 So let's just start with Alan. Welcome back. Thanks. Alan Tchaikovsky, Office of Legislative Council. So the strike all that is on the screen has three changes in it. So the first is right online, eight. And originally the new section I was going to call it Native American Place Names in some parts, but I think it's more proper to refer to Abenaki because that is the language. So Abenaki Place Names in state parts. So just a small tweak there. And then the other piece of new language here in section one is adding a subdivision C, which starts on line 17, and so this says the Commissioner shall adopt rules establishing a procedure for selecting spelling of the place name if there are multiple spellings provided by the Commission on Native American Affairs. So I had it go to a rulemaking process. Okay. And then in section two, I added one sentence. So this is the session law provision that is having the Commission on Native American Affairs prepare the list of place names for the Commissioner. So I added starting on line four, the list shall state if there are multiple names or spelling variations for a place. So that was just to highlight if they are aware that there is potential conflict between multiple spellings, they should put that on the list also. This came, again, the conversation on this came up because I think the Commissioner expressed that there could be a potential frustration of having gone through this process and then coming up with what might be determined to be the wrong spelling. Right. And so I thought it made sense to have the Commission be the group that added it to the list rather than, you know, if the Commissioner was to sort of check individually, if anyone else had any other spellings, let's just have it all be on the list prepared by the Commission. So. Okay. Well, my sense was that because of the different the four different bands and we heard someone like if it's regionally specific, could they have that version? And the Commissioner said, of course, I don't really care, I just need to know what to do. So I think in the first part, should they really be, should the Commissioner determine or should the Commission on Native Americans affairs determine what is the appropriate name for that spot? I think the Commissioner is right. What you're doing here is I believe the language, John, if I read the language correctly, this is just saying that the Commissioner. So on line 17, the Commissioner adopts rules establishing a procedure for selecting the spelling. I think that's going to be the equivalent of, you know, of him saying, well, the Native American Commission, the Commission on Native American Affairs says that that it's spelled W-H-I-T-E, and the local, the Mrs. White Band spells it W-H-Y-T-E, you know, I think he's got this. The rule will be that along with the list of the names that the Commissioner will just make sure he checks with the local bands. I think that's what was expressed, right? But I understand that, but shouldn't the Commission on Native American Affairs be the relationship to the different bands? And just so the Commissioner can say, they can say in this region, this is what it would be called. Like who's expert? I think the Commissioner wanted to make sure he wasn't the expert, and that's my concern. Well, the Commission also expressed and has expressed consistently this year especially that even though there's a Commission on Native American Affairs that they don't speak for everybody. And I think that's where this conflict came up, was that the Commission may, you know, come up with the name spellings, and I guess the Commissioner didn't want to have to be the arbiter. No, I think... And I remember that, right? I mean, I... Yes, yes, yes, yes. But I think in here he's the arbiter. I mean, that's in your words. I think the language is pretty clear. As a Commissioner shall adopt rules establishing a procedure. It doesn't say he's going to select the word. That's exactly right. Like he's going to establish... I have lines to do it. And so the procedure may be we go with the local bands. Yeah, okay. I got it. I'm good though. Yeah. I think it's actually creating a lot of ability to flexibility in this situation. That's right. Yeah, I was thinking through the various ways that it could happen. And I think having the Commissioner have that flexibility to establish the procedure makes sense. All right. Thank you. Good afternoon. Dan Dickerson from the John Fiske office. I should have done this earlier. Yeah. Made it rich. It is there. So I reached out to Commissioner Snyder about the cost of replacing signs in normal circumstances and what his thoughts were on. If you're going to replace a sign anyways, what's the incremental cost of adding that wording? And on the second point, he didn't have any idea. But on the first point, he gave me a broad number for basing... I'm sorry, Dan. Hold on a second. Can you hit the reset of the read whatever button? Refresh. Reverse button. I'm top. You're all right. Yeah, I'm sorry about that. All right. So as I said, I reached out to Commissioner Snyder with his thoughts on what the costs were. So most of the system now reflects what came to me from force parts and wreck. Although I made a few of my assumptions and I'll point those out. But ultimately, what was given to me is that if the department would replace all the entrance signs, it would be $150,000. And to replace all signs in state parks, it was $235,000. Commissioner Snyder was to wear 15 parks that are currently known to have corresponding Abinac-y place names, replacing those signs would be $50,000. And I guess to backtrack briefly, when he got back to me, he was thinking that this bill would only impact entrance signs. And my fiscal note, although I acknowledged what he said, I based it off of this applies to all signs because I didn't see any wording in the bill that said, well, it's only entrance signs. There's only these signs. There's only these signs. There's only two. It encompassed the whole universe of signage in state parks. But when he got back to me, he said replacing entrance signs for those 15 places would be $50,000. But given that the bill gives until 2025, it's unclear when those costs would be incurred. So the way I constructed the fiscal note was I thought, well, because the bill applies to all signage, $150,000 as a total cost, which represents, let's see here, 64% of the $235 cost seems pretty reasonable to me as what would need to be replaced ultimately over the next five years. And so in giving my estimate, I assumed an FY21 because the department probably already has a signage replacement plan that any incremental cost is going to be pretty low. It will be an extra square footage of wood to add the name. And then in 2225, it would be some portion of $150,000. And I applied it evenly, 35,000 to 40,000 per year. And what I did note is that because there's no revenue in the bill, this is an unfunded mandate. And whether or not the department can absorb that or raise revenue through state parks, these is unclear to me given that really the costs wouldn't start to be incurred until 2022 and the economic input, especially given today that the economic fund could change dramatically, which would mean if you went to general fund dollars, those aren't going to be available. But if people stop traveling out of state and go to state parks, then there could be more state park money to fund improvements. But I just pointed out that because of no revenue, the Commissioner would have to see funding. Right. And I think that the potential costs being less than $5,000. And my memory of the testimony was that the place names could be the differences, but it could also be like if there was a small woods overlook that had a name that that would be. But also that these would be if there was a mosque when falls, if there was a name, if there was an actual translation of mosque when falls, that mosque when falls would still be there. So that replacement cost, which he's already part of his program, the English version where that would exist. But this would be additional, you know, that this that these abinac names would be in addition to the English language names. That was my which kind of lines up to what you're what you're talking about. So I think that that's not I think this is great. This is this is exactly what we just need to have for an idea for our homework. And we'll pass this long, especially because the cost for this year. Again, we all know that even without what's going on with physical pictures. Yeah. It's flux. Yeah. You know, I will say that, I mean, because a lot of this is somewhat speculative. I mean, it could be it could be less than this. I mean, you know, he told me that signs are replaced every 10 years. And given that this is a five year timeline, a lot of these signs, you know, might be in a replacement budget anyways. But, you know, given that it's a five year timeline, it could also, you know, force him to alter some of those replacement timelines. So it could be less. I doubt it will be more. Right. But no, and I think that's right. I think your sentences is unlike with all state parts of corresponding names also placed into that as well. Mary. This is just a comment after the testimony we heard. I was speaking with Representative Gina and we said, what if the chief who was here who does woodworking? What if he made the signs? For example, what if they had kids get together and make the signs? I mean, state would have to pay for the supplies. But would it be less expensive? I imagine the department probably has design standards. That's my guess. I don't know for sure. But certainly, I mean, it's an idea to definitely save the state some money from what I get in this estimate. But I don't know how much. I don't know how much time that kids or the chief would have to spend on that sort of thing. Yeah, and I think that that's just something that would be contracted with them whether it's for money or for other things. That would be a project. I think that would be contracted. We have the, because I remember, you know, whether they were doing the symbols for certain. I remember Mike talking about symbols for the no swimming. We have pretty international-based symbols that doesn't cross in whether or not there's an Indian picture of fishing. You know, I get it. All right. Any questions for him? And I think this is, I know we're pretty, I think having this as, again, as what we'll attach this will go because there's an expenditure it will more than likely go next door. But next door knows that these are priorities for us to go coincide with the apology and the task force that we're putting together. So hopefully they'll be received. I think this one's about cutting your eyes. Anything we see on this topic. Yeah. Great. Thanks, Dan. You're welcome. Have a great day. Thank you. And thank you, Ellen. Juju, we would probably vote on this tomorrow morning at some point. So as long as we have a clean version of it, if you can provide Ron with a clean version of it with the appropriate signature line, that would be great. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Damien is here. And we have a couple of houses here to talk about the committee bill for the task force. But before we get going, I just want to fill people in who missed the conversation on the H880, which is the place name. They haven't actually placed names built. We're going to have Ellen come back for a minute towards the end of the day. It turns out, so she added language that was requested by the commissioner about just having a different kind of, having a way to arbitrate potential for potentially differently spelled Abenaki names. And then Dan Dickerson did a fiscal note where, and then I got a note back from the speaker who said there would be zero impact on the budget if we took away the time frame because the bill says over the next five years to replace or to create these signs. But if we didn't put a deadline on it, if we just let it be open-ended and be part of the sign making process, then there wouldn't be any immediate impact on the budget to be handled differently. So that's just something we'll consider very quickly when the eternity comes back, when Ellen comes back. But first, or next, Representative Copeland-Hanses is here because there is a bill in their committee that she's going to talk about that as we create this task force for the, to create the Truth Reconciliation Commission, it kind of dovetails with this bill with H-478 that's in her committee, so I just asked her in to talk about what the story is with that bill and what the process or what the status is and how they may be able to be back on to our bill. Okay. So the record represents Eric Copeland-Hanses from the Government Operations Committee. And first of all, do you have someone who's on the phone with you as well? Yes, it's John Kalaki. Oh, hi, John. Hello. That's wonderful that you're making access available to people who can't be here in person. So thank you for doing that. This is a really important topic. And I really want to, first of all, say thank you for digging into the difficult conversations around populations who have been subject to sort of systemic discrimination for various reasons. And when I heard that in addition to your resolution, you were also creating a task force to look at a truth and reconciliation process. I wanted to be able to make a request to you that this task force also consider, in addition to the issues around eugenics and institutionalization and sterilization that we know that you have been spending a lot of time talking about with respect to the apology resolution. I would like to also suggest that this task force might also look at the lifetime impacts of institutional racism that have persisted because of slavery. We've had a lot of pressure coming to our committee to pass, as your chair said, H-478. And we have been focused on many other issues that didn't really leave us time to do justice to considering 478. But if I had had an opportunity to consider this concept of a task force that would set about a truth and reconciliation process, that's what I would have mimicked. I just want to ask you if you would consider including the mandate to this task force including having them consider systemic bias resulting from slavery. And I'm happy to take any questions or to the extent that you're... And Damian has raised his hand. I realize I'm not at the table, but just to clarify, are you asking that the committee consider having the task force look at setting up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission so it can also look at the lifetime impacts of systemic and institutionalized racism and slavery, or maybe look at setting up a... Have the task force look at possibly setting up a separate Truth and Reconciliation Commission? I would suggest that that be left as open as you feel comfortable whether the task force recommends two separate Truth and Reconciliation processes that are completely separate from each other or whether the task force can find a way to consider them side by side. It's really difficult to know because the populations are very different. The experiences of the people who have experienced these injustices are very different. I don't know if they would be... I don't know if the process would feel comfortable for them to be a part of the same Truth and Reconciliation process or if the task force might recommend establishing separate. And so I would suggest leaving it to the task force to decide. And then as you appoint members to the task force, I would just also make note that we have a social equity caucus within the House and the Senate together and that members of the task force could be nominated more broadly from that social equity task force... Our social equity caucus could nominate some folks who might potentially be serving on the task force at the appointment of the speaker or the pro tem or whoever. Thank you very much. So that would be... And as we create a charge for the task force, it would be to consider what forms it may take. Would you... So in H-478, can you just go back and just tell us what H-478 was supposed to do? And we don't have it up on our web page, but if you could just give us a quick primer on what H-478 requested. I will. I'm going to take it right from the bill. Find it. In the bill number, you might just be able to search for it. So an act relating to establishing a task force to study and consider a state apology and a proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery. And so to establish a task force to study and consider an apology, I think that... I don't know. I think the direction that you're heading is a more elegant way of accomplishing the same process and the importance of bringing together a group of people to figure out how a truth and reconciliation commission might act on issues resulting from the institution of slavery is a more... I think a more productive conversation than simply to study and consider an apology for slavery and reparations. It could very well include the same people, but I like the... And this bill was not terribly... We haven't worked a lot on figuring out who might test SAP on this task force that was considered in 478, but I think that in looking at the words that you have on the page on your committee bill, I think it's very easy to see how you might also appoint people to your task force that could... and could work on establishing that truth and reconciliation commission. I think it's interesting to... As long as we're not trying to pass them all together, it looks like the multicultural solution, everything, that I think if we leave it open-ended and that this task force is charged the truth and reconciliation task force is charged to look at some of the systemic oppression in its history, including... And we list about... And from that task force, they can say that these cannot be combined. This is too complex. We need different reconciliation processes. We need different preparation processes and things like that. I think it's a way to do it. I want to make sure we're not sliding any one issue in kind of merging them all together and that we don't want to seem like it's... You know, I'll... I think I said it already. I don't want to miss the abort of any of it. Well, I think we could design this or it would be up to the task force to figure out how to accomplish that because they might want to have separate processes, for example, for the slavery as opposed to the Avanaki situation because there are similarities but there clearly are huge differences as well. Maybe we don't need to get too much into the weeds on how to do that, but the task force figure that out. That's what the task force is for. I mean, they're discussing all the totally different... You know, situations... If we give... Yeah, if we give them a task, they want you to figure out how to respond to each of these populations that we've identified. It just strikes me difficult to... How would you... How do you introduce 4 million Africans into this... or not? Yeah, I mean, that's what this... These are the findings, right? I mean, these are the findings that would be the legislative justification for... But I think we're not... I think what we're trying to do here is include people who feel like this conversation is necessary into this. So it's not just saying it's not stipulating that we're working on 4 million people. It's just staggering. It's just too tragic. Yeah. But if you keep scrolling, Mary, I mean, you'll see that it... I think the question that Representative Hanson is getting, Kelko, when I was getting to it, is keep going. You know, it really starts here. And while it says, you know, under these duties, this is specific to what they're asking, but in the case of... In the case of what... If we were to plug them into ours, it wouldn't be this... It wouldn't be this specific. It would be about... I would prefer that it be left to the task force, to your task force to decide what the... what the directive and the focus is of a Truth and Reconciliation process. Because I don't know that... I certainly didn't feel that my committee had the personnel and the time and the wherewithal to do justice to this, but I think a task force who is made up of members of these communities could do a much more effective job at designing what that process is like. Lisa. I'm just going to make a very brief comment that I feel that this is too much for one task force to add all of that. And I know we're not supposed to be getting into the weeds, but I would prefer to see two separate task force, one for eugenics and one for slavery. And I'm not normally in favor of all kinds of task force and study groups, but I think these are two very different issues. Lisa, could we in this bill call for that? Because I think you have a great merit in what you're talking about, because even with just the eugenics one, a number of the people from the different Abenaki tribes really wanted to make sure that all the tribes are represented. So it may be that we now say that we're asking for truth and reconciliation task forces be assembled to and we elicit two different ones. And I think along with that John, you may have missed my comments later in the day yesterday about including the voice of French Canadians and their mixed race folks in the discussion and I think we're now talking about a task force that's getting pretty unwieldy in terms of the number of people who need to be represented on that task force and from my personal experience working on boards and committees the bigger it gets the harder it gets. So I'm saying two different tasks. So I'm adding on to that that's even more reinforcing what I was talking about yesterday. Thank you. A question again, are committee bills subject to crossover? Yes. They are. So we're supposed to decide on this change in the next... We need to get voted out by the end of the day, Friday. Unless we get... unless we ask for more time. Right. And this is an important piece of the whole process and so if we ask for more time then we'll see what the answer is. So that is a thing that we're able to do is ask for more time on a committee bill past the crossover date? We can ask for it. And not guaranteed obviously that we would get it. This is a priority of the caucus not just the caucus but this has been a priority of the House through our committee had over 50 sponsors. And the apology did. And as we talked about with this earlier, this is the first step and we've worked on an apology we're listening. This is the first step in the doing of something. And so I would think if we ask for time that we may receive it I know it would be like later that we would receive it. We're probably going to give it a week or something. This sensation wouldn't last longer than a week. Right. But what I call this sensation I think we're really digressing in so many different directions now as of the Friday before we left on break that this is becoming a whole different thing than the original resolution that the committee plus of us signed on to this I feel like it's it's really quite big and I don't think an extra week is going to help me make up my mind about all of the new material that we've been presented with. Well I can. I mean that's what will happen. I know. I get that. I just think adding to it adding more to it is making it even more difficult. Well let's see what Damien's been able to have been reached out to and they will present another version of we haven't seen this for a little while in the task force bill and so they share with us what some of the changes were put in were requested prior to the break and then the request on this has been worked on this request came through came through government operations to consider so Damien has some level to share to take a look at it. So Tommy as you describe it I just feel like what you're describing is like a meta task force right it's a task force to iterate other tasks task forces I don't want I mean as we have it crafted now we have a task force suited to a specific task and now we're going to glom on an additional task that would require a completely in my view different task force so if we're going to do this I feel like we have to rewrite the whole thing and say now we're going to have a task force to iterate two different task force for two different tasks this kind of like task force that's somehow going to accomplish all these things just seems we could do it that way or let the task force decide how to manage that but this task force in this original language was constructed with a specific task in mind and now we're just saying oh we'll just throw this other task at you that doesn't seem to make any well there are some common entities who would likely be part of helping both both form a truth and reconciliation process and I would leave it as open-ended as need be to allow for common convening entity like the Human Rights Commission to decide how much of that process happens together as a group versus how much of it gets assigned to some committees who can work through their own processes in their own details but because the Human Rights Commission I think has good ties in both communities that they would be the convening entity who could help make make sure that those two processes happen in their own genuine way and just also thinking about in terms of the use the word process when we are talking about when we've been talking about the task force talking about what the process is for thinking through what has happened and what would be a good next step and so those similar processes could be the same even though the population is different and thinking about those best practices that we can see from other places that have done similar things having one umbrella group to talk about what the appropriate governmental process is would same time and energy and that overlap in actual personnel would maximize the expertise and then be able to separate out into those different subgroups for the particularities and what I like what we've been talking about for our task force as opposed to the very prescriptive bill that that government operations had on the bill is it allows for the findings for folks to follow the findings rather than having it be very prescriptive so I for one am very opposed to changing what we have done so far historically in this country indigenous people have been given the short shrift by government and by encompassing and enlarging even separately equal it's going to change that entirely and I am not in agreement well let's go see what the language is instead of imagining the worst that it could possibly be ok thank you Sarah wish you good luck with your deliberations and thank you again for working on this thank you good afternoon everyone good afternoon