 We have a full meeting this morning until 10 o'clock. The house is back on the floor at 10. We have with us Jesse Beck from Freeman, French and Freeman with some other folks, and we also have with us, I want to welcome our counterpart in the Senate, Senator Benning, who is the chair of the Senate Institutions Committee. He will be with us for a short period of time as the Senate is convening on the floor about quarter after 9, 9.30. So welcome. And I'm going to quickly turn it over to Jesse Beck from Freeman, French and Freeman that did the legislative space health and safety study to quickly start walking us through. Hopefully we'll be able to finish in an hour, but I'm not sure. So Jesse, I'm going to turn it over to you. And if you could just identify yourself for the record before you start would be great. And if there's anyone else you might have brought with you. Sure. My name is Jesse Beck, architect with Freeman, French, Freeman. And with me is Jane Piquel, our interior designer who worked on the study with me and others here at Freeman, French, Freeman. So she's also available to answer questions. So before we get started, just for the audience, we're also having a technical issue with posting the report up on our web page. Phil, if they go to our web page on their laptop or iPad, would they be able to access the report or no, they can't access it. Duncan Goss is working on it now. Okay. Well, we'll do the best that we can with what we have. Kevin Moore has his hand up, Madam Chair. Okay, Kevin. Madam Chair, you can find the report underneath Jesse's name or Jane's name, whoever it was posted underneath. It's just not posting by date at the moment. Duncan is working on that as we speak. So if you go under witness name and search for it on the committee information page, you should be able to find it. Okay. And also note that Jesse's name is in that list twice, and only one of them shows the correct document. Another one shows previous testimony. Well, we'll do the best we can with what we have at the moment. Let me know when you want me to share my screen, Jesse, and I can bring up the report. Okay. I think for now, I'll just keep my remarks brief, walk through a few of the highlights, and it's probably best to get to people's questions and spend the time that way. Okay. Are we ready? Yes, we are. It's all yours, Jesse. All right. Thank you. So like you said, this is really was a space study, how we could mitigate returning legislators to session in both the state house and other facilities in central Vermont. We had worked with Janice team to come up with a list of likely buildings and areas to look at, which is listed in the report. The charge really is to look at a full return of the legislators, a hybrid model where maybe there's a partial return or alternate day return, and then, of course, there's always continue working remotely like you have been doing as an option. There is an executive summary in the report which hits some of these highlights, but I think I wanted to talk a little bit about how we went about this, what the methods were, and Jan and I and others have been doing this for other clients and facilities, looking at capacities of buildings, looking at mitigation measures. There's a list in here about how to be safe or how to reduce the risk of getting COVID. BGS has a wonderful resource on their web pages about some of the details of safely returning, and the American Institute of Architects also has a tremendous resource about how to do this. So those are all listed in our resource pages of the report. The way we went about this was to not only identify buildings, but create the criteria for our study, namely we use circles to measure spaces, and we have furniture in our spaces that we have to work around with our circles. So we use a seven-foot diameter circle, which takes into consideration a person's head size and body, which is we throw in a foot, and then we use a six-foot on top of that to get the social distancing to be what we like it to be for each room. So that's why in the back of the report and the building diagrams, you see a lot of circles. You see some furniture in committee rooms because you have to take into consideration how a room is set up. In our methods we considered elements like IT capabilities, check-in and safety of checking in, parking, food service, and restrooms and ADA accessibility. So these are some of the elements that we applied to all the building scenarios. The report has a foldout or 11 by 17 listing the various facilities by area within the capital complex and regional facilities like the Waterbury State Office building, the Berry Opera House, and others. So when evaluating this, we started out with the State House and started drawing our capacity circles into the various rooms to just see what could happen within the State House. We very quickly understood that there's no way that there could be a full return to the State House which is fairly logical and I think everybody realized that. So then it was a matter of how many and where else to put them. And we came up with different scenarios. So to cut to sort of the the option is if there is a joint session, meaning everyone has to be there, the only option that we could really find close in central Vermont available to us was the Berry Auditorium. And so those diagrams are in the report and the capacities. The next step was how does the Senate meet, how does the House meet and what are those capacities? The House Chamber can only fit 70. So that would mean if the full House met, it would have to be in the Berry Auditorium. Or you go to that partial scenario where 70 could meet in the House and the rest would meet elsewhere. For the Senate, let's see our Senate capacity is less. Let me see. Jane, what was the Senate capacity in the chamber? It's on page 15 of the report. Okay. We're looking for up to 45. That's including press. Well, we could fit 27 in the Senate chamber according to our social distancing measurements. So 70 in the House, 27 in the Senate chamber, which mean they'll have to do a partial return or find another location. We then drill down to the committee rooms. And so for the House, that meant finding 15 spaces, 15 rooms. It's going to meet their capacity requirements. And for the Senate, that meant finding 11 rooms. So in the summary of findings, you can find it on page 21 and 22. You'll see that we can find the 26 total rooms that we need for committees in facilities in and around the state capital complex, the waterway state office building, and other locations. So Becky, can I interrupt? Becky, Jesse, can I interrupt right here in terms when you said you could find the space in different locations? Would that allow all those committees to be meeting at the same time? Yes. Yep. If you're able to staff properly, provide safe access, I mean check-in stations, those spaces are available to occupy. And I think what's a good tool to look at is the there's two documents that we issued after the 19th, which I think someone has. I'm not sure if they were handed out or not. But one is a move-in ready spaces. It's a straight list, a listing from both the State House, 133 State, 109 State, National Life, Schumacher Hall, Berry Civic Center, and Waterway State Office building. It's a list of all the rooms that we feel are fairly straightforward to move into and their capacities. Yeah, there you go. So for members that want to ask a question, you'll have to physically raise your hand because with my screen I can't see the participant list. Butch. Well for Jesse, so these documents you're looking at now, I have the report in my hand and obviously there looks like they're not in the report. So these would have been if we could get them up on our legislative committee website so we can look at them later. Yes, I will do that. Okay. It's just that the report is very lengthy and this was one way to give you a little easier document to go right down through a straight list of available spaces without a lot of construction work or upgrades. So you could see where the rooms are, what the room capacities are, and if they're ready to move into or whether they need furniture. So did I hear you say that these rooms are also currently unoccupied? Most of them are yes. Thank you. Well when I say unoccupied like the Waterbury State Office building has five or six conference rooms that have furniture in them. They aren't truly occupied during COVID because of work from home orders. They are in use as a state resource. So that's an example of areas that we have put on the list. Guess what I meant by unoccupied would not normally occupied by staff, state staff? The answer is no. Some of these definitely like the State Office building are normally occupied. Is that what you mean? I was thinking more of the rooms that you've identified, conference rooms and those type of things. I guess the easy question is are we thinking about throwing somebody out of their space? On this move and ready list, the answer is we did not throw anybody out of their existing spaces. Thank you. The other document that is illustrative of path one which is a full return of a legislature to their spaces using Barry Montpelier and Waterbury to try to illustrate a path with the joint session being in Barry, the House chamber being in Barry, House committee rooms in these facilities on the list that I mentioned before and how we could accommodate the 15 rooms for the House and the 11 rooms for the Senate. Madam Chair, yes. I'm just I'm wondering if we could stop sharing the screen so we if unless there's a document there just thank you. I have a question. Okay. Kurt. And now I can see the participant list so people can just raise their blue hand. Kurt. When you say that when you're determining that a committee can use a certain room, are you taking into account all the committee members and the legislative, the committee assistant or anybody else or is it just just the just the committee? It's the committee plus two support to public and an additional person. We took the largest committee size and added a few people so it's not an open room for as many people as you can put into it. There are limitations that are stated in the report. Okay. Felicia. Quick question with the list of rooms that was provided. Are all of them currently equipped with proper AV equipment to keep things streaming the way they need to be for not allowing the public in or is that modifications that we need to take into account? Each space is different and yes modifications will have to happen for IT and those are illustrated in the cost report. Okay. Thank you. And that's something we'll have to look at too because we put money I believe is around 750,000 of CRF dollars for costs associated with us returning and a lot of that is equipment, IT equipment and I know Kevin at this point really needs some direction in terms of starting to order some of this equipment because it's going to take time to receive it. So we'll have to get into the cost analysis at some point here. Okay. Any more questions? So Jesse you can continue. I think it's probably good to just go with questions at this point unless there's something specific within the report that you'd like me to review. So one question I have on you're talking about the Senate committee rooms. You know the Senate has morning committees and afternoon committees. So they're basing it on 11 committee rooms I believe for the Senate. Wouldn't they be able to share space in terms of their morning committee could meet and then use that same space for an afternoon committee? That is a possibility but we we took the most conservative approach finding 11 rooms. Okay. Okay. Katherine has a question here. I just have a comment because I think the French and French of Freedom Report has a nice summary and I just a short term summary on their findings and they've got three options laid out which I think Jesse pointed to but one of the trade-offs is if you think about a full return of the legislature you know the logistics you're not all centrally located the logistics and the expenses get to be more if you do more of a hybrid you're closer together possibly physically and it may cost less but you have to you may have to share more rooms it's there's no perfect answer I just want to say just because you've got rooms all over having people in water burying having people in Mount Pillar and having people in other places creates a different set of you know it complicates everybody's life in different ways so there's no simple I think the short story is there's no simple solution but they have laid out I think they've made it clear what can work in the State House committee rooms and what other options are and then the legislature is going to have to come up with some kind of figure out what the priorities are because we're not going to have perfection in any of these it's not going to go back to what it was so you're all are going to have to decide what the trade-offs what what you care most about and what you're willing to compromise on for example sharing rooms or committees not meeting every day so house committees could share rooms you know I that's a choice that somebody is going to have to make at some point and they have laid out a lot of options which is why the report is long actually that I think the floor plans that really helpful for people to see who can fit into what spaces but the cost are also you know you have more rooms you have more security even more buildings you'll have more security costs more ab equipment and they speak to it they have some rough ballpark estimates also on the report which I thought was very helpful and Catherine thank you we have some other questions Curt and then Sarah yes you used a six foot distance between people is that right it's actually a seven foot circle because of your head your body takes up space so to get the safe six foot distance we use seven foot diameter circles seven foot diameter circle oh I see okay so just I understand so what happens if um CDC or the governor's recommendations changes to three feet instead of a six foot distance between people is it easy for you to modify the report or is this well we're gonna go back to the beginning well it's just redoing diagrams to see how many people you can then fit into a space okay sir I'm gonna jump to senator Benning if that's okay sir because I know he's on a time schedule thank you madam chair and I do have to leave momentarily but Jesse I'm not sure you were parted to the conversation that the joint legislative management committee was having um there's another way of looking at this and I don't mean to uh disparage my colleagues in the house but the overwhelming numbers of people in the house create a problem all by itself and when you're talking about sharing committee rooms if you focus solely on the senate for a moment our morning committees could meet in their rooms normally and have witnesses and staff in another senate room that's not currently being used if they had access via video so that technically they're all meeting together you can't do that with the house committee rooms so the idea of dividing and conquering our problem may be a way to think about this in the long term my concern is that we're trying to get both bodies into the building in some fashion and I don't know how that's going to work under the current circumstances without a decrease in the number of feet suggested for social distancing but it's just a thought I wanted to send out there that there is a way to divide and conquer this problem if we focus on one body in particular which is the house because you have such overwhelming numbers and I'm not sure how to placate folks um but at this point I just wanted to leave you with that thought that the senate could function in its normal environment for committee purposes if I understand the foot distance correctly if we shared our rooms morning and after and divided the committee members themselves from the witnesses and staff that may be appearing to help them assuming we have the technological equipment to have that happen it would eliminate the senate from the equation of how to fix this problem and that's just one thing to think about as we go forward with that madam chair I'm afraid I have to sign off especially before anybody wants to yell at me well the one thing I would say on that I don't disagree but the optics are there's only one body that's then in the state house and not the other body and that that's an issue because we're equal branches we're equal bodies so I understand that there doesn't look very good I understand the predicament yeah okay thanks thank you and that that's one reason that move-in ready list is is good because it shows you all the rooms in the state house in their capacities and then you can fight over who uses which room thank you jessie uh sarah and then felicia that's the fighting over which who gets to use which room it's kind of where I'm coming from I was part of my question was to ask um senator benning about where um his thinking from uh the joint legislative management committee because I did was and I did listen in on some of that discussion um one of the the things I read in this report is a recommendation that a decision be made by september 1st and today is september 1st um so I'm I just I'm kind of laying that out there clearly we're not going to make a decision by september 1st um and one of the things I wanted to ask as much of the the folks who um uh janet miller and um kevin moore were also part of the discussions with they were meetings over the summer with freeman friends um uh with uh the freeman french freeman folks um one of the questions I have is anybody who has a child who's going back to school or college um has seen how we have have all had to rethink what that looks like and what that means and one of the things I'm hearing from my colleagues is like we all are pining for the way of going back to the state house as the way it was and I I do think we're going to have to really shift the way we think about that during this pandemic I don't think it's going to be the senate coming back and doing business as usual in the house doing something different I I really think if we have to be thinking about this hybrid approach that means that some of our work is in person and some of it continues to be remote um and that it's not going to look the same so I don't that's a big kind of um mental shift for all of us I know that I had to do that we're thinking about my daughter going back to college and I also know that they to do that the college spent a lot of time going through all the details and so I just want to lay out my concern about our timeline or what what madam chair if you're if you have a sense of when this decision when we can make this decision and how we can might be able to do it because I I know that it's going to from the time that we make a decision there's going to be a lot of work that needs to be done by folks like um sergeant arms and Kevin Moore. I'm not sure what the timeline is going to be the decision is not going to be made by the full legislature um it will be made with conversations I'm assuming with our leadership along with our chief Romeo I along with our sergeant arms Janet Miller and along with our IT folks Kevin Moore these are not isolated conversations but the whole legislature is not going to be voting on this in way and making that decision um I'm not sure of the timeline I don't know if Janet can weigh in on this I know that there is a time issue with IT with Kevin Moore and if we're doing any remote from any of the spaces either within the Montpelier area or Waterbury area or Barrie there needs to be IT investments and he has to place some orders for that equipment so time is of the essence in that phase so I don't know if Janet if you can weigh in a little bit on this yes madam chair thank you um Janet Miller sergeant and arms just for the record um we are working with the administration right now to see about what is readily available for us I think a little bit has changed after the report has come out and for various reasons as Catherine was talking about regarding security staff I think the thinking is we'd like to be as close to the lawn of the uh we're as the capital so we're working with Jennifer and Joe and all the folks at BGS to see if there's some other pieces of property in right in the area that we can do and I think for Kevin's purposes some of the stuff that he'll have to order will be standard so I think there's going to be some movement on that but I would let Kevin weigh in on that so I think that what we're going to do is see what spaces are actually going to work and Freeman French and Freeman has looked at a few of the spaces definitely that we're looking at now there's one more additional space over in the 109 that might work for us we thought for a moment that the security would not work there because the governor is there but I think that's not an issue so I think we will be moving forward quickly and being able to at least have the rooms it's not going to be our decision as to who goes where our decision will have the rooms and the capacity and then someone above my pay grade is going to have to figure out who's going where I'll be star should get first pick yeah right is he listening so Janet is it fair to say that right now the work is between the legislative branch and the executive branch with the administration trying to figure out the space and one of the priorities is really trying to stay with around the the lawn space in front of the state house yes I think that's fair to say in buildings in general services they've been really working hard to with us to try to hone in on this and figure out what we're what they can accommodate us and what would need to be outfitted a little bit better so that the legislature can do their work okay thank you uh Felicia thank you um I didn't see it considered and I don't mean to give David Sheets a heart attack um can the walls be modified in house committee rooms I know that walls were put up you can see that in the architecture to divide that further but can they be taken back down and is that a reasonable time frame what walls are you thinking of between our committee room and I believe it's house education where one of the bookcases is was clearly a doorway previously I've heard that referenced more than once I just looking at the building having been in there that space was divided up further to make more rooms can that be reversed to make larger rooms had Janet yes I think these walls are thicker than you think and I think for any construction like that major it wouldn't really it wouldn't really well yeah it really wouldn't give us much more space really wouldn't even be still be able to have a large committee in there probably but maybe Jesse can weigh in on that sure um we're looking at short term solutions is being able to be accomplished by January and any significant construction project like that would certainly take longer than than the the three four months that's available so we talked about that the rooms really can only accommodate about four people each so even if you took a wall down you'd have a room of eight so long term solution yeah maybe you can make construction modifications to the state house but you're also dealing with the historic structure and there's a long list of protocols and analysis before you start moving and taking walls down in the state house so we kind of ruled that out at this point but certainly there's there's long term issues that that can be further studied out of this report yeah and I figured that might be the answer I'm just really concerned that we're not really considering just sneeze guards or plastic shoes or like really genuine short term changes I think moving committee rooms outside of the state house which will be necessary for us to meet in person is really a paradigm shift in the way that the legislature operates and I think that if we're looking at this as a one session or half a biennium kind of thing then we're not really being realistic about what it takes to move an entire body outside the state house and then back in and I I guess I'm just trying to advocate that we consider some more long-term changes in more of a three to five year reference point than just a three to four month reference point because I don't think that this is going to be as short as we want it to be and I don't think once we move people out we get them all back in as quickly as we want to and on to that point I think I'm really advocating that if possible we focus on solutions that keep us inside the complex because I am very concerned about being committee rooms across Waterbury across to Berry and then some in Montpelier both on perception and functionality well one one comment which was interesting that came out of this report when we were interviewing various people working in the state house is that we did a report a few months back about how how packed the state house is for staff and people using the building and at that point in time everyone felt the absolute need to occupy and be in the state house this time around when we interviewed everybody they pointed out how they didn't need to be in the state house and they were very happy to be working remotely that working remotely seems to work just fine so I think that's a that's a big change post COVID that is going to really help alleviate the pressure on the state house so Jesse I know chief Romeo I has a question but I want to verify this a little bit so that was an interview with the staff yeah in the back of the report there's there's meeting minutes of the people that we we met with to get their input situation and so there's a whole series series of folks that we met with that have staff or departments within the state house because I can see if we get back into some form of person to person in some form some of those some of us our staff are going to have to be with us and not yeah I'm not saying everybody out I'm saying that that there are portions of different groups that can easily work work remotely as long as they have one or two people or a few people in the state house okay okay uh chief Romeo uh good morning uh Matthew Romeo I got the police I was just going to address the the longer term issue I I certainly think that that's going to be a topic for um for the next legislative session about you know the the the long arc of this but at the same time and this is to represent the coffee's point about the September one not necessarily deadline but the September one request for decision that that we advocated for um we're basically right now 120 something days from the new biennium and that is that's zero time in in in this world really and I think that's part of what the pressure that at least that we're feeling is not only you know we just need to figure out what's going to happen so we can figure out what we have to do those secondary and tertiary effects that uh that come up from it of what we have to do to make sure January happens um and it's um that that grandfather clock is ticking in the background very loudly um on the staff side so just my thoughts thank you for that and I think one thing that I think that there's probably some consensus on um the first week of the session is a ceremonial week the first week of the biennium is ceremonial we have a lot of joint sessions uh it's the inauguration of the governor um from the report it appears as if that week can be taken care of through the berry auditorium to a certain extent it's how you then function beginning the following week once you start breaking down into committees so yes time is of the essence but of the whole decisions that we have to make it appears as if the first week is semi taken care of in terms of at least having a space that can hold the 180 of us plus am I incorrect in that okay Janet says yes the then the question is I mean it gives us a week but it's not much when do we go back into session jannah when is our date for going back um top of my head is it the January 6th I think is it the sixth it's a Wednesday yeah right so it's the sixth okay okay and we're up there for three days of which Friday is not that large a day for that other thoughts questions jannah when do you think in chief as well when do you think as I said before these decisions are really going to be made not by the whole legislature during the special session it's going to be made with more internal folks figuring this out and talking it through do you have any thoughts on I don't want to put you in a corner either one of you but a ballpark time frame when some of these decisions are going to start to take shape and start being carried forward is it going to be in a couple of weeks so it's going to be by the end of September I would expect so Madam Chair and there's kind of some difference so the jail the JLMC committee we've been you know mating with them and did a presentation there of course they're not the sole decision maker on this so it's got to come from the senate senate rules and house rules and the little difficulty there is that we have to wait till the new biennium to actually you know have a new set of they have to adopt rules again or however that works but we're hoping that you know we can have a consensus before then and and I don't know what the leadership will decide as to you know we want the house to meet here we want this committee we're going to share committees rooms we don't really just know that but I still think we as the sergeant and arms and coven and with the administration and the chief we can still get the rooms ready so I don't think that will be a problem it's just folks may not know what's exactly going to happen with those rooms right off mm-hmm mm-hmm that that is more internal to the legislative decision making your your focus right now with the parties is really finding the rooms and the space and the goal is to keep it around the lawn in front of the state house that's right and chair okay and once those rooms and space are defined and agreed to then you can start working on IT upgrades or furniture or what is needed there right and that's because we have to order stuff you know and right now we're behind the curve on that hopefully stuff will be available that we need so for stuff that we need some of this going to be like the plastic screens is some of it going to be the temperature scanners that we spoke about um items such as that well well far as like the acrylic and all that that may be for some areas that Freeman French and Freeman was talking about but as far as the screening scanners there hasn't been a decision made on that yet because there's still some you know controversy about a temperature check and if that's relevant is it relevant for us to spend the money on that at this time so that's another question that's up in the air still has there been um discussions about testing members on a regular on a weekly basis no has that and that hasn't entered any conversations because they're doing that within the schools i'm just wondering if that's something that would happen with us definitely chief did you want to weigh in on that because so so ma'am chair there's there's a couple things that we are kind of for lack of a better term holding in holding in the back of our minds and there is a pathway for testing if that is desired um there is the other i guess you could say big questions that we're we're waiting on some finality on is uh the the idea of contact tracing and the idea of um um interest screening uh for the spaces and it's it's a certainly a topic for another day but there's there's ups and downs to all of those questions and really what it comes down to right now is we'll we'll support the the the legislative process of whatever um whatever the legislature wants to do we've just got to we've got to have an idea of what you want for january 6th so um but but there are a lot of those things kind of floating around it i would also say at least for kevin and myself we're taking some cautious steps uh trying to trying to predict the legislature which is a dangerous game uh on the best of days i think everyone wants to get back the question is it's not going to be getting back in the normal way that we know and how we transition to a new model for at least this session i think also the other piece you may bring us back what's what's the thinking with the cafeteria and food um i mean one of the starters i've got to eat so some kind of chair we we have uh renewed the contract with our cafeteria and they've been very uh great about uh working with us because they know that it's not going to be the same amount of people that come to the state house and for them to survive and make makes money on us but they do agree to have the cafeteria open it may be a takeout kind of place the cafeteria will hold up to 46 i think but if we use some of that for committee space uh it you know that'll be limited so if folks were here in a committee room perhaps they could take their lunch and go back to that space because there'll be social distance enough in that respect um that's another reason you know to kind of stay within the within the complex maybe easier on legislators mm-hmm well there's also mobility of some legislators too um that has to be taken into account the other part that has to be taken into account and this has nothing to do with with uh our sergeant arms or capital police or the it is where a legislator is going to be staying overnight you know if they're staying in a hotel at the capital plaza that might be a little different in terms of restaurants uh or folks who are renting homes or apartments they have more flexibility but you know that's in the mix too because not all of us commute right and those that do commute are then um they're not so isolated because they're going back home and maybe exposed to other folks that may be carriers and then bring it back to us so something to think about any other questions thoughts i do you think janet the the joint legislative management committee or any of the folks you're working with would um entertain any thoughts or ideas that maybe this committee comes up with well i think so madam chair if there's some consensus that you all think about after you because you're focused more on the report than maybe some of the folks at the jlmc meeting our committee so i'm sure they would welcome your thoughts okay it's 20 minutes to 10 we're back on the floor at 10 are there any questions further questions for jesse on the report any questions of bgs or the administration while they're with us or anything the administration would like to share with us sarah i'm just curious to hear about the technology without a piece of it if kevin could talk a little bit about his i'm sure you've been doing some thinking and that might help us in our our thinking through some of this okay kevin uh thank you madam chair um so to answer the excuse me kevin more director of it for the legislature um to answer the question uh kind of directly we're looking at many options at this point but without understanding the explicit spaces that we're upfitting it's very difficult to select av equipment we are bringing in equipment early to test it and make sure that we have different uh capacity uh scalable equipment ready and available for us uh we are looking at acquiring core network infrastructure as we speak that is fairly universal equipment so we don't have to worry too much about where we're landing but we certainly need to get that equipment sooner versus later but the outfit for av is significant it's certainly significant and the more time that we are provided to fit up those spaces the better we can react a little bit better the the setups will be cleaner the functionality could be greater if we have enough time to continue to add components to it we're really trying to set up some some high quality spaces for folks and anything we can do to understand the room selection sooner versus later would be a great benefit even at the building selection if you will so we can start working on that core infrastructure that's helpful thank you kevin butch thank you madam chair just for our committee and i just want to restate what what you just said for our committee mates we are we're nothing but guests to the joint legislation management committee on this operation so anything we can do to help them or suggest to them like is a great thing i don't think we can get into the weeds i think we have to stay at a 50 000 foot level not going around picking out we shouldn't be picking out committee rooms in my opinion we shouldn't be picking out building space well we can we can help the joint management committee make the decision as far as the infrastructure goes as far as there's going to be the legislation required if we move out of the state house and if we meet in a different place as a joint assembly they have a lot of work to do in that area and they have to make some decisions pretty fast so i think we need to stay at 50 000 feet and if they ask for our help we i think we'd be more happy to help them in any way we can but we don't have the final decision here and i just want to remind committee members that thank you um katherine you had your hand up i well i think butch just spoke to it but i i did want to say one of the other things that freeman friends of freeman had limited time to do i think they may have mentioned this the air quality and so some as we narrow down to specific rooms bgs is also helping speak to the ventilation and also some of the rooms that um may have been occupied in the drawings may you know they may have they may be storage rooms with people stuff that can be moved out so bgs is working with us on on considering some of these um alternative so it was very helpful to have freeman friends and freeman at least scope out rooms even if they were occupied because in fact some of them may be uh available but ventilation is going to be another part of the discussion that will be ongoing it may not be fully resolved and then frankly also if you have ventilation problems and you can put in a filter but you also have to make sure you can hear the sound that you're not messing with sound because some people are going to be um watching you virtually so um there's a lot that goes into this there is a lot because we touch the legislative um work touches everything it seems it's not just us in isolation it's folks coming in to testify from honors needing access to their government um it's us needing access to our staff and it's also us having access to each other as colleagues to do our work um and all the logistics around that so we need to finish up here because we need to sign on to zoom to get on to the floor at 10 o'clock any other uh parting thoughts jess jesse at all on this i think you have a lot of really really good options um and if there's any follow-up questions anything else that you need that you see within this report or outside the support we're we're here to help so please call well i want to thank you for all the work you've done for state government starting way back before waterbury you've been a great asset to us and it's really helped us make some very very difficult decisions so i want to give accolades to you to thank you for all the work that you've been doing on our behalf it's greatly appreciated thank you and we've enjoyed it yes we'll call on you again i'm sure okay these two yeah anything else anything else for the committee before we sign off of youtube if not thank you all and we're gonna sign off and then kick over to the floor