 Senate government operations, it is Tuesday, January 19th. And just to give a little, some of the ground rules again, and I know that everybody's used to them, but just in case people are watching or not watching or want to end up joining us. We have the committee and our staff are the ones that are actually in the meeting. We have people who have been asked to testify who are, we'll call on. And then there are people who might be observers in the room with us, just as they would be in the state house who may or may not get a chance to speak. That's completely up to the time we have and how we operate. And then there are people watching on YouTube. And I, I ask people, I don't know what the policy is around the YouTube. Chat. I don't know that there's been a policy made about that, but I ask people in this committee not to use the chat. Chat function, except for Gail to post links to things that are brought up. Because if we were in the room, in the committee room, we wouldn't allow side conversations to go on. And that I consider chat to be side conversations. And so we are not, we do not. Don't use it. So with that, Michelle, do you know everybody in this committee? I do. I do. Great. Nice to see everybody. So Michelle isn't normally with us because she doesn't normally deal with municipal issues or elections or any of the things we deal with, but Michelle is the person who knows about cannabis laws and where we've gone in the years that we've been dealing with it. And so what we have in the last year in the bill that we passed, it dealt with the opt in opt out section for municipalities around cannabis establishments. And there is a bill introduced this year. There is a bill introduced this year that would change that. So what I'm going to do is ask Michelle. To go walk through. What is current law, meaning what we passed last year and became law without the governor's signature. And then if anybody has any questions about that, and then ask Michelle to pull out the section on. The bill that we passed, which is the bill that addresses the cannabis changes this year. And then have Tucker and Gwen answer any questions about, oh, and there's Karen. To answer any questions about what, what might. What other responsibilities towns have and authority and responsibility. So we'll, we'll go into that also. Does that make sense committee. Okay. So then Michelle, if you want to start us off with a look at what the current law says around the, and does everybody know what the opt in opt out? Well, I'll let Michelle explain that when we, when you do your. Okay. So I am going to pull up and share the screen or attempt to, hopefully that'll go well. I'm still a little new on the screen sharing. But I'm just going to focus on the opt in opt out as it relates to, to towns. Some things that you need to know in terms of background to look at this one little narrow issue. Are that you wouldn't really see any permitting of, by the state or legislative council. And there's so much that happened obviously last year with regard to the cannabis regulation issue and the passage of 164. But I'm just going to focus on the opt in opt out as it relates to, to towns. And I'm just going to, I'm just going to, I'm just going to focus on the, I'm just going to focus on the opt out. By the state or licensing by the state of any cannabis establishments until a March of 2022. So this isn't immediately right in front of you. The board right now hasn't even been seated yet. There's a nominating committee that will be vetting the names that the governor sent to them. Then the board will have to be seated and then they embark on that. And then they start accepting applications at the state level for cannabis establishments. And so in the meantime, the towns have an opportunity to weigh in as to whether or not they want retail sales of cannabis in their town. So right now there's in the law. And I'm going to work on sharing. Tell me if this is working. Can you see that? Okay. So there is a, there are new chapters within title seven, the placement of cannabis cannabis has always been dealt with. And still is to some extent in title 18 and the health title. Concerning regulated drugs. And so the penalties, they are around illegal possession and dispensing and sale are still in 18, but for a regulation of cannabis establishments, that's going, that is now in title seven. And so there's a section within there that lays forth the process for towns to go through if they want to allow retail cannabis sales in their town. And so for the opt in opt out, there are, it's only the retail sales that have to be approved by the town. All other types of licensees would be permitted as long as they qualify at the state level and are issued a permit. And so there are just, you kind of have an idea of the, of the range of licenses. There are cultivator licenses, wholesaler licenses, product manufacturer licenses, testing labs, retailers. And then there's a six license, which is called an integrated license. And those licenses, there can only be a maximum of five because they're only available to the existing medical cannabis dispensaries. So I know this committee has dealt with this issue over the years. So you're somewhat familiar with it. And, and so for the medical dispensaries, they are vertically integrated, which means that under their current license and going forward, they would be able to do everything from cultivation to sale under the one license in the new adult use market, you have to get different licenses to engage in different, in different activities. And so this one particular new license under the adult use is specifically for dispensaries that want to stay vertically integrated and participate in the adult use market. And so you see in section 863, the language there in subsection A is that prior to a retailer or an integrated licensee, and I will mention that what is the intent here on the integrated licensee is it means the retail portion of the licensee. So it's, I think when we were working on that, it was understood by everybody in the committee, but now there's questions about it. So it's one of the things that S 25 clarifies. So basically prior to either of these types of licensees selling cannabis in a town, the municipality shall affirmatively allowed the operation of those establishments by majority vote, either at an annual or special meeting that's warned for that purpose. And you see on the last line, they can either put both and they can, there's no specific language that's included in the statute as to how the language must appear. They have the option of just putting something on this as, you know, will we allow retail sales? They could say, do we want to allow retailers and integrated licensees? They could say, should we just allow integrated? So they have some options there. And so it has to be put to the town. It can't be something that's done by the select board or the city council. The, the, the residents have to vote on it. And then you'll see in subdivision A two. The, the vote remains in effect until rescinded. By a majority of the voters and in the same manner. So it would have to be put before the voters at an annual. Or special meeting. And you'll see there about halfway down. If, if that affirmative vote is later rescinded by the town. That. That if you have a licensed. Retailer integrated licensee operating in that town. Based on the prior vote, it doesn't mean that if they rescind the vote that all of a sudden it kicks them out of town. So you wouldn't have a situation where somebody said, well, the town voted yes. Now we've invested this money. We've bought a building. We set up a whole, our whole operation. And now they've changed their minds. And we got to shut it all down. Subsection B is that any municipality. That. Hosts a cannabis establishment can establish a cannabis control commission. And this is similar to what they have for liquor. Is that would be composed of the commissioners who may be members of the municipal legislative body. I think with liquor, it's that required that they are the members of the, of the municipal body. But I think. Actually it might have been in this committee in, in Seneca ops that you guys wanted to expand it a little bit to have some additional options for other people to sit on those local commissions. And that commission can issue and administer local control licenses. And so those are, those would be separate from the state license. So there's all types of requirements that have to be met in order to obtain a state license. To do that. And this would be, separate based on the town's inherent authority to be able to regulate with regard to certain aspects of what they, what, of the business. And you'll see right below there, the commissioners may condition the issuance of the local license upon compliance with any bylaw adopted pursuant to. 24 BSA 44 14. And I should have refreshed my memory with the local license for any violations. So if they're not in compliance, because I think that's one of the questions that comes up is, well, maybe the. The cannabis establishment is in compliance with state law, but what if they're in violation of whatever the law is that they're not in compliance with. The commission also has the ability to suspend or revoke a local control license for any violations. So if they're not in compliance, because I think that's one of the questions that comes up is, well, maybe the. If they're in violation of whatever you have at the local level, and do you have any authority there? The board has to adopt rules. So this is talking about the cannabis control board has to adopt the rules relating to the municipalities issuance of a local control license. Again, I believe that that is modeled after what you have for liquor. Subsection C. Prior to issuing a license, the board shall ensure that the applicant has obtained a local control license from the municipality if it's required. So again, what you have there is that in order for the, to be in, to get your license at the state level, you have to have this town sign off and say they've, if there isn't a required local license that they have been able to obtain that, that local license. And then the subsection D is just kind of belts and suspenders that a municipality cannot prohibit the operation of a cannabis establishment through ordinances. So you might have heard, you know, I think in past years and anticipation of some type of legislation passing like this, that some towns passed ordinances that said, you know, there shall not be any cannabis businesses in this town. Those would not have the effect of prohibiting it. I mean, it's all, they're all prohibited with regard to the retailers and integrated licensees unless you do affirmative vote, but it's specifically saying that you can't. So like I say, they didn't want a cultivator in the town. They couldn't, they couldn't prohibit that cultivator from being in the town. If they obtained their state license, they couldn't prohibit them through the ordinance. And I think that's about it for this one. Does anybody have any questions about this one? Anybody, Brian. Thank you. Chair. Michelle. The ordinance, and I am familiar with at least one town in my district that did ask that. Those are normally approved by the local legislative body and not a townwide or municipally wide vote. Is that correct? I believe so, but I would, I would turn to Tucker for those types of questions. Okay. So this is saying that even if a local legislative body, like a select board. Or a city council said, we don't want any of these establishments. This supersedes that. Well, you wouldn't need to. You wouldn't, even if it didn't have that, you wouldn't need to adopt. An ordinance to prohibit retail sales because they're prohibited everywhere unless you affirmatively opt in. So no, there's going to be no retail sales until, until town say, yes, we want retail sales in our town. With regard to the other types of licensees. So you have somebody who wants to maybe put up a testing lab or something like that. You could not adopt an ordinance through the select board or city council. That prohibited. One of those other licensees. You can regulate them through your inherent authority through the local licensing, but you couldn't prohibit them. Thank you. And through zoning. Right. Okay. I'm going to click over to. As 25. So it's got a few issues in here. But the first one is. Amending this exact section that we were just discussing. And then we're going to move on to the next slide. So you'll see the new language on there. Is that it clarifies on line 10. What I was talking about earlier that just making it clear that we're talking about the retail portion. Does it not show up? Are you seeing any document? The same one we had up before. Huh. Okay. Let me try something different. Yeah. If you have a document in your document, you might have it in your document. If you have a document in your document, if you have a document in your document, you might have to use a word doc. Then you might try stop share. And then bring that document up in word and then share again, and it'll show your active word window with the new document in it. Let's see. How about that. Yeah. Good. Thank you, Tucker. So, I think it's possible to post that. I don't see this. This isn't on our website as a bill into committee, obviously, because I think it's gone into judiciary. Is it possible to post it? Gail for us to, so that we can see it on our website. Well, we're talking about it. Cause it's too small. Senator Clark said I did post it. So it should come up shortly if it's not there right now. Okay. Great. Thanks. I'll double check. Okay. Great. And it's S 25 for anybody who's just trying to, it's like to pop it up if it's not up on the page yet. So you'll see on line 10, there's just the clarification that we're just talking about the retail portion of the integrated because when you have medical dispensaries, they may have their cultivation operation in one location. And then you'll see it in one particular location. And so it's not always assumed that when you have an integrated licensee that they have all of their activities in one particular location. Then you'll see down on lines 14 or 15, striking through the language around whether you place retailers or integrated. And it's just focusing on our, is the town going to allow retail sales. So it sets a date of not later than March 1st, 2022. All municipalities shall place on the ballot to the following question. Shall license cannabis retailers and integrated licensees be permitted to sell cannabis to adults 21 years of age and older in this town. Yes or no. And the chair can speak to why this, but why this type of language? But I think what some senators were hearing was that. A lot of towns were struggling with, well, what should the language say? And, you know, does it all need to be the same? And what should the question be? And so this just kind of lays it out there. And we can play with this language if you want to pursue this, this provision with kind of how you want to present the question. This idea is based on what happened with towns on, with regard to alcohol. And so it used to be that the towns would all vote on that. And then on a regular basis. And then I believe in 1968. And I can pull up the statute and send it to Gail. Just if you want to take a look for just for fun. It said that all towns had to put the issue around alcohol sales on the ballot at a certain date. And so that all towns were voting on it at the same time. And so it was a huge issue around. And so it was a huge issue around their vote unless the town went back later and changed their vote. So it moved away from them constantly having to revisit the issue and they all took a vote at the same time. And so this is, this is that same idea. And I think there was a huge issue around. Speaking by omission. I mean, adopting something by omission that they're. Because towns, if they just kept putting it off and putting it on the ballot, they would have to go back to the same time. And so that was a huge issue. And so that was a big issue. I think that it was a good idea to let people who were interested in entering the market have an idea of which towns were going to be allowing retail sales and which ones weren't. And that if it was just kind of. Constantly changing, it might be hard to get the, the new regulated market up and running. So, and there's no other changes to that section. So it's just this one with regard to the ballot language. So you can see. In the. I do. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Just, it's just about the day. I mean, I understand you're saying March 1st 2022, because that's when these establishments could start getting licensed right. But it seems like unless they vote on it, when was the town to be voting on something like this? They couldn't do it next town meeting, meaning not this town meeting, 2021. But they'd have to have it done before 20 town meeting of 2022. election, right? It would just be part of an ongoing election procedure. When might they vote on this? They could vote on it anytime they wanted to. So it has to be like a special vote for the town. They could vote on it at this town meeting if they wanted to. Well, sure, if they had time. All right, I was just curious about the date and we might we might in thinking about that we might want to change it from March 1st to whenever the day after town meeting in March in 2022 is that's kind of what I was thinking was logically people would want to do it until meeting day. But I think I looked it up, but I think town meeting. I think that is town meeting day March first really? I think it's the first I thought it was the first Tuesday after the first Monday. Or is that us? Oh, Tucker, it is the first Monday. I thought, okay, it's the first Tuesday in March. It might very well be March 1st 2022, although I haven't. Yeah, I think I had looked it up and that was what I was anticipating was town meeting day. Okay. Okay, that's fine. I was anticipating town meeting day. Also, I just didn't know the people at first so early. Michelle is the first. Michelle is spot on. That's the date. Big surprise. Michelle's always spot on. And I have a question. I don't know if you can see me. So any other the alternative to this was to change it from an opt into an opt out. But Madam chair, can I ask a question? Yes, I'm sorry, Kasia. I can't see anybody because the share. Can we take the document down now unless anybody has more questions about it? There. Thank you. Okay. Senator Rom. I'm calling in a newbie question and I swear that Gwen did not ask me to ask this question. I can't remember. Do towns get to include a 1% local option tax with this question? Oh, I will tell you what I have another bill actually that relates to this. Currently, the towns will get nothing except some insane fees that the state will decide and will put on, which means that it will increase the it will increase the cost to the consumer because you're piling on fees upon fees upon fees, state fees and local fees. The town that does have a 1% option right now, sales tax option can apply it to that because it is a sale. Okay. The Senate had allowed a 2% option for just this product. And the House did not agree. And we then have a port. We I am suggesting and the Senate voted on a portion of what comes to the state. So 14% of the sales go into the general fund. Two of that 12% would go to the I mean 12 to their and 2% of the sales would go to this towns by a formula designed by the cannabis board. But that was defeated. And we're we'll try again this year. Great. I don't know if that made any sense or not. That didn't. I support trying again. Senator Clarkson. So I'd like to go back to the question you just asked about opt in versus opt out. It I never was happy that it was an opt in. I do we have the opportunity with this bill to turn it into an opt out? We we could suggest that I think it would be a harder Anthony, will you take over for a second here? Sure. But I can't I don't know exactly what was in Jeanette's mind when she got distracted. But she's just being asked a question. So the opt out would be harder. She thinks to achieve politically, I think. Was that was that the issue with the conference committee? Was that the opt out was a harder thing to get through? The House would not accept an opt out. Right. That's what I recall. Right. As we followed this last year. Yeah, it's too bad. Anyway, there we are. So changing that at this point probably things haven't changed in the house. Not enough. And VLCT was very successful in this because I think this was a VLCT choice to have an opt in. They did choose that and I'll let them speak to that. But I think they were more concerned about the revenue sharing than and would have would have given up opt in opt out for revenue sharing. But we got neither. Karen or Gwen, do you want to comment on opt in opt out? Yeah. And revenue sharing, if you want. Sure. Thank you. I'm the but I'm chair nailed the the head of the nail with that. I think that we put forth the proposal of the opt opt in, but we're willing to take it down if we got some revenue sharing or a out of the gate, local option cannabis tax of some sort. And we got neither. Does that but you did get the opt in. I mean, you did get that to be fair, we got an opt in for only retail. We have every other type of operation going into every town without any say. So there's, you know, whether it's a manufacturing or light industrial sort of operation, if they're doing testing or, you know, a laboratory or maybe production or if they're cultivators, no matter how big or small and everything in between. So we kind of kind of got into that, but it was only for retail. But all those other facilities or establishments, I guess, is what they're called will have to comply with local zoning. So you couldn't put a manufacturer if you have a residential area and you don't allow any kind of manufacturing there, maybe a home office. They'd have to comply with whatever one assumes. Well, that's up to the communities to enforce their local zoning. If they choose not to enforce their local zoning, then and and currently this is not considered an agricultural product in the sense that it does not. Agricultural products or agriculture does not have to comply with zoning regulations. They have kind of carte blanche, but this is not considered an agricultural endeavor for purposes of getting out of zoning or paying sales tax on their purchases. Am I right about that, Michelle? Yes. So any more questions or. Concerns or anything about about this, that if we would set that date and. And Clark, I thank you. I think this may backfire on Representative Ansel because she hates local option taxes. And this is going to if towns are not able to adequately revenue share, which has been a problem ever since this boat was passed. I mean, more towns are going to want to do local option tax. So it's just going to drive local option tax, which, of course, Representative Ansel is going to hate. Well, it was her her choice. She the House could have gone along with us with this revenue sharing proposal that we had, which seemed to us reasonably fair that. And in it so well, so that was the House's choice. Right, because currently just remind me, I should know this, but with alcohol sales. The license, it is it's shared. There's a percent that goes to the state and the percent the town keeps. Isn't that right? No, I don't think so. Is that right? That's right. The statutory fees for certain types of licenses are split between the state and the municipality. But again, it depends on the type of licensee. And I believe last session there was a miscellaneous alcoholic beverages bill that was going to allow municipalities to retain portions of third class license fees that are administered specifically at the local level. But to date, that has not been codified. So I think it's really only first class licensees where there is revenue sharing on those fees between the state and local legislative or municipalities. But it's it's a sharing of the fees. It's not a sharing of the revenue. And that is where this was so important is because we kept hearing from the town, I mean, from the House Committee that they were very interested in ways to share, be able to share revenue with with municipalities. And yet and that this is a brand new source of revenue. So it doesn't remove any revenue from any other any other stream. This is brand new. So this is the ideal place to begin to share revenue. But they didn't see it that way. They the comment in our conference committees a number of times was we're very willing to start looking at sharing revenue with towns. And we kept saying, but where are you going to do that? Are you going to take it from the regular sales tax or from the property transfer tax or what are you going to do? And they said, well, we'll think of something, but not now. So I'm just telling you that that was so, Senator Plene, I think you had a question. Well, you kind of just answered it in a way. This seems odd. They want to do revenue sharing, but they said no to revenue sharing. That's just confusing. And you're sharing just to be clear is different than the local option tax. I mean, I know the difference is just it's different. But the way they say they want it, but then they rejected it. I don't get it. Well, they rejected it with a brand. The obvious choice was with a brand new source of revenue, which so it wouldn't impact any other revenue source, but they just were unmovable. Do you think it was more that the Ways and Means Committee was unmovable? Oh, yes. Yeah, as opposed to the other members of the House may have been open to it. Well, if, yeah, they may have been. Senator Clarkson. So do you think in light of covid and the challenges, municipalities and states are facing? I know we see that there may be hope down the down the track with the Biden-Harris administration, but do you think there's any more understanding that that revenue sharing might be essential to for municipalities facing some of the covid revenue challenges we're facing? No, do you think the atmosphere has changed at all about around revenue sharing is like, that's what I'm asking. My guess is, and I hate to say this, but as long as the Finance Committee is made, I mean, Ways and Means is made up by the members that are there now, it is not a change. So I don't know what more to say. But we do, I do have a bill and I suspect it won't go to our committee, but we'll go to Finance because it is a finance issue. So we'll see what what happens. And just finally, would the revenue sharing be with the specific town that has the retailer or revenue sharing be broader than that? The way we left it in our proposal was that the cannabis board would come up with some kind of a formula and they could do it in. I mean, we didn't get into that kind of detail, but they would do it by if if there are five kinds of establishments, right? So they could come up with a formula. I don't know how they would do it based on the type of impact that might be felt by a retail establishment as opposed to a a producer or so that they would come up with the formula of how and then we would approve that formula of how it would be shared. So if a town presumably had no no establishments at all, then they probably wouldn't get any share in any of the revenue. If they had an establishment of every sort, then they might get a bigger share of the revenue, but that was up to the board to determine. OK, Senator Clarkson. So, you know, it's just I mean, now that I'm it's all coming back. It's all coming back. And I mean, the challenge is what's the carrot for towns to opt in? I mean, to, you know, if they don't get if they aren't a local option town, option tax town, what is the carrot for them if there's no revenue sharing like the zip? When did you want to I just wanted to comment that most of the cities and towns we've heard from who have are either putting it on the ballot for March or are thinking of doing as soon as you know, the covid issue sort of died down and they can do a special special election or put it on a ballot. They are towns that have the local option sales tax in place already. Most of the towns that don't are now trying to figure out how they might splice and dice the sales tax because they have interest in applying it to cannabis establishments, but not necessarily every establishment in town. And is there a way to word a a Charter amendment or or even introduce a charter to the legislature to adopt a cannabis tax of some sort or just limit the sales to cannabis establishments? It hasn't been done before, obviously, but it's worth a shot. The town of Eden last year had a Charter amendment for I think it was rooms and meals, but I think they took out the meals and only applied it to rooms. So at least that's one example of a town that's done it a little bit differently. So I think you're absolutely correct, Senator Clarkson, is that a lot of towns when there's that carrot right there, there are more apt to line up first in line and when there is no incentive. Right. So this is really a classic example. Be careful what you wish for or because you may get the unintended consequence of ballooning local option taxes, which I know ways and means is going to be unhappy with or ballooning charters that are designed just for this purpose, which is what we saw before when we wouldn't let them have hire their town clerks. Right. Right. Or no or no or no towns opting to have the marijuana retailers in their town. Thanks. Because there's no benefit to it. Oops. Yeah. Yes, please, Senator Calamore. Thank you, Madam Chair. So back to the question at hand, if I could. The thrust of S 25 doesn't change the opt in or out out out situation. All it does is require municipalities to take a vote by a certain date. Is that correct? Michelle. And so I know it was Senator Benning that introduced the bill. I'm just wondering what why what was the problem with what we passed before? Why the why did he feel the need to to put a temporal sort of limit on this? Well, I can tell you because I'm on there too. OK. Because if you didn't, if a town just didn't have a boat, say the town of Putney, we have we have a center. I mean, we have a pretty vibrant, we hope, little village center here. Right, Tucker. And Santa's Village. So we if our select board just never put it on, never put it on, never put it on, never put it on a retailer wouldn't know. Should I I think I have a great business that could land in Putney. I think that it would be great. We have Landmark College here. Yay, we have a lot of stuff. And so I want to put a retail establishment in Putney. But I don't know if I'd even be allowed to because it's prohibited until they have a vote. And so my it it it gives some. Clarity, clarity and some deadlines for people to know where it can be and where it can be. And Tucker, if you have a better explanation than that, I just thank you. It was a wonderful explanation of how a legislative body could, as you put it, delay the vote by omission and never bringing it up. But unless we forget, based on recent discussions in this committee, voters can add an article to the ballot by petition. So potentially you could have five percent of the voters in a municipality petition to add this as an article on the ballot and the local legislative body would be compelled to allow the opt-in vote to happen. Right, that good. And if you had five percent of the voters that were so motivated, it would probably take some some lobbying by whoever the retail establishment people were that wanted to that might want to set up in Putney. Thank you, Senator Clarkson. May I ask when how many towns have it on the ballot this March? I think quite a few like five or six. Well, that's not quite a few. But I don't I don't know exactly where we're at right now. But I as far as I heard there were four, but I there might be more that are adding it. I don't I don't have a I don't have an updated list. Yeah, not that many. Well, I think a lot of the towns are I mean, this is another thing that I I'll take this opportunity if it's OK to comment is that we have a we're putting a lot of trust in the cannabis control board to look out for the interest of municipalities. You know, even the the board hasn't been set up. The rules and the regulations haven't been put out. It won't be put out for quite a while. Towns are not able other than their their zoning. And again, their zoning might be impacted by the rules that are promulgated by by the state. They have very little time as is to understand what what the implications might be to how they regulate if they regulate and how how they might change or consider changing their zoning to adapt to the standards that are in place for how they're going to license and permit these establishments. You know, obviously, towns haven't even put together cannabis control boards. You know, they're being asked to have voters and in towns educate voters on making a decision that they literally know nothing about other than just saying, do you want this or not? But not knowing or understanding the true implications of what's coming their way. And so towns, as is, are I've had several conversations with town managers and administrators who are saying, you know, we want to we want to deal with this, but we have so much going on right now with town meeting, we are just trying to like get our budget adopted. We can't even consider this. We know that the voters want to do it, but we haven't had enough interest from voters to put it on just yet, maybe next year or later on this year. We'll do it when it's a little bit easier. And so I think that that increased time crunch will will not be appreciated by a lot of towns who are really struggling as is to understand what the implications of the potential rules that are coming down from the states. And when voters are asking their select boards and their town managers and such, you know, what does this mean? What are the implications? What are there? They don't have answers for them because they don't know yet. And I think this is putting the priority on businesses and their ability to get what they need, but very little consideration, if any consideration is being given to the town's needs and what the voters may want. And I think that's a real problem. It's been a problem as is with the law, but it would be even increased with this because voters and town needs would be put below the needs of businesses and potential licensees. So are you saying that this the March 22, 22 date is too soon? I think for a lot of towns, it absolutely is. I think the large I think what you'll find is that a lot of the larger towns who have professionalized zoning officials that are fully staffed, it might not be a problem. They're probably already on it, but a lot of the smaller communities that are don't have those resources, they're they're going to be struggling. And I think that the what their problem is now is that they just don't have enough information to educate their voters and they can't find any information anywhere and they will be essentially being asked to weigh in something while not being fully prepared to understand what the implications are. And so I think that the March date is very ambitious for, I would say, most towns, but nothing is preventing towns right now from going in and voting and the towns that are feeling really, you know, you know, we don't even care what the regulations are going to say, we'll deal with it anyways. They're already going to the ballot box. And there's a lot of them that are going to consider it later on in the year, early next year anyways. So I just I don't think we really understand the the need for expediting this just yet, because I think we haven't even gotten to the March town meeting date to see what the what the results are. And I think that, additionally, if a town decides or a city decides and the voters decide actually, because they're the ones who are making the decision, whether or not they want to allow retail operations in their community, they're going to be rewarded by probably having the first licensees in the town because their businesses will know where they are accepted. And so they're they're taking a gamble, but they might be getting an award in the long run. So. Yeah. So maybe maybe what we should do is I'm kind of aware of the town here and I time and I see the town little and Jason have joined us. So maybe what we should do is a Michelle, if you could give us a timeline of when decisions are supposed to be. We know they're already a little behind the schedule because the Senate was supposed to have confirmed all the cannabis board and pointies by the 15th of January. And clearly, we haven't done that yet. Just for your information, there were ninety four people who applied for those three positions. But if you could, Michelle, do a timeline for a timeline and I will send that to Gail as soon as I finish up right here. And I'll send that to you. And just so you know, is that the based on this time on it, like the chair said, it's probably going to need a little adjusting perhaps. But who knows. But the board is supposed to have adopted the rules for for the cannabis establishments by March 1st of 2022. So I realize that towns have to work on getting their language, getting things on the ballot prior to that. But are supposed to the idea was that the rules would be completed by then. And certainly the draft rules will be out and available for comment well before preparations for what goes on the ballot for town meeting. So it won't be it won't be a total mystery. OK, so I think that yeah, if the rules are supposed to be out by March 1st and then they're supposed to put it on their ballot by January 14 or 23rd, that is pushing it a little bit. So let's let's take this up again and hear some thoughts about whether it should be moved out even even a few months. It doesn't have to be moved out a full year. It could be moved out five or six months or whatever. But and hear from some town clerks, maybe, and some select board members. Great. All right. Is that OK? Yes. Yeah. All right. So let's let's put it on. This isn't a real a terribly high priority because I don't think this bill is going to go any place really fast. So in a couple of weeks, we'll put it on. And, Gwen, if you could help us, then get some select board members and people to come in and talk to us. Is there any particular towns or cities or input that you're looking for regarding this to help me? No, maybe some that have town managers, some that don't, some that. OK, I would think that the people who are considering having retail establishments are our communities with some kind of village center. I can't, for example, imagine Dumberston thinking about having a retail establishment. They have no I mean, they have two convenience store gas stations. That's it. They have no village center. So but so maybe a town like that that may or may not even consider it. I don't know. OK. Yeah. Maybe Senator Clarkson. Yeah, maybe towns that have put it on the ballot. I mean, it would be just interesting to have a mix of managers, non managers, towns that have actually chosen to put it on the ballot and what their work was. OK. Size, a range of size of towns. And demographic would be interesting, given our social equity caucus work on this bill and the work group, we actually it's about I need to speak to the chair, because there were there were some ideas that were raised during the course of our work group's work. So not for today, but no, another point. OK. And then if and then at the same time, if we want to, we can look at any of the other municipal issues around the the way the bill as past is and doing if we need to make any changes around any of those good because they're not in here. And I can I can I add something? Yeah. I would just always suggest as one of the towns you hear from is Barlington. I know that and I don't know where things stand now, but I know that Barlington was looking at at creating ballot language for this March. And some of the things they were talking about, considering we're putting certain conditions on the vote, you know, and I don't know that they have authority under the statute to be able to do that. And so I think maybe hearing from them, I did hear that Montpelier just agreed to something. I don't know what that looks like. But I, you know, I think it'd be good to to get some of those because I think towns are taking very different approaches. And I'm not really sure where Barlington's ending up on that. And yeah. OK, good thought. OK, so we will get this set up for a couple of weeks from now. OK. Thank you. Thanks, Michelle. Thanks a lot. Good to have you in our committee. OK. Committee, we're going to look, we're going to hear the exciting news about the census. We have Jason Brotman with us and Tom Little. Jason is the state librarian, but I don't know what your title is around census, I think you're the census guru. Is that and Tom Little is ahead of the legislative reapportionment redistricting board, LAB, right? Legislative apportionment board. That's the official title. Yes, Senator. OK. So with that and I don't know if everybody saw yesterday that the census director resigned yesterday, he was under apparently under a great deal of pressure to make sure that he didn't count any undocumented citizens, any undocumented residents. And he just resigned. He has one day he could have held on for one more day. Why? Why would the leadership changes? Huh? The leadership changes significantly. I know. But why would we want him to hang on? Oh, yeah. He was not acting in our best interest. He was certainly not our people. So I'm I'm glad to see him go off. As a matter of fact. Um, Senator Rom. I just wanted to say, while our state librarian is getting his presentation up. I don't know if this was discussed and I'm completely wrong about this, but I just experienced a really strong census taking operation in Vermont. I just feel like they were at my door three times. I ran into them out in the neighborhood and I just don't know when there might be an opportunity to say thank you to to Vermonters who who made that possible as well. But I just thought it was a really robust census and I was really proud of us here here. Thank you. Yeah, I think you're right. So just so let's get some kind of an update on it and I'll let the two of you do this however you see fit in terms of your presentation and what you want to say to us and knowing full well that in if you ever get any numbers in twenty twenty two in January, we will have to establish a redistricting committee in the Senate and then then our work begins. Your work is beginning now and then our work begins then. And Tom, I apologize for not giving you a call back. Hey. So if you two want to take it away, I would you know everybody on the committee first? You think so? I've had been there a few times before one in one role or another for we have a new member. And I know that I know you do. Very I would suggest, Jason, if you don't mind going going first and letting us all know what okay what pipeline you have to the US Census Bureau and its data and what progress it is or isn't making. Oh, starting off with the easy stuff, I see. Well, I'll just add the apportionment board has been fortunate to be getting its information from Michael Chernick has been keeping a close eye through the National Council of State Legislatures on which takes it keeps a very close eye on the census and we've also been working with John Adams at the Vermont Center for Geographic Information who does likewise. That's right. All right, Gail, am I able to share my screen? Because I have 17 slides that I'd like for everyone to examine. And then we'll get into the part of the matter and looking at what Vermont has done. Just give you a snapshot if I can do that. Jason, I just made you a co-host. So you should be able to share your screen. Thank you. All right. Really? All right. Everybody should see something that says congratulations, Vermont. Hopefully you are perfect, perfect. All right. One of the things that was, I would say, starting off, these are the persons who I still can be in contact with regarding the census. Jeff Beller is right in Albany and definitely has his finger on the pulse of what information I would say can be shared with me regarding the status of the amount of information to be released. At last conversation, they are still working to get the report out. As you know, they did not fulfill their constitutional duty and have it provided at the end of last year. But there also seems to be and again, this is my own personal added piece into this information that is a warranting lots of interesting ways of discussing the census. The report is probably now best to be given to the incoming administration. There was a large effort to have that provided to the current administration, but that, of course, have a lot of backlash is the easiest way to say that. So now that the current president will not be getting that, it is going to be for the new administration. Now, one of the reasons that people were concerned about the current administration obtaining those census numbers was going to be the removal of unauthorized citizens from that. Vermont had a very nice amount of participation from a variety of people. And that definitely caused some concern, particularly if you start removing population counts from each state, it has impacts to the US House of Representatives, which also then has an impact on our college. So here is what you're looking at as far as the New England contingent, plus New York, with the amount of things working together, particularly housing units. What this presentation is going to do is just give you a look back at all the work that we kind of, in a sense, did, which was quite stunning. So within this, you're looking again at the generous amount of what we consider the population to be at the current moment. Official numbers have not been tallied out. That, however, would be a little bit of a sad note that did change because Vermont was close to about six hundred twenty nine. So there is a bit of a decrease within them. The housing units were quite just stunning. We were able to count a large amount of tracks of housing that, as I understand it, we had not really done before, which meant that we dealt with second and third homes. We dealt with what is a home, what is a dwelling, what's a residence, where people were at. And also people were counted because Vermont did a really wonderful thing by having the homeless population taken off the street and into some form of shelter, which then allowed people to be counted even more. So that was a very unique thing that COVID, unfortunately, but in a nice way, allowed us to kind of do. These were some of the languages that were, in a sense, needing to be spoken to assist people with the census across the New England item. And here is a little old Vermont right here in this slither. And so within that, you can see a really interesting amount of languages spoken and particularly how many people had the staff at. As you go through, Vermont had a lot of people apply to these jobs. So, yes, it does look like a nice thing as a temporary job on your resume to be a federal employee. But that was quite impressive. Now, why is that impressive? We were told that we were not going to be meeting our quota for at least having over a thousand people hired. And within three months, we had five thousand people actually apply. As you can see, three thousand were selected. And then they actually hired almost fifteen hundred. So a really, really strong showing of people going to do this level of work. Across the state, we had a bunch of partners. And within that, as you can see, yes, one thousand four hundred and sixty nine different sets of partners, twelve local complete count committees, events, one thousand and twenty four and commitments to do things with the census over three thousand total. There was a goal set by the census to do like forty four thousand. But that was completely as you can see pushed where we ended up with fifty five as a region. Within that, the people who, in a sense, assisted us in a variety of ways. You should see the two largest group to the twenty nine percent and all of a sudden, the twenty five. So you had nonprofits and government, the rest, business, faith-based and, of course, education. But again, really, really wonderful groups pushing out participation of the census. The MQA or Mobile Questionnaire Assistance was something that the census allowed itself to do where they would go out and actually do census help for people who actually needed in different types of areas that could also be remote. From what we had four hundred and forty nine little tiny events. And that's quite a lot. If you consider, we did not really start these events until after June. Because remember, as COVID was coming across the state early on, the summer allowed us to be able to do a little bit more things. People started to be able to be able to come out. And the census workers could actually go out into the areas in a very safe way with precautions, self reporting. Now, here is where Vermont continues to lag. This is the most important number. Self reporting means that you go out, you give it your all and everybody does it within a set time frame of doing it on their own, as opposed to what is called the non-follow-up unit, which means they're going to knock on your door, you didn't respond, they're going to ask you to participate. As a state, Vermont ranks forty four within that, but sixty point five percent within this, we did have a really nice item, which was we completed the census very, very early, as compared to a lot of states. And we ended up in the number one position for actually doing that. So while the census was completed, the accuracy of it is now the item that people want to discuss, because there are a lot of things. The Bureau itself does acknowledge that there are problems with the reporting. There are questions about how fast the work has been done. Also, a lot of things need to be cleaned up. And so that is the next challenge for the Census Bureau of this here. Just an item to show you the top 10 and top five counties as you can see Chittenden right here at seventy six percent within that in a Washington sixty two and an orange. And then here are the actual towns that have some very, very unique items. So kudos to these people. I mean, eighty five percent is like stellar for Jericho. It's just amazing to see people actually really, really participating. Here is what was supposed to happen, as you can tell, the apportionment was supposed to go to the president. They are still working on that at the current moment. What is a problem is one thing is Congress has not picked up the request for relief. This could have been actually avoided a while back if they had done so because the request was to actually have everything pushed into April and in May to actually release the numbers. Congress has still not picked up the relief for the census. And so things are not necessarily on the whole, but they're just going to be given when they can best be given itself. Any questions at the current moment? Here are all the little wonderful items that people did. Jason, I'm going to just say if people have questions, please, just while the presentation is going on, just unmute yourself and ask the question because I can't see you all anyway, so I couldn't call on you. So just just ask. OK, Madam Chair. It's Keisha. I just want to say for the record, I did self-report, but we moved. And so they were coming to my door because the people left and moved back to Canada had not reported. So I did try to self-report and encourage others to do so. They want to make sure, yes, the Census Bureau wanted to do that fully. Here are all just the wondrous amount of things that people did across Vermont to get the census going. So as you can see, you have Governor Scott kicking it off with the formulation of the state Complete Count Committee for months first. And I'm very important to have that done. Number two, here we were at our kickoff meeting with our, in a sense, partners from the census and a variety of people from across the state, those smiling people were just wonderful. Of course, they did not know when this was going to be occurring after with COVID because that was taking in February. So a lot of people seemed to happen after that everything changed. We also had a logo that was created. Libraries also helped within that and within that. We also had Chief Don Stevens meet with a variety of people. And here, if you've never seen him, is Dr. Steven Dillingham, who has resigned. He is there within that. And you also had Bob Stock, who is my counterpart here from the Federal Bureau. This really helped me a lot in making sure that we could push through as much as possible. Other items and aspects you have were COVID-19 were challenges as you can see restrictions on gathering. Usually would have count students, particularly academic areas already in the spring, but none of that actually occurred until later. And of course, we had the summer of social injustice to be talked about and all that occurred within this. So you have, of course, the mayor, again, the Burlington contingent, our congressional leaders did a wonderful amount of items that had PSAs. Senator Sanders also pushed up blog information. We had something within seven days of PSA. They, of course, were unhappy because I'll never forget I got a clipping from them that said you need to spend more money to promote the census in seven days. Please do so as chair. So we tried to do as much as we could, followed by we asked people in our local complete committees to do exceptional things, which were put signage out, how to host those tiny events, create posters. So a lot of things continued to go out. Food banks, in a sense, helped. There are images where the Bureau, in a sense, spent a Black Lives Matter protest. You can't see it, but they're kind of right here. If you're near to the blue tent within that, you had the MQA's, the Mobile Questionnaire Assistance, go out to a variety of locations across Vermont. You also had, again, food banks put items inside places to let people remember that they should participate as much as possible. With that, we also had a lot of news information that came up from across the region. These let people know, in a sense, exactly what they were doing from a variety of items. People were in barber shops. People went to hair salons, a whole host of things all across the contingent when it comes to the region itself. Within that, the census is right now starting to train people on the information that it does have and prepare them for when it does release the full cache of information. And you can, in a sense, I can send those links to if you are interested in taking some census items. Within that, people also need to remember that the census always has surveys going. The most common one that people should remember is usually going to be the American Community Survey, which is done every two years. They also do population counts and also housing surveys as well. And they continually do economic or government items when it comes to the census. The decennial is the easiest one to remember. They only occur in years that end in zero. So the next one will be 2030. And, of course, this year's, last year's census was the first to be done virtually. And that kind of concludes all that I actually have questions. Again, it was a wonderful item to look back as far as what the census took place in Vermont and what we actually tried to do. Oh, thanks. Thank you. Jason, again, we applaud your work on this and your leadership where Vermont is so grateful you. It was one robust census. And I really take my hat off to you. I'm just curious, how do we I hate to ask, but I feel like I need to. How does how does how does our how does our response rate compare to 2010? It's a little bit better. I'm still waiting to get the full amount. But again, some of the people I could talk to, they let me know, like, yes, it's a little bit better. But, you know, I had expected more as almost probably like a point higher than than where we were last time. It's still better than nothing. But again, it did increase. And that's going to do a variety of unique things. Yes, I am profoundly disappointed. Windsor County didn't do better. When you said that there's a lot of places where I thought we would have had much more participation, but maybe it takes time. Maybe people were tired in 2020 was a very, very rough year. The wonderful thing that I can say that Vermont hopefully will be getting is much more robust data about locations and geography and also where people are living or say that they're living and what's available and what's not. So that's one of the things that I believe Vermont is going to get when they finally release that. The problem again will be how accurate is it? Because the Bureau usually takes a lot of time to clean up data as they go through. And if you were reading, I can send you links if you would like to. There are people who are questioning the validity of the data because of the way it happened so fast and what actually needed to be done. You do also have parts of the Bureau being asked, well, did you close things too too fast? Did you not clean the data up this way? And so that right now is the biggest conversation that's occurring in the Bureau itself. Jason, did we I know Windham County was very, very low for a long time. And then there was some some and the legislators kept putting out things in our letters and our press releases and stuff saying, please, please, please. And then there was some information afterwards that related to second homes and how how the count was low because of the we have on the western side of the county, a ton of second homes. In fact, some towns have more second homes than first. So I wonder, did that ever get cleared up? It did as best we could. Again, because we had such an amazing amount of people working to clear up those housing stocks, I can't wait to see what the full data comes out with. But people do need to remember when you're taking the census, particularly in the senior year, the housing stock is like a wait. And what can occur is there's a two step process for those persons who do have their house in Vermont as a second home. When they're completing their census, they are to check a box that actually says what their primary, of course, residence is and where their second home is. And once that is done properly, it removes that out of Vermont's weight and allows it to go up a little bit. But if people didn't do that, it's going to sit there as if a body is in the house, the residence, and that means the person would be seen as well. Obviously, you just didn't take the census. So we have to it's not a strike against you. It just creates more of a problem down the line for your account. Yeah. And I think that happened a lot in Wyndham County at first. And so, Senator Romney, oh, Senator Clarkson, I mean, Colomor. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Jason, you mentioned that we were overall better by about a point than we were in the last census. Do you have a sense of which states? I don't want to say did better, but had more of an increase than we did and maybe any reasons why? Oh, my goodness. From what I have been reading and also listening to and in conversations with, there are some when it comes to population dynamics, I am very surprised that we were losing a little bit of our population while our surrounding people narrow, such as Maine gained, which was quite interesting to me. Of course, all the others included New York, but everybody else around us gained, even if it was just small within that, I am not particularly sure why that's the case. I think there were a lot of actions that they might have taken earlier. One of the things that I don't want to necessarily complain about. But I wished we had started sooner. A lot of states, particularly your big state, New York started like in 2015. And you can see why that's so important. For states like Vermont, yes, we might say, oh, we can do it in a year. I think it would be best to have if we're going to do prepare for 2030, maybe around 2027, the state gets people together and start saying, OK, now how are we going to map out how we're going to count this? And that way people start paying more attention to it. Because those states that I have been on the call with across the country that really, really were successful, California did they had planned, you know, literally 2010, the minute 2011 started, California was already preparing for 2020. So it would be starting earlier. I think allowed them to have a complete conversation with all the partners, the legislature itself and say, here's our plan and here's how we're going to carry it out. And they went off and did that. Senator Rom, did you have a question? Yeah, I don't know if I was chosen at random or they invited anyone to participate. But throughout the pandemic last year, I was regularly asked questions like, do I have enough to eat? Am I stressed financially? I was so interested in getting that information in the aggregate for our state when I was done and I didn't know if that's a completely separate process or when the follow up would be about how people were doing across the state financially and in terms of food security and things like that. It sounds like what you ended up being able to partake in is the American Community Survey, which goes into those types of questions, they'll go into how are you feeling, your health and wellness, it'll go into your economic item, it'll go into unemployment, saying, how are you feeling about that? So, yes, those occur in two year cycles. And in some cases, yes, when you find a reliable person to answer, you almost want to come back to that because you're not sure if you're going to ever get that again. So it sounded like they trusted you enough to say, we're just going to keep asking her a bunch of questions because she's given us all we need. So we thank you for that. Sadly, I don't, you know, I imagine if I could sit there and answer questions for half an hour or something, you know, I'm not a random sample of the population, but, you know, I was always glad to answer that. And it asked you if you knew other people who were food insecure and things. So I hope we get some good information from that. Yes, they should be releasing that pretty soon because with the American Community Surveys, they do them really quickly and then in about six months later, usually start to see the results of that because it's supposed to be almost extremely timely. Senator Clarkson, and then I want to go to Tom for more words of wisdom. So, Jason, once this is all done, I would hope you would put together your lessons learned and your big takeaways for to pass on to the next director. I mean, if you stick around for 10 years and do it again, that would be great. But I was just curious if you had received any lessons learned from the director of the 2010 census and, you know, because 10 years is sadly a long time for us to seem to keep information and actually benefit from experience from. So did you get any lessons learned from the 2010 director and and please, I hope you'll pass on for the 2030 director. Some of your lessons learned. I would definitely say, yes, it was a quick conversation. I like to say my vice president of doing this was Michael Moser, who is at UVM data center and within that, we are prepared to create a report that we wish to make sure is set uploaded and is there for people to know because it shows everything that went right. And then we have these here's what we could have done better. As my first conversation, it was very simple. He even helped from the census and said it was going to be totally different. But within that, though, I don't forget his parting words or well, good luck with that. And that was it. But yes, we'll have a report. So before we go to Tom, I want to because Tom might be able to remind me in terms of starting early, I believe it was some time in the fall of. Early fall of twenty nineteen. Yes, I'm not wrong here. That Tom, the town of Dover was so concerned about the census that they invited Tom and Secretary Kondo's to come down to talk to people and turned out that there were very few people there. But the people that were really concerned about it, a couple of select board members and stuff, am I right about that, Tom? And maybe we should all think about starting early. It might even been before that. I went down for that public forum in late September of twenty nineteen at the East Dover Town Hall. And it was actually pretty good local press coverage, which I think got the word out subsequently was the Deerfield Valley news was was there. And the reformer was there. And I I thought they were crazy to start thinking about it. So early, but I guess I'm hearing now that they weren't. So, Tom, would you like to share your words? Yes. And you'll have to start waving your arms when you want me to stop because I could. I'm maybe the biggest nerd in the state of Vermont on reapportionment. Oh, my. You're one of your team members is. Yes. Anyway, in terms of the what the the role of the US census is in Vermont legislative district reapportionment, it's it's it's central and it's critical. We are required by statute state statute to use the final US census figures to prepare our report on the House map and the Senate map. The census data that we are use is the federal deadline for getting that to the states is March 31, 2021. However, that data is typically derived from the final data that are required to be delivered by December 31, 2020. And those data have not yet been delivered. The December 31 data are are the critical in the states where there are more than one US House districts. We aren't one of those states. So that the configuration and the content of that data set is not what we can use for reapportionment. Our statutory deadline in title three of the Vermont statutes is sorry, it's title 17. So we have to get a final report and map to the Senate by July one. And then we have to get a what's called a tentative House plan to the House by July one in the House process, but not in the Senate. There is an opportunity for towns to weigh in and comment and criticize the apportionment board's tentative House proposal. The town's deadline is August one. And the apportionment board has until August 15 to issue its final House report and map. So if in a year in which we get the final census data by March 31, that gives us April, May and June three months to get the work done for those. The Senate final report and the tentative House report. I started having done this before. I started agitating working on this actually a couple of years ago, Madam Chair, for a number of reasons. One, it struck me that that while the census data only come out once every 10 years, there are census estimates that are reasonably useful. And and that there's it strikes me that it would be a good thing for the apportionment board and from time to time, the House and Senate government operations committees to take a look at this so that when the end of 2020 rolls around, we're not starting from a completely cold start and that we're we're sort of got the juices flowing and we're we're getting organized. So we managed to get the apportionment board appointed in July of last year, July and into August, which was four months earlier than the last time around, last time around the apportionment board or didn't meet until the very end of November in 2010. And this year, we started meeting in September. We've had monthly meetings ever since then. So that's one snapshot of our of the time constraints that we're encountering. And I would also comment that when we get our work done, it's not unusual for the Senate and the House to establish a committee process that predates the opening of the the next legislative session. And another another way, in other words, if we get our work done on time or close to on time and deliver it, there's nothing stopping the Senate and House committees of jurisdiction from starting to work on that this coming fall. So that those committees, at least in their membership, are ready to go when the gavel comes down in January of 2022. And considering that since the last reapportionment cycle, the primary date has been advanced. And the need to get a bill, House bill and a Senate bill passed by both bodies and signed by the governor by maybe the first week in May. At the sort of at the latest is going to be that there's going to be a real push for that, so that the process of getting ready for the primary and printing, getting petitions out and getting ballots finalized and ready and campaigning, knowing what district you're going to be campaigning in to be to be blunt about it, there's going to be a lot of pressure. So to the extent that the committees of jurisdiction could get started before January of next year, they probably ought to at least give some thought to that. In the meantime, in the meantime, I mentioned the Vermont Center for Geographic Information, which is a terrific. Outfit that I, for one, was not very familiar with. Until this time around. But they take data that the US Census generates in the community survey work that the US Census does. And that doesn't happen just once every 10 years. That has sort of an ongoing feel to it so that the VCGI now has some reasonably good estimated population data for Vermont that is roughly late 2018, maybe early 2019 based data. And what have we been doing with that? Well, John Adams from the VCGI worked with us to take that estimated data and drop it into all of the existing Senate and House districts. So we now have on an estimated basis, at least population figures for all the existing Senate and existing House districts expressed both as a broad number of people, people who live in those districts and as a percentage of the ideal number of residents for the perfect House and Senate district. And those ideal districts are for the House, you take the state population and for a single member district, you divide it by one hundred and fifty two member district. You double that for the Senate. You take the state's population and divide it by 30. And that's your ideal one member House, rather, Senate district. So the VCGI data are now available in a map, kind of a searchable map. That shows the negative or positive deviation of below or above the ideal number of residents for those districts. And that is the is the the currency, the data that drives much of the apportionment board's work and will drive much of the committees of jurisdictions work when they get their hands on this. And and and I'll say a little bit more about that, but I want to first tell you about where we are with the mapping software. Ten years ago, we used a mapping software called Maptitude, which takes the US Census data, drops it into districts, the Vermont House and Senate districts, such that if you say, well, this Senate District A looks like it's got a significant negative population deviation. We need to try to add some people to that Senate district. So that the overall deviations in the Senate map are are are are tighter. There's not as much variation. So you could use Maptitude to say, well, let's move a town from a different Senate district into this Senate district. And instantaneously, the software will tell you what that looks like and what it does to both of those districts, likewise, likewise in the House. Unfortunately, the we haven't been able to figure out a way to get authority to use the estimated census numbers and drop those into Maptitude. And that may be maybe a licensing issue with Maptitude. They may be they may well be concerned about the integrity of data and having two different sets of data in play. I know that the Legislative Council's IT shop has been working on that problem, but I don't think they've got the answer that we were looking for. So what but even at an on an estimated basis, that what I call it the estimated maps has allowed the apportionment board to identify the House and Senate districts where the either high positive or significant negative population deviations indicate that those districts are going to need some attention. One of the the the legal standards that we are bound by is called the metric is called the overall deviation for the map. The overall deviation you take for the Senate map, for example, by looking at the Senate district with the the greatest positive population deviation over the ideal number of residents and comparing it to the Senate district with the greatest negative population deviation. The spread between those two districts is the overall deviation. If you look at the. This is the Senate map that was adopted in 2012. If you look at that map, the overall deviation on the map is 18.01, which means on average somewhere on that map, there was a Senate district with a minus nine and somewhere there was a plus nine. Now, those numbers are not exact, but that's what you come up with. I think in fact, Franklin Senate district's deviation was a plus 10.83 and Essex Orleans was a minus 7.18 something like that. What the courts have said is that overall deviation can't be greater than a certain level. The courts have been cautious about giving a hard and fast number for that limit because under our constitution and under general apportionment, jurisprudence, state and federal, other factors can be taken into account, to some extent, in drawing a map of legislative districts. The term that our constitution uses is equality of representation. And the Vermont statutory version of that is substantially equal weighting of the votes of all voters across the state. But it's clear from what the courts have said that as an overall deviation number gets in the high teens, it becomes risky. We don't know whether the 18.01 overall deviation from the existing Senate map, or at least the way the map was under the 2010 census, is too great because no one challenged it in court. And when the Vermont Supreme Court has looked at these these things, when a case has been filed, challenging a district, they have refrained from laying down a hard and fast cap on what that overall deviation is. To a significant extent, the court would look at exactly what the record was that the apportionment board, and in this case, the Senate put together as to why you ended up with that overall deviation. You know, and so to the extent that the documentation and the the reasoning that you put into your reports, the apportionment board's report and what the Senate and the House do. If it's challenged, you can go to the Supreme Court and say, well, these are the reasons we and our Constitution says that we're supposed to strive or seek to adhere to boundaries of counties and other existing political subdivisions. And probably on another day, Madam Chair, we can we can get into county lines and Senate district maps because that's a there's a lot of stuff there to to talk about. But the House deviate overall deviation from the last time around was 18.9 a little bit higher than the Senate. Nobody challenged that. Nobody challenged that. If you if you look at the Vermont Center for Geographic Information estimated data that has been dropped into the existing Senate and House district maps, the overall deviation currently in the Senate map is 24.92. And you get that from the the the estimates are that the Bennington district is a minus 10.17. And the Chittenden district is a plus 14.75. Franklin's a plus 14.3. Lamoille's plus 13.19. And all of this information, committee members, we have the apportionment board has a website on the top banner at the Secretary of State's web page. You'll see a place to click for apportionment. That'll take you to the apportionment board's website. And within that, there is a link to the data that the Center for Geographic Information has put together. And that's where those estimated Senate district and House district deviations are located. If you so that's it. You got it. You're almost a 25 overall deviation. Don't feel bad, though, because in the House, it's closer to 35. Because the population variations show up as more significant spikes, the smaller the geographic unit you look at, you look at. It makes perfect perfect sense. In the state's population, I think the census estimates will have dropped by a couple of thousand people over the 10 year period we're looking at. So the the VCGI data, even though we can't use it in this nifty mapping software, at least is helping us on an estimated basis to identify districts that have deviations that are going to need some attention. And I'll I'll I'll guess I'll I'll I'll finish my my my main testimony, Madam Chair, with with this, there are two general generic ways of approaching redistricting and mapping. One way is an incremental approach. So if you if you say, well, we've got an overall deviation on the Senate map of just under 25, we know we need to get that down below 20. What is the fewest number of. Changes to the existing Senate. Map that you could make and get that overall deviation down to what I'll call a constitutionally safe place. And of course, when you, as I indicated earlier, when you wanted to fix a district, you're that has a low population, you are looking at bringing in population from some other district with the result that you've changed the deviation on that district as well. And maybe you've caused a problem there in trying to fix the the district that you were focused on initially. And if you look at the history of of redistricting, it certainly at the at the legislative level, when the when the when the action goes to the Senate and the House, that is an incremental approach has been what happens. Largely, the other approach would be more of a from scratch approach. And that would would sound something like like this. If the Constitution and the statutes talk about substantially equal weighting of votes, which means translated to districts is that the districts should have populations as close to each other as you can figure out how to do. You can say we're going to do it. We're going to take a look at this Senate map or this House map from scratch. And we're going to try to come up with districts that have minimum deviations because that's more equitable. What you were that approach tends to go. And well, let me let me stop back up. The other factor when you start doing that is are you going to go with all single member districts? Or are you going to go with singles and multi member districts? It's a it's really a completely different way of approaching things. There are there are advocates in Vermont and and some of them. More to a greater or lesser extent are members of the apportionment board who feel that single member districts are fundamentally a better unit of representative democracy than multi member districts. So if you took a from scratch approach, what you would what you would start writing bumping up against almost immediately is this language in our Vermont Constitution that says that the General Assembly in in doing the redistricting. And this applies to the Senate as well as to the House shall seek to maintain geographical compactness and contiguity and to adhere to boundaries of counties and other existing political subdivisions that's qualified. It's not stated in the absolute as as much as the substantial equality is stated as an absolute, but it means that all things being equal. And I suppose we've all learned the hard way that there never are equal. If you the closer you want, you tried to get these deviations, this overall spread, the tighter you make that, the more likely that you are going to create a map that as much less resemblance to a county map than we currently see with the Senate districts that we have now. And those are the two general approaches. And my last lastly, and this applies with the equal force to the House map, Madam Chair, is that. If you sort of stand back and look at what's happened to the population of the state of Vermont. And this, if you've been following this, this is not a new phenomenon. This has been happening on a gradual but somewhat steady basis. You know, for 30, 40 plus years. You could. And if you stand back and say, let's look at the population bulge in LaMoyle, Franklin and Chittenden. And let's look at the population. Ebbing in Bennington. Rotland. Windham, Windham Windsor. And you could say, you know, maybe we should have another senator in the Northwest quadrant of the state. Can I, Tom, I'm going to. That's maybe a good place to stop. Yeah, I mean, this is getting into a little more detail than I think we need right today, and I'm cognizant of the fact that we're about five minutes behind. Actually, we're more because we didn't take a break. But I'm going to suggest I think that where Tom stopped was or where I made him stop was is a huge issue that we're going to have to deal with next year. And the only the other thing we're going to have to deal with is we passed last year a bill that says that no Senate district can have more than three people. So that means that even if we did nothing else, Chittenden has to break up. So but they're they're going to be huge issues. So what I would ask us to do is probably. In a month at the end of February, would it be possible for the two of you to come back and maybe have more clarity than about what numbers we might have and where we might go. And I think, Tom, you are right on about thinking that the because it is going to be a huge issue this year, I think, huge, or then I chaired it last in the last one, whatever, whatever that year was. And I think that it's going to be even huge or this year because of those that shift and because of the three member prohibition will we that you're right about us starting early. So would we by the end of February have be any farther along so that we know more of what we're talking about? Um, in terms of the delivery of the final census numbers, we I hope we know a lot more in two weeks, but we won't know until we get there. There is a Senate US Senate bill that was introduced last week to delay the US Census finalization three to four months for to give the census an opportunity to correct what the sponsors of that bill feel are grave errors or or or mismanagement. There's litigation pending in a number of places in federal court to try to do the same thing is to slow it down. From our perspective, we're trying to, you know, we have this interest in getting it moving, but we want it to be done right. And I certainly think by the end of February, we will know where much more than we know now, we might even know in a couple of weeks. And and I'll make sure that as we learn more about that, we'll give you the information. And I would also say you have two or three members of the staff attorneys on legislative counsel who are keeping a very close eye on that issue as well, and you have them at your they'd be I know they'd be happy to come in and talk to you. So let's let's reschedule. Let's schedule this again for the the end of February when we'll have more information and then also talk about whether we'll need. If we want to have a. I'm reapportionment committee set up to the so that it can start over the summer fall, if we need to have legislation around that in the Senate, because in the Senate, it isn't just the government operations committee, so we'll talk. We'll find I'll find out that information and see what we need to do. Does that make sense? Yes, ma'am. OK, so with that, thank you so much. I I really appreciate it, Jason. Thank you for conducting a great. You are very welcome, chair. I would say I put some stuff in the chat if everybody wants to. What Tom said is definitely true, but John John was on our committee. And so I work with him nice and quietly. He's amazing, but he did something that you might find interesting. He ran a daily tabulation of census counts from the start of the census until it ended for each county. So that link is in there if you want to see it.