 our first community meeting that is post the era of Paul Costello. For those of you who don't know, Paul was our longtime executive director, 21-year tenure at the helm of VCRD. And last week was his last week. He's moved on. And so we are adjusting. He's not with us tonight, but we are really excited to have a new executive director, Brian Low as part of our team at the Council on Rural Development. So welcome, folks. We will give it a minute or two. We always find people sort of trickle in as we get started. So I think we're really going to get going in a couple of minutes here. So if you'll just bear with us, we're going to let people gather. If anyone wants to use the chat to introduce yourself, sometimes that can be a nice thing to do. If you are in Rochester or one of the surrounding towns, maybe let folks know what part of the region you live in. That can be a helpful thing for us to just get people placed. So if anyone wants to introduce themselves in chat, that would be great as we get going here. And by the way, I'm John Copans. I'm the program director for the Climate Economy Model Communities Program here at the Vermont Council on Rural Development. It's wonderful to see all of these faces gathering on the screen. You know, as an organization, we've had to adapt to these different times. Normally, we would be gathering somewhere in a group space. We might have shared a meal together. And to be honest, we miss that at VCRD. We really love getting together in person. But we also feel like it's really important still to gather even in an online way and to keep doing our work. So huge appreciation to you all for being willing to get on a screen tonight and spend your evening thinking about Rochester and the surrounding towns and how we rally together as communities. All right, I feel like I should go ahead and get started because we have a very busy evening. And Nick, you know what? If you want to go ahead, I think we're going to share screen with some slides. The first slide is just an agenda slide that'll be helpful for folks to see. But here's how we're going to structure things tonight, just so folks have a feeling for what's ahead. We are going to just spend 15 minutes as a whole group gathered. And then pretty quickly here, we're going to get out into breakout groups. And we're going to really have the meat of our conversation tonight will be a set of two different breakout slots, four total breakout groups, because we're doing two times two, as you can see there on the agenda. But I want to give a little bit of context in some opening remarks before we go into those breakouts. And so let me just grab my notes. So this meeting is convened by an organization called the Vermont Council on Rural Development. I'm a program director at the Council on Rural Development. I've got some co-workers who are helping with tonight's events. I want to just quickly give you a sense of who we are as an organization before we get started. Our mission as an organization is really to work with communities around Vermont, with Vermont's small towns around the state to help them achieve their visions for vitality and prosperity of those communities. And we do that primarily as an organization that's a facilitator and a convener. We have hosted town-based conversations in probably over 100 different communities in all corners of the state of Vermont. As Paul Costello used to say, we probably convene more conversations than any other organization in the state at the town-based level. Nice to see some nods there from Senator Clarkson. That's good verification. And what we don't do when we come into a community is we don't come in with preset solutions for what's best for you. Instead, what we do is we provide a vehicle and a conversation for you all to come together as a community or a set of communities to think about your future, to identify some priorities that you want to work on, and then to think about, OK, now that we've identified those priorities, how are we going to get them done? That's really the core of our work as an organization. We're neutral. We're nonpartisan. We're very intentionally nonpartisan because we think that's fundamental to our work in building trust in communities and in being this facilitative organization. Tonight's conversation is part of a program that we call the Climate Economy Model Communities Program. And man, that's a mouthful, isn't it? But I want to just tee up for you a little bit about what, when we use the expression climate economy at the Council on Rural Development, I just want to give you a little bit of context around that. I've come to think of the climate economy in a few different ways. The way that we started thinking about the climate economy was that when we think about this global challenge called climate change, there are all of these nations and all of these businesses and organizations that are trying to figure out the best ways to tackle climate change, essentially to wean our economy from fossil fuels and to figure out new ways of doing things and new ways of living that don't contribute to climate change. And essentially, that's like a competition, a global competition, and Vermont can compete in that global marketplace. And if we can figure out the models for tackling climate change here in Vermont, it's going to create job opportunities and economic opportunity here in Vermont. There are whether, let's say you figure out a new way for Vermonters to use less energy while still heating their homes. That is something that you could market out to the rest of the world. So there's tremendous job opportunities in being the place that solves those problems. But here's another way that I think about the climate economy. I really think about it at the household scale as well. Efficiency, Vermont, who's part of our conversation tonight, every year or so, they do a report called the Energy Burden Report. And what it shows is that Vermonters spend nearly $5,000 typically on their energy costs as a household. And half of that is just filling up the gas in their cars and trucks. And so if you think about a typical household budget, that's a big piece of the pie. And there's opportunities for households to achieve savings there. And honestly, when we help our households save money, what we do is we invest those dollars back into the economy. Because what people do then is they have more money to spend on other things in their community. The final way that I think about the climate economy here that we might think about the climate economy is really, I would say, most informed by the last year and a half as we've grappled with the pandemic. What we are reminded of over the last 18 months is that Vermont's really not an island. We suffer or benefit from all of these trends that happen globally. And the pandemic is a real example of that. And as we think to a future, let's take an example. Vermont has become a more attractive place for people while with remote work becoming a real possibility for more people around the country. And frankly, rural places like Vermont, because we're a little more spaced out and we were seen as a safe place to live, what we know is that our communities, all of a sudden, the houses in our communities are getting more expensive because people are moving to our rural communities in a way that they never used to. And what we're actually already hearing about is other people moving to Vermont because of climate trends around the United States. The wildfires in the West have people picking up and moving, and Vermont is increasingly an appealing place to be. So I just share that as an example of the kind of trends that we see both nationally and globally that Vermont is going to be impacted by. And so with the reason I'm sharing all of that as context is when we talk about the climate economy model communities program, the question that I would frame to you all, to Rochester, to Hancock, to Granville, to Stockbridge, to Pittsfield, like the Quintown region that we think of when we think of this conversation, what I would say is, how do you think about the future of these communities? What does a vital region look like, a prosperous region look like, and how do you plan for some of those changes that we think are coming? And how do we do that in a way that's not divisive but unifying? That's the real mission of our work in this model communities program. With that, and I want to make a quick note about the model communities program, we only go where we're invited to go. And it was the Rochester Select Board, actually, that said we would like to participate in this model communities program. And with that, I actually want to quickly call on your Rochester Select Board chair, somebody I've gotten to know a little bit. We share a passion for spikes, actually. Dune Hendricks is just going to say a word of welcome. So Dune, if you want to go ahead and unmute, it would be great to hear a welcome. I don't think I am muted, am I? You're good, yep. I'm good. Well, welcome. I guess I'm the latecomer, I was running that, but here I am now and thank you all for being here. I'm hoping we have representatives from the larger community ranging up and down the valley because really this is much more than just the town of Rochester. This is going to take teamwork to move into the future and working together, sharing our energy and our ideas. And I would hope that one of the goals, the tasks that everyone here could go away with is how to inspire and enlist more people to join so it doesn't just fall down to the same collection of people that are always carrying the load because it all matters to all of us and it affects all of us. And we're very thankful for John's offer to come and help guide exploration of what we can do to be proactive moving into the future. Thank you, Dune. We are, and I have to say, for us as staff at the Council on Rural Development, the opportunity to get to work in communities like Rochester and the surrounding towns is really a privilege. We feel so lucky to get to meet great folks. And your point about sharing the load is really right on point. Cause actually the next thing I wanna do is thank a few folks who carry some load in terms of doing some work in the community. I've had, we engaged a steering committee at the beginning of this process to they came up with the name Rochester Area Climate Initiative and they came up with some plans in terms of launching this process. But I wanna give a shout out specifically to three folks who've been real allies as I've gotten my feet under me and making connections in the community. And that's Catherine Shankman and Vic Robato and finally Jeff Gephart who's the energy coordinator in Rochester. And just a little mention of Jeff Boyd. He works so hard in terms of doing, thinking about the energy opportunities for Rochester and he's really been a great partner in this work. So just a big thank you to that team and thank you Dune and to the select board for the invitation to come to Rochester. All right, I've gotta quickly do a couple more things here. We are really honored and maybe just stop sharing for a second, Nick and then I'm gonna ask you to share again cause it would be nice for us to be able to see more people. As part of this opening process we have a visiting team of folks and I want to recognize them as we get started. I'm just gonna run through these names quickly cause we gotta stay on schedule here or Alex Tolstoy from the preservation trust of Vermont is with us. Becca White from Efficiency Vermont. Dan Courier from the Vermont Agency of Transportation. Erica Hoffman-Keyes from Green Mountain Economic Development Court. Josh Hanford, a neighbor from a neighboring town who's the commissioner of the Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development. Peter Gregory, the director of Two Rivers Aduquici Regional Commission and Sarah Peary from Green Mountain Power are here with us tonight. You'll get a sense of the role of that visiting team as we move forward but huge appreciation for them for quote unquote coming to the Rochester region tonight to listen to all you have and to provide some perspective. So thank you all as visiting team members. All right, Nick, if you could bring, oh, and let me just quickly mention and introduce our VCRD staff too. We've got Margaret McCoy, we've got Alyssa Johnson, we've got Nick Kramer and we've got Jenna Kaloski and we will be facilitating and serving as scribes for tonight's event. All right, Nick, if you could go to the next slide, you know, I wanna just give you a little bit of quick context about how this process is gonna roll forward. We are tonight, it's the kickoff of this process. The real goal of these breakout sessions is to get your ideas for the future of the Rochester region. We've got some topics for those conversations but let me tell you those topics are not meant to be hard guardrails to the conversation. Any ideas that you've got for the future of the region are welcome. We will facilitate those conversations tonight and we've got scribes taking careful notes about that and then coming up November 1st, we are gonna come reconvene a group of folks at all of you and more my hope is to make some decisions about the priorities you wanna work on as a region. And what I will do between tonight and then as I will take all of your ideas, I'll sort of map them out and identify some core areas of work and I'll bring them back to you. We'll probably have somewhere between 10 and 20 different possible ideas of areas of action and you'll make some decisions with dot voting. We're hoping that'll be in person at Pierce Hall on the evening of November 1st. That's a Monday evening, so mark your calendars. And then a final formal step in the process is after you identify those three priorities, our hope is that many of you will sign up to do some work. And just like Dune was saying, some new folks hopefully get involved as we go through this so that we can share that load and then we will bring task forces together to really do some strategic planning around those priorities and then move towards implementation. So that's sort of the general game plan for this process for tonight's conversation. Oh, actually Nick, bring up the next slide before I get to tonight's conversation, if that's all right. Not everybody wants to be on Zoom. Not everyone wants to participate in a meeting. I just wanna mention that we've got a couple other ways to get the ideas into this process. We've got an online survey and we've got that link there. We're also having an in-person forum at Rochester Elementary School on October 12th. That'll be pretty similar to these online meetings. Any of you are welcome, but I would really encourage you to spread the word that's happening next Tuesday evening. And then just to mention that we do maintain a website for this Rochester region climate initiative that I would encourage you to check out. We'll keep that updated as we go. All right, so now with that, I think it's time to get into the breakout groups because that's really where our action is gonna happen tonight. And let me just tee up what we're gonna do in those breakout conversations. The first two, Nick, you can go ahead and bring up the next slide actually. Oops. The first, Nick, if you wanna bring up, I think the next slide has some directions for us for the breakouts. Yeah, there we go. So here are the first two breakout conversations. Number one is around economic development, job creation and transportation. Number two is around energy opportunities for towns, homes and businesses. And what we would like you to do, this might feel a little complicated, but it's really not so hard, is if you can rename yourself with the number of the breakout group that you wanna be in, and I'll show you, maybe I'll do it for myself right now, I'm going to go to number two. So you see how my name just, I just added a two in front of it. If you can do that to pick your breakout group, that's gonna get us started here and we will put you into those breakout groups to get things going. So remember, one is economic development. Number two is energy opportunities for towns, homes and businesses. And then the facilitators will guide the conversation from there once you are in your rooms. So with that, nice to be in another virtual room here. I know it's no different, but it feels different. I see some different faces. Is he John instead of Jenna? So that's always a change. All right, so I'm just gonna give it a second for folks to trickle in. I think we're all seeing that this takes a little while. Carolyn, I'm getting, Carolyn, quick shank. I'm getting just a little bit of feedback from you. So I'm gonna mute you, but feel empowered to unmute at any point. And we'll just give it a second here. All right, nice. So 22 participants, check my little breakout thing. I think we're in good shape. So let's go ahead and get started. So, hey everyone, good evening. I'm Nick Kramer, also staff on VCRD, one of the crew here. And really excited to be here for this conversation. Like I said, kind of great to have the chance to switch over and see some familiar faces from the last one and some new ones. I think anybody who was just with me and Jenna's conversation knows that this hour goes really, really quickly. So I wanna minimize kind of all of our logistics. And the nice thing about step two or session two is we don't have to go over Zoom stuff. Please everybody stay muted until you're speaking. That helps cut down on interference, things like that. We've got, let's see, 22 people. I would really love to go around and do a quick round of introductions because there's some new faces. It's nice to know who's in the room. That being said, I think that's, there's just a few too many of us to do that effectively. And I don't wanna cut into the conversation plus you all probably know each other a lot better than we do if Rochester's anything like Corinth where I live or Rochester area even. So maybe what we'll do instead is just when you're talking for the first time or chiming in, don't be sheepish about introducing yourself and maybe saying an affiliation or where you live. And yeah, with that, I think we should get right into it. I mean, it's same drill as before. We are here to talk about the land resiliency and the climate emergency, quite the topic. And yeah, I can't wait to kind of hear and flesh out the different pieces. It's gonna look a lot like the last session in terms of structure. We'll talk for a short while about what are the assets in the area? What are the challenges? And then the bulk of the meeting is really, but this is the wide of open funnel to try to gather as many ideas for action for the future as we can. So that's where I really wanna spend the bulk of our time. But I also wanna give a chance, any pressing questions or thoughts before we get going or concerns or anybody having ongoing logistical trouble. Okay, if so, feel free to chime in at any point. Also, if there's anybody who has had a residual number two and wants to get to the other room, now would also be the time to say that, obviously. Okay, all right. Well, so yeah, I'll take a brave volunteer. If somebody wants to start us off in thinking about what are some of the main, when you think about land, the land, capital hell, resiliency and the climate emergency, what's going well in the Rochester area? Kind of what is, what are some of the assets that currently exist? Diane, yeah, go ahead. Yes, hi, we have this beautiful river that runs along Route 100, but we were also here for tropical storm Irene, which the river was not very beautiful at that time. And when you look at the NOAA maps for the future of our area, the New England area specifically, we're definitely in the green zone, so we're gonna be wetter. So we have this beautiful landscape, but we also have to be cognizant that this landscape is acting as a funnel and Rochester is vulnerable and we saw that with the substation and we saw that being isolated for almost a week as well. Okay, so yeah, sounds like a bit of an asset and a challenge and I like that you're going there. For now, you wanna focus in on sort of the things, the positives, the things going well, definitely local hydrology, a double-edged sword. Thanks, Diane. Hey, Nick, just a quick note, I'm gonna hit record and it's gonna interrupt us rudely for a second and then we can move on here. So recording in progress. Thanks for the heads up and thanks for remembering on that. I see Anna and Diane potentially, go ahead. I think one of our best assets is access to local growers and local food. Okay, in that there are many of them in the area or there are good pipelines to the area? Yes, well, I guess a benefit is that there are many in the area, a challenge is that frequently you have to drive over a mountain to access them but I think we have a growing number of very local growers. I know that Paula and Kevin are growing a lot of really awesome produce and I think that the farmer's market has just blown up which has been awesome. Awesome, great. Thanks, Anna. Other assets, what else is going well? I see Duncan and then maybe Ron was on meeting afterwards. So yeah, Duncan, you go ahead. Yeah, we learned from COVID that there were a lot of people in need of food and in an emergency situation. I think Rochester came up to the challenge but that's something I think we need to anticipate. There are opportunities maybe to produce more local food or make it available in some community way. So that's my thought. It's a great one, Duncan. So if I don't wanna twist what you're saying too much but if I were to try to spin that as an asset, would you say that sort of the once silver lining of the COVID pandemic has been an increase in awareness of need around food? And then stepping up when it's needed. So, but it doesn't have to be an emergency. There are ways to anticipate and prepare for such things. Okay, great, good, good thought. Ron, yeah, I see you've gotta hand them. Hi, Nick. A couple of things, I'll give you some perspective about the upper valley and the Hancock-Granville border and also of Granville itself. Focus tends to be on the larger communities which is in those Quintown areas, is Rochester. We're at the headwaters of the White River and the Grange in Granville, the Moscan Grange has served as a food distribution center during COVID. And they have done a, I don't know, four or five town distribution center several times a month or once a month. And so that's an asset, I would say, that the Moscan Grange group, the small membership group has aided in families in need of resources and food. The second thing I would say is that the White River partnership is a real asset. The White River partnership is a nonprofit that works with landowners to assure that there is a riparian zone on both sides of the river, of the White River. And this is a 50-foot barrier preventing farmers from cutting grass or raising cattle or livestock right up to the river bank and provides a lot of impediments, if you will, for river flow because it gives a lot of opportunity for plants and vegetables, plants and trees to grow along the river. So that slows the river and gives you some resiliency for these flood events. The second thing that I would say is that the Vermont River Conservancy is another organization that is an asset in that landowners who have properties along the White River and have potential floodplains, that conservancy offers fundamentally buyout easements to prevent people from building permanent structures in the floodplain. And this permits the river when it goes to flood zone to flood into areas, mostly fields and agriculture, that does not cause structural damage. That is a great run. That's a real plus. It sounds like it, yes. So I'm only trying to sort of move us along because I'm really cognizant of limited time, but yeah, I appreciate that. I think I'm hearing loudly and clearly the range as kind of a food distribution asset and then these really wonderful between the partnership and the river conservancy, some really good sort of watershed management and stewardship organization. So thank you. I see Monica has a hand up and then maybe James. Yeah, so thanks Ron for bringing up the partnership and I just wanted to say that the whole COVID situation really did encourage us to look at food safety or food access and really I've been thinking a lot about food sovereignty as well. So we actually, I am with Feeding the Valley Alliance and we just received our 501-C3. So we are looking at expanding what we do and really thinking strategically about programming and thinking about how we can really look at strengthening our local food system instead of relying on food distributions from the food bank, which is much appreciated but really trying to see how we can strengthen local ties. Thanks Monica. I'm seeing a back and forth in the chat between John and is there somebody who's been waiting John? No, Mary Beth who's named Jerry actually there. Yeah, I think it sounds like, yep, sorry. Oh, okay. There's two of us here. Oh, hey guys. There's two of us. Mary Beth and Jerry. And then we'll go to Kinley afterwards. I think one of our greatest assets is that we are surrounded by the Green Mountain National Forest and it is being managed for landscape resiliency. Okay, yeah. Thank you. I'll chime in that our local advocacy group, the Rich Line Outdoor Collective is providing opportunities both winter and summer for recreation and visitors and side benefit is that younger families are being attracted to our area just on the basis of the community commitment to recreation. So hopefully the younger families are forward thinking and community oriented, keep some vigor going on here. Absolutely. Thanks, Kinley. I see Paula and Kevin with the handle. What I think one of our strengths is right now is that we are seeing revitalization in agriculture after let's say 30, maybe 40 years of decline. We're down to one dairy farm, but very successful dairy farm. We have a couple beef farms, some produce farms, especially in Granville, a couple really good ones in Granville. But more importantly, I think we have people who have started now to produce their own food, whether they're raising backyard cattle, a couple sheep, maybe some meat birds and growing a garden. This is something we haven't seen for quite a few years. I mean, it sort of died out and it's coming back. And I think that's really good. It's more of a distributed model of providing food rather than relying on big ag. And it just makes me happy to see that. Thanks, Kevin. Wow, so I'm hearing a lot, a lot of different assets, a lot around food resiliency, local food, food distribution. A lot about the watershed are there. We've got about time for one more before I want to transition to challenges here. Anybody have a last thought on assets? Are we ready to get into it? Yeah, James, go ahead. The quality of our soil is different in the valleys than it is in the hills, but it's great soil and it hasn't been beat down too badly. We have some difficulty, of course, with people who are still using these chemicals on their garden, but the new people are moving in, seem to be really getting certified organically and particularly in Grandville. The younger people are moving in and set an example, really. But we still have the dairy farms that live outside of the valley that are coming in and using the chemicals because they don't live here, but. Gotcha. Thanks, James. No Rochester area dust bowl just yet. Soil still hanging in there. All right, I think if with the group's permission, I'd like to switch now to thinking about challenges and that's sort of the flip side of the coin, right? Not, this is not a session to sort of gripe about any one person or any one thing or all this thing is really going wrong, but with a positive lens, right? Like what are the opportunities for improvement? Where are some looking at land resiliency and the climate emergency? What's difficult in the area? What are some sticking points and what could really change to get where we want to be? And then we'll sort of dive into thinking about ideas. But for now, let's think about challenges. I see, yeah, Mary Beth, why don't you start us off? I'd say the invasive species along the river and in the valley in general are a big deal. And I've recently discovered Asian jumping worms which can destroy soil and that worries me a lot for the future of farming here. Wow, yeah, thank you. I see Monica with Anna and we'll go to Barbara afterwards. Yeah, I think the river is of course a double-edged sword but what goes along with that is and this might be unpopular but it's zoning in our area. We have to really be cognizant of the fact that building in floodplains is never gonna be a good thing. So I think that will be a challenge to have people look at that realistically. It also impacts how much development can actually happen in this area, so. So just to clarify, Monica, are you seeing, is it a lack of zoning that's a challenge or existing zoning and regulation or both? For instance, my town, Hancock has no zoning laws. Rochester, I believe has zoning. I'm not sure what the situation is in Granville. There are floodplain hazard areas that as a state we towns need to look at but I think planning for flood resiliency is always going to be a difficult conversation in a geographic area like ours where our valley is so narrow. Great, thanks, Monica. See Barbara with a hand up. I have two hats sold in the last breakout. I introduced myself and I'm a Rochester resident. I'm on the Rochester Public Library Board but I'm also on the Great Hawk Owners Association Board. So we're kind of the West Rochester part of the town and we have 90 homes. A good number of them are still second homes and I have to say at least a couple of times a year we lose power and of course the good number of homes have generators but a lot of them don't and obviously coming up the hillside you're always going to worry about power and I'm just always concerned about like maybe we should be looking for other ways besides having power poles coming up the hillside to be powering us and just interested in talking about other things that maybe we can think about going forward. Maybe we could be getting our own solar panels somewhere. I mean, some of the homes do have that but there's going to throw that out there. Okay, yeah, grid vulnerability sort of. Absolutely, thanks Barbara. Paul and Kevin, go ahead. What we've seen as a problem as far as food goes is processing, storage and distribution. As was mentioned, there's two very large vegetable farms in Granville and most of what they do goes out of the valley. We have two beef farms, most of what they do goes out of the valley and we have a dairy farm and virtually everything they do goes out of the valley. So I think it would be really good if we could have a way here sort of a food hub with cold storage, freezing frozen storage, a way to process perhaps to value added products with what we already have in this town. And lastly, a good way to distribute the food to the people who live in the Quintown area. I hear you loud and clear. Yeah, it's a familiar challenge and a good idea in there and I want to circle back to that in about 10 minutes when we're there. Thanks, thanks Kevin. Other challenges folks have. Yeah, Ron, go ahead. Yeah, thanks Nick. I think the example that I can offer is that on October 2nd we here in Granville offered a flood resiliency program and river corridors for wildlife program hosted by the Vermont Covert's which is Woodlands for Wildlife and non-profit in the state. And we had the executive director of the Vermont River Conservancy and the field manager for the White River Partnership as the presenters and the field guides. I was pleased that we had 15 people attend. I was disappointed that after sending notices to the five town offices in the White River Valley here the Quintown offices that we had only one person and that was one of our select persons in Granville attend. We're trying to inform people about the importance of dealing with flood resiliency and land management practices in the upper valley that protect property and persons downstream. And so it was the community engagement issue and it was a rainy day on a Saturday, October 2nd. But I was surprised that we didn't have more participation from the Quintown members. Thank you. Yeah, thank you Ron. I hear that for sure in community engagement and maybe municipal leadership engagement that strains on their capacity. Thank you. Other challenges? Yeah, James, go ahead. Yeah, I think one of the challenges is the communication in this whole area. I mean, Front Porch Forum seems to be one of the better ways we have in communicating. I didn't know about the thing that Ron has and I live a quarter of a mile from where he lives. I don't recall it being on Front Porch Forum which I used to be a road commissioner. We've used that to tell the whole valley that we're gonna be working on such and such a road on such and such a day. And so it wouldn't kind of knew about that but maybe that's one of the things we need to somehow overcome is better communication amongst the people in the valley. Yeah, definitely James. Another familiar challenge. Thank you. Others that folks have? Anybody maybe who hasn't had a chance to chime in yet have something there, we'll share. Thinking about the land. Yeah, Anna and or Diane. Go ahead. Okay, this is more the economy but it is speaking to Kevin and Paula maybe. I know that maybe 20 or 25 years ago there was a state owned facility and it was over on the other side of the mountain and up towards Burlington I think that was for small, it was a centralized facility for making small batches of jam or vinaigrette it was a food processing center that was available to small businesses that wanted to make bottled salad dressings or canned jams. It was all up to code and it was a central facility that many small businesses could use. Now I confess I never took advantage of that but I was aware that it existed. So it seems like what Kevin was talking about a processing center where it would be available for more than just one company's processing center it might be an economic idea to pursue. All right, I like that. And I'm definitely hearing that idea of sort of a central processing center, a hub, a food hub. I want to go there very shortly to thinking about ideas. Really appreciate that. And I see Jana or hopefully I was saying that right. Jana has a hand up thinking about challenges sort of some last thoughts on challenges before we transition. Nope. It looks like you're muted still. Oh, sorry about that. No problem. I just wanted to add about having a place to make value-added products. My husband, David and I have been operating Vermont Veggie Burger for years and we actually had to put the whole operation on hold because as a small business owner we used local organic produce. It became too expensive to travel to and rent a commercial kitchen and we would love to have something like that where the people could make value-added products and Vermont is such a hub for small businesses and gourmet food and it would just be amazing. Thanks, Jana. Yeah, wow. A popular idea already. As you Duncan, do you have a last thought or challenge? Yeah, I think the processing center is in Hardwick and I know people who are involved in making that work and I think it's a wonderful model for our Valley. See if we can get something going at that level. Yeah, that's where we went. Yeah, nice. Well, so it sounds like y'all are a little ahead of me and ready to go there and I don't want to be the one to hold us back. I do want to make sure, so we're talking about land, resiliency and the climate emergency. I want to make sure we're not missing any relevant challenges there. Anything related more broadly to the climate emergency maybe we've got time for one last thought and then we'll dive right into thinking about ideas perhaps starting with more on the food hub but anybody have some last thoughts before we go? Going once, going twice. Yeah, Ron, go ahead. Nick, communication resiliency is really as Jim Day mentioned earlier and not just communication itself for important events but resiliency in that area came to the front during Irene. I mean, everything went out. Cell towers went out, all the electric, all the telephones, everything went out for these number of communities along the White River. So, and I would like to also weave into that the issue about moving to all electric and charging stations. Vic Roboto mentioned that in the other breakout session, he's not in this one, but I think it would be reasonable to figure out some way to make sure there's a, among all the communities, there's at least one location of charging stations along the 100 group corridor. Thank you. Thank you, Ron. Yeah, and I think that it's a good point. It sort of touches on something we haven't spent a lot of time talking about and it was part of the previous breakout so I don't want to dwell, but transportation as an element of resiliency and folks are talking about food distribution and certainly that's a piece, but yeah, those infrastructure pieces are really important. So thanks for raising that. Last thoughts from anyone. Last challenges, fueler going once. Okay, all right. So let's transition. I think we're already clearly, this is a pretty creative group. We've got some good ideas on the table. Other ones, folks that want to dive into thinking more about things that have already been raised, as we think about land resiliency and the climate emergency, what can the Quintown region do? What's the move? Anna, go ahead and then we'll go to Monica. Well, just touching on the food hub idea, I would really love to see a co-op down on this side of the mountain closer than Middlebury or having to drive up to Montpelier. I think we have the food to do it. I think it would just be coordinating it and yeah. Great, yeah, thank you. Monica, did you have a hand up? Yeah, so if anybody's interested in really committed to making these changes and improvements to the local food system, please reach out to me and maybe you can get involved in feeding the Valley Alliance. We'd love to have ideas and community participation. We're a new organization. So yeah, just reach out to me. I'm sorry, Monica, if I missed it or it was described earlier, but what exactly is the Valley Alliance? So feeding the Valley Alliance kind of grew out of what, out of the food security issues of the pandemic, but we've been, we have not, had not received our 501C3, so we hadn't really delved too deeply into programming and we've been doing food distributions in Hancock for all of the Valley residents. And our focus is not on income, but we just wanna make sure that everyone has good food. But right now we're depending on distributions from the food bank, but we'd really love to look at how we can strengthen the local food system. And I also have a lot of co-op experience too. So if anybody is interested in that topic, I'm happy to talk about that. All right, great. You heard it here, call Monica. Other thoughts or their ideas? Duncan, did I see you raising hand or? No, but I'll say something. Perfect, I'll take it. I think from this I take it that highland farming is probably a good piece of the puzzle, learning how to use sustainable crops that can be then brought down to the Valley and not threatened by changes in weather or climate. So if I can continue to put you on the spot. So when you say props, you mean like tools and techniques or what would you envision that would better support sort of growth of highland farming? It's a combination of deciding what will do well there and learning techniques. So much of my early work was with people in highland Malaysia and they were able to support themselves by using swidden farming. I'm not asking anybody to start cutting down their forest but the point is there are ways of managing farmed in areas that are not sort of that incredibly rich soil that we're lucky to have in our river valley and we should look at that. Thank you, Hannah and Diane. I was just thinking that more education and knowledge sharing about how to grow sustainably. I think in other food deserts the communities are really great at either establishing a community garden or helping people understand how to grow their own food. And I think that that's something we could definitely do a better job of even though we do have a lot of really great local growers I think there's also a lot of potential just with all the green space that we do have for people to be a little more independent. Great, thank you, yeah, definitely. Other ideas folks have? Yeah, Ron. I would chime in with what Anna said. That is there are opportunities I think to provide community education for better nutrition and that means growing your own and in fact supporting a number of the farms because they're providing starts of vegetables. And so it would be a sort of a win-win situation providing instructions and guidance on how to grow good vegetables, how to grow your own, raise beds, whatever and supporting the local organic farms and other uphill farm country operations for starts for your garden. Thanks, Ron. I guess I'll pose a question, a follow-up. So a couple of people now have raised this idea of education and sort of the dissemination of techniques, sort of learning more about raising your own food. I wonder, do folks have thoughts on who does that or where that expertise comes from or kind of what's the vehicle that's most effective is that are folks envisioning like a community-based sort of collaborative thing? Is it a centralized learning institution? I'm curious kind of the points of nuance. Yeah, Diane, go ahead and then maybe we'll go to Chris. Well, the one thing that I really enjoyed was Bethel University. They have local people that volunteer to teach classes free of charge in the month of March and the last couple of years, I've gone to different classes to make sushi, to do arts and crafts, but this is all local-based and they have a variety of topics, but also there's adult education that there could be an adult education night locally or have it rotate through the five towns as well. Each town pick a topic on and have an education night by the local community and the whole five towns could come to that as well and maybe we can even offer it at the town offices be that a local, everybody knows, everybody knows how to get to the town office and have something perhaps around a theme like Earth Day, have classes start on Earth Day, start having volunteers willing to teach their class. We had a couple of years ago, when we bought our property, we had an open house on tree identification. It was a fun little thing. We had a forester who volunteered his time. Couple of dozen people came up to the house, we walked around the property and we learned how to identify different trees, his techniques. So if there are people that wanna do something in the town office and more of a classroom situation, that can be an opportunity or if they wanna do it on their own property and share with the community how they do things on their property or in their kitchen, that would be another opportunity as well but to kind of base it on the Bethel University way of doing things. All right. Thanks, Diane. I think some really good ideas in there. I saw Chris, I think you unmuted a while ago or maybe trying to jump in. I'm not sure if that is Chris, but go ahead and then we'll go to Paul and Kevin. Hi, it's Jeanette here. Just wanted to say that the library is always happy to sponsor workshops or talks or any kind of educational opportunities there that the Valley would be interested in. So reach out to me if you're interested whether we do this via Zoom or when things are back to normal in person but the library is always there to provide that kind of service. Great. Thank you, Jeanette. I saw Paula and Kevin with a hand up and then we'll go to Diane. Well, traditionally farming and growing has always been about collaboration and shared knowledge. And if there's one thing farmers and growers like to talk about it's farming and growing. So everybody do it and just talk to each other, talk to your neighbors. And I think that is one of the best sources of that sort of knowledge because everybody has different ideas. And once those ideas are shared, they're put together and you really have something and you have a good time and you get to know your neighbors. Amen to that, Kevin, I hear you. I guess I wonder if I could follow up with a question. I mean, do you feel like are the times we're living in now comparable to the sort of traditional times in which that knowledge was shared? And is there anything specific that would better facilitate that trading? I mean, is it just a matter of showing up at your neighbor's doorstep and asking questions or are there structures that or communication channels or things that could be put in place that would sort of lower that barrier? What do you think about that? I think that's been spoken to already by the last two. The collaboration and the sharing of knowledge is just, it's just a part of it. This is a small town. We tend to know each other and if we don't, we want to. You want to know what your neighbor's doing and what better way to introduce yourself than to start talking about your garden. Absolutely. Yeah, hear you loud and clear. I just wanted to make sure I was sort of fully hearing what you're saying. So thanks Kevin. Anna and Diane, go ahead and then we'll go to Monica. Hi, this is Diane. Climate crisis. What we have been talking about adaptive ways to cope with climate change. Is there anything that anyone has thought of or talked about that our community? What is there anything we can do as a community to help mitigate climate change? I mean, it's kind of the elephant in the room here, I think, that we haven't really addressed at all. Yeah, thanks for raising that, Diane. I guess I'll just reflect it right back to the group. I think that's, to some degree, the essence of this part of what we're thinking about. What can be done? Yeah, James, do you have a thought? Yeah, well, that's gets back into the legislative changes, seems to me. I mean, you're not going to, no matter how sincere we are about it, we're not going to reduce the amount of carbon that gets released in the atmosphere unless there's a tax on it. It's just the way society works. If you want something, you want to discourage something, alcohol, cigarettes, what do you do? Put a big tax on it. But there is legislation that's out there now, Citizens Climate Lobby, if it's being sponsored before the house now, I don't know if anyone's heard of it, but that's, I guess that's what I'm saying is that individually we can all do what we need to do, but ultimately, if you don't have control of these corporations and make people, people are using the carbon, pay for the carbon. The gasoline prices are ridiculously low when you consider what effect it's having on the climate. I hear you, James. Yeah, definitely some, so some legislative solutions potentially. I'm sorry, Monica, I kind of lost track of your hand and blended into the background, but I think you've been waiting for a while. So yeah, go ahead. So I think this kind of speaks to everything we've been talking about, but just by the fact that we are here, we are people who are really interested in all of this and willing to make changes. However, there are people who are not here who really need to be part of the conversation as well, and people who might not see themselves attending a meeting like this, but who we really need to think about and they tend to be the most vulnerable. So I think that we have to be a little more inclusive in how we think about solutions in that and really meeting people where they are. So that's just a thought I have in general. Thank you. Thanks, Monica. Yeah, Ron, do you have a thought? Yeah, I'd like to follow on Monica's comments about the people that aren't here. And on a topic that we haven't talked about at all, we're in the middle of a highly forested, fortunately reforested region. And those forests are under stress. The beaches are under stress by insects, the ash are under stress by insects, and the sugar maples are under stress by insects for those of you who haven't paid attention, they are. And all of these are insects that are affecting the quality of our forests. And the quality of our forests sort of have a ripple effect, everything on the quality of the water in terms of the forest being filtration areas as being places of economic employment for foresters and loggers and truckers. Those are the people that aren't here. So just thinking about the fact that our forest quality is something, and in fact, it dovetails with Vermont's core value of tourism, and the fact that if our forests don't have good quality, then we will diminish our interest in tourists because they come for this time of year. Thank you. Thanks, Ron. That's a good point, and I'm glad you raised it. Thank you. Other ideas for action, other things that could be done. A lot about food so far, talking some about some land management, kind of general, I guess I would circle back maybe to Diane's question if other folks have thoughts on, great. I'm seeing John saying, Kinley just unmated. Kinley, did you have something to say? Sure. In terms of mitigation or things we can do in our river valley and in the adjacent river plain, I think planning, as we've already done for parks and low infrastructure usages of these riverfront areas in the long term will be a benefit to the whole community. I've envisioned a little more riverfront path in and out of our village and further valley transportation paths available for walkers, bikers or alternative transportation folk who don't wanna be on the black top in the pavement. We have a great alternative coming with this Velomont project, but it is a somewhat narrower demographic of adventure cyclists and I will continue to work towards seeing some benefits that everybody can enjoy in our flat valleys between sidewalks and walking trails. I'm sure Beth and the farm would be happy to see a wide open stroll in the valley from the farm up to Rochester. So thanks for your support in that direction, everybody. Thanks, Kinley. And Beth, I see you're unmuted, do you have something to add? Yeah. Just as Kinley knows of work with the way river partnership back when it was first created in the 1990s to try to get a path that went along the river all the way up through our valley towns that everyone could use throughout the various seasons. So just echoing Kinley's hopes and dreams, they've been mine for 30 years, Kinley. Thank you. We'll see if we can get some energy in that direction. I think it would be a real asset to our entire valley if we had something like that that people could really enjoy, people of all abilities be able to enjoy. Absolutely. Yeah, thanks you guys. Duncan, were you about to say something? No, thank you. Just, I mean, other ideas? We've got about probably five minutes here. Yeah, Carolyn, go ahead. You're still muted, Carolyn, so you'll have to unmute really quick. About the labor force, you know, there's so many people who need employees to help them at their short of help. And here we are talking about increasing, increasing. So how do we increase the labor force that we need to help mark all this happen? And then you talk about climate change and you know what's happening in other places of the world and people are forced to leave because they can't exist on their land anymore and where are they going? And so are we, we're looking for labor force. I think Beth knows a little bit about what it means of needing them and having them come from somewhere else. And it's very successful, wasn't it, Beth? Or isn't it? Yes. And yet we need to know how to welcome these people, this is asylum, you know. How do we welcome them? How do we understand them? How do we house them? You know, where are they gonna live? So this is a big picture. It's worldwide, not just our valley that we have to think is going to affect us and we have an impact on them. So that's something to think seriously about. Yeah, I really appreciate that, Carolyn. I think that's a great point. I guess if I could keep you on the spot for a second, it's a lot of really good questions. Do you have particular thoughts about things that could be done to make the valley more welcoming to some of those potential labor force? And I don't wanna draw, if this, I'm sort of maybe putting words because I'm sort of trying a connection between what you said about need for more labor force and then all of these global forces that are causing migration and maybe there's a connection that I'm hearing you say that. And then I'm wondering if you have specific ideas for kind of what the Quintown region could do to capture more of those migrants. Not to put you on the spot and feel free to pass, but I just think I'll let that come back if something comes up here, if you have a specific thought and be glad to hear it, would also put that question to the full group if folks have ideas about Carolyn's point. How does the labor force intersect the question of resilience and are there specific actions to be taken or thoughts on anything else? Yeah, Beth go ahead. So one of the issues for increasing the labor force in our valley is housing. And so I really had wanted to be on the housing breakout session rather than this one, but I didn't want to neglect being here on the land breakout session. But truly housing in our valley is egregious. But yeah, I'll shut up, but that's an enormous issue to have affordable housing in this valley. Yeah, I hear that loud and clear, Beth. Thanks, James, did you have a hand up? Do you want to say something? Yeah, basically I was just, what Beth said, what Beth said, yeah, I mean, it's if people have a place to live, then and they have a job, they'll be here. But, you know, it's kind of, it's tough. They have the same problem up in Wakefield, Warren, you know, just getting a place to rent, very difficult, particularly with the bed and breakfast popularity now, people are taking their homes off of the year-round rental to the, you know, the service group up there, the housekeepers, the waitresses, like that. And so it's getting very difficult to get, you know, even someone to wait at tables because they don't have a place to live. So, yeah, housing is a big, big issue. Point well taken, James, thank you. We are kind of coming up to the end of our time here. So I want to give an opportunity for any kind of last thoughts or maybe have time for one or two more. I also will note for John, who has been our fastidious note taker this session, thank you, John, for that. There's a couple good things here in the chat, Peach Mecca, making sure that those UVM extension and so on, those all want to make sure that makes it into the record. I've copied and pasted them, yep. And I saw a hand go up while I was reading that and then it went down. I don't know, did somebody chime in with maybe a last thought? Yeah, Barbara, you want to take us home here and then we'll transition to the visiting team. I am sorry, so I'm going to put on my other hat besides being Rochester library board member. I'm on Great Hawk Owners Association Board and we've had a lot of homes change over and a good number of them when they're not here because they are second homes. They have been putting them on Airbnb and I really feel like that is a big thing that is cutting into the affordable home market. Not that we had people living here in our homes, but I mean, we used to have long-term rentals and stuff like that, but now it's the weekend thing. And I really, I know that it's a big thing across all, like I've been following the things in Killington and Woodstock that I know that's a big issue and they've been putting things in place, but I really feel like it is a topic that it's like that yucky thing in the corner that we need to talk about because while it is good with some stuff, it's bad with some stuff and I do think it comes down to housing, so. Thanks, Barbara. Well, I think with that, just to make sure we don't run into the same thing as last time, I do first just want to thank you all for sharing all of those ideas. It's a really rich conversation and I am constantly reflecting on how I have messed jobs to just go around and listen to the creativity of folks like y'all. So really appreciate your time and coming into this. And we're really lucky to have some folks on the call here who think about this stuff also a lot and are taking time to join us. So I'll just go around the circle, maybe starting with Becca from Efficiency Remark and wears a number of different other amazing hats. Becca, I'd love to hear your thoughts and reflections on what you heard and any advice or things you have to offer. Sure, well, yep. So I'm Becca from Efficiency Vermont and I will say I read the Peach Mecca piece in there and that was really exciting, but some of the things that stood out to me in this conversation, this group is definitely interested in food and food processing and agriculture and it got me thinking about some of the programs that Efficiency Vermont has when it comes to commercial kitchen equipment, agriculture incentives for that kind of equipment. So there's lots of pieces to that that can make sure that what even, even though there's just inherent value to having those places, we also want to make sure that they're running efficiently and up to date with modern technology. So certainly a place that I could see us helping and that was kind of an interesting one that I didn't expect out of this conversation. So I'm really appreciative of that. And then the other area that was interesting that I wasn't quite sure how to totally capture it, but like the grid vulnerability piece came up really early on in the conversation and I'm not quite sure where to put it, but I do think there is something to responding to natural disasters and folks brought up Hurricane Irene and there is something to the reliability piece that felt like it was threading through the conversation that efficiency plays a key role in. So really interesting stuff and I'm happy to be a part of the conversation. And I think there's a lot of stuff that Efficiency Vermont could support this group in making happen. So thanks for having me. And we will look to you Becca and Efficiency Vermont moving forward to keep that conversation alive. So yeah, I really appreciate it. Let's go next to Sarah, Sarah Peary who's here from GMP. Sarah would love to hear your reflections. Yeah, so I really loved a lot of the talk about just teamwork about shared facilities about ways that we can have neighbors helping neighbors. I just think that is such a great takeaway no matter the public area. A quick note on the greenhouse gas emissions point in Vermont, heating and transportation are our big emitters. So love to hear the talk about charging and definitely we have a lot of programs and emphasis and work closely with Efficiency Vermont and other partners. So if you have a question about electrifying your home you would love to hear it. And just generally I love this conversation because I like that we're thinking about being proactive rather than reactive about getting out there and building infrastructure that will help us be more resilient and learning from experiences like what we had through Irene that it is better to prepare now. So thank you all for having me. It was really great to listen. Awesome man, thanks Sarah. And next let's go to Peter Gregory who's head of the two rivers out of Quichy Regional Commission for anyone who may not know. Thank you. I too was pleasantly surprised at the level of interest in agriculture and growing your food locally and making yourself more resilient in that way and how that links so directly with safety around rivers and floodplain storage. And I know I think Monica mentioned about building in the floodplain and that. So a lot of these things link together very well. So the more we push agriculture in the areas with the great soil and even the highland areas that was mentioned, the more we're going to be able to withstand the more frequent rain events that cause flooding and the need for more floodplain storage and the resilience here on that. So a lot of linkages but it's all headed in the right direction. And I think there are a lot of nonprofit groups that are working diligently on those kinds of issues to help us in this valley. Awesome. Thanks, Peter. And I guess lastly, unless I'm missing, is there anybody else on the visiting team that I'm not in this one, John? Lastly, I'm gonna put him on the spot because I know he's a guy that thinks a lot about a lot of these things and is capable of so much more than just notes in this conversation. I'd love to turn it over to John Copants who's our climate programs director and sort of lives and breathes a lot of this stuff. So John, I've done too good of a job here. We've got a little bit of time. So happy to have your thoughts on the conversation and anything you'd like to add before we transition back to the main room. Deepers, both an introduction and a challenge which is that we've got a couple of minutes and I'm not gonna use them all. I'm sorry, Nick. But I guess here was one I do think personally, I think a lot about resilience. I think about it entirely differently after the last two years of the global pandemic, to be honest, just to express something personal. That experience has shifted my thinking and I have a family here in Montpelier and now I look around my community and I think about how do we strengthen our position in the face of what happens elsewhere? How do we grow our self-sufficiency? And it was interesting, in some of the conversations I've had with folks in Rochester in advance of launching this effort, one of the things that's sort of become more clear to me is that this topic of resilience and self-sufficiency is actually a unifying thing that people are motivated to talk about. Sometimes I feel like the climate topic in general sort of sends us to our corners and is divisive. But when we talk about looking after our communities and our neighbors and our families in the face of things going on elsewhere, that feels like something that we rally around as Vermonters. And my experience in Rochester and the surrounding towns is that you all have a huge asset in your connection to one another. Like you are a community as, I love the way Kevin said it, either you know your neighbors or if you don't, you wanna know them and you sort of figure it out how to get to know them. That was a really nice framing. And that's, when you think about resilience, gosh, that is such an asset. Like the knowing one another, the eagerness to get to one another and that connection, somebody mentioned communications, a few of you did. And when we think about all of the challenges we face as communities, the ability to connect with one another, to communicate and then to solve problems together feels so fundamental to all of our work. And so I guess I'm just kind of reflecting back to you all cause I feel like that has been a thread that's woven through a lot of this as you've talked about your assets and challenges and opportunities is how do you collaborate together? How do you sort of unleash that sense of commitment to the community and to your neighbors and really provide vehicles for that effort together? So we say it a lot, but it's for us to just be a partner in that work is a real privilege and a pleasure. We're excited to see where this conversation goes and then to support that work moving forward. So thanks everybody. Yeah, thanks John. I guess I have kind of the rare opportunity to, I don't wanna take the full rest of the time either, but just to chime in, like I said, it's always, and like John said, really an honor and a privilege to be part of these kinds of conversations. One of the things that I hear a lot in the work that we do convening around this topic and others is kind of, I mean, equity has become a real big word in the last couple years and our understanding of what that means, I think can be really variable. And, but it's certainly something I think we're all thinking about kind of how does, as we think about resiliency and the changing future and the ways things coming down the pipe hit us, are they hitting all of us equally? And if not, kind of what can we do to share and shift that load? And I'm really struck by that, maybe those words, those soundbites didn't so much come up in this conversation, but it felt really implicit in a lot of what you all were talking about. I mean, that sense of community, that sense of linkage and being together and the systems problems that y'all are identifying that are kind of built around things like food access and helping neighbors. And Ron talking about the watershed, I mean, it takes a certain type of altruism to clean up your upstream practices to save your downstream neighbors. And I think maybe that's one of the virtues of living in a valley, right? Is that you're kind of connected in that way. There's sort of a real topographical mandate for that sort of unity and connection and that can't get there from here kind of mentality. So just really appreciate the themes that came up. I think it's a place where there's a lot of clearly a lot of energy, a lot of creative thinking around this. And I'm really excited to continue the conversation. So promised I wouldn't take the full time. We got 46 seconds. I'll entertain any final quick thoughts from anyone or we can transition back into the main room, take a quick second to get a drink, make a lightning fast sandwich. Anybody have any last things they'd like to share before we go? Okay, well then with that, just one final thank you for all for taking your time. John, I'm sure we'll say some more closing remarks in a minute, but this has been a really great conversation and I'm gonna leave the breakout room and I'll see y'all back in the main room. Thank you so much. Hi everybody. Welcome back. I'm just gonna bring things to a close and do it really quickly because I know we all have things to get on to here. First of all, huge appreciation to everybody. I suspect you have other things that you might prefer to do on a Thursday evening, a nice Thursday evening than be on a screen, but what you're doing is you're showing a commitment to the place you live in. And that's what our privilege is at the Council on World Development is to be part of conversations where people come together and think about their future and think beyond their own home and family and think about their community and what they can contribute to their community. And I will say this, in the conversations I've had as we've started this process, the thing I'm just struck with, it's true across the state of Vermont. It's really true in your valley. You all have a deep shared commitment to the place that you live in. You feel passionate about it and not only are you passionate about the place you live that is a really beautiful place, you also are willing to roll up your sleeves and do work for that place. And that is a powerful thing to be a witness to at the Council on World Development. Our next step in this process, as I've said, is gonna be November 1st. Our plan and intention is to do that in person where we'll gather, we'll grapple with the ideas that you've come up with and you will decide on some priorities for this work moving forward. And any help that you all can provide as we look ahead to that November 1st, how do we broaden that conversation? Who's not in this room who should be a part of this conversation? We will be a partner in spreading the word and doing that. And so stay tuned as we give you sort of the tools to spread the word to all of the Quintown region about these next steps. Tremendous appreciation to the partners, our visiting team who took a couple hours out of their busy lives to be part of this conversation tonight. And in particular to all of you for being engaged and involved. Really appreciate it. And with that, let's say good night. And we will see you. And I do see some questions about logistics. We'll be in touch about that as we figure out the parameters of that event on November 1st. So thank you so much, everybody.