 I'm Michael Sherman, a member of the committee, and I am pinch-hitting for our chair who was somewhere in the air between where she was and where she's coming back to and regrets that she's not able to be here. So the other members of our committee are Jeremy Bodry, Cameron Neidermeyer, who is the assistant city manager and keeps us all in line and helps us get our work done. Lauren Harrell, who is a member of the city council, Helen Cone, and that's it, right? Did I leave anybody out? Okay. So those of you who are guests, thank you very much for coming, and if you would briefly introduce yourself and just say who you are and what committee you are on, we can sort of get a sense of who's here doing what. So John, when you start, I'm going to do this on my screen. John. I'd be happy to. I'm John Snell. I'm chairman of the tree board in my appeal here. Thank you. Tom Cone, you're muted, Tom. Not yet. Not yet. There you go. Did that work? Yes. That did it. Sorry about that. I'm Tom McCone. I'm not on any committees, but I'm writing an article about the policy for the bridge. So that's why I'm here. All right. Thank you. My sequence is Amy again, but yeah, I'm Amy Gamble, I'm the chair of the energy advisory committee. Thank you. And Monica. Hello. Hello. I'm the appeal your public arts commission and I'm not the chair, but the chair couldn't be here. So I'm sitting in. All right. So the next thing if we get out of the, the, the agenda up on the screen or the, he's doing that. Are you able to give me permission, can you? Yes, you should now have it. Yes. Okay. Okay. So here's what we're going to be doing and just move through this. All right, having some issues. All right. What can you guys see? I know it's like the weird format right now, but can you see it? Yep. I think this way I can actually mute and unmute and stuff. Otherwise, if I do the full screen, it's screwing up that. So Michael, is this you? Oh, you're muted, Michael. Okay. Can you hear me now? Yep. Okay. So let's go to the overview of, of C. Jack. Or do that. You're going to do that. Great photo. Yeah. Okay. Good. Good. Thank you. This committee was formed in 2018 to, as you see to assist the city and reshaping the systems, policies and practices that perpetuate barriers to social and economic justice. Its name is this. Montaigne. City of Montaigne. Social economic justice committee. C. Jack is easier to say quickly. And so that's referred to ourselves. And I've introduced, we introduced members. And we have room for a lot more members. And if you know anybody or you yourself are interested in joining, please contact Shayna. For any more information. This also can contact us through the city website. We have a web page there. So in, in 2019, we received funding through the council to hire. And then we had a creative discourse to conduct a preliminary equity assessment for the city. Holding foot, and they conducted. Focus groups with community leaders, various affinity groups. And then. Online equity survey. Some of which was distributed by hand to my, some of us on the committee. Various communities and constituencies. And that included people not only living in Montaigne, but also people who work here and or visit here on a regular basis. The results of that were presented to the city council on August 18th. And if you would like to see that presentation, you can go over the city website and I welcome to sort of, to see how they presented. Cut the next slide. The probably the overarching question that. That the, the consultants poses. How do you, do you have a sense of belonging to the city? And what, what does that mean? Well, it turns out, it means, you know, feeling that you have a voice that's heard, both in, in, in the city council and in, in various other areas, for example, committees. And that people feel that the city. Is acknowledging who they are and, and trying to serve their needs, their specific needs, as well as the general needs of everybody in the city. And what you see here is the breakdown. That they, that they found from their results. So 68% of white folks feel. That they have a sense of belonging 39% of the BIPOC. That's black indigenous people of color. 69% for heterosexual. Versus 45% for the LGBTQ plus 64% with a college degree. And 46% without. Without, without a college degree. That actually there's more to that story that is the college degree people are greatly outnumber them. The, the, the number of people are not outnumbered, but it's a high percentage of people in the population generally. And in Montpelier and in the state as a whole. So the next slide please. I think there's a question from Tom Michael. Sorry. Yes. Tom was. Go ahead, Tom. Tom, can you hear me? I can't hear well. Oh, is it, is it just me? Or is it. Can other people hear all right? Yep. Yeah, I'm sorry. We can use their way. You can turn your speakers up, but that might work. Headphones might be helpful. Okay, I'll, I'll take care of it. I just wanted to know if it was a, an issue for everybody or just for me. I'll, I'll deal with it. Thank you. Okay. All right. So the, in response to those in response and as a result of those meetings, the. The. The consultants. They presented a series of questions, a series of recommendations. And, and they divided them into three sections in the first section. As you see here is operational. And the suggestion, what recommendation was that we. Publicize and create accommodations for people with disabilities at meetings. And make the format more accessible. So, I'm going to approve the website offer content that is easy to translate online or is in multiple. We have made some gains in that. We're starting and I understand the city is. The age or overall of the, the website. Isn't that the case. Cameron. Yeah. Okay. And we're still working on some of the other parts of that, but we're still working on some of the other parts of that. And we're still working on some of the other parts of that. Conduct implicit bias and anti-racism training for staff, including police. That too has been initiated. And I should say that the same time that this was going on, there was a police review committee. And we. I would serve on that committee. And we shared our information with the, the C. Jack consultants. The C. Jack consultants shared their information with. The C. Jack consultants. And so I think we covered that. That part pretty carefully. And we, we, we, there are a lot of changes taking place. And a lot of what was recommended has already been initiated. And the fourth in the operational section is keeping, keep zoom or remote participation component of meetings, even after in-person meetings. We have had closed captioning and multiple languages. Well, as you see, we are keeping zoom going. I don't know about where we are with closed caption and multiple language. We have made some initial discussion, had some initial discussions about that in our committee. And I think we're waiting to hear more from the city. Next, please. I think the second area is relational. Communicate more about available supports and services and target the outreach so that it gets to understand, to underserved populations. Receive acknowledgement of communication when reaching out to city counselors. Find more ways to ask people what they need outreach surveys, what they need to do. And I think we'll get information soon. Is that right? So we'll get information. And then, and I suppose where there will be some reshaping of the questions or some. As well as some consistency so that there is a way of comparing previous years to, to what we get this time. Have, have police get out of vehicles and be more approachable on foot. So I think we're seeing more of the police on the street. And, and that, that was partly a response to this, this recommendation. John had his hand up. Oh, I'm sorry. Quick comment. I know that. I know that. I know that. Chief Pete. Is working on this and has actually. A designated one member of the police force. To be a community outreach person. So I think we're seeing, we're seeing more of the police on the street. So John had his hand up. Oh, I'm sorry. Quick comment that people at the farmers market have really appreciated the fact that almost every week, a couple of the policemen or police people show up. And wander around and they're very much appreciated. Thank you. I think for that. I'm just reading. So I'm not paying attention to what's going on anywhere else. So that's good to have someone say, Hey, question out here. Thank you. And then finally, in this section, decrease interactions with people from marginalized. Communities who may have a fear response triggered by police presence. And I don't know how that's working at this point, but I think it is. It is something on, on the chief smart agenda for sure. Next. And then the third section is structural as you see address housing issues and this discrimination toward people experience homelessness. We advise ethics policy and review all policies through an equity lens. Rethink policing and my clear suggestions include decreasing armed police presence disarming, defunding or abolishing police. I haven't heard any foot talk much about defunding or abolishing, but I have heard a lot about what the police department is doing to try to make itself more in touch with the community and a positive, in a positive way. I mean, they're working on it. Create a mental health crisis response team and offer alternative support via dispatch. I believe in the current budget. There is. We're making some progress on that. And there is, there will be more. Mental health responders. Working on the ground. Develop and articulate an ongoing equity plan and vision for Montelia. This is basically. Keeping, keeping at it. That our work isn't done. Our committee recognizes that the work is just starting. But. It's certainly, it's certainly the city council has also acknowledged that this has to be going on. And so there, there, we have gotten funding for the next, the next stages. I think that's it for what we have accomplished so far. So here's what's on our agenda and we have started taking, you know, devoting our meetings to discussing one or another of these issues as we go along. Now limit outreach limited to English proficiency households and develop a language access plan. We've made some preliminary steps at this, just trying to get a sense of how many languages we should be acknowledged, you know, acknowledging in the sense of trying to get assistance with that. And how many languages. Should we be recommending that the city. The city should be able to use when they issue documents. Make the website more accessible. Again, that's in progress. Create a restorative. Community harm and trust building with the police department. And LEO's social worker, peer support outreach workers and community resource officer on staff, public safety ordinance review schedule. And again, I think the chief Pete has started working on a new policy for a crisis. Communication after a crisis. All for stipends to residents of boards and commissions to support childcare income replacement access to transportation, other barriers to volunteer participation in involved city processes. And Lauren will talk about a project that the committee has planned and has been approved by the city council. So I will now I think that does it. Are there any other questions? Okay. I will let Lauren take over from here and talk about the stipends project. Great. And I see Jeremy has his hand up something to add. I didn't see that. Okay. That's okay. Thanks, Michael. I didn't want to just add one detail about the creative discourse. Equity assessment and report. If I remember correctly, there were basically two categories of recommendations. One bucket of recommendations included suggestions and ideas that we heard from the community as things that they would like to see addressed and put into place around equity. And there was another set of recommendations that were more specifically from creative discourse themselves as kind of. With their expertise in this area. And so as you look back at those recommendations that we just reviewed, I believe that was a mix of both creative discourse recommendations and community member suggestions. And please. Confirm that if I'm or disconfirm that, but I think that's. That's correct. Thanks. Yeah, thanks, Jeremy. Great. So one of the. Projects that we're working on that we particularly wanted to get together with the heads of the committees was talking about stipends for committee members and participation in committees. And so this was one as Michael. This was one of the like specific recommendations that came from the process and. And was part of the equity assessment for the city. And it was really looking at. You know, this sense of who's participating in city government, who has access to it, who feels like they are welcome and included and just have the ability to actually participate. And so, you know, it's offering stipends is something that more and more communities are looking at. Essex in particular has been somewhere we've been learning from because they're, they've been going down this road a little bit ahead of us. So we've been able to learn from some of their kind of lessons learned as they're trying to actually roll this out in their community. It's something that the state offers stipends for many committees and there's been a big conversation in the legislature about increasing stipends or how are we offering stipends to really make it. Something that it's both. Enticing and is just accessible for people. So thinking of someone who might need to line up and pay for childcare or pay for transportation or forgo wages because of the time commitment and doing the work for the city. So are we really making this something that we're getting more voices into the process. And hearing from, you know, a variety of people with different lived experiences who could really bring a breath of perspectives. To our city processes and committees. And we all benefit from having that just broader perspective and participation. So. The city council on C. Jack's recommendation decided to move forward as part of the budget, which was approved. For to set aside $30,000 for fiscal year 23. So starting July 1, 2022. Stipends will be available for all people appointed to city committees. And you're able to access $50 per person per meeting. It's a set pot of money. And so it's going to be, you know, rolling out and essentially if the money runs out, the money will run out. And we're really looking at this as a pilot project. And so really wanting to learn how is this going? Or is the process set up? Is it really something that is increasing participation and bringing in new perspectives to city. Government and to our city committees. So I think the ability to all work together and learn from this and take in both the input from the various committees and how it's going and, you know, being able to assess that. Having a lot of sensitive computers today. So there's a process and a policy for how you can register. So it's something that is going to be available when you, you know, apply to be appointed. And that information will become available. And it's something that we would ask as committee chairs or as people on behalf of your committee that we let people know that this is going to be available as of July 1st. And then you have to fill out some paperwork. And as soon as you've gone through that, then you can start accessing it. The thing we're going to ask of committee chairs is tracking attendance because it's, you know, you know, you know, you know, every meeting you attend would be the $50 stipend for people who sign up for this. So that is one thing that's going to be fall on committees to, you know, we already take minutes. So it's, it's getting that information to city staff so that we can track that and make sure that people are getting the stipends. So I believe that's going to be a monthly. Kind of tracking system, at least to start. I think that's going to be one of the things that we're going to be doing. I think that's going to be one of the most efficient ways and most efficient ways to do all of this. So. As I was saying, you know, part of as, because this is going to be a pilot program, we really want to learn about how, how this is working. Is this, you know, succeeding? Is it accomplishing what we hope in terms of making participation in city committees more accessible to more people? So one of the tools that we want to use, we want to be able to, we want to be able to, we want to be able to do a brief survey that we want to have every committee take so that we can understand who is serving now. And so it's like some broad demographics and just get, trying to get a snapshot of who's on the committees so that over time we can see, are we really expanding and broadening the different types of people that are participating in city committees? So it's pretty short and sweet, but I think we're going to be able to, we're going to be able to get this baseline data that we can then use to assess over time how we're doing at expanding membership and increasing accessibility. So that's something that we're going to be looking for your help getting the word out. So I think the two pieces is, you know, being able to get the information out about the availability of the stipends and we can, you know, get, it's a pretty simple process, but I think that we can also get the information out to the community leaders to make sure that that's available and understandable. And then doing this survey to understand, you know, who is currently serving are the two main pieces. And, you know, I think paired with both just the availability, the availability of the stipends, you know, I think we all collectively also need to think about how we're doing outreach and, you know, how are we reaching new people? How are we letting people know this is available and would they be able to get the information out to the community? So I think that's one of the key things that we're going to be looking at is, you know, some ideas and thoughts on how we're also just connecting with more parts of our community. So that people can take advantage of this new program. So I think I will leave it there, but would now welcome. Input thoughts. This is like because this is a pilot program, we're very much kind of developing this between now and the roll out in July. So I think we're going to be able to do that. You know, of course, happy to answer questions. You all might have. And other committee members feel free to jump in with whatever I missed. Any questions, thoughts. Nice. I don't know how to raise my hand. It's a small enough group that people can go for it. Yeah. Just a couple of questions popped into my mind and one was. Yeah. I think that's a good question. I think that's also for subgroups. That is a great question. I believe we've mostly been talking about it as for. Committee meetings, although. Why don't we bring that back to. As that's a good question. And my other question was with the supply to student members as well. I'm seeing Cameron. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good answer. I think we're at a place with the stipends. Program where we're just asking folks, if you believe that you could benefit from this to apply. And the only people. That we've currently said can't do that. Our. Committee members like our city council who already receives financial support for being in that position. So. I think the sort of easier answer from. Yeah. Question. Yeah. Lauren is right. We might need to go back to the committee and ask about that. First question. Okay. I'm thinking that might be. A way to entice our student members to actually attend. Brogdon. Support them. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a good. That's a good question. Yeah. So we'll have to come up with a policy, which will let you know about, is it, you know, any official warned meeting, whether it's a subgroup or the full group or, you know, for the energy committee, for example, between like the policy committee is that you can have a lot of meetings add up. But this time that people are investing. So. Good questions, Amy. Other questions or input. I'll just say that people keep telling me that we should get stipends and I didn't know this was on the table. So good work. That was actually my question to, to turn to some of y'all who are in different committees and ask if, if they have, has this trickled down at all? Did anyone know that this was happening? No, no, I hadn't heard about it. How would we have heard about it? There's been quite a few, so one of the perennial questions that I have for myself is how many people are actually paying attention to our council meetings and then our notes from the council meetings or our weekly reports from the council meetings, that kind of thing. So that would be primarily some of the places that this would be found, right? Tom on this call has been a really great advocate for writing about CJAX work in the bridge. But if you're not looking at that, I don't know. So that's good to know. That's good feedback for me. Thank you. Yeah. I think the front porch is a really excellent place to do it. And the Facebook page and the city Facebook page also would be a great way to put that out to people. I think I've read about it when I was looking at the budget stuff for in preparation for town meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Could ask for clarification on the student issue. So the, the committee is going to look at, um, is going to discuss the issue of subgroup meetings again or, or discuss that. And then. It sounds like students are eligible for the stipend. Is that right? Or are you going to discuss that further? I just don't see how they wouldn't be. Right. Okay. I just wanted to confirm that. That's what I thought. Yeah. Yeah. The exciting thing from, from my point of view is that this opens up possibilities for people to serve. Who have not been able to. To date. And I think it's awesome. Yeah. I mean, just from a personal standpoint, um, I, I was sadly thinking about stepping off the committee because I think it's a lot of compensation, but it does build a little bit of incentive to stay on the committee. Cause I like being on the committee. It was more of a practical choice about my life. So. Yeah. I would think it would be a, a quite an attraction for some students because if you have a two hour meeting and you get paid $50. That's $25 an hour. It's better than working at stores in town. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest conflict on the tree board for the two student members. Our athletics. And a stipend is not going to help there. Right. Any other. Input. I don't know. Cameron, if there was any of the. Process or anything, or if people feel like, you know, we can. Share the documents of, you know, how you sign up and how you're going to be able to sign up. I think that would be great. I think that would be great. One of us come to one of your meetings and describe the, the why and the how, if that's helpful. I'm sure you'd be happy to do that. Or between the city staff liaison and council member and stuff. We. To be able to make that happen pretty easily. I will send out after this meeting to everyone who was copied on the invite. And so hopefully committee chairs will be able to get that to their groups. Just all of the draft. So we could get direct feedback from folks. I think would be really helpful. So basically how this will work is in order to sign up. Everyone will need to fill out a W nine form, which is the highest barrier of entry. That we couldn't get rid of. I recognize that W nines are. Can be limiting that could be limiting for some folks. But I think that would be really helpful. I think that would be really helpful. Unfortunately. The way. The city's system works is that we'd need to do that because after. I think you receive $600 from any. Anybody. You have to, that has to be, it's taxable income. So. It's just important that we have that. So the stipend registration form is really just. The city manager's office. The city manager's office. And then the W nine form and that is it. And then that gets turned into the city manager's office. Kept secure there. And so what we're asking for committee chairs is basically just keep a separate attendance form. The from your minutes. That could be. The city manager's office. The city manager's office. The city manager's office. The city manager sends that in. At the end of the month. Or. That could be scanned or turned in person. But that basically gives me the, or it will be me. Let's just be honest here. It will give me the way to track. Who is actually in attendance. And then sign up and sign off on. Them going. Getting their payment directly from the city. And then they sign off on that. So you don't need to identify who is getting a stipend. You're just writing every single person's name down. And then it's up to me to say, oh, that person's getting a stipend. That person's getting a stipend. And then cutting that check for them so that there's. Some privacy there. People don't have to disclose. And it comes directly to my office to. So that's really the process, trying to make it as low barrier and easy for folks to both utilize and receive as possible. Basically the program will run until we run out of money and then we'll collect the data that Lauren was talking about in the before and after survey and we'll see what happens. I have a question. So I teach for the senior center and I'm already getting a paycheck from the city for that. Just for example, does that am I in your system now? Because or would you, I mean, it's all coming into the same umbrella. So I would imagine you wouldn't need another W-9. Probably not. That would be a case by case basis that we'd work with people on, right? I probably won't need your W-9, but that requirement is still on the table. And if you're also asking if that would like it, because you teach for the senior center, would that disqualify you? Also no. Yeah, yeah, it's all, yeah. Thank you. Just like to add that the preliminary survey is really important because it gives us a ground from which to start assessing the success or not success of this effort to include more people. So that's something where a committee chair doesn't think they're gonna have to take some leadership and urging their committee members to fill out the survey form. What's the timeline on the pre-survey? I don't know. Cameron, does anyone recall? Before July. Oh, yeah. Good. And I would just add, I mean, because this is gonna be a pilot project and learning, so just, I mean, if you enrolling this out, have any feedback, positive, negative, even like neutral, whatever, just any kind of how it's going and if you're seeing value. I mean, even to Monica's point, like it might not show up as a change in your committee if you are able to stay on, but that feedback is helpful. And so as city council then is assessing, do we continue this program or not? Just your input from the committees is gonna be really crucial to, you know, assessing if it's worth investing taxpayer dollars in this program in an ongoing way. So just to put a plug in for, even if it's just like a quick note to us, like, hey, this is going well or this is a challenge or whatever, would be super helpful. So just appreciate any feedback you have along the way. All right, well, if people, obviously you know where to find us for more questions on that, but I think we're gonna transition now to the discussion portion, which maybe I'll leave these up for a minute, but then we could put these questions into the chat so we can see each other better. You wanna do that, Jeremy? Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, thank you. So we did wanna get into some more broad discussion on how each of your committees kind of connects to these really important equity issues that is the focus, really the sole focus of our committee. And we did have a similar meeting like this last year where we generated some really great discussion among a number of committee members from different committees just to get a sense of the lay of the land really on how folks in different committees are thinking about these equity issues. So we wanted to kind of do another conversation along those lines. And we've got a few prompting questions here. The way I think I'm gonna structure this is I'm gonna just read through the questions really quickly and then give you each three minutes to just consider them and maybe make some notes that we can then use to start to share some of your thoughts about these. So the first question is, and maybe you weren't at that first meeting that we held last year, but what progress do you feel your committee has been making when it comes to any equity issues that's within its purview and or what challenges or barriers is your committee facing with respect to some of these equity issues? The second question here is, which equity issues do you feel are most relevant to what your committee is focused on? And related to that, which equity issues is your committee really actively engaged in already? That would be some really helpful information to have. And then the final question here is kind of a future facing one more of a kind of visioning question. So if you had a magic wand, which equity issue or issues would you and your committee like to most impact for the city of Montpelier? And I'd like you to really think about those issues that are within the purview of your committee. I know there's a lot of things that we're all interested in, but we want to use your committee lens for this. So I'm hopeful everyone can see those questions on the screen. And Michael, if you could just give us three minutes, we're gonna be awkwardly silent, but you're gonna be thinking and making notes and it's gonna be worth it. And it looks like we had Shayna just joined, so welcome Shayna. Looking forward to hearing from you in a few minutes too. So a few minutes. You're on. Thanks Michael. This might be a really stupid question, but could you just kind of enumerate what the different equity issues are so that we can... Absolutely not a stupid question. So in our committee, we often talk about social justice, economic justice and racial justice. You could add to that environmental, you could add to that kind of ableism, disability rights. So I think it's anything where we can make Montpelier more equitable for everyone who is in this community. So it's probably a pretty large bucket of things, which is why thinking about your own committee may help you focus on this. Does that help Amy? Yeah. Okay, thanks. Okay, time's up. Sounds like our timer. Great, thanks Michael. Okay, so what I'd like to do is just, if the three of you are open to it, just kind of go one by one and hear what thoughts you have in response to these three questions. And I'm just gonna pick somebody. John, would you care to kick us off, please? I'd be happy to. At the last meeting, it really was, for me, just eye-opening to even think in terms of, you know, this sort of process. And we've thought a lot about it. I've thought a lot about it. We've talked about it on the committee since. And one of the things we realized is that there are places in the city where there are not a lot of trees. They tend to be economically deprived areas. We've made some strides on Berry Street as an example. We planted about 50 trees there over the last four years. And they're starting to show up, which is fabulous. There's still more to be done. So I think we really are focusing where we will plant trees going forward. We're recipients of a grant that will give us 100 free trees in June. And people have to sign up for that so we can't exactly say where they're going to be planted. But today, the CAN program sent out a notice to district three, which is one of the underserved areas in advance of everybody else finding out about this program. So it's a little bit cheating, but it was one way we could get the word out in places we want. I also have notified a number of the properties on Berry Street. And I'm gonna this week make an attempt to reach out to coming street apartments and let them know that this is coming and there's a signup date. They can jump on early and get a tree. Really, the biggest thing I think is that we envision part of our plan is to plant all of the neighborhoods and streets throughout the city. That's the only way to go in the long run to bring about something that's fair for everyone. And we have our work cut out for us, but we're making some progress. Berlin Street was one that we worked on two years ago. And again, the trees now have doubled in size in that time. And one of the efforts there was to try and get trees growing along the road so that traffic would slow down. There's a well-documented direct correlation between trees and speed. And the more trees we can have slower people will go and Berlin is a painfully obvious place to start. The other thing that we have not yet done a lot with but with the two students we have on our board is to work more with schools. And that's a place where we can make a big difference across all groups of people. And there's a lot of work that we can do with them. We've done some work with the Montpelier Youth Conservation Core and we'll be working with them this summer on several projects. So that's exciting too. I think that's about it. That's great, thank you. It's really cool to hear you using CAN as a way to do outreach. Yeah, that was Alec who suggested that, Alec Yellsworth, which was a great suggestion. And of course, Hanif was wonderful. And the last thing is that we are, besides these hundred trees, we are moving our nursery out of North Branch Nature Center to the feast farm. And we will be able to produce a lot more trees there that are better quality and just much easier to do. So that's really exciting because that's what we need is more trees. Great. Before we hear from someone else, does anyone have any specific questions for John and some of the work that the Tree Board is involved with? I have a specific question just because I have a couple of friends that live on Berlin Street and they are gonna be really excited about that. And I'd love to tell them about the grant. How do we find out about it? They will get a notice from CAN tonight, I believe, or tomorrow. I think it went out this morning. Oh, like in their mailbox or something? However, they sign up in their neighborhoods with CANs usually by email. But I can send you, if you send me your email address, I can get it, I'll send it to you. I'll send it in the chat. What do I do? Okay. Thank you, John. You're welcome. Michael. This is a question, John, I know you're on another committee. I think it's the Streets Committee, the Complete Streets Committee. Is that right? I am no longer on that committee. Oh, okay. Well, I was gonna ask if they're what they were doing, but if you don't wanna speak for them, we'll try to get to the next... It's been four months that I've off, so I can't. Okay, not seeing anything else now. So I'm going to single out Monica because you're already unmuted. If you could just share a bit of your thoughts in response to our discussion questions. Sure. They're all really good questions. I think in terms of our process and how our commission is working is for the most part, we have designed a series of RFPs where people can apply for money that we're facilitating for the city to put art around town. So far it's worked really well. I think the hardest part for us is getting the word out for the smaller grants. I also think that what we're rethinking now is our initial microgrants were up to $1,500 and that financial compensation was a barrier. It wasn't enough money. And so we're rethinking about how we put the grants out and we're probably gonna do fewer grants for more money now that we've done quite a bit of work. There are six projects around town that we're all really proud of, so good job. So now that that was kind of our initial run because we're a new committee, so we're rethinking how we're doing that and definitely the financial piece of it is a way that we're rethinking how to attract different artists to do more work. In terms of who's on our committee, I think just like everybody, all the other committees, we could always use more members. The barriers are really time. We're all at capacity in terms of the members on our committee. We're all kind of really hesitant to take on new projects or responsibilities because we're already all putting in quite a bit of time in our own different ways. Our committee is awesome. Everybody does a lot. We're also thinking about meeting separately to do some brainstorming about how we can make art great for Montpelier. So I think not having enough people is definitely a barrier. There are a lot of things. We have a lot of ideas. We're mostly artists on that committee and so artists are well-known for having lots and lots of ideas. So we have a lot of ideas. And yeah, I think in terms of the barriers, that's it. Our budget was reduced, which was a little bit of a bummer. Now that we're kind of rolling and we have that big project going up on the shaws, we're gonna do that big mural on shaws, which is super exciting. And a lot of the people that applied, we had 58 applications across the country for that. And a lot of people that applied put in projects and what their reimbursements were. And our reimbursement is a lot less than what people are gonna get paid in other cities. So we still got a lot of, whatever we put up, there's the four, I'll just say that the four people that we chose are really fantastic artists. So whoever gets it, we're gonna get something beautiful there. But I think the financial piece of it is a barrier and we talk about fundraising and what that would look like, but then we kind of go back to our time commitments that we're all feeling a little bit stretched and to engage in a fundraising campaign is a whole thing. I'm trying to collect a lot of really good information about what we're doing and how we're doing it so that when the time comes, there's a lot of good substance there to present to people. Cameron, did you have a question? And sorry, I can talk a lot, you can just turn me down if you need to. Absolutely not, but I did have a question about the type of folks who are applying like the artists. Is there diversity within the applications or the applicants that are applying for your grants? Do you think that changing the award amount will make a difference to that? I, you know, it's hard to say because the micro grants, I think because of the initial amount, we didn't get a lot of, the initial RFP went out, we got 17 applications, which isn't a lot. And then it went around again, there was a second opening and we've only had maybe three or four applications. And so I think similar to you guys in terms of putting the word out that the money is available. And, you know, I started head hunting because I have a lot of artist friends. I was like, there's money, don't you want some of it? We want to see art in town. And so I did, we're gonna, so this is super exciting. I'm sorry, I'm getting off track a little bit, but we're gonna have an art installation in town and city hall for two months, starting in May. And then the person who's doing that, we're putting on an art film festival in October. And so there will be film, we bought a projector with Montpelier Live. And so there will be a public art film display all over the city. I have no idea how that's gonna work or where everything's gonna go, but it's happening. But in terms of diversity and pulling people in, you know, we could do better at that for sure. Because the national search was national, it wasn't singular to Vermont. We had a lot more diversity in the applications and two of the finalists are people of color. So, you know, I don't know, specific to the mural, it's a little bit different of Vermont because in terms of scale, we're a small city and Vermont doesn't have a lot of places to put murals. You know, we're saturated with artists. I mean, Vermont has lots and lots of wonderful artists, but in terms of opportunities for people to develop skills as mural painters, they don't have, there's not as much opportunity. So, you know, we're thinking about it. We're thinking about how best to reach Vermont artists because the finalists are not from Vermont and that was a little bit contentious. I was afraid to join in a conversation that was happening on Facebook because people were really judgment critical of that, but when it came down to it, we thought we made the best decision. But that said, we can now, you know, we're rethinking also in terms of reaching out because there were a lot of great from artists that applied for the grants and we can actually reach out to them and specifically offer them an opportunity. So that's exciting. The most relevant issues, I would say, and that kind of blends into the second one is houselessness. You know, that little corner there next to Shaw's is a really amazing opportunity for the city to create a public landscape where all people feel welcome. And the last I heard the budget for that, the build out of that park got pushed off. And I mean, really, it's a really fantastic, it's right in the middle of town. It's got enough space there. It's situated in a really good way. It's on the bike path. It's a really amazing opportunity. And then seeing the shelter there and what happened to that, I think it was a really good thing for people to see what that looks like and what it's like. In larger cities, homelessness, houselessness is a major, it's really kind of on the forefront. And then what happens is people get pushed off into the fringes and then it's not seen and it's not dealt with. And now that those issues are kind of right front and center, you know, hopefully the conversation has turned, there's been a lot of dialogue publicly about what is that, why are those folks there? Why don't they leave? All those conversations that people ask and I think for the most part, majority people in the population don't understand houselessness. And public art directly relates to how the city relates to itself. So it's kind of, public art can meet any of the topics because art is a voice or the unexpressible. So that was the first one that came to my mind. We got to do the Black Lives Matter mural and that I think is fantastic. Beautiful mural done by people of color, younger people of color. We're really open. I think a lot about accessibility. We're talking about putting signage on all of the public art around the city and making sure that the signage is accessible so that anyone in a wheelchair can read the signage and know what that is like. So yeah, I think that's the crux of where my perspective is. Yeah, thanks Monica. You're welcome. I like your last comment though about public art as a communication language which can shine a light on or start a conversation about a whole range of topics which includes equity issues. So just apart from your committee itself and the mechanics of it, the work that your committee does, there's a really interesting opportunity there to expand the conversation. So I appreciate that. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Does anyone have any thoughts or questions for Monica about what she shared? Michael. I just came across this quotation by Picasso which addresses what you were saying, Monica. Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. And I think that's much of what you were saying. And I think it's a great, wonderful quotation and I want to keep in mind about what we can accomplish by promoting and expanding the public art. Yeah. I think you saw that at the bottom of a drawing board receipt, did you? Cause I was doing my taxes today and it was at the bottom of the receipts on that. This is getting around because that's not where I was. It was an article in the journal that I subscribed to. Got it. Well, I thought it was a major coincidence but that's great. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we can be a voice for just about anything. So, and we're doing our best to do that skillfully as we go. John. You're muted, John. I had one comment and that is, I'd love to keep making distinctions between street art and tagging. The tagging is just out of hand now. And I have plenty of room for street art. I don't have a lot of room for tagging all the public spaces. Yeah, I think, you know, for that kind of thing, I think that it actually fits right into the conversation with where we're having. Cause tagging is really a form of communication and it's a form of wanting to be seen and to communicate. And so it's, we've talked about that too, you know, in terms of we coat all of our murals so that if they are tagged with their washed easily, you know, putting public art up does deter people from doing that kind of thing. Because again, it's a language and there's communication there and it's building a part of the community that may otherwise be neglected or kind of be written off. You know, it is a really interesting conversation to have. Like, how do you deter people from tagging private property and why did they do it? I mean, I don't know, I've never been a tagger so I can't really... Right, or can we provide an opportunity for them? Yeah, yeah, it's, I mean, it is, it's a really interesting conversation. You know, it's the same thing with like skate parks. People used to get really mad about people skateboarding and they, you know, they, and then you build a skate park and it gives folks place to be. So there's gotta be something in that. I'm gonna, I'll make a note of that. I wanna think about that a little bit more. All right, I wanna move us on to hear from Amy. Please share your thoughts. I think mostly the Energy Advisory Committee has wrestled with this in terms of economic justice. Justice, you know, we've talked a lot about how to, how to reach apartment dwellers and how to make sure that, you know, we can help them get off of fossil fuels when they have little control over their own, over what furnaces they're using. But there's also little incentive for landlords because they're not the ones paying for the bullet. And so we've struggled with that. And so that's probably the, you know, the biggest, the biggest piece of where we touched us. You know, we've also had conversations with Peter Kellerman about whether the energy, the energy labeling ordinance is, is just, you know, he's, he's pretty convinced that it's going to hurt people who haven't had the money to weatherize their homes and make their homes less valuable. So, you know, we've had a lot of discussions on that front. As far as our committee itself, we're fairly, fairly equitable with gender distribution, but, you know, we are an all white committee and our, we tend to trend older. And part of that is because retired people have more time to do stuff. Although some of our most active members are also gainfully employed, don't have a whole lot more to say. Are there, so it sounds like you mentioned a specific set of issues that have been coming up for the committee. Are there other things that you think in the future the committee might address other equity issues that is within the scope of the energy advisory committee. And I apologize. I don't know much about the scope of your committee. So it's hard for me to like target my question. Yeah, right now our committee is working on helping the city of Montpelier meet its net zero goals. And so we've done a ton of work with the wastewater treatment plan, but, you know, that's not, you know, it doesn't have a whole lot of equity issues involved with that. And working with the city to weatherize its buildings and do fossil fuel switching. You know, we did a lot of research into biodiesel and so, I mean, we work with the city a lot. So we're not working with the population of the city so much. We do have a residential committee and, you know, we've been doing a project that does window inserts, storm window inserts. And that project specifically, we have a separate grant for and provide over half the inserts that we build are provided to well-income households. How effective has that program been for you? We are maxed out at our capacity. We're able to build 250 inserts per community bill. And we've done that. But there's a lot of windows in Montpelier. So, you know, it's great that we've been able to work at full capacity, but it's kind of a drop in the bucket to the new one. I just wanted to come up and say like, I think anything that has to do with people has to do with equity. And so like, I think the wastewater treatment work is so integral and, you know, it's just like it's such an expense for folks. And yeah, and I've just been daydreaming about, yeah, how do we tell people more about that work? That path, I think you're saying like, it's like really almost seeing it as a knowledge core for the city. And so of like how to bring in, just daydreaming thinking about how to bring in members, you know, bring people who are not members into learning more of and engaging in that work. So just wanted to reflect on that. Lauren, what was that? Yeah, just one thing I wanted to note. So you brought up Amy, the conversation that was sparked around equity issues around the home energy labeling ordinance and like the social and economic justice committee brought that up and had a committee conversation about that and used like an equity rubric that we, and so we had like looked at some different issues. So just essentially like offering that to other committees, I think it's something that we, you know, would be interested in trying to like help committees think through issues. Like we fed that into city council. I'm like, I don't even know if we brought that to me because it was happening kind of real time with city council conversations, I think around it, which is a lesson learned. Make sure that that's actually getting back to the committees. But anyway, just for the committees here and if anyone is watching this later, I think, you know, being able to do, there are tools to help like think through, you know, different populations that are impacted in different ways by policy decisions, by programs, projects and like, you know, not having to be on your own trying to figure this stuff out but using each other as resources to help think through implications for the city and the community. Any other comments or questions or Amy or anyone else really? Yeah, I had a couple of questions. Have you thought or talked at all yet about the ELCS property? Are you addressing that to Amy or to C. Jack? Sorry, to Amy, in terms of housing and, you know, opening it up there to a wider group of people. We have not had any discussions about the ELCS property. Okay. I mean, clearly at this point it's all just dreaming but it's an important time to dream. The other thing would be more widely utilizing the district heating system. That we have had a lot of discussions about. Okay. And it kind of comes down to having a manager and a management system for the district heat. I think there hasn't been a whole lot of proactive work done in making the district heat project so that people can actually use it. Right. It costs a lot to hook up to the system. And that cost is borne up front by the person or business that hooks up to it. And so that's a huge barrier economically to anybody who wants to use the district heat. Like the Unitarian Church wanted to hook up to the system but it was gonna cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to dig up the street and put the pipes in. Right. Even though district heat runs right past the church. So we've been talking about how do we find a way to finance it so that it can be more widespread. Good. Thank you. And I apologize. I kind of feel like I don't have the knowledge base for my own committee because I'm not on the municipal subgroup which does the bulk of the work that MEAC does. Now this is really helpful to hear. And the last point about the district heating system raises some equity issues in terms of who can access it, who can't. And if they could access it, what would that mean for energy costs but also our carbon footprint? So it's a really interesting point. Yeah, I just hope the conversation can continue. Especially with a lot of federal money floating around. Maybe there's an option there. Yeah. All right. Any final thoughts to share before we kind of move towards a closing? Thank you all for sharing and taking some time to think through our discussion questions. It was really interesting to hear your points of view. I think we're going back to, I don't know, Lauren, Michael, Jaina, Helen? Thank you, Jaina. Yeah. That's 5.30 and I cannot believe that how time passes quickly when you have a very motivated group and to have a shared mindset. So we talk about our equity survey results. We share them with you. And also we talk about our new projects stipend and why we want to do it. And we need to have a pre-surveyed before July. So then we talk about what do you think about equity issues and what the relationship with your comedy works. So next steps will be taking the stipend survey, please. So you will have the link. And also we want you learn more about this meeting. So we prepared evaluation survey and we will be very happy if you go, the link that I just shared on the chat. And there are like four questions, very short survey, but it will be very helpful for our committee when we organize our next meeting. And it is always very efficient and nice and useful for us to hear your ideas and share our ideas with you. And if you wanna reach out to us, you can always do it through Cameron, Shayna, our chair, Nosa Lauren. We will be happy to host you in our meetings or in this kind of meetings in the future. So if you have any other closing thoughts, we will be happy to hear. If not, I think it's time to say goodbye. Hmm. Okay, thank you. Thank you all so much. Yeah, and the link is in the chat.