, the committee chair was asked to contact landlords and said that he would through the code enforcement office, but then never did. And so when it came to the Charter Change Committee, I did ask the code enforcement office to make the landlords aware because they weren't aware this conversation had been going on for many months. And obviously they are a stakeholder that is interested here. We don't have a database of tenants, but it was the tenant advocacy organizations that had been bringing this forward. We do have a database of landlords through our registration process. And so I asked that the Charter Change language be shared with the landlords, not just the small landlords, all the Burlington landlords, and let them know that we were discussing it in the Charter Change Committee, which is the limit of what I did. And I don't believe that that's unethical. I think that we... Sorry, Joan. In CDNR, the head of the Vermont Land Laws Association was invited to speak as a panelist. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. Okay, well, thank you. And so we have to move on. Next up, we have Summer of Reckoning, Black Lives Matter, a photo journal of Battery Park Racial Justice Movement with Stephanie Saguenio. Stephanie, thank you for being patient. Thanks, no worries. You forced me to get out of another meeting and that was perfectly fine with me. Okay. I'm gonna share my screen if that's okay. Well, yeah, I mean, we'll just count things down with some nice pictures. Ha, ha, ha. The... So first of all, thank you for inviting me. This work I'm gonna show you is work actually I've done since George Floyd's murder and includes really an effort to record for history, what I think is a Summer of Reckoning in Vermont, but also nationwide. And so I'll be showing you some images also from Washington, DC, from the protest there as well. Whoops. So I'm sharing my screen. The first protest that I went to was early in the summer. It was in May and you can see here at Battery Park. And I really invite you to get kind of the feel of these events. It was really the, this was an extraordinary first event. It was, there were a lot of people there and you can see here, this is the stage at Battery Park that there was a huge turnout for this event. This is a moment of silence, actually several moments of silence that were requested in honor of George Floyd at this event. The, perhaps you know what was most surprising in Burlington or revelatory was the composition of the crowd and in particular was racially diverse, age diverse. I think that people who had been concerned about these issues were for the first time motivated to publicly speak out or show their concern about them. And so we saw a lot of people showing up that you might not have anticipated. This photograph in particular continues to resonate with me and I think it demonstrates both the grief and the fierceness that I see in particular amongst young people for dealing with the problem of racism that we're facing. This is behind the stage at Battery Park. You know, many of these events this summer while being very serious and in many ways grief-stricken, they also were events in which there was moments of joy if you will and this parent and his child was standing on Battery Street and playing music to invite people who were going by to come join the event. You know, this image really struck me as well. And again, as I said, because this is the first time that in civil rights movement, especially when it relates to anti-black racism, that so many white people have shown up. And that's what we see in the demonstrations in Burlington. You know, there's a big issue in photography about whether one needs words to go along with photographs and so much of the photography that I did of the protest by default because of the signage and what was on the signs were really also about verbally expressing what was going on, not just sort of visually expressing. At all of these events, for those who protested years ago, I think you'll find that in many ways, they were familiar, there were medical tents at these events, there was food, there was newspapers, there were efforts to educate people about racial history. These are, this is the next protest I went to. It was in Washington, D.C. And actually it was after Trump's event at Lafayette Square. And there were many different protests going on. I would follow different groups and photograph them. This man was at Lafayette Square and it climbed, as you can see, the traffic light. And he is referring to, this sign is about his brother that was killed by the police in Las Vegas. And in some ways for me, this photograph also just tells us about the heart-wrenching intensity of the issue of anti-black police violence. This is at the end of the Black Lives Matter Plaza, which was renamed after, during the protests. This was an ATM machine in D.C. I, many of the buildings were boarded up and there was, you know, it was an intense period prior to when I arrived there. These are protesters that are protesting to the White House. So this is, there's a fence there and these protesters marched down to that fence. protesting. I mentioned that there was a lot of joy in these events and this, there was a group doing break dancing there. And, you know, in some ways it was a little bit controversial. Some people felt that, you know, these events should be more serious, but I think they were also really an opportunity for people who were concerned about anti-black police violence to find common ground and connection. And so these photographs were of a particular group that was engaged in music and dance. People were also, you know, this is a historic moment. People were doing selfies. This is the White House in the back on the left. Many, many people, I have so many families, especially Black families that were there with their children and I was listening to them talking about the history of civil rights in this country. And it was, I was just deeply moved by what a moment it was for Black families to go to these protests and to bring their children and to educate their children about what was going on. And I will say that, you know, very willingly I asked them if I could take their photograph. People were really, really welcoming being photographed in this environment because again, because I think many of us realize that it's a historic period of time. This is a protest. I followed a group from Lafayette Square and this group marched down to, you can see the Capitol building. This is Pennsylvania Avenue and it is right in front of Trump Towers, the Trump Hotel. This woman, Trinidadian had lived in the United States for many, many years. She was simply extraordinary. And I think, you know, the experience of listening especially to young Black folks rally others, talk about their oppression, talk about the risks they were taking by being public was really astounding. And it was really a lot of women who were leading these marches and protests. This is again, these are the officers that were in front of the Trump Hotel. I don't know why, but the guy in the middle looks a little bit like Jared Kushner to me. And this was right after that event as the group marched back to Lafayette Square. And in some ways this too is really emblematic of the energy that I've seen both here in Vermont as well as all over the country of the protests that I've been to of, you know, a certain fierceness and determination. This is in Lafayette Square and the building on the right is where Trump had his episode, if you will, with the tear gaps. The, when there was a wall of posters and signs that were, that protesters had when they were looking at the White House. And so they had left all of their signs there and all of them had been moved to Black Lives Matter Plaza around the corner. And so these are just some examples of them. The Smithsonian, as I understand it, is taking these and it's actually going to is adopting these as historic memories of this particular moment. So these are recent artifacts that have now become history. I think for me the saddest thing about this was not the names that I knew but so many names that I did not know was heartbreaking. This is, we're moving back to, sorry, we're moving back to Vermont and this is the street painting in Jericho. The woman on the left just struck me as a salt of the earth, Vermont, and I think it speaks to me to the breadth to which the George Floyd murder really aroused sentiment amongst people who may not have been as conscious of the past. And everywhere that I saw this summer was the extraordinary presence of young people such as these two young girls at this event. And this is just the street painting after people left. This is Burlington Street Painting and our counselor who advanced the resolution for the street painting here. This is an event in Bristol. So some young girls in Bristol or also organized a protest or a rally. And for me, what struck me about this is it's hard enough to be a teenager but to be brave enough in a small rural town to organize a Black Lives Matter protest was just, it just really speaks to, I think, the moral courage of young people that at least for me really inspired me this summer. They set this up at the protest and it was just such a gesture of compassion. Just I wanted to include this photograph just to point out that it isn't just young people that are showing up but everywhere also. We are seeing older Vermonters also step up and recognize the role that they have to play in changing racial attitudes in Vermont. This is the support that police rally in Montpelier that many of you may have heard about. It was a very intense experience. I'm gonna just show you a series of photographs of the people that organized the event. After I show you this one, Black Lives Matter folks came as a counter protest. And as you can see, they're all sort of merged here and many of them were vying for attention, understandably. And I'll show you a few other photographs about how tense this event was, but also what I think are some constructive things that came out of it. So here are a few photographs of people that were part of the support the police contingent. I spent a lot of time talking to them. I felt like Switzerland going back and forth between the two groups. And yeah, it's a longer conversation about what those conversations were like. This is one of the examples of really, really harsh things, conversations that happen. Conversation might be a polite word here. At the same time, I saw certain people. This is Trayvon Graves. And what I saw was also some people coming together to talk and maybe vigorously debate, but in many ways I think that the conversations were really constructive. This is Trayvon with somebody from support the police. And this is another example of the conversations that were happening. And in many cases, they really were constructive conversations and as hard as this event was, I think it speaks to the benefits of the protests that we've had because it has pushed people to have these conversations that have not had them before. This was actually at a rally after this, the week after the black perspective of Black Lives Matter organized a rally because one of the women from the support the police contingent had made a comment that she didn't care about Black Lives with an ex-lative included in that sentence. And so they came back the next week. These are two people that were there and part of the reason I'm showing this is because unexpected faces show up at these events in terms of people that support you that you might not think are anti-racist. And the event was extraordinary in the sense that the speakers in the event were all people of color and at certain point were all invited up onto the Capitol steps. And it's a good reminder for us that there are 30,000 people of color in Vermont. And maybe with the greatest benefit of this event was this event, but in general this summer was people being able to recognize each other as being on the same path of fighting racism. But what was also so inspiring is that these Black events were all Black led. And in a society that diminishes and marginalizes voices of Black people, it was really quite extraordinary to see this. These are just a few other images before I get to some other protests in Burlington. There are just rallies all of the time this summer as you well know. This is in front of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. And every Sunday, I think from one to 130, they would have people folks from their congregation on Battery Street with these signs. And protest is probably the wrong word, but certainly supporting anti-racism. A number of things that the Black perspective did this summer was to hold cultural events. And so this is one of those at Battery Park. This young woman is not only beautiful, but she's a high school student at Burlington and was reading her poetry for the first time in public. And it was really beautiful poetry, but most importantly was giving voice to the incredible talent and voice of people of color in our community that have not been given as much space to participate as should happen. This is an anti-ice rally that happened this summer. You couldn't tell from the Montpelier rallies, but the temperature was 95 degrees and just brutally hot. And in this particular day, it was a rainy day and I think of the dedication of everybody who marched this summer and their willingness to go out in the heat, in the rain, in all kinds of weather. And to remember that so many people of color are marching for their lives. And I think this woman who's in the front of the photograph here with that look of deep thought. And I think in some ways grief, really to me exhibits the determination, if you will. This is still the anti-ice rally. I mentioned that there's been music and almost all of these events in the rain with plastic to cover their instruments. This is a subsequent rally in Burlington. So I have a series of images from that to show you. You know, as I look back at like, I've taken thousands of photographs this summer, but for this one really continues to stay with me. And I think because of, you know, this forward motion and this energy and determination that was really the hallmark of the protest this summer. This is somebody from the sidelines who was photographing the event. There were a lot of folks obviously that were watching these protests and supporting from the sidelines. This is Rajni Eddin. So he was introduced as the People's Poet. If you have not read his poem or his book, this particular poem that he has been reading this summer is called Their Names Are Mine. And, you know, he was in tears. And if you have not heard this poem, you might be too, where you would hear it. It was a really powerful, powerful moment and a powerful experience at every protest that he reads this poem. These are, this last set of photographs is from the protest that was organized in response to the Seven Days article called Battery Power. And so you probably all know that story, but people were taking copies of Seven Days and writing their reaction to the new, the article on the newspapers. And then folks marched by this time it was dark. And so the photographs were a little bit grainy, but they folks marched from Battery Park to Main Street. You might ask, why one color photograph out of so many black and whites? And this was just one photograph that struck me that it worked better in color than in black and white. And so I left it that way. I just want to end with this photograph which I've been driving all over Vermont this summer photographing as well. And seeing Black Lives Matter signs show up all over rural areas in Vermont. I think really speaks to the fact that there has been a racial awakening in white Vermont, in predominantly white Vermont. And the awareness and understanding that people have developed as a result of the extraordinary courage and skill of the protesters, and particularly the group, The Black Perspective, but a number of other groups, I think has really done a tremendous service to Vermont and is, I think this will be a summer that is historic. So thank you. Very nice. Thank you, Stephanie. Welcome. I'm happy to answer questions or take comments or move on, whatever you want to do. Just wanted to say thank you. You're very welcome. Yeah, I got nothing. For once, for once Joel is speechless. That's amazing. Yeah, I mean, Stephanie, I never knew that you were a photographer. That's the quality of the pictures is just absolutely amazing. Thank you. Thanks. What do you use for a camera? Because my sister's a photographer. What do you use for a camera? I use a Canon 5D. Yeah, digital cameras. Wow. Well, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, I'll stop my video now. Jeez, what a night. I apologize for going over as a moderator, but I thought it was some pretty good subject matter and I tried to let it continue as long as I could. But I was afraid about the time when it's too, so I was trying to be trying to go in the middle there somewhere. All good. So, yeah, I guess this concludes the meeting and we have to meet in two weeks to have what we do and start over again. The citizens kind of don't have to listen to that, but sure. Yes, we'll plan again in two weeks. Thank you, buddy, for coming. Yeah, thanks a lot. It's really nice to see everybody's faces when we're all panelists. It's just nice to see people who we don't get to see in person these days. And so thanks for coming and thanks for letting us see you. Thanks for a great program Steering Committee. This was really, really good. Yeah, thank you. Okay.