 We're gonna call ourselves to order for Wednesday, January 17th is in the new year, 2024. Happy new year, everybody, and welcome back. It's going to be six o'clock in about one minute. I'll start with item number one, attendance for all here. Thank you. And please pay attention to the changes to the agenda. If you need to work on the minutes, C2, the consent agenda, rather, or the tip amendments or the Jericho Town approval, you'd need to speak up now, Jeff. I'd move we take item C2 off the consent agenda or put it on the deliberative agenda. I just, we have to clarify something in it. Okay, very good. So we're gonna remove C2 from the consent agenda and move it to right after the consent agenda, how's that? That works. So 3.5, okay. So any other movements, changes, emissions solutions? Okay. Public comment period for items that are not on the agenda. Anyone here from the public would like to speak on a subject? Okay, thank you. So looking for action on the consent agenda, right now we have C1 and C3, the minor tip amendments and the Jericho Town plan approval. I need a motion for those and the MP, I'm sorry, let's do them separately, is that? Or are those both municipal? Yeah, we should do them separate so, because there's different voting rules. Yep. Chris, can I make a brief comment? Sorry to interrupt there. I just wanted the board to know that of the tip amendment consent agenda, they were approved virtually by the TAC and for the exit 16 amendment, there was one no vote and 13 yes votes and just wanted the board to be aware of that. Okay. And who voted no, by the way? No, it was local motion. Okay. And if you want more detail, I can provide it. No, thank you. So let's work on C1 or action consent agenda item 3A. Again, this is an initial planning organization voting. So who votes again, Charlie remind us the category? Yeah, this is an MPO. So it's the municipalities, except for Garrett, sorry, and V-trans. So it's a transportation vote, MPO vote. Okay. Chris, I'll move to approve consent item C1. Thank you, Mike. And thank you, Andrew. I think Andrew seconded first. Okay. It's a multiple. All right, so all those in favor, please say aye or raise your hand. Aye. Anyone opposed or abstaining, please speak up. All right, very good. Now let's move to consent agenda item C3 or 3C, the Jericho Town Plan approval. Are there any notes on that from Taylor or otherwise? All right. I make a motion to accept the Town Plan of Jericho. Thank you, Catherine. And is this a municipal action? So if Garrett can second it. Amen. All right, then Garrett came on. Thank you, Garrett. Appreciate it. All those in favor, please say aye or raise your hand. Aye. And anyone opposed or abstaining, please speak up. All right, thank you. All right, we had removed consent agenda item C3. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, Dan, we're just having technical difficulties here. I've got Bruce here on the last two motions. So. Hi, Bruce. I accept both of the motions. Thank you. Sorry about that. Yes, I had seen Dan's name in your face. We're different than they made me. Yeah, there we are. So we're on to the minutes from November 15th and I think Jeff had some comments on that. Yes, Amy on page seven, on line six through 10. I think on line seven after regenerating itself, I think I have to make it clear that and say something like the lack of growth in Chittenden County would be to the detriment of the rest of the state of Vermont. That's not clear by what's written there. And that was the point I was making. So I'd suggest we add the lack of growth in Chittenden County would be to the detriment of the rest of the state of Vermont. And again, would you place us on the page and line number? Page seven, row seven, after regenerating itself, semicolon, then say the lack of economic growth in Chittenden County would be to the detriment of the rest of the state. We must beat the drum to make sure Chittenden County is at the forefront and to ensure that we keep regenerating itself. And then give me the language again. The lack of economic growth in Chittenden County would be to the detriment of the rest of the state of Vermont. So we insert the lack of economic growth in Chittenden County would be. Okay, so this becomes clarified. Yes. Thank you. Any other thoughts or comments on our minutes from November 15th? I'd move approval with. Edit. With that edit. Thank you. Any second for that? Well, in case there's other edits, I don't know if there's other edits. Well, I will wait for those. Anyone else have edits? Garrett, you're looking to second to just approval. Yes. Okay. So we have a motion and a second from Garrett. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Garrett. All those in favor, please raise your hand or say aye. And anyone opposed, please speak up. Thank you. Chris, I abstain. I was not at the meeting. Thank you, Jackie. Okay. First to vote. Okay, Mike. Thank you. Not necessary, but we appreciate it. Item number four, the public forum for the fiscal year 25 UPWP. So we would like to open the forum. I'll need a motion to open. Or, Barb, would you like to take over on this? Sure. Yeah, so a motion to open the forum. And Garrett's seconding. Thank you. All right. So comments or any input on the UPWP, please? As presented. I'll just make a brief, brief note. Hi, everyone. Marshall Distell, senior transportation planner. And I managed the annual UPWP process. So while we encourage members of the public to work directly with their municipalities to assemble UPWP applications, we hold this annual public forum just to provide an opportunity to hear directly from anyone who feels the need to tell us about any priorities or projects they'd like to see in the region for the upcoming year. And are there members of the public here? It looks like there's a hand up from Jeff anyway. Go ahead, Jeff. Yeah. The only thing I'd like to suggest, Mr. Chair, since we don't have anybody from the public here, is that maybe we leave open the public forum, maybe until around 730, when we get close to concluding in case somebody does show up. Very good. Can I make a comment? But, you know, after seeing none of the really public here, we could move on and take care of our other business in case somebody does show up. We could thoughtfully integrate them into the substantive confabric of our meeting. Thank you. So we'll leave the forum open and we will check back at intervals to see if somebody's popped in the comment on it. Chris Bart, a quick question. And it's sort of timely that Jeff makes that comment. As sort of a pseudo historian here, any thoughts on past practice? Have we gotten many comments from the public in this forum in the past, ever? I think we have to break it into pre-COVID versus post-COVID during COVID and after COVID things. This used to be a very energetic meeting. Over time, I think back, Charlie, in the early stages of your tenure, even before you came, we had to borrow the city of Burlington's light because we had so many witnesses, we had to allocate them to only two or three minutes. And I don't think we will ever get back to that unless we go back to in-person as a way to do it. And then someone also might argue, we do have such a good job publicizing it that everybody gets their projects in beforehand, fully developed, working with our staff and it's become much more efficient unless something's showing up at this particular forum. Thank you. I'll just note, sorry, thanks to Emma for, we advertise in the free press and front porch forum and we let folks know about this public forum, but I do get emailed responses and input from folks. I've got probably, I don't know, a dozen or so far. I think at one meeting of this, when we were not in our current digs, but over at Kimball Avenue, I think we had like 30 or 40 people show up one time and we went for like two or three hours. Wow. You know, that's great. Garrett, do you have a thought there? You're, yeah, go ahead, Garrett. You're muted still. Exactly. And I was having trouble clicking on a button. You know, I'm only a programmer. Just was wondering procedurally, looking at the agenda, number five is the mid-year adjustment budget in UPWP. If we keep the forum open, do we maybe need to also delay number five? I'm going to have just a question for Charlie. Yeah, the forum is to get initial input for the 25 work program. So they're, although they're kind of similar topic, they're not related in that way. So yeah, we don't need to delay. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Garrett. Thanks, Charlie. Joe? Yeah, Marshall, I was wondering out of those 10 or 12 or so emails you got, do you have like general sense or can you describe what you were hearing and who were those from in general? They're all over the map related to everything from transit to housing to the notion of an exit 16B. So they're really, they're all over the place from all over the county. Great, thanks. We will summarize those comments for the UPWP committee and they have their first meeting in two weeks, Marshall. I think, or just check in my calendar. Right at the end. I will 30th, yes. And Chris, I don't know. I am seeing two names here that I don't immediately recognize. So I'm going to apologize if they are members or alternates, but Patty Davis, are you a member of the public that would like to speak during this period? I've actually received some email comments from Patty. Sorry, yeah, I gave somebody lots of information. So I'm just here to listen because listen and learn. Yeah, okay, great, thank you. And then Karen Peterson. Yes, hi, sorry, I'm late. I'm just tuning in to see what's happening in your world. Thank you. Karen is Williston's all from the Rep. Oh, that's right. Thank you. So Andrew, what's up, Williston? Says Williston, Andy. Yes, I'm still trying to sort out the other end, Andy. To go by different names, I guess. Then we're gonna, we have the forum for the UPWP for fiscal year 25 open still. So if the members of the public would like to speak on it. Thanks for checking in, Charlie. But we're gonna move to the fiscal year 24 mid-year adjustment budget and the UPWP. Do both of those need separate actions, Charlie? No, that can be one action. Although, sorry, by separate action, you mean in our bylaws, we talked about an MPO action and an RPC action. So we do need two votes on it. Right. Yes. So for the MPO action, it's the, remind me again, I haven't got this as well. Pules Gore does not participate and V-Trans does participate. But most of the other, what is it, regional? Yeah, the regional members also don't have a vote on the MPO actions. So apologies to, I think just Bruce, maybe be the only one of those on right now. And then the RPC action, everybody can vote. Everybody, okay. So just to be clear. All right, so let's take them one at a time. I'll need a motion for the mid-year adjustment budget and that is the RPC one, is that correct? Whichever one you wanna do first. Well, that's the one. I'm asking you, is that the RPC vote? They're both voting on the same thing. Okay, so we need to separately itemize it and I'm not being very good at figuring out. Two votes on the same topic. Mr. Chair, I'd move that the MPO approve this proposed mid-year adjustment to the UP25, UPWP. Thank you, Jeff, for making it clear. And that was Andy, thank you. Or Andrew of Williston, thank you. All right, so for the MPO members on that motion, please raise your hand and or say hi. And anyone abstaining or voting negative, please speak up. All right, so moving to the motion for RPC action. I'll also move for the RPC. Thank you, Garrett. And I'll need a second for the RPC. Thank you, Andrew of Williston. And all those in favor, please say aye and or raise your hand. And those who are abstaining more and negative, please speak up. And maybe for Bruce's benefit and some of the other people, the MPO has a weighted vote by the community. Not all the communities get one vote. Burlington, for example, gets four votes and that's by federal law. Thank you. Super. I think South Burlington gets two and now Essex split apart and gets one each. We'll be discussing it later. That's not by federal law. Ah. Yeah, it is by our bylaws. Oh yeah, but it's been the tradition going back all the way since the beginning. True. And that was approved by the federal authorities. So that'll be as Garrett points out under item nine where we're talking about our bylaw. And I'll have some things to bring up at that point. Great. We're going to move to- I'd be disappointed if you didn't, Garrett. We'll move to item six, the health equity project update as part of the ECOS plan. Would that be Taylor? No, Brian Davis is going to speak to that. It's actually a separate project outside of the ECOS plan. Thank you. Go ahead, Brian. Great. Good evening, everyone. Nice to see you. Thank you for inviting me to present tonight. I am going to share my screen so you can see slides and if you keep my face in your window. How are we looking? Okay. Great. Okay, great, thanks. So we're going to talk about, excuse me, we're going to talk about health equity tonight and the role that you all and your leaders and commissions can play in your communities to ensure everyone has access to all things health related. Okay. So the LaMoyle County Planning Commission received a grant from the Department of Health to create a health equity toolkit and also to offer assistance to cities and towns to implement health equity where possible. All RPCs statewide, including us, are involved in providing technical assistance to any interested city or town. The Centers for Disease Control states that health equity is achieved when every person has the opportunity to attain their full health potential and no one is disadvantaged from achieving this potential because of social position or other socially determined circumstances. These could be systemic or structural issues such as social or economic position, education, employment, housing, income, age or self-determination. With respect to planning, it's ensuring that we're treating people of all races, cultures and incomes fairly with respect to the implementation, adoption and enforcement of policies that determine how healthy or unhealthy places are. Health inequities can be reflected in differences in length of life, quality of life, rates of disease, disability and death, severity of disease and access to treatment. So again, all of the RPCs statewide work together to create this health equity toolkit as well as a companion resource guide that describes the relationship between planning and health equity, the necessity of planning for health equity and to provide examples of actions communities can take to ensure that health equity is achieved. You can find the toolkit and resource guide on the RPC's health and equity webpage in the resources section. So the goal of this presentation is to share why health equity is important and should be incorporated into planning efforts. It's a shorter overview of a longer presentation that we are available to provide to your community leaders so that they have a solid foundation on which to ground local implementation efforts. So at the end of this, you can let me know if yes, you want more information, presentation, whatever you want, because we are here for you. So we know that changing the built environment to work for people of all ages, incomes, abilities and backgrounds is critical to supporting our public health. The built environment is also critical, as we know, for building social capital. The intersection of health equity and planning creates opportunity to reduce negative health outcomes within our communities, creates thriving and vibrant communities where people are engaged, creates space where all types of people want to and can live, opportunity for new and sustained businesses and also recreation opportunities. Last year, 2023, the Surgeon General released a public advisory that we are all experiencing an epidemic of social isolation and loneliness. So social connection is vital to community health and success. People with strong perceptions of strong social connections are two and a half times more likely to report good or excellent health compared to people who report having lower perception of social belonging. Yet this social isolation is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day that reflects the big impact of isolation and loneliness on our public health. The Surgeon General's report identifies designing the built environment as a way to promote the social community. So all the work that we do as planners in your communities is very important in creating that healthy and equitable future that we desire. This is a graphic from AARP and it shows the eight domains of livability. So livability in the built environment looks like a variety of housing types and price points, different transportation choices that factor in all income levels and physical ability and indoor and outdoor spaces that are accessible for people of all ages and abilities and encourage people to gather and socialize. Physical environments also factor in healthcare to maintain or improve health. And livability in the social environment includes community support networks for health services, community and civic engagement, and that social connectedness we desire to create as planners. So with this toolkit and the case study examples, we wanna show how infusing health equity into our planning efforts benefits everyone. The curb cut effect, this is one example that illustrates the concept that we're looking for here. So the Americans with Disability Act was passed to ensure that people using mobility devices can safely navigate the built environment. The resulting effect, however, of creating this curb cut is that everyone benefits. Most projects that we work on can and should include an equity lens. Health equity is specifically focused on inclusion around broader health concepts. These concepts can be incorporated into municipal plans and bylaws that support, for example, access to recreational spaces and land uses that support walkability, really, accessibility. Social determinants of health or SDOH is another way that we can talk about livability and the creation of healthy places. The five social determinants of health reflected in the graphic on your left are education access, healthcare access, neighborhood and built environment, social community and economic stability. The graphic on the right side lists examples of specific implementation tools, including policies, actions and procedures that can incorporate health equity and address those social determinants of health through municipal planning and governance. All right, let's take a minute here and look at some examples of components of town and village plans that can incorporate health equity. So the text in black represents sample language that can be added to municipal plan objectives within the introduction, let's say, setting the tone for the whole planning document. It's helpful to ensure that the text that follows aligns with the overall objective. The equity statements affect public health because of the purpose and influence of town plans. As you all know very well, land use regulations play a role in many ways, including in health equity, because they influence how community plans for local transportation, for recreation opportunities, for medical care and emergency response, food access, safe and affordable housing, access to employment, energy, environmental quality, the whole gamut. So for example, if land use regulations require diverse housing types in all zoning districts, walk bike infrastructure, employment opportunities and services in a compact development pattern, then people have the option to use other travel modes instead of just driving. They can also engage with neighbors, they can reach the services they need and thereby increases everyone's access to a healthy and livable community. Making communities supportive of healthy behavior choices, such as making them more walkable, bikeable, safer multi-unit housing options and so on, can be particularly impactful for historically marginalized populations. The benefits include healthier and more productive residents, more renters becoming homeowners, more affordable housing and more community stability and prosperity. Want to point out, however, the purpose of land use zoning districts and districts can vary drastically depending on the municipality. So we want to be sure to include concepts like walkability, multimodal connectivity, recreational choices, focusing on mixed use development that's accessible and clustered with all housing types. So we want to focus on those. Of course, when we update our bylaws, there is also an opportunity to introduce health equity incorporated in different ways that will benefit the community. So here's kind of different ways to share that with your communities, different ways that can be incorporated into your bylaws. And of course, I want to talk about transportation. So within a plans transportation section, you can add its own specific section that addresses health equity and transportation. Here are some example actions, increasing access to transportation, encouraging multimodal upgrades. Again, we want to be sure we listen to everyone in the community, including underrepresented groups when we're planning for those transportation changes and updates. Recreation parks in green space is another area of planning that can incorporate health equity, the changes that can improve accessibility can include structural changes, relocating services to accessible buildings, providing auxiliary aids, such as audio devices, sign language interpreters for presentations, and delivering services to an alternate site that is accessible. A couple of Vermont specific examples, Oak Ridge for all in Burlington is a volunteer initiative to build Vermont's first universally accessible playground and that just had a grand opening last fall. In addition, there are off-road trail organizations around the state that are updating existing trails and creating new trails that work with adaptive mountain bikes. As a part of the grant from the Department of Health, they're also providing technical assistance support to specific projects across the state, including these in Chittenden County. Milton on the move is working on an inclusive community center to support numerous community group meetings and events. Winooski, parents and students is working on a cooperative training and economic development for underrepresented communities in the school bus service industry and fundraising for electric school buses. And Burlington, one day in Vermont is a website where families can find both free and low-cost activities for low-cost activities and services and nonprofits already serving families in Vermont. A short list here of FAFSA does and other statewide implementation examples. We talked about the town plan revisions, shared green space, we can do sidewalk inventories, walk audits, the last bullet there converting an old high school into affordable housing. So there's different ways that we can incorporate health equity into the work that we're doing. And a little closer to home with the RPC and I know Ann else has provided some updates in her presentations here. Some examples of projects that we're working on that do incorporate health equity. We've got this great map viewer that Melanie Needle created. Melanie and Ann Janda also did this climate action plan focus groups. We're doing walk bike master plans, Ecos plan, you've heard a lot about that. And then the last bullet, we have the equity advisory committee which is still kind of young. Ann else has gone over their top four priorities and other great work that they are helping us do. All right, so the next steps for us, we've presented to the planning advisory committee, talked to some different communities about this topic, sharing it with you. Want to make sure that people know about the toolkit, the resources were available to come to your community and give this presentation or the longer one. And do wanna also recognize Amanda Freshly from the department of health. She's a healthy community specialist and she's been a part of this work too. And she wanted us to share that, her goal is to saturate our communities with healthy opportunities. So the healthy option is the easy option. And she collaborates with municipalities and community organizations throughout the county to promote healthy community design. And she's available to be a resource for you all as well. So I will stop sharing. That's the end of my presentation. And happy to answer any questions or pop the URL to the toolkit in the chat, whatever works for you. Garrett, go ahead. First of all, I really like your lights in the ceiling. Definitely fun. One thing that I didn't really see in here that to me plays a role and just a quick bit of background, I represent the smallest community in the county and one of the smallest in the state. But I've also lived in mid-sized towns and even Burlington. And one thing that really plays a big role that is hard to quantify and hard to involve in planning, but is crucially important is the interdependence. My personal experience is that in rural areas, people far better understand how interdependent they are, whether it's being chainsawing a tree in the driveway or pulling a stuck car out, whatever. But the same thing happens in bigger towns when you have neighborhoods and the like. And I know you alluded to the built environment, but to me a really key portion is to promote a feeling of community, whether it be the whole town or a neighborhood or whatever. And I just wanted to toss that out as to me an important piece of this. Yeah, I agree. And we talked a little bit about that social connectedness and creating that sense of community so that we do know who our neighbors are and we willing to support them and help out. So I appreciate you raising that point. Dana. Yeah, I'm just wondering, I'm finding that our elder population is really important in terms of equity. And I think there's social, there's equity for our seniors sprinkled throughout this document, which is great, but it's not really pulled out in any way. And I would just offer a suggestion that there might be a section completely devoted to our senior equity. Because it's a big issue. Thank you for that. Go ahead, Dan Nelson. I just wanted to add really quickly that Brian, Melanie, Sarah and I also just recently gave a presentation to some regional planning commission staff and some Vermont Department of Health staff around strategies to handle pushback that folks are experiencing around health equity and integrating health equity into their work. So if that's something that feels relevant to you or might be helpful to you or your municipality, definitely let us know and we can have a discussion or share that presentation as well. Just wanted to add that. Thank you for that. Brian, how does this work with the specifics we have the example of the curb cutout? And that's important. But have you seen another example that we aren't applying here in Vermont that could be applied? Maybe something detailed and similar to that. One of my pet keys I find is seeing we create a brand new market street in South Brompton and created on-street parking for that. Just didn't seem like a health equity issue to allow parking right in front of existing parking lots when the sidewalks were constrained and are in fact unusable at this point to the construction. But the bike lanes were minimized despite a heroic effort by the head committee to try and get a cycle track and things of that sort to make it more acceptable. Any thoughts in that area? Yes, I think one of the things that cities and towns try to do when they are considering changes that reallocating public rights of way or curb to curb width that will better accommodate people using different modes and on-street parking is one use of that public right of way. And as you know, and many of you know, becomes an emotional issue of where we park our cars, where we store them. And if we can't store them on the street, where do we store them if we don't have a driveway? Where there are enough spaces, but people who are taking transit or walking a biking are then don't have space. If cars are parked on the street, they don't have their own space to, in which to safely navigate. So that is a particular issue and very interesting that is addressed. And I think if we wanna make the most of what we have without moving curbs or getting into really expensive projects, we have to have those community conversations and better understand what the needs are and what the future might hold for people. I'm also thinking of green infrastructure as a way that to manage stormwater as a part of our public works, but also it can create this visually appealing environment as we are walking around that uses native plants and materials. So to me, that's another example of through that public infrastructure that has multiple benefits. Great, Karen. I just wanted to toss out a little factoid. Japan does not allow on street parking. Thank you. I was half tempted to mention that, but I didn't want to get to it. But yes, I do think that, you know, when you talk about dense communities and they were talking about the community and connectedness, that we've seen businesses reclaim parking spaces in front of their spots, but that's more for a capitalistic thing. How can we recreate or reclaim spots that have been built up over the last 50 years for a privilege, if you will, in dense communities? So, especially where we have a surfeit of them, at least in South Burlington around the U-Mall that fills up maybe two times a year when parking spaces are used, so we have the Sears Parking Garage, which is only not used at this point. So, there are opportunities, as I guess what I'm saying. And we certainly see with Winooski, how parking there might can probably speak to that, adds to the coffers of the town, but probably limits some of the more exciting opportunities right there in the central downtown because people would like to be there, more people than the space, I think, allows. If there was more space there for people, there would be more people out in it if the traffic wasn't running right through it, but that's a whole different matter. So, anyhow, anyone else? All right, well, thank you and keep us on track again, Brian, when will we be doing, is it the February or October of this year as we wrap up the Coase Project as a whole? And the Health Equity Update is coming together with the other three modules, am I correct? I'll let Taylor or someone more involved in the Ecoase Plan Update than I answer your timeline question, but we as your staff are here to help your community work to infuse health equity in your different plans and bylaws and zoning and so on. Thank you, and thank you, Ann Nelson, for the offer of helping to counter some of the pushback from whatever they may be. Taylor, can you give us the timeline again? For Ecoase, yeah, sure. So, we're hoping to do targeted engagement for Ecoase Plan this spring. Hoping to wrap up that outreach efforts June, July on the background. We'll also be working on a couple of things related to housing targets and original future land use map depending on what the legislature does. We'd hope to have kind of a draft, a public draft for the Ecoase Plan available by the end of summer, probably next fall. We'll work through that draft. We'll allow people to comment on it in the fall and then start the formal adoption process in January 2025 for adoption. Okay, and reminding everybody this was in effect our own county comprehensive plan. Correct? Okay, and again, how many modules? I'm trying to keep a number in my head and I don't have it off the top of my head. It's been a bit reorganized, Chris, since the last time the board saw it in November. Yes, that's why I'm trying to get a handle on the pieces. I know there are three big pieces, but then we'd be five if I'm... People Place Prosperity were the kind of three themes we were working within. Yes, that's what I was hanging on. Yeah, all right. We've done away with the theme, so you'll be getting an EGAS plan updated at the board meeting soon. Okay, great. Thank you, thank you. Okay, thank you again, Brian and all for the work on that. And we're gonna move to Ann Nelson. I believe for draft, go to Conn, good night. Very good, thank you. Yeah, let me try to share my screen. Sorry, I'm working on a new computer, so I'm just giving me a bit of a weird question. Okay, it's not letting me see what I'm sharing, so I'm gonna share this screen. And if it's the wrong screen, somebody just tell me it should be a presentation that... It looked very familiar, thank you. Okay, thanks for bearing with me, I did not expect that. Okay, so you all have seen kind of a preliminary idea of updating the code of conduct has come through the board. Today, the goal is to walk through an actual kind of outline of a draft that we have at this point. The goal is to, there will be a version that applies to staff members, and there will be a separate version that applies to board members. This outline we're walking through tonight is just for staff, but come the end of the presentation I'm happy to talk about, kind of where it differs for board members. And once I send drafts out for everyone to review, you'll get both versions. So obviously there will be plenty of differences between the two and also some similarities. So clarifying that. So you have seen this slide, but just to kind of reground everyone in what we're working on and what I've been working on. On the left, you know, CCRPC has a mission statement, it has a vision statement. We may eventually update those if we update our bylaws, but we're not there at the moment. So this kind of additional foundational piece that we've been working on is one, the equity commitment statement, which you all have seen and adopted. And then the second piece, which is core values and a code of conduct, which is really focused on our internal culture. How are we behaving? What are standards and expectations? We're gonna hold one another and ourselves accountable to, so that we can carry forward with our work in the way that we hope to. And then part three of this will be the equity action plan, which is like a strategic plan, which is, you know, what does the actual work look like? And that's when I'm sure everybody will be very excited to actually see that. So again, why update the code of conduct? Our code of conduct was relatively outdated and fairly punitive. And there was no language or very little language in terms of what we are aspiring to. So even when it's unspoken, culture is cultivated. So can we take a step back and be intentional about the culture we wanna cultivate internally at CCRPC before we start to think and reflect on the work we do externally? To clearly outline expectations of those who represent CCRPC, whether it's staff, board members, committee members, this provides structure and also again allows for accountability. And then three, clarity in the gray space between no conflict and harassment or discrimination. This came from our existing code of conduct very clearly outlines unlawful behavior, which includes harassment and discrimination. But 99, maybe more than that percent of the time, conflict is not considered harassment or discrimination. It might be something far more minor. And so what do we do in that area? You know, Taylor is upset because I said something that offended him or I continually do something that offends him. How can he and I kind of work to resolve that conflict? For assurance that poor conduct will be addressed. And then lastly, it provides us with somewhat of a backbone which we can make value-driven organizational decisions. So the timeline here back in October of 2023, we all CCRPC staff started working together in small groups to think about developing organizational values and kind of reflecting on our code of conduct. There was an equity advisory committee meeting at the end of October where we discussed code of conduct. And actually before October, which is not on this list, we workshopped with the equity advisory committee values. November, I really kind of focused on research and attending webinars and connecting with other folks involved in kind of restorative practices learning about how we could integrate restorative practices into internal HR policies. So some webinars, meetings, and then research into other organizations, public or private who have tried to integrate restorative justice into HR or codes of conduct. December, nothing really happens in December. January, the draft came to the executive committee. We're now here today. I will send out word versions of the draft by the end of this week for everyone to review and hopefully will bring a final code of conduct to you all in February. After that, we'll really focus on training and implementation. So I'm hoping to have some staff members from Burlington's Community Justice Center come do training around kind of restorative dialogue and some more implementation pieces that we'll talk about a bit. Just really quickly, some resources that I leaned on to pull language, our existing personnel policy bylaws. There's some conflict of interest language in our bylaws already. We have a board member handbook that you all have seen. So I pulled some language from there. Charlie shared a 2007 strategic plan that interestingly had some values driven language. Community Justice Center resources, some online resources that I found, and then other organizations who are willing to share with me their codes of conduct. So NRPC, Emerge Vermont, the Essex-Westford School District, Howard Center, United Health, small and large. And then obviously staff and equity advisory committee input. Okay, so after lots of conversation, the four values that we have landed on are these four, integrity, accountability, inclusion, and respect. So I'm gonna run through each one. Integrity, as stewards of public resources, we recognize and hold our responsibility to serve our communities with humility. We adhere to our moral and ethical principles, behave honestly and fairly, and earn trust through our actions. Accountability, we own and make visible to ourselves, to one another and to our communities, our individual and institutional work and impact. We welcome and are responsive to reflection and feedback with a continued commitment to improving. Inclusion, we collaborate and share power with one another and those impacted by our work, inviting, welcoming, and elevating difference in knowledge and experience. Relationships are at the center of what we do and we create the time and space needed to nurture them. And respect, we lead with an ethic of care and treat every individual with respect and dignity. We choose our words carefully, seek to understand other perspectives and behave in ways that support and empower others. We acknowledge the humanity in one another and when we mess up, we tend to our impact, forgive, and keep showing up. Okay. So in the Code of Conduct, you'll see when I send it out beneath each value, there's kind of a list of behaviors framed in a positive light that kind of exemplify that value. And this came from some other Codes of Conduct that I saw that I really liked that got more specific. It's like, okay, great, we're holding and honoring and seeking to uphold this value. What does that actually look like and trying to make it more specific to our work? So I'm not gonna read through all of these for the sake of time, but when you get the document version, I try, we try to get a little more specific with behaviors beneath each value. And most of these came out of conversation with equity advisory committee members or staff. Lastly, respect. So again, you'll see these in more detail with the version that I sent out. I think it was in the last board meeting when we talked about Code of Conduct that somebody, Dana, it might've been you who mentioned how much you like to forgive and show grace. Anyways, that's still here. Okay, so beyond those kind of behavioral expectations, then we move to more general staff-specific like work expectations. And so I pulled behavioral or content in our personnel policy that felt Code of Conduct, so it was behavior-oriented into this document. We currently have hours of work and we just updated this language and added a little bit of new language, kind of finessing details. It was outdated. So 40 hours a week, eight hours a day, flexible work schedule. We added remote work, so long as it does not impact the performance or quality of work. And the executive director kind of holds the right to rescind this privilege if the performance of someone's work is compromised by remote work. Dress code, business casual, and then we've added a sentence about no restriction based on sex or gender expression. Technology use, use with discretion, staff are required to use a CCRPC computer, and all work-related communication is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. There was a sentence added about personal cell phone use because it used to be more common to use the work phones that are sitting on people's desks and now most people use their personal cell phones for work, which is fine, but they're subject to FOIA in that case. Pets at work, this was in the previous personnel policy, driving at work, and then some content around education, training and professional development, expectations there, and also what CCRPC will support and cover financially. So that language was a little bit updated. Conflict of interest. Most of this language stayed the same. It outlines financial interests, acceptance of gifts or other benefits, personal relationships and hiring, and what you're allowed to do in terms of outside activities and employment. The outside activities and employment is really, we'll get to political conflict of interest in just a second, but mostly at the discretion of the executive director and if the executive director thinks that it's getting in the way of a staff member's ability to do their job, then it becomes a problem, but otherwise this language mostly stayed the same. Political activity. So CCRPC is covered by the Hatch Act because we're publicly funded and the Hatch Act is a federal law that outlines what public employees can and cannot do. So below is political activity that's not allowed by CCRPC employees. So we're not allowed to partake in partisan political activity within CCRPC's office, engage in political activity, including on social media while we're at work or wearing official, this language change in the document, but wearing CCRPC logos or representing CCRPC in any way. We're not allowed to run for public office in partisan elections. We can't use our authority or influence to interfere with or affect the results of an election. We can't directly or indirectly coerce contributions from subordinates in support of a political party or candidate at work. We can't solicit political contributions. This one gets a little fuzzy. We can't solicit political contributions from others to political or invite subordinate employees to political events or suggest they engage in political activity. We may do so to nonprofit organizations as long as the organization is not associated with a partisan candidate of a political activity or a political activity. We can't knowingly encourage or discourage political activity and we can't participate in unlawful conduct. I have a question. Yeah, go ahead. I have a question. Hi. Yeah, please. I was wondering on the previous slide. So staff cannot run for public office in partisan elections. So like in most Vermont towns like running for the select board or the planning commission, you don't run as a Democrat or Republican or whatever. Is that what you're referring to is it where you're sort of declaring a party? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay. Okay, thanks. Thanks for the clarification. Yeah, thanks for asking. We are allowed to, I don't know where the bullet points went on this slide, but we are allowed to express opinions about political issues and partisan groups or candidates while we are not at work or using official authority. Share opinions on personal social media accounts outside of work hours. This is language that was added. Added in term, it was not in the previous policy because social media is not really a thing back then. We can run for public office in nonpartisan elections. We can campaign for and hold office and political clubs and organizations on our own time outside of work. Actively campaign for candidates for public office, contribute money to political organizations and candidates. So all of this is allowed outside of CCRPC work hours and while we are not representing CCRPC, participate in protest and rallies as long as it's on your own time and not wearing a CCRPC logo or insignia that makes it appear that you are participating on behalf of CCRPC. Some additional social media has kind of brought up this issue and so some other codes of conduct have started to flesh out like what counts as free speech and what one is allowed to do. So this is federal language. As a general matter, speech is protected if you're speaking as a private citizen, if you're speaking about a matter of public concern and your speech does not interfere with your job. However, speech even if on your own time may not be protected if it crosses a line into a real threat and incitement to imminent unlawful action or becomes part of a pattern of discriminatory harassment which we have a definition of later. So it can't disrupt your ability to perform your workplace duties or disrupt an efficient workplace. So the court uses the language that this depends on factors such as time, manner, place and the extent of disruption. We have kind of a general list of unacceptable behavior some of which came from the previous personnel policy some of which was added. Again, it's kind of a, we can't outline all behavior that's unacceptable. Certainly we can legally unacceptable behavior but I think it's more important to focus on what we're striving towards and then outline a process for managing conflict when it comes up because you never know what behaviors from somebody else might cause harm. But there's certainly unacceptable behavior that is severe enough that it might bypass any kind of restorative process and requires like immediate action be taken. So it's just some examples of behavior that might be severe enough to bypass any other process. And obviously all the unlawful discrimination, harassment, drug use, kind of the legal expectation certainly fall in this category. Yeah, discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment, alcohol and substance use. So the next kind of piece of the code of conduct is about implementation and accountability. So how are we gonna take this code of conduct and kind of feed it into our workplace culture and environment so it's not just a document that's sitting on our website or in emails or wherever it's sitting and nobody reads it. So there will be upon hire assigned acknowledgement of receipt and review and then every year staff members and board members will have to re-sign a commitment. So this code of conduct, there will be onboarding and orientation for new staff members, also new board members and new committee members. What is the culture we are trying to cultivate? What are the expectations? Here's what you do if you perceive of harm, if you feel like you've been harmed or if there's conflicts that you think needs to be dealt with. This recognition and feedback is how do we integrate the practice of feedback into CCRPC's culture and into our meeting culture? So can we open up space the beginning of meetings at the end of meetings to allow for folks to reflect and bring up? Any thoughts, constructive criticism, appreciating folks for what they do, like just kind of slowing down and allowing that space to reflect on behavior so that we can all learn and grow. We have annual performance evaluations already so we'll update this process to kind of align with this new code of conduct. We had a staff recognition award. I don't know whether this will stay or leave. We haven't done it for quite some time, I don't think, but could bring it back. And then workshops and training. So there may be on any given year any number of workshops or training around creating cultures of inclusion, around conflict resolution. Around how to weave values into the work we do, et cetera. And then public meetings. This came up in staff meetings about maybe making it a practice at all public meetings to share our organizational values so that the public can also help hold us accountable to upholding those values in our work. And maybe we create a set of ground rules that is some, you know, we kind of pick and choose behavioral expectations from each value to have ground rules that we open up public meetings with. And that way it kind of sets the tone for how we expect the public to act and how the public can also expect us to act. Helps make this kind of desired culture more visible. Okay, and then getting into the conflict resolution and discipline kind of process. In the previous personnel policy, the process that was outlined was the kind of classic punitive. You do something wrong, you file a complaint or report it and then the executive director decides what to do. And that's kind of it. This quote at the top accountability could be a more restorative justice approach as opposed to an approach of canceling engaging. We have to give people the grace to make mistakes. I think this is especially true today. Conflict as everybody knows is an inherent part of collaborative work. It's an inherent part of any relationship, workplace or beyond. Our success depends on our ability to move through it and learn from it. We seek to be transformative, trauma-informed, prioritize dialogue and foster learning and development. We integrate restorative justice practices and principles and we also recognize its limits. So quickly, what is restorative justice? It's a way of addressing harm and conflict that focuses on repairing relationships and restoring dignity rather than punishing or blaming. It requires participation of everyone affected by the harm, whether that's the person who caused it or the person who received it in respectful and constructive dialogue. And it works to ensure that offenders take responsibility for their action to understand the harm that they've caused and to give an opportunity to redeem themselves and to discourage them from causing further harm. Why often when workplace conflict occurs that results in punishment, the conflict doesn't disappear. So how can we instead focus on healing the relationship? Two different views of conflict in the workplace on the left, the kind of traditional process, misconduct is seen as a violation of a policy. That violation creates guilt and justice requires the company to determine blame and impose a punishment. In the restorative model, misconduct is a violation of people and relationships. It creates obligations and justice involves all stakeholders in the conflict to repair the relationship. So the process would look something like this. Step one would be report. And I've tried to outline or some staff confusion over who to report to, depending on who the conflict is with. So if it's staff on staff, if Brian has an issue with me, if I have an issue with somebody else, we can go to the executive director or a supervisor. This supervisor piece was added because in case staff don't feel comfortable going directly to the executive director. So that would be a program manager. So Elaine Taylor Forrest. If staff has a complaint with the executive director, the executive committee would be who the staff member would go to. There's also a line that says if you don't feel comfortable going directly to the executive committee, you can go to a supervisor in order to report to the executive committee for you. Cause I know that not all staff members have relationships with the executive committee. Staff to a board member, also executive committee, staff to a committee member, also executive committee, but the executive director needs to be informed. Board member to the executive director would also be the executive committee, board member, staff, also executive director, or executive director, and then committee member and staff member would be executive director. So anyways, just making it very clear, like who do you report to? And if you don't feel comfortable going to that person, is there a second option? Step two would be investigate and discuss. So if the harm is minor enough that involved parties feel like, maybe they feel like they can handle it on their own and they don't actually report, that's great. If you report and even still parties feel like they are willing and open to go through a restorative justice process, that would be ideal. If not, or if the harm is great, is so great that restorative justice process doesn't make sense, or one of the parties is not willing to, then it would move to the formal discipline procedure. Out of that comes action, could be anything from dialogue to apology, training, warning, suspension, request resignation or forced removal, and then this additional step of follow-up. So how can we kind of revisit and make sure that all involved parties are feeling okay a month later, three months later, six months later, depending on the severity of the harm. So the restorative justice process report or handle it directly. You identify, investigate the harm. You invite participants into dialogue and then there are guidelines for how to host restorative dialogue. So there will be resources shared in this code of conduct to do so if you want to do a self-facilitated process. And that's what I'm hoping to have the Community Justice Center come in and do training around. If you don't feel comfortable handling it one-on-one or directly with the other involved party, it could be mediated by a supervisor, the executive director or the executive committee. This of course too would require some education and training. And then the third option is to bring in a Community Justice Center staff. And so they provide conflict assistance coaching, restorative dialogue facilitation and also mediation services. They are willing and actually quite excited to be included in this code of conduct as a resource to lean on. Coming out of that, you would agree on follow-up actions and then follow-up. So this is where a lot of the restorative justice research has gone into finding different resources around how to bring these principles into kind of internal HR staff on staff dialogue. And then the formal discipline procedure is pretty straightforward. This was in the previous personnel policy, you report whoever you report to, investigates and then whoever you report to decides on the action that ought to be taken. So typically it's either the executive director or the executive committee, depending on who the involved party is. And then again, adding that follow-up step. And then there's a formal grievance procedure if a staff has a complaint against CCRPC as an organization or a complaint against a decision that was made. And this is a bit of a more formal process that's outlined that I won't read fully through. Okay, let me pause there and see if folks have questions or comments and then I'll do a brief other equity update. If I can barge in, and Nelson, just to be recapping what we just read in the last few slides here. The restorative justice process is outside over or separate from the formal discipline procedure, correct? So the two branches as they go. So we're just having the whole employee handbook if you will here in front of me. I was losing focus here in the last three slides. So I just wanted to be clear that those two were hopefully separated and most of the work would be done in the restorative justice process, which is exciting and something that's working very well at least in South Brompton, I believe. And the formal discipline procedure then comes to the chair of the EC in some form or fashion with a written decision, which unfortunately I'm familiar with in our Board of Civil Authority procedures in town. So thank you for clarifying that. So let me get to Garrett who is going to end up first. Go ahead. On the different levels, whether it's staff with the ED, which I certainly understand people having differences with Charlie, that was a joke, Charlie. One that I didn't see in there and I know this is focused on staff is board member to board member. I think that should have a route to find at some point, cause that kind of conflict can happen. Yeah. Yes, I'm sorry that that was not included. Oh, I think you said that you're working on the board one upcoming. You haven't gotten that yet, have you? Yeah, it's mostly finished. I just didn't want to like completely overwhelm everybody with both versions in today's presentation. And I figured there might well be in that, but I just thought I tossed it out in case it was missed. Thank you for flagging that. Benjamin. Yeah, thank you very much. Great presentation. I just had a couple of questions and comments about, I guess it's page 26 of the 31 on the juxtaposition that you present as traditional process versus restorative justice. I'm afraid I have to take issue because misconduct under the traditional process of tagging misconduct is violation of policy. Not merely, it's really, there are very specific statutes and regulations that are far more than mere policy and it's through democratic process. So to kind of dismiss that, I have a little, I'd be glad to talk to you about perhaps some additional language or fleshing that out, certainly simply giving it a little more recognition because we have a legal system that's based on precedent and that you can rely on precedent and there's a reason for it. And so I wouldn't, I find it a little dismissive to suggest that misconduct is a mere violation of policy. The other thing is, is violations create guilt. The legal system isn't only about guilt, it is about holding people accountable and that's what we're trying to do. I admire and I endorse, I think it's a great idea to try to find other avenues to get people in a workplace to work together and be more equitable, I think that's great. But when you talk about on the restorative justice side suggesting that violations create obligations, well, in fact, those obligations are and need to be and thank God they are based in statute and regulation and the policy that's brought together is a matter of organizational requirements. It's the obligations are there already. Violations, I think we might, especially where we're trying to put things right involving the stakeholders and in the conflict that should, I mean, that's quite frankly the law of how federally financed and federal organizations are supposed to be operating already. But the idea is that violations create actually consequences and how we arrive at those consequences or ensuring that consequences are felt for violative behavior, sexual harassment, discrimination and the like. These are very rich fields of study. So I appreciate the effort and there's a lot of effort here and it shows but these are some fundamentals that maybe we need to look at a little more and I'd be glad to work with you to do that. That's good. Thanks, Ben. It does sound a bit like your word choice. I think Ben would be striking is that the misconduct is has consequences which be a starting point for what you're trying to say. Is that correct? Yes. You're talking to me, yes, indeed, yeah. Yes, okay, thank you. But how will we resolve it? I think that's really the nice part. Yeah, and so I appreciate what you're saying because it isn't as linear as it looks. Bruce, did you have a thought there? Yeah, well, yeah. Thank you, Benjamin, for those comments and thank you, Ann Nelson for this presentation. It was incredible. When you came on board, I asked that you know, Charlie, could we look at the code of conduct and maybe amend to it? And I mean, you just took it and you just ran with it and you built the committees and you talked to the staff and not yet to the board as well. But your EAC helped you create the code of conduct to where you are. And you do a lot of studies, you know, your own due diligence, you did, you know, working with organizations and a community to find out what how their code of conduct is. And so you can find, if you couldn't find them but a word, how you can implement it in what we're trying to do. And so I appreciate that, you know, I know all the work you've been doing because, you know, we talking on this, I know in the world all the work you do and you report on anyways. But this is where I feel like I'm the best at for the board and for EAC is the work that you're doing and Nelson and I think this is what I worth. And so, so I wanna ask you two that, or thank you, of course. And I also ask that you look at the restorative justice about how individuals should be make a man to the community or individuals who they might have offended, you know, and you look through CJC, which I'm a founding member of the community just as soon as around the state. So I appreciate you doing that work with Richard Jolley and others and who might come in and help us do some learning more. And so I would ask you also to the work from our Human Rights Commission, Big Heartmen, you know, we do those trainings. I'm a commissioner for the state for the Human Rights Commission and I'll ask for you to kind of take care of that as well. For us, also, when you use the words used in back in your slides, you use the word humanity, you know, respect of humanity. And I'm wondering if, is that means cultures too? Or just, what does the humanity mean, you know, I don't know what humanity means, but I mean, is it, you know, I think, you know, the way the world is today and how important it is to, I mean, I think, you know, it's tough for us to like people like me who don't know about all the laws and rules and how the cultures, you know what I'm saying? That's so important. Like, I don't understand a lot of things like some of my people might understand it because that's their culture. Like a lot of people don't understand what African-American is, you know, might not understand about slavery, you know, and being segregated or these type of things that happens in too much of a generation. And so it's hard to speak on this or that, but I think you say, when you say humanities, you got to understand all the cultures and what that means and how people live and how they're brought up and why it can understand more about why the world is now but I think we're not gonna be able to do it like that. You know, we're not gonna be able to understand because we're not that person. But I think you use the word cultures then that has a significant definition what their culture is, definitely wise. And also, there's a lot going on with our code of conducts and the rules, books and everything. I mean, you got to have it, right? So much, you know, I think that what our RPC mission goes in objectives and, you know, I think we live by our mission goals and objectives and our bylaws, I think that we'll be, everybody be all right, you know, to the minimum, you know, it's hard, you know, like, I don't know about it also RPC either, but I think that's what that's a charter of how we will design and what we're supposed to be doing and our mission goals and objectives of our organization is the same as well as if we live by what our job descriptions are, we stay within our job descriptions, then that's number numero uno. So all of these things are so important, you know, that you're doing and there's just so much, I feel like, you know, people do a lot of times, like we look at people who do like 99% of the things they do, incredible. Then one thing they do wrong, but we're about to throw them out to the wolves or whatever, that's crazy. So I think we should come up with some more like appreciation awards, you know, you know, I know we got some things like, you know, thank God it's Friday award or something, but I think we got to show more appreciation to just kind of figure out what was the more appreciation thing that what we do with RPC and give people fill up, let them feel more of the worth that they are, the strengths that they have in this, just like the code of conduct and the decisions that they make. And so there it is, that's what I got. Thank you. Thank you. Good stuff. Ann Nelson, I want to recognize Dana, she had her hand up and thank you, Bruce. Go ahead, Dana. Yeah, and great job. The document really reflects a lot of hard and good work, very thorough. And I, you know, I'm a little bit of a word nerd. So kind of like Bruce, he picked up on humanity and it's further up in the document, you know, in terms of how you, how Steph interacts with each other. But I was interested in the use of the word humility. And what, how does that, how is that different from like the use of the word respect there? What is your, what does interacting with humility mean to you? Yeah, good question. It came up. So humility, the word, the word humility is in the description for integrity, which came up a lot in conversations around how we hold our work. So we hold our expertise with humility. We hold our experience, our credibility, our solutions, our actions, our projects, our work with humility so that we can continuously grow and improve and be open to learning. In my mind at least, and maybe this is worthy of some more thought, that was more work centered. And the respect was, at the end of the day, we respect one another, which also involves humility. And right, and like this got so fuzzy because there is so much overlap when you get into these like fluffy value words, like so many of them kind of also mean the others. So I think you're right in that, in order to respect one another, you also hold humility and to do one's work respectively, respectfully would also require you to be humble. But yeah, it was really, it came from the phrase, we hold our expertise with humility. We hold our, what does it say? We recognize and hold our responsibility to serve our communities with humility. With, we are gonna try our best and we're open to learn and to improve and to change. But definitely curious if you or if other folks have thoughts or reflections on the values or the descriptions to please share because it is, the words do get a little messy. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Dana. Ben, did you have any other thoughts? I wanted to try and get to... No, no, I'm good. Okay. Yeah, Elaine has her hand up. Elaine, go ahead. I'm not good at seeing hands these days. I gotta change the color of my hand. Nobody ever sees it. It blends in with that picture that is in your background. That's the problem. Either that or I have to take the picture down exactly. I just wanted to address the, excuse me, the question that Benjamin had regarding misconduct, we definitely recognize that there are parts of, that there is misconduct that rises to an illegal level. And I don't think the intention of the code of conduct is to replace any and all discipline, regardless of the severity of the infraction with a restorative process. I think that perhaps the code of conduct could address that with some additional language, just to say notwithstanding all of this, all of the restorative efforts we're making, if an illegal activity occurs, legal remedies will be sought. But more, this is to address the day-to-day cultural and behavioral aspects of working together where people rub each other the wrong way. Misconduct is defined differently by many people. So this is more of that lower level cultural, but by no means were we trying to say that we will not pursue legal avenues should illegal activity occur in whatever form that would take. Great, I'm glad to hear that. We've been hearing other arguments from it. Bruce, do you have a final thought? Yes, I see on my paper, I forgot one. And I was, you went over a lot of information from other organizations about what they have written about their code of conduct. And I don't know if I heard you say the code of conduct. It may be even get more from outright from their code of conduct. That'd be, I think that'd be incredible. So if you can try to see if they have a code of conduct within their manual, employees manual or whatever, that'd be cool. Thank you. That's great. I think that's two recommendations that you've offered her for resources. And I was often wondering how the consultant had been factored in. And I think you had indicated, Dan Nelson, that we're getting some consultation with their specific named individual. But Mark Heyman was another person mentioned, is he HR, a different consultant? He's the consultant that recently helped update our harassment and discrimination language. So he, we will work with him to make sure that all the language in this code of conduct is legally compliant and checks all the boxes it needs to. Yeah, which also Ben addresses your comment a little bit and to Elaine's like, certainly consequences will exist and especially for conduct that is illegal. So, yes, we will be working with Mark Heyman is the HR consultant that we worked with previously. As I mentioned before, it seems like this runs into a 300 page employee handbook for all the things that's trying to comprehensively covered. And thank you, it really is tough. Are there other thoughts? I do wanna check in, like I said, with Mike Bo Brian before he disappears in about three minutes. Mike, are you there? I am here. Yes, I didn't wanna miss you. I know you said you had a 730 deadline, but we were coming up on item nine. Is there anything in item nine that you had thoughts on that falls in your lap? Or is it, you're more on the EAC and this code of conduct that you've helped with? Yeah, item nine, I think that, I'm no longer board development committee chair. I think that's not my confusion. I didn't wanna lose you before anything that fell in that area, but thank you. No, I appreciate that. And thank you, Ann Allison, for this presentation, it was very good. And thank you for your work on the EAC, Mike, appreciate it. Sure. If there's nothing else on the draft code of conduct, as you say, you're gonna work towards a board thing and Nelson, once this gets put together, we'll just move on to your equity update. Is there anything else going on in the EAC? Oops, hold on. Yes, I know. Sorry, you have to hear from me some more. Okay, very quickly, some other equity updates. Equity advisory committee. I am working on kind of revisiting membership of that committee. So reaching out to some additional folks trying to get new members to join. We don't already have representation from in that I'm trying to get some youth members to join. So talking to Burlington High School and Winooski High School to try and see if they have students who might be interested in joining. Anyways, of interest to you all, I know that Jackie and Elaine and Mike, who have all been a part of the EAC, Jackie and Elaine both have to step back this next year, which kind of sparked to this question in my mind of what it makes sense to have board members kind of rotate through being members of the equity advisory committee. And so maybe we have two or three board members each year who try to join meetings and participate. So I just want to plant that seed. If anybody's interested, reach out to me and let me know. And we can continue that conversation. Our next meeting is on January 31st. It's going to be in person. We're doing, I'm partnering with the state of Vermont's Climate Action Office and we're going to do a climate action focus group to help inform the state's climate action plan, which will also inform our ECOS plan. ECOS public engagement, there are a lot of preparation for that's happening now that will really take place throughout the spring. The equity action plan has consistently kind of been a work in progress in the background. So that will come to you all at some point. The draft is mostly finished. Charlie, Ben and myself are all participating in the statewide epic program that's hosted by the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. It stands for Ethical Performance Improvement Campaign and it's really about creating cultures of inclusion. I'm sure you all are aware of it. Many municipalities have participated or are participating this year. So they opened it up to regional planning staff, which is great. And then still kind of starting up new coaching work for the year. So working a little less with the creative discourse group who CCRPC has been working with over the past few years and brought on one additional coach every once in a while, a woman by the name of Siri Russell. She's a professor down at the University of Virginia, but she served in a very similar role to mine for the county down in Virginia and did a really phenomenal job. So she has some more hands-on planning knowledge, which I'm hoping will be helpful. Okay. Well, thank you. And before Jeff reminds me, we have an open public forum on the UPWP for the fiscal year 2025. That's next year. And we'd like to see if there are any members of the public who would still like to comment on the UPWP or Unified Planning Work Program for next year. Next fiscal year. Hearing is seeing none and I would accept the motion to close the public comment forum. Awesome move. Thank you, Andy of Williston. And thank you, Andy of Burlington. All those in favor, please say aye or raise your hand. Aye. And if anyone opposed or abstaining, please speak up. I mean, they have a really big problem. Was that an aye or a negative? Yeah, that's an aye there. I forgot that mute. Thank you, Catherine. All right. So we're going to move to item nine, a charge that board development committee to review and update by-laws. Garrett, I'm trying, forgive me for not knowing who's Catherine. You are the chair, are you not? Yes, me as chair, gets to chair the board development committee. So I think I've been on the board development committee since the beginning, so. I was going to have Charlie correct me, but this is administrative fiat, is it not? I just charge you, Catherine, to review and update our by-laws with your committee for the MPO or Metropolitan Planning Organizations voting review as discussed by Garrett earlier. We're looking to have you look at the waiting for the votes where Burlington gets four by example and South Burlington might get two and most of the other towns might get one and whether that might need to be changed. The vision and mission statement aligned with the EAC's work and Ann Nelson's work, the conflict of interest and code of conduct. Again, through the EAC work and Ann Nelson's work as we've just seen. And then the committee appointments, especially the equity advisory committee and other committee appointments and duties and such. That seems to be most of the charge. Garrett, I'm going to ask you to chime in. I just wanted to mention that I have been remiss. I had planned to bring something about MPO voting to the executive committee, but I took on four new clients this fall and winter and I've been swamped, but I will get my stuff together, so to speak and bring it to the committee because I have been doing some research into this. For example, only 13% of MPOs in the US have waited voting. I'm not suggesting that we change it to unweighted, by the way. So don't worry, Jeff, but I do have some thoughts about how we might, and I'm going to steal a term here, make MPO stuff more equitable for all towns in the county. So, Catherine, you'll be hearing from me. Sorry. Very good. Very good, and you're probably on target with your research. Thank you, Garrett, because it wasn't that long ago that we had six senators representing a lot of Chittin and County, and that was an anomaly, if you looked around the 50 states for the way it had been configured. So, thankfully, I think the legislature has finally redone that one. I like the old way, but that's all right. It was an oddity that was not shared elsewhere. Well, let's just leave it there. My reminders be different. I'd not note any way I will mute myself. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other items that I need to add to the charge? Well, we have talked about this at the executive committee, is actually to look at completely absorbing the finance committee as part of the executive committee. We've been kind of working like that for a few years, but we've talked about it. It's one of my little ticker lists that we had talked, it's also the board committee, board development should look at that, to how to just incorporate the finance committee rather than have it all separate. DEF committee, the executive finance committee in effect. Exactly. Okay, not that I wanna coin a new term yet. Any other? We've acted like it's the same, but technically they were two separate committees and they used to meet separately. And then the finance committee then would be reported through the treasurer or secretary treasurer, but now it's all part of the same committee. So we might as well look at whether that needs to be changed or not. Super. Anything else that needed be added to the charge, Charlie? Jeff? No, it just looks like to me that we're gonna need to take some things that are in the process of being developed and incorporate them into bylaws and things of that nature. So it's going to- I can't give you a deadline of next month. Yeah, right. Or three months after the work product that's needed to make the decisions comes through something like that. Is it appropriate to give a deadline? You can give a deadline, the work will go to fill the space provided by the deadline. And it may affect whether or not, Mr. Chair, you like it or whether Garrett's gonna like it. Yeah, I hear you. It does sound like the work is in progress, but it isn't going to be something instant for sure. So I would hope that we could get something a year from now that too far out of reach, Charlie. Yeah, and thanks, Chris. And Catherine, I haven't had a chance to talk to you, but I was, and Jeff, to your point, I was thinking that this is probably a full 2024, during this course of this calendar year because, and you're right, the code of conduct that work is hopefully wrapping up in the next couple of months, but we'll need to go through some process to develop or decide if we wanna edit the mission and vision statement. So there's more there. There's quite a bit to discuss. I think it's gonna take several, many months. Yes, I was kind of hoping we would finish by the end of the year. Then there's always the question about what we want to be a convention and what we wanna reduce the writing and the bylaws to actually have to happen. So there may be some differences between what are good things to do versus what things that we feel to execute our mission, we have to do what should be memorialized in the bylaws. It's always interesting when we rewrite bylaws. I think, Catherine, this is my third round on it. Wow. Yeah, I think it's my second anyway, at least. So. I've been part of it a few times as well. Well, great. Then you are so charged, Catherine. How was that? Thank you. The action is done. Charlie, I'm gonna turn it over to you for chair executive director's updates. Yeah, thank you, Chris. So just a couple of major topics, the legislature's back in session. Is it, I don't know, but we can have two weeks now. And sorry, I feel like a broken record. You know, we had been working on Act 250 studies, S 100, those housing bill studies. We've had a chance to present them to House Environment and Senate Economic Development. I think those two committees potentially Senate environment are taking up that work from those study committees. So I'll just, I'll keep you posted every month as to how things are progressing. Obviously they're just digesting that work from the summer. And the other, there are a couple of other bills that I'm kind of closely watching. One, we've talked about open meeting law requirements and whether we can have meetings like this anymore after June. And the other one is maybe somewhat related to the permitting stuff, which is there's a bill, S 213, where they are talking about whether the state should take over floodplain and river corridor regulation to make it consistent and enforced consistently statewide. I think A&R just testified this morning that that would take like 20 staff. So, you know, if you staff us appropriately, we could do it. So anyway, there's going to be a debate about that kind of thing. There's a, I don't know, 200 something more bills got introduced, but so if you can see one that's starting to move and you think I should be paying attention to it, please let me know. Otherwise, and you know, please, I don't know if anybody has any questions about anything happening in the legislature so far. It's been very introductory the last one. One thing I do want to point out, I read that they are looking at some help for statewide ethics, specifically where we just talked about you and Ben and Nelson with the EPIC program. I'm not sure they quite cross over because they're probably at two different forms of ethics, but I think this is more for smaller municipalities that may not have the support. Is that correct? Have you heard of that? I'm sorry, are you referring to Ann Nelson's mention of the EPIC program? Yeah, they're two different things. Yeah, that's a round of equity. Yes. The ethics, there was a recommendation that came out that we should have some more rules and a process for reviewing municipal ethics complaints. So that, again, I don't know where that's going. I'll kind of make a note that you'd like me to pay a little attention to what's happening with that. I foresee another secretary of states on Budsman on the topic, as I say, primarily for the smaller towns that don't necessarily have the resources or focus for those things or investigative journalism on the ground as they might improve and so on. Yep. Thank you. Yes, so you let me know. Oh, sorry. That brings to mind. My new community has a pretty clear conflict of interest policy. So I just want to make sure that there is some assessment of conflict of interest policies at the municipal level so that we don't get into a conflict situation between what we might have with our PC and our own individual community. So I've already signed the conflict of interest policy in the town of Shelburne. So I would hate to have to sign something that's in conflict with that for my representation of my community on the RPC Board. Yeah. It's a little mini Act 250. Yeah, understood. Yeah, you got your municipal rules and your regional rules and then some state rules. Just so you know, how or why does that happen? It's because typically a federal agency, there's this federal conflict of interest guidance has kind of said, if you want federal money, you have to have this provision. And so that's why hopefully, Jeff, they are all saying the same things because they are rooted in the same document. But that's a good cross check we need to do. Yeah, can I? Sorry, really quickly. Okay, sorry. Jeff, would you mind sending that? I could, yeah, I could do that. I just, it almost seems like we should start as a baseline with our own municipal conflict of interest policies and then anything additionally that has to be covered so that we can do our federal funding, conflict of interest policy and hopefully there's nothing that outright conflicts. Yeah, that's a good point. Well, we can do a double check with some of our towns and VLCT. And we do have a conflict of interest policy that's in our bylaws right now for board members, right? And I'm quite confident that that was because we had some audit from an agency that says, you need to have this and it needs to be in your bylaws. And it probably got in there 20 years ago. It's, the language has been pretty similar though. I don't think it's been evolving too much. At least 20 years ago. Yeah, I'm sorry. Someone else had a question, Dana, maybe? Yeah, I'm just thinking about the ending in June, the not being able to meet remotely. Yeah. And I'd be curious as to how that discussion is going to unfold because it seems like getting all of us, you know, public officials in our cars and transportation is the biggest factor in climate change. Let's just get on the road. It might be in conflict with a state energy plan. I think that's something that we need to consider. To be clear, if the law does revert a bit, it would basically require a staff person or two to be in our conference room with Bruce, sorry, Bruce. And say, yeah, so it wouldn't require all the board members to come in. Oh, okay. It would require that we have a physical space that a person could show up to. And the Secretary of State is, I will say pretty tightly bound to that position. But yeah, the reality is we very rarely, now people, it's easier for people to plug in than walk in or drive in and walk in. So yeah, we'll see how that conversation goes. They may try to split the baby somehow, maybe some organization or some types of organizations are allowed to be fully virtual and some aren't. I don't know, that might be one way they split the baby. Thanks. Any other legislative issues at the moment? Yeah, Catherine. Yeah, I think with the meetings that the push on, if nothing else is splitting the baby kind of thing, municipalities or even the RPC and stuff should be able to have a fully virtual in the winter because of the, particularly given the weather we've had and stuff and the accidents that have happened on the road, it's a lot safer, not only the transportation and the gas and everything else, but just because you might go to a meeting and then come out and have to scrape off half an inch of ice, which is not fun. Fair enough. So the other topic, just a staffing update, Aliana is here. I think we were in the hiring process for a transportation planner. Hey, Aliana, say hi. And we have a second employee that will be starting in three or four weeks in our business office, Trudy. So Chris, I'll probably have them be on the agenda for next month to do a little intro. Sorry, Aliana, you got lucky tonight. Hello and welcome. Yeah, and then the other part, not only are we doing this Code of Conduct work, which is somebody kind of mentioned a significant portion of our personnel policy is captured in that Code of Conduct work. Another chunk is the compensation study. So we'll be kind of looking at salary ranges and benefits and the executive committee will be diving into that in more detail that kind of act as our personnel committee also. So just to let you know that those two things are probably between the legislature and this kind of internal policy procedure work is probably the focus of, well, a lot of folks' time. Thank you, Ann Nelson. In fact, definitely the focus of my time in the next two or three months. So I mean, if there's any questions on that or any other questions, just leave that other there in case you have anything else that you want to ask me about and then I'll stop asking Chris back to you. All right, if nothing else, I'm gonna draw your attention item 11 where in your packet, you have all the committee liaison activities and reports to wrap up 2023. Looking ahead, you have the bullet points after our next item of upcoming meetings. I'm gonna draw your attention to the last bullet point, which is erroneously listed as our board meeting is on Wednesday, February 14th. That's incorrect. It's going to be Wednesday, February 21st. There's something else happening on Wednesday, February 14th. I'm reliably informed by my wife. So I hope you enjoy yourselves. With that in mind, I'll look for a motion to adjourn. Move adjourned. Thank you, Jeff and a second from Garrett and all those in favor, please say aye or hit the lead button and have yourself a wonderful January. Yeah, thank you all. Have a good night. Thank you. Have you worried? Take care, y'all. Bye-bye. Thank you, everyone.