 Good afternoon. You are with the House Government Operations Committee. Welcome back to day one of the legislative session. I know that many committees were not meeting this afternoon in order to give members time to get home from Montpelier, where we met this morning to adopt our resolution, allowing us to meet virtually for the first two weeks of session. However, as is often the case with government operations, we don't have any time to spare. So we are going to get started right here on day one. And I know that I've spoken to many of you individually, but I think for the friends following along from home, it would be helpful just to sort of articulate the plan of what we're going to do with our first couple of weeks. We have two urgent issues that we need to get off the ground, ASAP. One of them being the adjustment to the town meeting format, the same bill that we passed a year ago. We will also want to move again this year, allowing communities the flexibility to either delay their town meeting to a time when it might be safer or when they might build a meet outside, or communities could choose to adopt their town meeting budgets and other business by Australian ballot. So that's the same flexibility they were given last year. That bill is going to start in the Senate, which buys us a little bit of time to do our first order of business, which I'll get to in just a moment. But there's one other aspect of the town meeting bill that I believe will be coming over to us later in the week. And that is simply a clarification for communities that you cannot use Australian ballot to permanently use Australian ballot. Meaning that if your community has not previously adopted an Australian ballot mode of doing its business for town meeting, you have to actually have a town meeting in order to do away with town meeting. And that is a clarification that helps some of the communities who were concerned that this second year of allowing Australian ballot might be the death now of town meeting. And I think we will have our opportunity to discuss that as a committee, but does anyone have any questions about that or about the bill in general? And we can all get used to raising our little Zoom hands, which now can be found under reactions on your menu. Anyone have any questions? Representative Vihowski. Thank you. I believe Essex adopted an Australian ballot back in June and did that by universal mail ballot. Would, so June of 2020, would that have to be done at a subsequent town meeting or would that count retro? So that is a really good question for Tucker Anderson, who's our legislative council who's going to be helping us, I think with this bill. Is that right, Amron? Tucker will be our council for this bill. That's a good question because I don't know what would happen in the event that a community may have chosen to do that last year. I'll save that question for him then. Thanks. Excellent. And feel free to reach out to him by email this week to prompt people to be thinking about all of these various scenarios. Any other questions from folks about the town meeting bill that we expect to come over later this week from the Senate? All right. I'm going to work to get us time on the committee agenda as soon as the Senate has their version of the bill sort of on its way over to us and that way we can begin our deliberations in order to expedite turning that around as quickly as possible. All right. So the next order of business for us in this first couple weeks of session is to get our redistricting process off the ground. And so you'll see on our agenda this week that we've got quite a bit of time dedicated to redistricting. Members will recall that the process for the House redistricting is a little different than the Senate redistricting in that we have this strange requirement that we have to pass an initial bill that sort of kicks off the time of official feedback to the legislature. And then we take on that feedback from all of the local communities in order to create the final bill that becomes the next decade of legislative districts. And so we are going to start right in on a proposal for this initial map with the intention of getting it out to communities as quickly as possible so that we can start hearing from communities about what they like, what they don't like. And I think a lot of the feedback that we'll hear from communities is about where, which neighboring communities do they have common interests with and would feel comfortable being in a district with or where, conversely, is there a mountain, for instance, dividing two communities that, you know, that may look perfect on a map and perfect in terms of their numbers but not in terms of geography and in terms of the way people actually operate in the world. We have with us today Ameren, Average Ailey and Nick Atherton from Legislative Council and Nick is our map technician. And so I think what we'll do is dive right in with them sort of on where we are with the mapping process. And then we will shift years after a quick break and jump right in to take a look at the map that we will move for this initial districting proposal. So Ameren welcome and thanks for being here. Good afternoon everyone for the record Ameren Average Ailey Office of Legislative Council. I have asked Andrea to post the presentation that I gave to you all back in December. This has sort of redistricting 101 the applicable statutes that we walked through at that time as well as the constitutional requirements that are in place for reapportionment of the house. Some things to keep in mind for what we are about to hear for the next 30 minutes or so. Nick has put together a map that has the current districts as they stand presently. But this map has been updated with the 2020 census data. So with this map you will be able to see all of those areas where the deviation percentage has changed. As we discussed last month, ideally the House of Representatives has a certain number of Vermonters for every representative. And the more or less number of Vermonters per representative results in a deviation from that ideal number. So when you are looking at the map that Nick is going to pull up, you will see within the gray blocks you will see where those deviation numbers are. The deviation is a percentage, how many people over that ideal number or under that ideal number. If it is under, that will be represented by a negative percentage. If you have too many people, you have more people than the ideal number, you will see a positive percentage point. So as we discussed briefly back in December, there is case law about what the constitutionality of deviations for percentages. I would say the general rule of thumb for case law has been that if it is within 10% overall, that is 5 above or 5 below or 2 below and 8 above, if you are looking at the overall range, then the presumption is that that number may be constitutional. Once you get beyond that above 10%, then it is then on the state to prove that the deviation is still constitutional despite its large deviation. So that is just numbers to keep in mind as you are looking at this map. You will see there is a pretty big variation now that these current districts have the 2020 population data put into them. So as you are looking at these maps moving forward, looking at those areas where the deviation looks very high in either direction will be an indication that the committee needs to review that district and determine how it can be changed or whether it needs to be changed. So Madam Chair, did you want me to discuss briefly about the format structure of the bill for? Yeah, I think that would be helpful. And after you do that, maybe we can have a bit of committee discussion or I can clarify for folks sort of why we are doing what we are doing. But short answer, folks, is the redistricting timeline has been adjusted due to the delay in the census. And there is some cascading impacts of that that I think are continuing to ask us to do things differently. So go ahead, Erin. Certainly. So as the chair mentioned, within statute, there is a two-bill process. And this is how it's been for a number of redistricting cycles. The initial bill will outline districts at a high level. And does not include all of the ultimate detail in terms of meets and bounds that you will see. In the final district's bill. So the initial district's bill will, for example, say that for Colchester, there will be four representatives or that for Burlington and Winooski, there will be 10 or 12. I don't recall what the exact number is. But you'll see that there are very large numbers of representatives assigned to, I would say, these sort of big districts that will then typically be subdivided after hearing testimony from boards of civil authority, because that ultimately when you are ready to review a final district's bill, all of those larger districts, all of those larger towns and cities like Burlington, Rutland, Bennington, those will have been subdivided down into districts. So the bill draft that you're going to see tomorrow will have those large districts, those large multi-member districts without the detail of how the subdivision will exactly work. And this serves as a starting point for the committee to notify boards of civil authority that they will have a copy of the maps that you have initially looked at so they can see where some of the details that you're looking at lie within each town, within each city. And then once you have testimony back from those boards of civil authorities, then you start filling in those details, the meets and bounds for those subdivisions when you're subdividing a town, for example. So that is a high level overview of what it will look like. This will make probably more sense once you see the bill tomorrow. But that is the initial draft. Questions from committee members. Making sure that we give it an extra pause in case people have forgotten where to find their little hand raised function. Representative Hooper. So thank you, Madam chair. Given the complexity of. In city boundaries. If we know something now that. Doesn't make sense because of geographic stuff. When is it appropriate to throw that in the soup? So we are making a very simple soup. Here this first week, at least I hope we are because, because we need a vehicle through which we can. Get an initial map out to communities so that we can start taking feedback. And so I would, I would say hold on to the details of that because what we're, what we're not trying to do in my mind at this moment is is get in and start tweaking internal lines within different districts. What we really need to do is get to the, the place in the process where we, we are having hearings with the boards of civil authority. Though the usual redistricting timeline would have had the, the legislative apportionment board delivering their maps to us back in August. And so that's what we're trying to do. And so that's what we're trying to do is get in and start delivering their maps to us back in August. And then the house government operations committee in the normal time would have had hearing during the, the fall with different communities so that they could. You know, start this process with a lot of feedback from communities. And because of the delay in the legislative apportionment process, we're trying to get it out to the community so that we can get it out in time to allow us to do pre-session hearings. And so what, what I'm hoping that we can do here is really kick off the, this initial draft with the intention of getting it out to communities so that communities can come back and say, you know, yeah, your name. We like this. We don't like that. We, you know, we like being in a district with, you know, with South Whoville because they don't have anything in common with us. So for right now, you know, it's my hope that we can move through the, the legislative apportionment board's alternative map. And there are reasons for that that we'll get into when we start looking at that map, but that we won't make changes to that at this point because, because I'd like us to hear from communities. Before we start moving district lines. And so I see representatives Lafave and Higley. One of you has a question. Yes. Thank you. I do, madam chair. After mentioning this proposal of using the alternative map initially and talking with other reps and representative Cooper brought up a concern of mine as well. I guess we haven't had much discussion around using the alternative map right off the bat. And some of the, the concerns that were brought up to me, which make a lot of sense in it. And I found out that it can be done. Should we maybe not look at some changes ourselves initially and come out with that first map of ours, maybe the first part of March. I know we're under a time crunch here, but my concern is you've already had all these BCAs commenting on the minorities maps, the single seed districts. Now we're going to have them commenting on the alternative map. And then that isn't even really going to be what we're going to be looking at in the end. So again, I would. I'd like to at least discuss why we can't work on an initial map, whether we start with the alternative map or not. Consider some changes ourselves and have a more closely. Resembling what we might finish up with maps so that BCAs are actually looking at what might actually come down the pike. Am I am I off base with that? Yeah. Yeah. I'm happy to have committee discussion on that. I'll wait for, for little yellow hands to pop up if folks want to weigh in representative Gannon. Thank you, madam chair. My concern with changing the map at all at this point is that you basically are opening a can of worms. And, you know, it could lengthen the process for quite some time. And I think, you know, sticking with what is the alternative map is an approach to get a bill out quickly. Because I mean, once you start moving one town around or one district around at least to moving another district around. And it becomes a never ending process. And we'd probably come up with an entirely different map than the alternative proposal that's out there. And given that we're trying to do this in a. Expedient fashion. I think sticking with what is the alternative, at least for initial bill is fine. And I mean, I think it's important to communicate that to members so that they understand that. Thank you. Representative Anthony. Thank you, madam chair. My understanding was there are several. Districts who are happy to be. Two representatives for a single political unit. And those would. And that's been communicated, if you will, already. To the. Reapportionment board. So if you go back to the majority. Proposal. All those ones that said, we're fine. We don't, we're okay with two people. In a single political division. Those now unraveled in addition to the ones. Where the population change. Is requiring us to. Attend. To the number of delegates. For even a large block unit. So if I can summarize. I think you're creating. By going back. To the first majority proposal. To the first majority proposal. You're in essence. Revisiting some that appear to be satisfied. With a two person district. And thus eliminating that. Segment of our work. Thanks. Representative. Higley. Yeah. Again. I wasn't suggesting we go back. To the. Majorities map at all. What I am saying. And I agree with representative again. And no matter when we start this process, there's going to be huge amounts of change. And, you know, I've already had representatives come up to me and said. Jesus, we worked out and got our district pretty much all set with. You know, the towns and some BCAs and all that. And it's like, okay, that's fine. But how did you do it? And what other towns were affected by it? So. Again, I'm not advocating going. You know, putting out the. Majorities map initially, but I would. I just, I just think it's. We're going to have huge changes. Once we get to that. And I know we're under time crunch, but I don't know if it's fair for BCAs to. Look at a map that's. That's going to have huge changes. And we're going to have to go back to them when we make the changes anyway. Again, I'm not convinced. I know the whole. Time crunch problem. But I can see it's going to be a problem no matter what. I don't know if it's fair for BCAs to. Look at a map that's, that's going to have huge changes. And we're going to have to go back to them when we make the changes. So. Yes. And, and, and this proposal is really a vehicle to get us more quickly to the point where we're hearing directly from the communities. Whereas if we. If we start trying to move district lines now with. Without having had the benefit of the public hearings that in, you know, previous decades, we've had a lot of public hearings already before we got to session in January. And would have much more on the ground knowledge. We, we were unable to do that this year. And, and so we need to find a way to get more quickly to hearing that feedback. And. And that's, that's the real, the intent behind this proposal representative LaClaire. I'm going to go back to that. I'm going to go back to that. I'm going to have to retrain myself on how to use my iPad. Is it my understanding that the. Majority plan that's out there now. That the boards of civil authority and other interested parties. Have had an opportunity to weigh into that already. And. By going with the minority. Report. I guess that's how we're phrasing it. I think it's a great opportunity to weigh in on that. As well by getting it out the door. So to speak earlier. Is that part of the intent here? So for boards of civil authority who weighed in with the legislative apportionment board on their adopted map. We have, you know, we have access at, at this point to the, to all of that feedback because they've been logging it as they go. And, and for many of those communities who were paying close attention to what the legislative apportionment board was doing, they also probably already. Watched the, the presentation of the alternate map, the one that wasn't adopted. And, and so in some ways this is putting something out there that many communities are, are somewhat familiar with already. And, and so we're able to, we're able to get that feedback. And may give them the opportunity to more quickly turn around. Some feedback to the legislature. So that hopefully by the third week of January, we could begin. Doing public hearings. And it would be my intention that. The public hearings would be done geographically so that when we have. We have the opportunity to be able to recall, you know, these two towns said they wanted to be together. These two towns said they don't want to be together. And that we would look at regions of the state. In geographic pods, but in order to schedule those hearings, we've got to, we've got to have this initial bill out the door so that we have something for them to respond to. I think so. Yeah. Thank you. Representative Hooper. Thank you, Madam chair. My, the characterization that I brought up a problem is not what I intended. I brought up a process and when we would have input. I fully agree that we should move forward as you're proposing. If we start the domino effect of moving a line here or there now, we're just going to play dominoes for the rest of the session. I know that in Burlington's deliberations on this, they addressed issues with the minority map. So we should already have, you know, a good start on a lot of the stuff. So I'm all for. Going home moving forward. Thank you. Representative McCarthy. Thanks, Madam chair. Yeah, I really agree with the idea of putting the minority report map out toward the BC is, you know, when you look through the feedback that we got from the BC is on the adopted lab proposal, the majority map, there's a real spectrum of feedback and some communities didn't provide feedback. The twin opportunity for us to get a jump so that we're really doing the meets and bounds and the nitty gritty work when we're together in person, hopefully, and just doing that tweaking once to represent Hooper's point. That seems very attractive. It also seems really attractive to me to give the BC as an opportunity to take a look at a map that's already been thought through in terms of the deviations and the other requirements and statute that we haven't really even talked about all that much here. So I would really welcome that information before we start talking about the bounds and that's why I definitely support moving this map out, getting that feedback and then we do our nitty gritty work. Thanks. Other committee discussion. Well, I think to the extent that you all are hearing from colleagues in the legislature, because I know that even in the brief time we were in the building this morning, just passing our resolutions to allow us to meet remotely for two weeks. So I think that's a great idea. I think that was approached by as many members as I walked by who wanted to talk about redistricting. This is a really big deal and I recognize that. And this idea of moving out with the LAB's alternate map is in no way saying that that's what the final district lines are going to look like. This is simply a means to put another valid proposal out to the community. So I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea in the same way that the LAB's adopted map was put out to the communities. And get us to the point where we're hearing feedback from communities. I mean, it was really heartbreaking to me to recognize it as, as Delta was surging late this fall. That it wasn't going to be possible for us to do regional and actually sit down in person with people. And little did I know, you know, what, what the case numbers we're going to look like now in January. But, you know, we, we have a duty to listen to Vermonters and listen to the people who are on the ground in, in the different communities. And to, to put those, those local knowledge and, and local preferences into our thinking process as soon as possible. And, and that's really the purpose behind moving forward with this, with this plan. So Nick, I'm going to give you a moment to, to tell folks about the several pages that are in the document that, that is listed on our website under your name and welcome you to, there's two different documents there, 2010 boundaries with 2020 census numbers and the LAB alternate. So if you could just help orient members to how to read those, we are all calling, we're able to call them up on a secondary device and look at them while we, while we stay in the committee room here with ourselves. So if you want to just tell us what the different pages are of each of those maps, that would be helpful. Good thing. Thanks Madam Chair. So again, Nick Atherton mapping specialist working with the Office of Legislative Council during this process. So as was alluded to earlier, we have two documents for today in the mapping side of things. We have a district map of 2010s decided upon and currently enacted districts with 2020 populations. And that should be available on the committee agenda for today on the website Tuesday, January 4th. And that would be under, under my, under my name. That's number, that's the first one under my name. Downloading that, I'm going to pull that up, this up on the screen share in just a second. We can work on that, but just, I wanted to give everybody the means to get into this information on their own first. So that map is a statewide map, purple boundaries, title 2010 district boundaries with 2020 census population. And it's a three page PDF with six or sorry, four inset maps of urban areas around the state that I put in there just so that people can get a better look at the detail areas of some of these smaller districts. The second one that might be useful is the LAB, alternate statewide districts map 2020. This is a, as we discussed earlier, this is the alternate plan that has been mapped out. It has one inset map of the Burlington area. And we can pull up the dynamic version of this and take a closer look at it later on if we'd like to, but those are both available. And I'm happy to answer questions about those. I'm now, sorry, actually, in fact, I know it's a good time. Does anyone have any questions about those or how to access them? It looks like representative LaFave has her hand up. Thank you. So I just had a quick clarifying question. When you go over and hover on the, there's a lot of different little boxes, but it looks like the new orange one, one. And then it's right by Washington three and Washington one. There's a lot of red boxes, which for me indicated that was a break in the district, but it has Williamstown as like its own district and oranges, its own districts. I don't know if some of the lines got a little scrambled there. Representative LaFave, are you talking about the, the alt plan, the alternative plan or the 2010, or the older districts? Oh, the alternative plan. Oh, got you. Sorry. Yeah, sure. Well, now we're, now we're seeing exactly the challenges that remote map viewing and creation are going to bring up. So, and that, that district again was. New orange one, one. I'm sorry. Yeah. My dogs get excited when they hear people and they're relearning zoom. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I believe what you're seeing there is actually just some. It's just the line, the district boundary lines themselves. Just being sort of confusingly large and obscuring where the actual lines are going to go. So one thing that we can do is pull up the, like I said, the dynamic version of this, which is going to provide us with some better, more accurate detail of that. But one thing too is that sort of in the, over the course of today, I've realized that when I'm creating these static maps and distributing them as PDFs, it's going to be worth it to create separate pages with certain urban areas among those being buried in Montpelier area. So that questions like this can be preempted and, and, and the, the information can be, can be displayed more, more clearly. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. I understand this is all like a learning as you're running situation. But when I looked at it, it did look a little fun for a minute there, but thank you. Representative. So. Robert, representative Lafave, if you are using an iPad to look at the maps. Currently. Yeah. Well, if you, you can actually blow it up. If you use your fingers. If you can see the new orange one, one, if you really focus in on it. You can see it a lot better if it's blown up. And so you can see it's, it's Williamstown and orange and part of Washington. If you blow it up. I don't know if that helps you, but. Like you say, there's lines between there. Oh yeah. One second. You can take two of us. Okay. Good thing you guys are helping each other out. There's the block that black block in like the 5.71% is blocking where the one little straw through is covering. Sorry. I'm sorry. Thank you. Yeah. And folks, I think that this is, this is illustrative of why it's going to be challenging for us to be editing maps in this kind of way. So, you know, we have to choose how, how we ask Nick to create a map to distribute to us when it goes out on a, as a static document as a PDF and in the width of the district lines and the size of the labels on the boxes is really, you know, it's, it, it's built for viewing the entire state. So, you know, you know, when we're on a static map, we see those challenges. I mean, you can't even see. You can't even see Barry city's district because it's completely encompassed behind the, the Washington three. Label on here. And so. I admit is my hope that by the time we get to actually moving district lines as we, you know, after we've had a chance to hear from the communities that we are, we're going to be able to see what we're doing where we all have much more ability to, to see what we're doing. So, Nick was pausing for questions. Does anyone else have questions about how to read either of these two maps or how to access. All right, Nick. Anything else? Thanks, Madam chair. I think, you know, that, that actually, that's the issue that we're going to be dealing with when it comes to this technology, which is a certain amount of conflict between being able to display maps that show the whole state. And a snapshot and then also maps that are able to show detail to the level that we're going to need to be able to complete this process. So that's what I'm here to do is to help manage that conflict. And with that being said, I think it's probably good that we, Madam chair, with your permission, if we, if I share my screen and show what the stat with the current map looks like and in a way that we can manipulate and just demonstrate some of the ways that we're going to be able to communicate with one another about viewing these maps live. Sure. Okay. Here we go. We just need to make sure that you've been made a co-host. There we go. You are a co-host. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Now I'm unable to see my own screen. So is ever, is everyone able to see what I'm seeing? This should be a statewide map. Yes. And so folks, I want to give you a moment to, you know, to orient your own screen. If you are zooming and looking at the screen, you may want to shrink down the, the size of our little boxes so that you can see more of the screen, but folks, feel free to contact me afterward. If you want to talk through different ways of doing this, that make it work better for you, but go right ahead, Nick, and walk us through what, what you're doing here on the map. Sure. So what we're currently looking at is, uh, our current 2010 as drawn, uh, the districts with, um, the numbers as Amaran alluded to the sense of the 2020 census numbers. So let's just take a quick look at one district as an example. And we will use my area of the world, the Addison County area, um, as an example. So here we, here we see Addison one, uh, on this, we have Middlebury, 9,152 people. Addison one, six, uh, uh, that's the district label as in one, the percentage is as Amaran alluded to the deviation from the ideal. And then 9,152 in this, within this gray box here refers to the gross population of that district. So you'll notice over in Addison five, we have a negative deviation of 13.18%. And a total population of 3,722 people, but that district encompasses New Haven, Waveridge and Redport. So that totals to 3,200 or 3,722. Whereas Middlebury is just a single district with, uh, with a town itself of Middlebury. So that's why the population totals match one another on the town and on the district itself. Um, let's see, uh, a couple other notes. We don't have a legend going right now because this is a draft map that we're looking at, but the, uh, green dotted lines indicate town subdivisions or city subdivisions. Um, and the purple lines indicate, um, district, uh, divisions. So often the reason you won't see too many green lines is because most of these districts run along, um, sub-town or city lines, but where they don't, it's because, um, they have been drawn to either have multiple towns in the same district or because the district line follows some other geographic or demographic features such as a census blocked or, uh, a river or some other kind of, um, some other kind of boundary. Um, let's see, are there any questions at this point? I am not seeing anybody pop up with a hand, but okay, go right ahead. Okay, great. So, um, we're going to just zoom out. Um, let's see. Some of these gold lines here indicate county boundaries. I've left those in without labeling the counties themselves. I think we all more or less know where Vermont's counties are, but, uh, these help us, um, orient where we are and, uh, the county labels themselves are available upon request. So, um, let's see. Let's see. As you can see as we, as I pan around the map, some of these labels will change, jump, um, to different places. And that's because this mapping program is just rearranging these things automatically. It's also why not all of them will be displayed. So if we were to zoom into the Drunkton area, you'll see more and more of these labels pop up as more and more of these districts become clear. And Representative Gannon, I believe you have a question. Go ahead. Not so much a question, but a statement. Um, if people are using a laptop, um, if you look at the upper part of your screen, there are view options. And so when I, when Nick originally pulls this up, it's the view option is fit to window. And so it's a lot smaller. So if you go to a hundred percent original size, it looks a lot bigger on your screen. And it's a lot easier to read. So, um, if you're on a laptop, you might want to try that. Right. So view options and then zoom ratio. And if you look at the little, uh, triangle, it will give you options to look at it. 50% view a hundred percent or even larger. So, um, trying a hundred percent might help you be able to see better. So, um, I just wanted to draw everyone's attention to how I'm going to be using this, uh, map in committee. Um, this is like I said, a draft map using this file that we're looking at. I can print, um, static PDF maps with a little bit of, uh, preparation time. And, um, I can also, if I wanted to start read, start adjusting some of these boundaries and we could get, um, wide update information on what the changes would, uh, reveal. Um, but for the moment, I just wanted to demonstrate how we can navigate around the maps to take a look at various things as they are currently drawn. And, um, make sure that that ever, that works for everyone. I'm working on ways to try to make this program work a little bit better via zoom and working on map design, um, uh, standards to try to make just the whole thing look easier. Um, I think what I will probably do in addition to the current information that we have on the labels is add the number of members for district because currently it's not shown. It's pretty easy to infer, but, uh, it would just make self save everyone a little bit of math, uh, if we were to do that. So I'll update the labels with those and, um, any other, uh, uh, requests for information, um, or, uh, or display, please let me know and I will do my best to accommodate those. And Anthony has this hand up. Representative Anthony, you're muted. And, and we can christen you the first, uh, you're on mute of 2022. So happy new year. Happy new year in return. Anyway, Nick, uh, uh, they're presumably, I tried this, uh, earlier on with the majority map. If you, um, zoom in, uh, I can, I can obviously figure out. Uh, I can, I can figure out, um, uh, how to identify or infer why the lines are all squiggly. There must be in some districts. Uh, I'm just wondering, is there a legend. That goes with this. So I could understand. That a district line, for instance, follows the adequate your river or. Some such so I can make some sense of it. Or will those. A kind of details pop up. When I go to, you know, when I go to the district line, I don't know if that's a good point. So that's going to be another one of the limitations. Um, and it's a really good point. That's another limitation of doing this by zoom, because the static maps that you'll see are, um, they are what they are. Whereas, um, right now, Nick is in the map to do program. And you, we all noticed that as he was zooming closer into Chittenden County, he is seeing some of the water parks, and parks and water bodies. Um, and so, and this now the zoom that we're at right now is actually showing us at the census block level. So if you needed to find 200 people, you could look along the border and find. 200 people. Um, you know, to, to switch districts around this is what I'm building. Because it is it's extremely challenging. And it's not something that is easily exportable to us to play around with it at home. That's what I was afraid of. So Nick, back to you with any other orientation that you want to show us? Actually, I think your your last point kind of said it all, Madam Chair, that's basically what I was hoping to the point I was hoping to make. This provides us what's on screen now provides us with a pretty good example of that. We can see along here, there is the Winooski River, it is labeled. There's a town there's a green town line between Burlington and Winooski. Although you can see that the district purple line does not fall along that. In fact, it falls somewhat south into Burlington, encompasses this area bounded by what I assume is Riverside Drive. And each of these little numbers tells you how many people are living in each one of those census blocks. So that's also why the Winooski population of 7,997 people does not match the district population of 8,563 people, despite the district almost perfectly overlaying Winooski geographically speaking. So this is like, like Madam Chair was saying, this is the sort of granular detail that we can get into, although there's a bit of a trade off on being able to in terms of visualization, being able to show display this sort of information on this district level versus at the state level. That's pretty much it. But that's sort of what we are working with in terms of the power of this mapping software. And when we actually start or if we end up starting to change district boundaries from what they are currently drawn, we can use these census blocks as the smallest geographic or demographic units by which to manipulate boundaries and the size of districts. That's really all I have in terms of basic introduction. And I'm happy to just take questions and comments from here on out. Great representative Hooper. Thank you, Madam Chair. That last comment that Nick made, are we restricted in actually breaking up a census block to meet some kind of parity or geographic boundary sort of? The census block is the smallest unit of known population that we have in our data. And so you'll see some of these blocks have zero or 14 or other blocks have 229 people in them. And so for the purposes of places where we're crossing other political subdivisions will be the smallest unit that we can use is that census block unit. Representative Anthony? Yes, thank you very much. That gives me pause. I once upon a time was a census go to guy collector of current population survey information income wages and whatnot. And the interesting thing is the census blocks are not designed unlike our statute and our charge under the statute. They are not designed to follow any kind of logic that you and I normally are familiar with either either geographic boundaries like mountains or or rivers or political subdivisions or awards. So while you're perfectly right, that's the most granular data you have. The interesting thing is the census block for our purposes is really ripe for manipulation in the sense of putting them together or taking combinations of each of them for purely numerical convenience, since they don't represent any of the statutory standards that we are confronting when we undertake the task anyway. Other questions for Nick on what we are looking at and how we are going to be able to communicate with maps during this remote meeting time. All right, well, let's go ahead and go off screen share so that we can resume our virtual room here and so committee any questions for for Nick or Amron before we take a quick break and then dive into the alternate map that the LAB didn't choose. All right. So committee, let's go ahead and take a 15 minute break. Welcome you all to resume good zooming protocol and hygiene and get out and do some stretching move around get yourself something to drink maybe some fresh air