 Too often, the media focuses exclusively on the violent and tumultuous crises occurring daily around the world. And with Clickbait exploiting negative social events for the sake of increased ratings and revenue, there are a few incentives for media outlets to focus on the good that is happening in the world. Even media channels dedicated to peace-building and sustainable development remain focused on the ills of corruption, war, and conflict rather than the efforts of peace-builders within those conflicts. But peace talks, too, and with this show, the voice of peace will be amplified. Mr. Rogers is often quoted in saying that, when crisis strikes, look for the helpers. This show intends to do just that. Every day, right here in Vermont and abroad, there are thousands of engaged citizens actively building peace. We plan to amplify their efforts and we seek to develop a platform where peace-builders all over can connect with each other across social boundaries and industry sectors to collaborate for the benefit of our collective community. Folks, welcome to the season finale of Peace Talks. We are meeting with all our previous guests from season one, including Rajni Eddins to my left, Will Dodge to Rajni's left, we've got Jason Van Ness to my right, Scotty on our Zoom call, and unfortunately we could not get Tamara here today, but she will be with us in spirit and I'm sure we'll have her vision and perspective as a part of our conversation as well. With that said, I would like to invite you to all watch the first five episodes of season one so you can get a more in-depth perspective on who each of these wonderful folks are and how they ended up on this show to begin with. With that, I'd love to just welcome all of you guys. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for taking more time to be on here. I know committing to two shows instead of just one can be a burden, but I'm really grateful to have you back today. Cheers. Cheers. Yeah, so let's just do a quick round of introductions with updates from each of our guests on what work you've been doing since you were last on the show and let us know what else you've been up to in terms of building peace in our communities. Thank you. Well, let's start with you, Rajni. You were on the show in January. So what have you been up to since then? Well, I think at that time we were still in the process of building up for our fundraiser to take a group of Black youth and families to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which was a successful venture. Yeah. It was an opportunity to engage with the history and heritage and narrative and have agency over our own and autonomy over our own lens of experience. Such a blessing. Currently, we're in, I think, the last home stretch of raising funds for a two-to-one revitalizing grant that you initially had suggested. Yeah. Is it better places? Yeah, with the Richard Kemp Center. So I think we're just under the $8,000 mark, but once we reach 10-3 in this next 23 days, we'll have a match of 20,006 to be able to infuse into the Kemp Center proper for renovations of the space and adding technology. So it feels good to be in this space where we're adding to our engagement with community, adding to opportunities to improve the services that we provide for our folks and still keeping the Black Audit Showcases active, the Black as Beautiful film series alive, still engaging with new ways to express ourselves and to connect with community through offering opportunities for self-expression. And this week is going to be particularly lit because we have Juneteenth celebrations throughout the weekend. We're going to be performing at the Flynn Theater. Some of our youth artists will be debuting in the Flynn space and sharing some of the work they've been creating for up-climbing publications that they're working on and they'll be on the grander stage to opening up for Slick Rick with a host of the amazing local artists. A lot of really good things going. Well, I'm glad to hear that. I'm super excited about the fundraiser that you're working through right now. Last time I was looking at that, it was, I think, $4,000. So it's doubled since then. So that's some pretty incredible effort that you guys have been putting into that. Definitely, and I appreciate you bringing it to our attention initially. And I just want to continue to put it out there and encourage people to Google Richard Kemp Center and patronocity so they can find more active ways to pour into it and allow us to really flourish in offering our community wonderful services. Fantastic. Well, thank you, Rajni. I think we're going to get to Scotty next. He was our second episode of the season, was here back in February. And so Scotty, please let us know what you've been up to for the last, you know, couple of months. Yeah, excited to be with you all. The community engagement tool that we've got has just been a really interesting product and we've ventured into the SMS space. So rather than just after an officer passes out a business card, you know, now if you call into a dispatch center, you're then sent a text message. And so that's been a really interesting addition to our service offering just because it's an automated system. We're seeing a lot of police departments gather a lot more feedback, which has been awesome. And what we're looking to get into is the school systems. So just as a quick snippet, I really want to bring simple technology from the private sector into the public sector. And there's lots of ways to provide feedback to every service man, you know, and we're looking to bring that to our schools so that teachers can get feedback from the parents of their students. So maybe on the report card that gets emailed out or gets printed out, right? There'll be a mechanism, a simple tool for citizens to be able to, you know, provide feedback to their schools. So that's kind of where we're looking to go. You see. You know, the police departments are underway and that's an awesome venture. But we're looking to see how else can we help, you know, the public sector. That's fantastic. Now, just for everyone's kind of a reminder of exactly what that feedback tool is, Scotty's business is Know Your Force. And it's a community feedback tool for police departments to interact with the public. I would strongly encourage anyone who is interested in learning more about that subject to look at episode two of Peace Talks. We went into depth about how that product works and the way that it is creating new avenues for police officers and police departments to engage in genuine dialogue and to be a little vulnerable in order to rebuild that trust and report that's necessary for police departments to function effectively in community, right? And so I really appreciate hearing that you're now trying to expand more into public education as well. I think there is a greater need there as well for more effective communication between the schools and parents, right? And so I'm excited to see what's coming next. So our episode three was with Tamara Ekloff-Parks. Just to give a quick rundown of what she was working on and is working on, she is the coordinator for the Essex-Westford School District's multilingual family program. So she works with new Americans, refugees, and any individuals that speak multiple languages in their home. I've been a part of her parent advisory group for the multilingual family program for about eight months now, and it's just been an incredible experience to have that opportunity to engage in the diversity, the rich diversity that that space really inhabits. It's been wonderful, and so what she's doing in the public education system in terms of creating space for inclusion and belonging and creating new opportunities and developing different cultural norms about how students engage with each other is very powerful work. And I really am appreciative of the things that she's doing. And she comes with a lot of personal experience there. She was something of a new American when she came to the United States as a child from Russia. And so hearing her experience in episode three as a child versus what she's trying to incorporate into the school systems now as an adult was very inspiring. And so with that episode four was with Jason here. So Jason, what have you been up to for the past couple of months? Well, it's been exciting. I'm an architect. I'm an architecture teacher, and I'm also a bit of an entrepreneur trying to start up the modular kitchens and bathrooms for multifamily business here in Vermont that we spoke about at length. From the architecture perspective, it's just been terribly exciting to see the recent passage of S100 here in Vermont no longer making multifamily housing illegal in over 99% of the surface area of the state. That just opens up all sorts of new ways that individual households can contribute to the housing crisis we face. Absolutely. From an architectural professorial point of view, I'm already writing a new studio for the New York Tech capstone studio in the architecture program to tackle new innovative and creative ways that individual households can convert single-family housing in places like Vermont into multifamily housing. And so we're already sort of gearing up new criteria and new curriculum for tackling that problem sort of in a grassroots way. And then from the entrepreneurial point of view, you know, we've opened up the seed funding round in our startup. And we've already attracted some angel investors both from the real estate space. One of our angel investors has actually sold over a billion dollars of real estate from the residential. She's just one of these people that just you drop your draw when you get jaw when you get to work with them. And we now have a series of highly skilled technical advisors that work us through the complete soup to nuts setup of the manufacturing space that we plan for Southern Vermont. We've also detailed our plan to essentially permanently create a sort of IP factory incubator, if you will, of manufacturing processes in Southern Vermont so that we can outsource and partner with other manufacturing organizations closer to large real estate markets and produce at volume, but have a lot of that profit and capital come back as Vermont sales tax as Vermont income and ultimately as Vermont investment in our, you know, ideally I'm kind of partial to the residential market. So if we could invest even more into the residential market, what we're doing is we're really not just ameliorating the housing crisis, not just addressing the housing crisis, but we're indirectly as a community making sure that housing is not an aggravate to equity and diversity in our communities. The less housing there is, the less easy it is for diversity to come to our communities and the harder it is to make sure that equity is something everyone has access to. Yeah, and that was something I really appreciated in our conversation when we were able to speak a few months ago. Just the equity that is created by taking a modular design approach through manufacturing, you know, the capacity for communities to be a part of the conversation about how development occurs in their towns through 3D modeling and through a lot of the other very innovative approaches that you're taking to housing development. I just, I found that really compelling to see how we could change that conversation about, you know, developers coming in and, you know, local tenants or, you know, residents having issues with the way development occurs, right? Because quite often once the town residents are involved, you know, plans have been in motion for years. And at that point of the conversation, it's very difficult to change those plans without spending a lot more money. And so it becomes a conflict, right? And, you know, the thing that I really enjoyed learning about your business, Jason, is just how you are helping to overcome those types of conflicts by bringing that conversation much earlier in the development phase and with community in mind, right? And so that in addition to, you know, hopefully helping us to reduce the cost of homes, thereby making it more accessible for a much wider, you know, and diverse group of populations. I really applaud your efforts. And so thanks for coming back. Yeah, let's all get started. Well, wonderful. One last introduction here, Will Dodge. He was actually just on the show two weeks ago. Our fifth episode was recorded a little bit later, but, you know, we were lucky to have Will come and participate. He's got a lot of stuff going on, and he has done an incredible job building up the Essex Energy Committee from scratch. And so I'll let you kind of speak to that. Well, in terms of what we, you know, as I sort of said during the introduction, and thank you again for having us on and for this opportunity to talk. You know, it started off with me deciding to join to an organization that existed on paper, but there was nobody running. And I think the most exciting thing that's happened maybe since the last show is that, you know, we're on, we're sort of on the edge of this decision about whether to go forward with kind of a, like an energy fair, an energy community presence at the upcoming Champlain Valley Fair, which, and, you know, the reason that we're excited about it, sort of building off a little bit about Jason is what Jason was saying is we've got S 100, which is going to spur some housing. We have an affordable heat act, right, which is going to start changing how people are approaching thermal. We've got all this infrastructure money that's starting to really kind of flow in, but we got to get the information out. So what we tried to do, and Daniel, you were a big part of it, is see if we could work with all the energy committees in for all the municipalities in Chittenden County to staff a table and have a presence at the one community event that everybody goes to, right? Doesn't matter, you know, that, like, certainly everybody at Essex, but really everybody in Chittenden County and a lot of people from Houston out of state end up at that event. So what a perfect time to do it. But of course, as we know, we all know coordinating in the community is, it can be tricky. And we've had a couple of developments that look like we're going to be able to do it. If we can just push a couple of buttons just right at just the right time, I think it could be a really successful event. Yeah. Well, and it's been a very big lift, you know, trying to engage with other energy committees that we aren't in communication with regularly. We'd like to be more regularly in communication with the other committees, but also just, you know, there was 60 different shift positions that we needed staffed to, you know, staff this booth for a full 10 days so we could talk about energy efficiency and weatherization and different programs to that that residents can access to make those things more affordable. And, you know, we were making some headway but not fast enough to really reach that very broad audience at Champlain Valley Fair. But recent developments have made it a lot more accessible and I'm excited. I'm excited too. And I'm a tennis player and one of the pros that I've played with before says, you know, run towards trouble. And I do think there's something to that sometimes what it looks like the chips are down or that, you know, that's exactly when you should like try to make it work, even though there's at least part of us like we discussed earlier in the week, Daniel, who said, well, maybe we should just abandon ship and, you know, wait until next year and do it, you know, next year. And there's always good arguments for that. But I feel like we want to get it done this year because of the serendipity of all of these things, you know, important things that could benefit the community all taking place. At one time. And then beyond that, you know, so I talked a little bit at the show about, you know, the law firm where I work and, you know, how does that really kind of mix with the work that we do on the Energy Committee? Well, we have kind of our firm is the largest firm in the state. And we have a major decision to make about our Burlington office. And, you know, do we want to look for different space? Because we feel like, you know, the buildings, you can find the building because it says 1987 on it, because that's when it was built. And it's starting to show its age. And that includes, especially in terms of efficiency and thermal, right? But I think my experience on the Energy Committee has given me a bunch of ideas about where to start to look for places where we could start building towards Burlington's goal of decarbonizing, you know, a huge, huge commercial building right in the center of the town. So I'm always amazed at how, you know, when you get involved in a, you know, in your community beyond just your workplace. That was a lot of what I had been talking about during the, you know, in my discussion with Daniel, you find that you can draw upon those experiences back to your professional life and vice versa. Yeah. You know, so I feel like I'm having one of those other moments. One of those moments where there's this crossover. Yeah. Well, speaking of crossovers and, you know, thank you again for that introduction as well, Will. I really only have one primary question for this episode. And I just want to open up the floor and let everyone that's present be involved in the conversation and, you know, just contribute. Let's do try and make sure that everyone is contributing and give people space. You know, Scotty's on the Zoom call, so we'll make sure that we are, you know, cognizant of that as well. But here's the question. And that is, you know, like based on everything that we've heard so far, like how can we work together to build community wealth? You know, so this is a thought experiment for all of us to kind of reflect on and share about. I have some ideas hearing all of these different things in the room, but I'd like to kind of hear your input and your thoughts as well. Anyone can kick it off. I'd say it's probably useful in any kind of discourse or exchange like this to explore what opportunities can arise from building relationship. As you said, some of the primary function of you bringing these conversations around peace are how to find the different reference points where we have access to varying degrees of social capital, how those things can play a role in common service to community. So it might be about how, from this initial introduction, we continue to converse and relate and see where the gifts and the explorations and cultivating of community building in various facets and aspects can find alignment because I'm pretty sure that we all have different circles of people who we care about and things that we're interested and passionate about that when we see that they have common connection we'll be able to see how there can be bridges that are built and constructed. Maybe it looks like you all coming to the Richard Kemp Center for Juneteenth Open House tomorrow from one to six or for any of the events that we provide. Maybe it looks like you reaching out to me and letting me know about opportunities to converse and deeper degree about what it looks like as far as opening space to make resources more accessible to a diverse array of people of different ethnicities and different backgrounds because when I hear diversity I always think oh that's cold word for people and usually like black and brown people but I think we need a diverse array of access points of how we can bridge connection and common relationship and maybe this is just the initial opening point where we can continue that and to and provide ways to deepen and expand upon it based on how we move forward outside of this conversation. Yeah absolutely. Yeah I love uh there are some things that I'm picking up on from what you're saying Rajni. One was this common service as peace builders that is a thread that is through this show I you know the folks that I bring on to this show I see as peace builders in the community and when your mission is peace building whether you know it or not you know there are there are going to be common threads with other folks in the community right so I'm really picking up on that piece as well as just opportunities to cross-pollinate our circles of influence opportunities to get more involved in in the spaces and communities that we're each connected to independently and finding ways for us to do that together right. I was saying before that before we jumped on that you know Jason's idea or Jason's the work that Jason's doing in trying to build modular homes that result in multi-tenant you know that can bring down costs which is you know important for every community like you say Rajni not just not just brown and black but really everyone who's trying to you know live and thrive in Vermont but boy it has a that could have such a huge impact on energy too if you think about it yeah it's like if we're if you've got units that you know that you're sort of sharing the heating costs sharing the electrical costs sharing where your where your cars are located right your your driveways but also potentially just by being closer together not having to drive as much right right something that I think you know yeah everybody can agree on yeah would be would be a good thing so you know those are those and of course if you once you have that then you want to have community spaces where you can you know where you can get arts and entertainment and you know food all the things that kind of strengthen a culture yeah no so you that was a great synthesis of a couple of things right you know having our housing designs in alignment with nature in a way that you really reduces our need for for energy and allows us to to cohabitate in our natural environment much more effectively also by you know creates this opportunity for us to live in community with each other because we're closer together we have more opportunity to to be involved in each other's activities and initiatives and that requires culture building that requires cultural empowerment and an opportunity for us to create spaces where we can engage in art and and food and with Scotty's point right a mechanism for feedback because that's really important yeah right that's super it's a wonderful thing that you're doing there and is it are you fine was was almost you know I'll be pulling Rajani as you know community of arts into some of these module options right I know we're doing bathrooms and kitchens but what if there was an art room or some kind of you know extra space that that maybe could be added on to different you know buildings and I think being confused that kind of fun inside into some of what you know might seem some of these kind of box you know box modules but getting some feedback on what else is the community looking for obviously we need these you know functional items but how could we you know make something that's energy efficient you know but but also as a common space so I was connecting the dots as well that I'd love to get some feedback but no no no I love I love what you're saying Scotty I'm I'm right there with you you know because like when people think of multi-unit dwellings or modular homes I think there is a certain idea about what kind of home that is right but that space can can actually be really dynamic I think that you know what you're talking about is like part connected to some of this conversation Jason we were we were having in our episode about that community discussion early on you know really bringing them into the idea of development into the idea of like how are we going to design our community together right and and so like what you're talking about with that feedback tool and and you know making sure that there are effective feedback mechanisms in place for communities to interface and have dialogue about those things in appropriate times that could redesign entire spaces you know we're we're doing a lot more in the way of of rebranding and repurposing old buildings and and older older community spaces and revitalizing them in a way that I think is is in some ways novel but also just a very strong return to the past in in how we used to build communities things that were designed around a people-centered design right around us being able to share common space and and and be in communion with each other if that makes sense you know so since the recording of the last show I've discovered that the class that I took in high school right which I prefer not to give the date it was called American government and that textbook the chapter one the first half was you know given to John Locke and some ideals and then it was 23 chapters of how this goes in the bill and whatever and the real disappointment I had was that in the 50s that class was called civics and the first half of that book was about community community investment what we give up and cede to the community and how we get those benefits times five six or seven back so you know watching the grand sort of feedback loop that Scott he's trying to build up it reminds me of that civics textbook where we cede violence and say only this professional class shall be able to you know distribute violence when only necessary and under review and with tons of feedback and we're not trusting our police force because that feedback is broken because we need to reinvent that every generation right and we're also ceding our communal our sense of community to single-family housing three generations of single-family housing is the most expensive housing to build and it's the most expensive housing to maintain and what we're losing is what you're putting it when you cede what's going on with living separately and only having a shared experience through a television right instead of having a communal living experience saying let's enjoy multifamily housing let's share some meals let's not just share food right let's share ideas let's share experiences let's share something help happens where what you invest in the civics and community comes back to you tenfold yeah and the more we cut those ties between us the more we limit the ways that sympathy and empathy can bind us I feel like structuring the the built environment towards multifamily housing right and structuring the way that the police force works is similarly only going to work with feedback and engagement right right absolutely that I think is something we've we've lost in a big way that focus access to that language yeah and I applaud this this sort of the philosophical framework we're all working on here together because sometimes if you put an x you get y and z back you don't get two x back no right um and I think that's what we're all struggling for here at this in this forum is multitude of ways to describe that yeah why and so that's something that I uh have a really hard time describing about the the process of work that I often engage with in community you know people people often are very conditioned to say well if if we do activity x we're going to get you know outcome y right um but you know when you engage in dialogue with folks when you are allowing the just the dialogue itself to create those outputs it can be extremely diverse it can have a huge amount of alternative and variable outcomes that can be really difficult to predict and this is where you know I see some of what scottie is doing with uh with the feedback uh with the police departments trying to trying to measure that feedback and identify you know how can police departments actually use this to adjust their practices to adjust the way that we uh we engage with with folks in community right and so like like it's it's a really interesting thought process about you know conventional economics which is really kind of my foundation outside of peace building is is centered on this idea of replication you know of of taking a good idea and breaking it down into its individual parts and then repeating that as much as possible right um and that requires a degree of consistency not just in the way the product or service is provided but in the way consumers engage with those things right and you know what we're actually seeing after decades of collecting information is that that is not at all how markets work right what we're seeing is that markets are actually much more often this process of evolution and dialogue that leads to you know fractals upon fractals of alternative processes but it can be devolution as well in other words like i think about the single family problem right there's so much there've been so many i mean you can understand why the single family house obsession came to be right after world war two and the fifties and everything and it's not everyone wants their own kind of thing and and not to have to be right together yet that has created problems for the environment it's created in a sense like cost issues of just how unaffordable things are right particularly for communities of color you know has to be said but really for for for in vermont like it's why we and we're hardly unique in having a housing shortage but it seems like it's it's particularly exacerbated in a state with only six hundred and twenty thousand people right and and so much land that's really not uh developable so you know the only way to start to chart a different course i mean you have to have you have to have this dialogue you have to have the feedback but you have to have the ideas too and it's you know it's wonderful that you're like working on this it sounds like a a great group of people and i feel like one of the things that the charge so to speak pun intended that i get out of the energy community is is the fact that you get this um you know you have ideas you know with with people within your community who are dedicated to focusing on these problems and then you know as you've seen for being on the regional one like there's folks through our whole region if it's not their actual jobs who are thinking about like how do we chart the course differently that we're going on right in terms of how we use energy how we you know drive how we heat things how we you know yeah build a community well i i see i really see like this that question of like how do we do things that's that's a question of culture right you know culture culture is asking the question how can we work together to achieve our carbon goal and this is why I value folks like you Rajni and the community there that are have dedicated their lives to trying to help that kind of cultural development unfold that opportunity for folks to practice being in community with each other one of my favorite experiences was you know i had been in engaging with you for several months at different poetry events and we'd finally started uh you know collaborating and Rajni gave me some space to to be a host as well because at that point you were doing you know five six different poetry nights in different locations and so it's like I he's like I if I could speak for you a little bit you know I need some help you know working with a radio being and I I need more people hosting and so I was delighted and that first night that we were we were doing that together the show started it was almost an empty room and Rajni got up there and was doing an incredible job at bringing that energy into the space and slowly over the night more and more people kept showing up but nobody had signed up on our list and so we were just calling people out and you know saying hey you know if you if you feel the desire to get up here and and share please do and and this like energy of uh engagement and participation the the the you know gum should to get up out of your seats when you feel that pull and get up on the mic and and share something it was a really powerful experience and you know I feel like that's what you do all the time with people and it's very it's a it's a unique skill that that most folks um uh don't practice very often and well I think it's about you know sincerely welcoming people and I think a lot of what we're all discussing has to do with stories you know so I mean culture itself is an arriving of so many different combinations of people's stories and uh when you look at the history of this country the history the ways in which stories have been allowed to be told from your your civics class you know American government the way what was considered uh validated as American history proper and how we've had we still have a lot to grow in that dynamic when you look at the history of the origin of the police department starting as people who were the re-enslavers you know like unless you bring the story to before you'll always be missing pieces you look at the history of um black people's access to housing historically from redlining to you know segregation uh who has access to what and how who got access to a gi bail and to opportunities to have even intergenerational wealth to be bequeathed why these dynamics still persist you have to tell these stories and if you don't have a combination of people's voices to be able to name these things with nuance you'll always be missing out on greater of shared value you'll always be missing out on the brilliance of a diverse array of knowledge and insight that arise from our collective wisdom every whole space for those things in sincerity and tandem it's very important that we don't do less well and you know I love what you're touching on here about that richness of cultural wealth that comes by having a diverse array of voices at the table right this is something that Tamara and I spoke spoke to at length in our episode when she was here and she wasn't able to be here today but please episode three um you know she she speaks she spoke a lot to just the value of having that kind of diversity in our school systems the the the wealth that it can generate I mean you know if we think about this from a business lens for just a moment if I may um you know innovation is all about is seated on on the premise of diversity right you know it like you have to have diversity of thought to push the fold in any in any industry right you know even in with from an academic perspective even like you know having different kinds of thinkers and different kinds of imaginers and you know perspectives coming into a room that's where the richness of a discourse is developed is rooted is nurtured yeah no absolutely and so like you know what you're talking about at a community level Tamara and I were really discussing like at community level within our education systems as well and like how do we facilitate that kind of space to to thrive and to develop because that's where we're going to get the most abundance in our communities and in the way that we can tackle major problems like climate change and you know rising violence and uh you know um name any of the you know dozens of you know global crises that we're facing right now and you know the way that we respond to that is by working together right by building cultures that allow us to collaborate and respect each other enough to hear those differences of perspective right and so I just I'm really glad to kind of hear that coming into this conversation and so and it's touching you know that's been touched upon that's the thread with peace building in my mind right is how to work together you know and that's a culture and you know we see that with with you will on the energy committee and how you you know work tirelessly to try and get folks to work together right yeah well I mean you know we I think that I think um Rajini's point about storytelling is really important and in a sense you know every time you're trying to engage in civics you're doing a certain level of storytelling right of explaining why a problem is the way it is and how it got there but then how do you but then it's also trying to point in a direction and I think that's the you know I think the reason just to to bring it back to a to a thought I've had it's like one of those school presentations or a college presentation that somebody else gave but that's stuck with me now for years and years is that the origin of the pub the English pub comes from the word public because it was essentially like a living room the pub was essentially like a living room for everybody where every you know where because you you know you were living in houses that were didn't have a living room right right didn't have a lot of space and so it was a place that people would gather and you think about you know in some ways it feels like this is a little bit of a public living room it's great to all get together and it's a lot easier to do that if our houses are a little closer together if we don't have to drive so far if there's you know a space that feels welcoming to your point um and I feel like you know but it's it's a struggle to get to that to that point it takes yeah it takes uh to your peace point it takes reducing conflict or eliminating conflicts because conflict let's face it arises all the time when it comes to these discussions like about housing for instance right absolutely yeah something that popped in my mind is how do we share success stories you know I I've given to Roger's point of sharing stories and how can we share our story our stories of success to you know engage youth to want to be innovative in this space I think that's something that I struggle with is I've been in the public sector for so long so much innovation going on in the private sector how do we bring that innovation to the public sector you know how do we show the youth that hey you want to get in and and drive change in something that is meaningful rather than building a cool app you know that builds a new avatar you know how do we how do we make people feel welcome and see that their you know you know interesting insight might actually better their community and how do we keep people on that path of you know innovating towards you know the greater good rather than just you know modifying a small piece of something I think that's what I would love for us all to do is to share our our success of hey we love what we're doing because we're actually bettering the community and we're seeing you know that it's creating that community well I think just getting some of those buzzwords out there getting you know the youth thinking what is community well you know how can I be a part of that rather than how can I be a part of the youtube community or something right like that you know we've mentioned a few times the the innovation and how do we you know keep that innovation re re-engineering that innovation as it needs to change time and time again sharing those stories yeah through to me wow no I I love this this introduction to kind of this conversation about how we engage with community online because I think that has made had some pretty fundamental changes and particularly in the last few years with COVID being you know this this driving this this schism you know I was speaking with someone at St. Michael's college the other day and they were saying you know it's been almost three years where we've had this disruption and we operate on a four-year life cycle with our students right and so almost all the students that held that cultural knowledge and the you know we're able to transfer that to the incoming classes are gone and so they're finding these spaces in the school that used to be filled with students and alive with energy empty and they can tell those their their new students all they want this is a cultural space this is where you can hang out this is where you can do these things but until somebody in the school is actually doing that it's still an empty space and so it's like that that process of community building that process of reinventing spaces where we can coexist is physically it's we have to do it physically right because I you know as much as the internet has brought us together it has also created these very intense silos you know and and these spaces where we can surround ourselves with folks that only agree with us you know and I think that in some ways that has been a huge force for good in connecting individuals that have been either ostracized or felt a little bit out of place in their community to find community in a larger space right on the internet right so that's I don't want to denounce that in any way but at the same time we we need to be able to have conversations with people we don't agree with too right and so like I I don't know I this is something that I'm connected to with the dialogue that I've been trying to prepare that's happening on June 25th a question the question of like what is community for us now in this post pandemic world you know and given what insights and knowledge we've gained about how well our development process has has been so far in this country and in in the world you know like what do we do now how do we how do we make adjustments to make sure that we can have that sustainable community wealth you know and so I'll just put that out there to the the group you know what do you what do you guys think is this is community wealth and how do we sustain that moving forward what do you think we need to do together I would propose two two areas of focus yeah I think that we all share but haven't been interrogated for quite some time the first is there's really quite a lot of conflict between two ideals of what it means to be an american and that civics textbook the first is the american dream which is some single-family house with picket fence and I think we've already unfolded here that is not something we should be dreaming for unless you can walk down the street and hear someone like Rajni's poetry every night and see a diversity of voices not a hegemony of so that the american dream and the way that we've nurtured it as a picture I think needs to be redefined but also the sort of myth of the self-made man pull yourself up by your bootstrap yeah that that like don't don't don't pretend like you're walking down a community sidewalk to go to your you know office that that and you know you're not sharing a sort of you know commons when you eat your sandwich just like you know you did this at every step of my own journey as an entrepreneur I have only benefited from the wisdom knowledge and experience of others right absolutely never do anything remotely successful alone absolutely and so if we can sort of question these two myths that I think kind of create that sort of lens that define our ideals of what it is to be together then I think community wealth as we're trying to define it together doesn't need to have this sort of uphill battle anymore the knowledge and wisdom that if the people around you are succeeding you are it's easy for you to succeed and it's not a competition out here I think can change hearts and minds about why we come together in the first place yeah then I think it's a matter of changing our built environment I'm sorry I'm an architect in order to create those sort of places where it's easier to come together yeah democratizing the the town square is something that we've slowly been losing for a century be it shopping malls or other quasi-public spaces and the truly toxic thing about non-democratic public spaces that there is no freedom of speech in these places Sakati Park is a great example from 15 years ago right what I would argue is that once we can start identifying genuinely public spaces where a modified ideal of how we come together is nurtured then a lot of the community wealth the social capital you know the cultural capital will follow yeah as people sit down and understand that an investment in my neighbor is an investment in my community and an investment in my community is an investment in my children hmm that's the sustainability piece come I really like the way you you you frame it yeah and I think you're right I appreciate that um yeah I mean so this this was uh just for the audience uh sake we have this model here this framework I'll just have it on this people it's uh it's what I call the community capital growth framework it's a combination of a variety of different uh economic and social frameworks that uh I've I've combined in a way where you know developing capital in in a particular process helps to facilitate this kind of community wealth uh that we're talking about and so uh I don't want to get too much into that because it could get a bit heavy but you know suffice it to say that you know Scotty here uh is working to build social capital you know Rajni uh is working to build cultural capital Will is working to build natural capital um Jason is working to build uh industrial capital and you know redefining that that space we live in and work in you know uh and then we've got financial capital which I'm finding folks uh for season two to be participating that uh I was just too excited to work with Tamara who was also kind of a combination of social and cultural capital she kind of bridges that those two spaces very effectively and so you know asking this question of how do we work together to actually do this I think we've seen uh in a variety of ways how that's possible but uh you know I we heard from Jason about you know what what he sees is community wealth and how we're we're moving this this working together but you know I want to hear maybe from a few other folks we've got five minutes left in the show and so let's let's kind of do a quick round robin well you know just the natural capital it's sort of like it sounds like a misnomer how do you develop natural capital right isn't it already there but the point is it's really about using the sun and the wind and you know and the mountains and all the things that we have preserving some of that right another great law the past this year this 30 by 30 law that says their 30 percent of Vermont is going to be you know put in conservation by 2030 and 50 percent by 2050 I have not recognized until yesterday that that's actually part of a national campaign and that there's like nine other states that's done this so that seems great but it's only great if we can all still live and thrive in those you know in those states and so part of that is making sure we're using clean energy taking advantage of that and that includes you know building a community that that that has that baked into the cake so the example that I gave to you you know we encouraged uh Peter Edelman as a our energy committee encouraged Peter Edelman when you're looking at that Essex experience or changing the Essex outlet mall to the Essex experience think about seriously about solar and now when you go there and you have a dinner at the Mad Taco or Bramble or all these new restaurants that are replacing all those retail shops you're going to see those solar panels all over you know the rooftops you're going to know that all that you're getting from being there is ultimately coming from the sun and that I love the way that he changed that space to take advantage of that natural capital and and sort of embed it in a visible way into a a space that is you know has really become kind of the center of Essex community space well that that speaks in some way if I could interject for just a second like about the diverse ways that we can develop natural capital right you know just if you build a garden around your business and people like walking through the garden you're going to bring people into your business that's a form of natural capital right so like there's the energy side of it but I think the integration of utilizing our natural space in harmony with our daily lives that that is that is a way of generating natural capital rather than depleting our natural resources right and we're the only state with green in the name the green mountain state there you go and Vermont is French yeah there it is Rajni did you want to have any last thoughts on what you see as community wealth yes well I would say the connection between community wealth and cultural capital in terms of culture I think it's important to have a more intentional focus on how to co-create a culture that has a deeply steeped ethic of self-reflection of historical analysis of stories that have been told and not told in the ways that those things inform our relationships as human beings and who is invited and embraced and affirmed in having a collective role and shared story that would in turn define and allow for greater input in all these spaces of capital absolutely because we need that rich array of voices and people's participation in order to have a solid access to the the shared visionary potency that is so much a part of us when we hold space for it all so I'm excited to have this be a seed planted in that direction so may we evolve from here into deeper more powerful connections in terms of relationship and see what our gifts can determine together hmm no thank you for that I appreciate that so much oh um I you know I mean the culture is the driving force that's how we all work together right and so just this this notion of history as well you know our cultural history the more we understand of our history the more cultural capital we have right the the greater understanding and reflection we have of what has come before helps us to make better decisions moving forward right you know they're one of the favorite images I have from one of my grad school experiences when I was at a peace conference was I had a colleague from I think South Africa perhaps it was Kenya and he was talking about the way they understand time and they say well we're all walking backwards into the future as we navigate with through our past right and so like you made me think of that and you know some of what that is is with with Scotty here I'll leave you with a few more more minutes to kind of contribute here in the way you're generating social capital right so when I think of community wealth I mean it really goes back to kind of what Roger was saying with that self-applection and how can we get away from competition and lead more into collaboration you know I think if we can just all collaborate and rather than see someone that's maybe doing the same thing with you oh I've got a beat better than him right I got to buckle up my shoes and you know whatever you know whatever that may be it's how can we just collaborate how can we hear their perspective how can we stay curious I think is is really how I think we can create community wealth and I know there's a lot of people trying to gather feedback so I'm always open to you know how are you gathering it how can we you know pull that technology into what we're doing in the public sector so I'll leave it at that yeah yeah well just to do a quick round of what I've been hearing today you know this idea of developing social capital by generating these feedback loops and establishing dialogue with each other in various forms allows us to understand how we can work together for mutual benefit right and then you know that in itself is is valuable if we understand how we can do that but we have to convert that into cultural capital you know it's not can we work together for mutual benefit but how do we do that you know you know what kind of norms and behaviors and processes what kind of decision-making processes do we need to cultivate in order to work together to achieve our common goal right you know and and that's where we get into the natural capital and we have to say okay we we're all in this planet together we want to work together what kind of natural resources can we generate you know what kind of how can we expand our natural space while in pursuit of our common goal right you know how can we do that in harmony and in a sustainable way you know and if we can find out how to integrate those natural resources which are abundant the whole reason we're all here right um how you know if we can find a way to utilize those resources and generate more of them along the way then that's where we get into industrial capital that's where we find better modes of production how can we you know coordinate and produce goods and services in a sustainable way that benefits the whole community and you know what we've been seeing with Jason here today is how we do that with homes but I think there are many ways we can do that across the board in in a variety of different capacities so industrial capital definitely fits into that bucket and how we use those the the industrial resources we have to to provide value to create shared value and and then the financial capital piece the last piece there is you know how can we you know how can we invest that cap our financial capital into these other capital buckets to generate cyclical wealth cycles you know cyclical wealth you know to generate structures where the money stays rooted in our local communities where the money is distributed equitably and utilized in a community process that facilitates the development of these first four capitals you know going through that whole cycle like that this is what we're seeing on the show today and this is what I think is a process of peace through development and I think I've shared this in pretty much every episode but I have this haiku that I use kind of as a mantra in my own life and and you know with with other folks when I want to talk about peace building and conflict transformation and it goes like this it's a one drop ripples but a thousand drops birth new life together we reign and it's it's that togetherness that really allows us to to to create new things right to birth that new life it's it's the togetherness that allows us to generate abundance and to live in community with each other from my perspective and that is a process of peace and so you know ladies and gentlemen this has been uh the season finale of peace talks and we've been meeting with scottie jason rajni and will tomorrow has been here with us in spirit the show has been brought to you by community wealth development and we're going to be doing another cycle of this in season two with a new uh group of faces and and hopefully we can continue to expand our understanding and knowledge about different ways to build community wealth based on different folks that are in the community so thank you all for coming here and being with me today thank you yeah cheers