 Thank you. Good morning everybody. Welcome back. Good to see everybody and just a quick personal update. I got tested last week and I was undetected but nevertheless I'm still feeling a little bit under the weather so I'd rather be gardening than napping but it's where we are right now but I think I can make it through this meeting no problem. We are here today to talk about what is now called S333 which is the bill providing some eviction or ejection protection moratorium language that has been worked on that we've been working on since we left the building. It passed the senate with some changes to what we sent them if you remember correctly we sent them our the language that we had worked on it was not a full bill it was just the language it was a draft if you will and they took that language and turned it into S333. David Hall is here to take us through that bill and we're also joined today by Senator or Senator I'm sorry I'm sorry Mike. Representative Mike Marcotte from who's the chair of the Commerce Committee but just very quickly on other housekeeping stuff we are still working with the status quo we will continue to hear this and get it prepared for a committee vote hopefully this week but perhaps as early you know may have to wait until next week I'm still waiting to hear on the process I think you may have all received an email this morning from Catherine Lavasser about training that's going to be going on this week we've all been assigned a set time over the next several days to go on zoom and deal with the Everbridge training which we received from from Chief Romai last week to try to have some test runs and she's she's scheduled us in such a way that there's never going to be a quorum of any particular committee so that we can meet in numbers but that's going to be spread out over four days so if you haven't seen that check that out that'll that'll be happening when we're not on a zoom call for our own meeting we're scheduled tomorrow one o'clock where I'm sure we'll pick this up again this this bill again because that's really what we have cooking right now so with that same rules as as always if you wish to speak press the raise your hand button and I'll try to get you I've got the participant list here on my screen and when and when your time comes I'll let you know and I'll unmute you or you'll unmute yourself and then we'll go from there so David I'd like to just just pass it to you and just if you can give us a quick rundown of of what happened to the bill when it went to the Senate and how they created what we have in front of us and you provided us with a very good annotation as well that's been posted on our website for us to look at is that the best thing to look at for for the committee I think so I think that would be easier for you to all to be able to see just what the few changes are okay so if everybody has access to that at home I don't know David if you want to put that up or not but basically so basically when we when we left when we last left you we had sent them a bill that had several elements of which they took out some and and the main thing is that they kept they kept the ejection portion is that right that's correct yes all right so all yours all right thank you you're for your record my name is david hall i'm an attorney legislative council of staff housing and other issues so as the chair indicated you had since shared with the senate committee on economic development housing and general affairs draft language you had worked through since early march culminating in your draft 11.1 which at that point included from family leave provisions and appropriation and guidance to the department of children and families on how to spend money to provide housing assistance and then your section nine you may recall had the various provisions relating to moratoria concerning ejection actions and foreclosure actions at the time chair of this committee also communicated sort of a soft position that you all were not prepared to you know endorse a particular dollar number a particular investment strategy but wanted to continue that conversation and also that you had worked closely with stakeholders including legal aid and the landlord association to arrive at a consensus proposal which the the senate committee then picked up and worked on over the course of a week or more and the senate ultimately did pass last week this version so they used as a vehicle a bill that was on the wall in senate economic development s333 which they proposed to be renamed to an act relating to establishing a moratorium on ejection and foreclosure actions during the COVID-19 emergency there are not too many changes but you have here on the screen and also posted to your committee page this version this annotated version that I prepared and there's two sets of sort of annotations in it so yellow highlights reflect changes that the senate has made relative to your draft 11.1 and then there are two pieces that are green which are the product of the the communications the chair referenced earlier concerning foreclosures in particular foreclosures of abandoned properties non-occupied properties so with that let me just quickly take you through this I just included the seven and eight with the strike through to show you that recall that was the piece that had the five million dollar live appropriation and then section eight was the chart to DCF DHCD and others about what services they would need to provide that discussion is ongoing in the senate I assume it will be part of your appropriations discussions in the house like you they have looked at preliminarily what funding might be available under the federal law and the recent cares act to help provide some of this assistance the housing sector as with most others still awaiting a lot of guidance from treasury and others on how the money can be spent how it will flow exactly how much of Vermont will get that work is still in progress but for the moment those parts are not in the senate bill and so it would start with their section one which was your section nine and the formats the same the construct the same they begin with definitions their definition of emergency period is the same it starts with the declaration on March 13th it runs for 30 days following termination by declaration they did add in this new subdivision to a definition of ejectment and it refers to an ejectment action brought under 9 vs a chapter 137 and 12 vs a chapter 169 against the tenant of a residential dwelling so the purpose here you may recall in your discussions you had broached the subject of whether this bill would apply to commercial leases and that was something that the senate was going to pursue further um after some testimony from the chamber of commerce and others certainly recognizing the problems inherent uh and unique to commercial leases relative to residential leases um the senate for now has chosen to limit the scope of this bill specifically to residential rental agreements so consequently subdivision two here by defining ejectment in terms of the residential rental agreement chapter um and specifically saying against the tenant of a residential dwelling unit makes clear that the scope of the bill as to ejectment actions is limited to residential any questions as he represented shoyano popped up as having a question on my screen all right here we go hold on a second trying to unmute you chip there you go now you're on okay so i guess a question here is that um uh was the was it discussed that um this the small business uh moan and grant uh availability it was something that caused the senate to strike commercial properties from this uh david is that something that happened in the discussion i mean they they started to explore uh those issues certainly recognize that businesses do have the at least not only have the opportunity to avail themselves of some of the emergency funds and ppp funds that are available though those programs are struggling to uh function honestly um but truthfully the the i think it's fair to say that the the thrust of this bill was primarily residential and was to protect people from being dispossessed from their homes and that to bring in um to bring commercial leases into it adds a level of complexity uh that they had not had enough testimony to address and then frankly um there was an acknowledgement that uh you know there may not be much the state can do at least that was the testimony of the chamber of commerce they certainly flagged the risk of in particular personal guarantees that uh often go along with commercial leases and how you know that really is an issue that has a lot of potential for harm to the economy even if a business goes out of business the proprietor will still be personally liable for the lease um no easy answers to that and i think it's fair to say they just wanted to try to keep the focus on residential just to get this bill moving and out of the body and then continue to work on business related issues in other contexts okay understood thank you david sure shall i move forward please do so the next piece in foreclosure definition there is the definition that you already had it's a foreclosure action broad under chapter 172 title 12 um dwelling house as it's defined there the piece that's in green and bracketed is uh the subject is one of the two pieces that relate to um the the correspondence from the banks and and representative marquette and the intention here the goal the purpose is to clarify that we're talking about foreclosure actions of against occupied properties so you know there's no one way to do this but this is kind of a clean and easy way to just to add to the definition and therefore throughout the bill wherever we say foreclosure whether it's in the context of pending future actions it's in the context of risk of possession or otherwise we're talking about properties that are occupied by the borrower we're not talking about unoccupied or abandoned properties and i'll leave it to others to debate you know how far this should go and whether this is sufficient language but i flag it here for for you to know that that's one of the issues under consideration and i and i want to take a minute here david to bring mike and representative marquette in and just um mike if you could represent marquette if you could just give us a quick rundown of what you received i mean we all ended up um several chairs received an email from an attorney that was posted on our website but if you could give a rundown in what your committee discussed on this issue for the record represent michael marquette from coventry chair of house commerce and economic development a couple of weeks ago we took a look at the foreclosure piece to this and in my committee we talked about we had a discussion with with christ dealia from the vermont bankers association i think what what he what he discussed with us was whether or not there is a real need for this legislation now because the courts have already taken care of evictions and foreclosures in their memo that's gone out to the courts prohibiting any any of that from happening until we're until they they say so i think one piece that's in that's in the memo would still allow for unoccupied dwellings for for closure to continue on with those um but in the legislation that is before you now um that is not there so it would be a blanket prohibit prohibiting um any foreclosures um on um on any dwelling so um i received a communication yesterday from susan steckl and she's a um a lawyer who deals in foreclosures with um just asking if we could do something just to make sure that unoccupied dwellings could continue to go through um and so i reached out to to christ dealia he agreed with that assessment and also in the afternoon i received a communication from community national bank up here in derby and they they um they feel the same way that we want to make sure that we don't don't stop um those foreclosures on unoccupied dwellings and so this was a literally a simple one-line fix that your committee worked on well it's actually i worked on it um i sent it out to my committee yesterday asking for comments um i think everyone that i heard from back except for one member who was just concerned about um allowing foreclosures uh allowing foreclosures at all we shouldn't be doing that but everybody else was was in favor of of this um this action um this amendment okay um tommy you had your hand up yes i don't know if this is splitting hairs but i'm wondering about the language specifically saying occupied by the borrower what if it's occupied by somebody else so wouldn't it be clear if you just said if it was occupied and not specifying by who i'm i'm fine with that um i leave that up to you and and to um david to figure that piece of it out but i think that's that's the intent is that um we certainly don't want anyone to be put out on the street so anyone that's that's in a building that that's foreclosed on um we don't want them out but if it's if it's a vacant building um then then the proceedings should be able to continue to go forward so i'd i agree with you tom yeah i suggested we just say occupied and not worry about who it is who's in there because we all want the same thing we're not trying to put people out on the street thank you right um ship uh yeah the the last piece of that has some concern for me also as primary resident now what does that do to uh rental units and landlords who i understand we are also trying to protect um because if they are exposed to are exposed then um it could filter down onto the um renters in that piece of property so again i you know i would think um just um loan agreement um as a residence rather than primary residents because that indicates to me that um primary residents would suggest that it's occupied by the borrower however um i think however you the committee wants to go i think we're all on agreement i i agree with you so um i think you can work that out with david i'm on fine with that yeah i mean it's understood that they what the task is here is that we don't displace families during this crisis right we're all on agreement there so a little piece of language that assures that that um is exactly what happens as a result of this i think it's important and i think this really shows out the fine line we're talking here between residential and commercial because of course you know we talked about this early on about commercial landlord we don't want to see commercial landlords before closed upon there by having seven or eight tenants in a department building kicked out on the street but um but yeah there's a fine line here between what we're trying to do is protect the people who are on who are the who are the renters at the same time as um i think what the bank is asking is and what the attorney was asking for is that in in specific that there were several at least at least one perhaps several um occasions where there was a foreclosure either either a mutually agreed foreclosure or foreclosure on vacant properties and i think that's what we're talking about here specifically um so how we get there with the language is is the finesse right now i agree out with that um do well uh john you have your hand up chip do you have your hand up again or oh i took it down okay john you're on yes represent mark i'm i'm wondering you had said judiciary hit was it statewide they talked about not doing foreclosures or was it just in the five counties because last week when we heard testimonies only five of the counties that uh so that they were looking for some kind of overall structure uh from legislation but are you saying this is not needed now no i'm just wondering if it is needed or not okay and then i wonder if in the counties that have stopped evictions the foreclosures what they're doing with um this abandoned property as well if that's excluded from that because the courts are pretty much closed now and the way the way i read the memo i think that um a motion could be filed to continue those yes okay that's that thank you thanks all right anything further um christ do you want to add anything right now or do you want to hold off for the time being no i can i can do it right now if that's appropriate sir yeah go right ahead first of all let me uh let me start with an apology because in the normal course of action when we're not dealing with trying to roll out a paycheck protection program this is an issue that um i would have put on the table given the number of hearings that you had but honestly my mind is elsewhere trying to get that moving along so i appreciate sue and and uh sue steckle and beth more and bringing it up over the weekend and i appreciate representative mark cop being willing to put it on the table uh it is it's just fundamentally very simple if you've got a vacant property and that's all this is focusing on that has already gone through the process or potentially going through the process that vacant property sitting out there can become a growing liability as far as the cost maintenance security uh people who use it for illegal purposes as we've seen in some instances so the sooner we can move that vacant property along the better off not the not only the institution but the community in general so i think sue and beth rightly so focusing on if we've already got those in the works don't let a global moratorium on foreclosure prevent those from going through so that's why they brought it to their attention i thank them i thank you for your willingness to consider it we are only talking about vacant properties even in the in the case of rentals if there were renters in there we're not going to move forward with a foreclosure and throw the renters out this is strictly vacant properties that they're focusing on so i appreciate any willingness to consider this amendment and just uh be more surgical in the overall approach of the of the bill itself happy to take question any questions for chris no thank you chris i appreciate it thank you yeah all right david so everybody can see the screen again i'm in subsection b um you may recall this was uh sort of the articulation of duties that continue uh regardless of the bill people still have to pay rent people still have to pay rent in the court people still have to make their mortgage payments um and then before here um you know the senate made some wording changes uh your bill i believe said including an action that involves criminal activity illegal drug activity or acts of violence uh any one of which seriously threatened the health or safety of other residents so the way your before was written it just verbatim tracked title nine's language about um 49 dsa 44 67 b 2 um i think really uh the senate changed this just to give comfort to their colleagues that um if there were criminal activity drug activity violence anything else that seriously threatens the safety or the health of residents then that could be the basis for an emergency action um the bottom line is legally this doesn't change anything the operative piece of subdivision before is the first two lines this bill does not limit a court's ability to act under a o 49 period and everything that follows you know the word include or or including as it's defined in our statutes is just an example is a non exhaustive list or uh you know again example of things that might count so even though the construct the wording is a little bit different it's the same purpose it's the same legal function in the end really under b 4 a court continues to have the ability to hear any emergency action what will be an emergency action is up to the court and it continues to be up to the court you know plaintiff will have to come and make a case to the superior court that something merits an emergency hearing um and then the court will determine whether or not it will act the rest of this criminal activity drug activity etc those are just examples of what could constitute an emergency but it's by no means exclusive so again just want to underscore the functionally their language is no different than your language i think there may be a question yet ship there you go okay so i guess just a but curse to me is that when we talk about acts of violence well last year or the year before that we passed that domestic violence housing bill that restricts victims of domestic violence from being evicted as a result of a relief from abuse order being issued or instances of violence on the premises would that hold up with this language i mean i understand that it's right out of a o 49 but i guess it's just a question that i have whether domestic violence acts would constitute an eviction under a o 49 of the victim of domestic violence let's say it may not be an answer to that David sorry just comes it's good um the so those protections would continue to apply okay um this certainly would not uh trump okay statutory protections that you created for victims of abuse yes um what it would do actually uh would would make it harder to evict anybody i mean at this point um the any landlord would have to come to the court and say i have an emergency situation on my hands i understand that you're not really holding court right now but this merits emergency action here are the grounds for my motion and for uh my ask will you do something about this and then the court will have to decide is this an emergency that merits our action notwithstanding the suspension of activities otherwise so whether there's domestic violence involved or anything else the court will be the gatekeeper to whether that action proceeds and then if it does proceed um you know all the regular landlord tenant protections that are in statute including in that new sub chapter would still apply okay i mean the likelihood of um a no contact order as as a result of relief from abuse order or no contact condition would likely take care of that as i'm thinking about it so um i don't recall the specific scope of um family law orders that they will hear but if it's an emergency that's those those types of issues are carved out the court said they would continue to hear okay so thank you david sure all right what's next all right so on page three here um actually the the court suggested the language highlighted in yellow and the other parties and then the committee agreed to it the intention here uh is to modify the clause any outstanding orders and to specify that it would be those orders that could lead to execution of a rid of possession against a tenant or a resident so they didn't want to necessarily say in in appending action all orders across the board necessarily have to be stayed there could be procedural orders of other things that might be uh necessary and they're still outstanding but we want to be certain that if it would lead to someone being dispossessed so if it led to the execution of a rid of possession then those are definitely stayed so again just the purpose was to avoid any unintended consequences of casting too uh broad a net and to specifically focus on outstanding orders that might lead to someone losing their their housing any questions on that um so i want to just go back up for a second here on c so you'll see the way you guys have put this together was pending foreclosure and ejectment actions and it said in one upon the effective date of this act pending actions are stayed so if it was already filed then when this act takes effect it will be stayed okay d addresses new foreclosure and ejectments um but it says during the emergency period you may commence an ejectment action uh under nine vs 137 or a foreclosure action but it's subject to some conditions including that the plaintiff can only commence the action by filing it stayed until the end of the emergency period no service and then once the emergency period ends that service period will begin tolling again so uh attorney stegel's email raised the concern um that you know because the way d is written it says during the emergency period and the emergency period actually dates back to march 13 there may be some confusion about whether an action filed um technically during the emergency period but before this act takes effect uh is in limbo what what what exactly is the nature of that case is that fall under c because it's pending or does that fall under d because it's new as of the emergency so just to avoid any confusion i would suggest that you say during the emergency period and after the effective date of this act you may commence an ejectment action i don't know that it's strictly necessary i i think that c and d set up a dichotomy of either it was pending when this act took effect or not but to avoid any confusion about you know that time before this act takes effect dating back to march 13 hopefully this would just set everybody's mind at ease that we're talking about new actions that start after this act takes effect during the emergency period everybody understand the purpose here it's a very small sort of clarifying addition that again i don't know that it's completely necessary but if it sets some people's mind at ease it's you know it's getting off my back okay i'm gonna move forward so no changes in e or an f about ritz of possession no changes to the rent escrow hearing process court still has flexibility um h was the same one thing that they did strike was the exception to the notary requirement and you may remember i think as it left your committee it was actually a change it began as a change to the underlying law and then it morphed into a change only during the emergency period under which any party in an action could include an attestation that everything they're saying in their motion or their affidavit or whatever the filing might be is true to the best of their knowledge and if they include that attestation then they don't have to have a notary um at its final vote the committee narrowed that even further to say only in an ejectment or a foreclosure action can someone use this attestation instead of notarization and then on the floor uh senator syracan offered an amendment to just strike that in its entirety the reason is the senate government operations committee um was bringing a much more comprehensive bill forward concerning electronic filing and notarization which would not only capture this but address a bunch of other issues so in deference to the work of other committees the senate committee took this piece out and that's it and david is that senate bill still in the senate or is it headed over to the house is a fair question i don't know the answer i can look it up okay um representative collacky yes david uh i want to make sure i understand on page three this um during the emergency period that you the slight change that you're recommending in green for us yes my understanding from chris is that the banks aren't doing foreclosures and evictions right now and my understanding from the court since they're not doing them right now so why not keep this during the emergency period because we're sort of the last ones to catch up on this and i think our legislative intent is no displacement because of covet 19 and so we should have had this some three weeks ago this bill you know if it was in a best best case scenario so why not just say during the emergency period if that's um so that just the the simple reason is the way we've defined emergency period it dates back to march 13 right and so the concern in the with with the banks is that um as i understand it is that they could read that to mean there is a retroactive application um and specifically that if they had initiated a lawsuit by service rather than by filing so in contravention of d one and it was technically during the emergency period so anytime after march 13 but before this act takes effect and what is the status of that case because d one literally would say you cannot start a lawsuit by service you have to do it by filing but that limitation will not technically take effect until this bill takes effect which could be you know we're already in mid april who knows it could be another week so there will be a period of four or five weeks during which they may have filed a lawsuit by service and when this takes effect the question will become well what happens to that lawsuit because even though at the time it was okay now this bill read literally says we weren't allowed to do that again the reason that i don't think that this is a big problem and my read is that c says pending and d says new and uh under one vsa section 214 our laws are prospective in their application by default unless otherwise said in the bill so is this green language completely necessary i don't know that it is again the whole purpose is just to give comfort to say if you initiated an action prior to the effective date of this act that was technically during the emergency period um i mean you're okay you're under c you're it's a valid lawsuit it stayed under c and from the effective date of the act going forward you'll you're clearly under d you can file it new but it has to be by filing with the court it stayed as of that filing there's no service etc so it's really just to address that narrow sliver of cases that may have been filed since march 13 by service well it may be more complicated than it's worth you know i i i would maybe if i could ask chris who's who's i think still with us didn't you tell us last week chris that the banks aren't doing any of this but yes but keep in mind i think this is related to vacant property so what we're trying to do is eliminate any confusion whatsoever from the standpoint of of the lawyer's interpretation would they have to go back through the process of refiling renotice or whatever it may be because of the way the bill is presented now so i think david explained it well they're just trying to eliminate any confusion during that period from the time march 13 to the time that this was uh that the bill is enacted and again this is related to new foreclosures during the emergency period and again focusing on in the earlier discussion the vacant properties piece well could could we put vacant properties in there would that clarify it or be less confusing well i i i guess you could but i don't know i mean everything's i i can't speak to what exactly happened or was filed on march 13 to with the courts that would have been pre-covid or uncovid related again not this is recognizing that even if this were in there we're not throwing anybody out on the streets the courts are not going to move forward it's just you're trying to make sure they don't have to redo all of the steps that led up to the filing during this time period to eliminate that confusion as i read sustechle's letter i'm actually having a hard time understanding how that's in d which are but anyway i guess if everyone else understands that it's okay i mean we have the action of the banks that aren't doing anything we have five of the counties the courts aren't doing anything and so okay i've asked my question it's not clear i i can tell you that in sustechle's letter which is posted on your website it's in paragraph three on the first page and and the last well the fifth sentence up what happens to foreclosure complaints that were commenced by service between march 13th and and the effective date of the bill will we need to serve the mortgager and all of the other defendants a second time after the emergency period ends so again consistent nothing's going to happen during this emergency period but they're questioning do they have to repeat the process of serving and other documentation uh during after the emergency period is lifted because of the difference between march 13th and the date the bill is enacted and what have her courts in her county decided in marsfield what are they doing i i don't have that answer okay so this this isn't really in it i understand your concern representative collage and this so so this is this is not um an issue of whether a case can move forward it can't this doesn't change that uh by any stretch it just it just seeks to break the universe into two uh two periods rather than three so subsection c is anything that's pending when this act takes effect and subsection d is things that are new not pending during the emergency period so it really you want the timeline to run from anything pending until this becomes law and then anything after that that's new the problem is d can be read to create a third space in the middle and that is march 13th until this act takes effect so since march 13th things could have been filed and in and even though they're not going to proceed because everything is stayed they could have been filed in a way by service that is not would not be permitted otherwise under subsection d so technically those are pending and they fall under c and they should in their state but the problem is d one raises the concern for that particular class of lawsuits those filed by service during that particular time march 13th until this takes effect that they don't there's a question whether d one negates those lawsuits and now that they have to start over and that's really a duplication of work that doesn't have any result for the tenant because everything stayed anyway it's just resolving the question of what is the legal status of that narrow class of lawsuits i got it that was very clear thank you i understand it now i appreciate it sure all right representative hang go um i think that just if it clarified it for representative colacchi i was that's good i was just going to point out that i think we discussed this a while ago a couple of weeks ago and there was this concern about sort of a gray area about service by hand or by written letter we weren't really clear about that so i feel like if we're going to go forward with this part of the bill that it needs to be as clear as possible and if attorney is having trouble interpreting it and we can help out in that respect then certainly make it as clear as we can i'm not really sure if we need to legislatively do anything if the courts are already doing something um but if we're going to go ahead with this i think it needs to be as clear as possible thanks so i don't know if it's helpful i believe you i know that i shared with representative stevens and marquard and ron i'm not sure if it's posted a very short memo that i put together that just breaks out the status of of housing related matters before the court under a o 49 and then also the five units that have adopted the chitin and county units position on what will happen with these housing issues so if you'd like me to share that with you i can um it's true that so just in its most general terms under the supreme courts a o 49 um the courts are not hearing anything other than emergencies basically is what they said and then the superior courts that have adopted the chitin and county position have put specific timelines on how long they're going to hit pause on these actions including for instance 90 days on foreclosure sales so it's true that i would say for the majority of vermont's population most of this stuff is on pause um what the bill does though is provides a consistent statewide framework for both ejectment and foreclosure actions it also addresses specifically the issue of rits of possession that have been issued but not executed so that anybody in that category who may have been maybe dispossessed notwithstanding the moratorium will now have a pause on those rits and that's the real function so yes definitely a lot of this is already addressed to the extent the courts have hit pause on their own but that that's not necessarily a statewide standard that's consistent i think that's part of the reason the court support this legislation and the work that you've done is because they do want a consistent standard across the state okay more questions for david right now go ahead lisa can you one if you can unmute there you go so i guess then my question is why have not the other courts adopted why only five um if this is something that should be a statewide and i i believe it should be statewide it should be universal um so i just i guess i'm confused about that so the supreme court adopted administrative order that said we are going to pause everything except for emergencies with a few exceptions and but it left it in the discretion of the district courts themselves to decide whether they would make exception to that statewide uh pause if you will and and then the five i'm referring to began with chidman county and it adopted a short order that said exercising our discretion given the circumstances here here's what that looks like for us and then several other of the superior court units basically just adopted that same standard the other ones i haven't seen subsequent to windham's adoption whether uh the other courts have done it as well but um essentially the the second round the first round was the supreme court putting a statewide pause except for emergencies and giving discretion to the superior courts and then the second round was some of the superior courts the most populous ones saying here's what that looks like for us i guess i just feel like if um all of the superior courts went ahead and adopted this then we would not need this legislation am i correct uh i mean i i again i think there are some issues that are specific here for instance those rids of possession that were issued but not yet executed um those are not specifically provided for in uh the orders and um you know there's also a question of timing i mean right now um the judiciary's orders have their own definition of emergency their own uh determination of how long they're going to pause their activities how they're going to manage them and so um while it may be consistent now with uh you know what you want to see happening they certainly could change their order they could they could do a different time frame they could change the parameters they could rescind the order um so it's really i guess the second issue is a question of um you know whether you want to leave it to the judicial branch or whether as a legislature you want to establish you know in your capacity as a sovereign body your own standard for what should happen thank you representative triano yes um Lisa i think that that's that speaks more to the need to have this legislation to add consistency around the state when the executive when the judicial branch has not provided that so i think that what we're looking at here is an attempt to say to courts this is the way it will be done um and um it will uh uh it will approach the jurisdictions that though that are beyond the five jurisdictions that have made these declarations um in addition i guess i'd like to go back to section one three and discuss a little bit before we go too much further as to um uh the language here and my thoughts are that i mean should we be offering language that specifically excludes uh abandoned property and uh or uh non-residential property from this or should we work on the language that has been presented here um which would try to define what we're talking about as occupied dwellings so i guess i you know i i wouldn't mind having some discussion on that before you go too much further so so so is there a specific where do you want to focus the question well it's not a question it's just a i think we should have discussion as to which way we would like to move on that so i mean for instance we could say um abandoned properties um and unoccupied properties are exempt from this some sort of language such as that or we could do some modification as Tommy and I had suggested surrounding or to focus on being sure that um landlords are included in this and residents that are occupied rather than by the borrower because it could be a house that is rented or at least in its entirety rather than a tenement building that it would have multiple apartments that's my thoughts representative kawaki yeah chip for me i what what what david did on the screen here when he he edited out that longer sentence that was there and that is that is occupied keeps it simple and focused for me and so i'm comfortable with that because it's clear that it's than it's it's occupied property um so i think that that edit uh when you and Tommy were talking when david did that like real time for us i think it solved it for me so i'm comfortable with where we are and david just to for our clarification i mean i i look at the phrase dwelling house and i'm and i'm assuming that that's specific to residential and not necessarily um that's for residential housing not necessarily for for commercial um rentals is that is that accurate are you seeing this 4931 yes that's what that's what he's referring to i'm not seeing it yet i'm still seeing okay 33 so so my screen is not let me let me change the share let me change what i'm sharing now i can show you we're talking about this now defined by 12 vsa 4931 section two that's what the references yeah that's up now david good that is clear okay i'll go back to the document so this has been just a dub this is this has been a double-edged conversation i mean we've gotten we've gotten um what has happened in the senate um but we've all spent quite a bit of time with this notion about um foreclosures that are already occurring on vacant properties which was the which was the consideration of the email that we received this weekend and that's been shared with you that that if i'm not where we are right now here at noon is that that situation would be dealt with with the language that david has highlighted in green so simply this these three words but and also the the language later on about effective dates um is everybody clear on that right now yes and um representative marcott are you just do you think that this covers what we're what we've been talking about it looks fine to me i i think that um i think it looks fine as far as i'm concerned um i appreciate the um the committee's time on on having this discussion and making sure that um we're taking care of the foreclosures in the right way okay and where else who else does anyone else have anything to share or question right now on this i mean i think the i think um i have representative trianos hand is back up here you're up chip chip well um i actually had lowered my hand but i think that the language in this proposal is clear and concise and i think that it at this point it does not leave a lot open for interpretation and i think it affords the protections that we're all we are all looking for for the citizens of vermont against being displaced from safe from their safe housing so i i'm i'm thinking that this looks pretty good okay representative howard um yes i i think this is this is adequate i think this is um a good bill i've been getting questions about it um from constituents and um i think david did a great job so i'm i i think it's fine and i would like to see it go through as soon as possible okay thank you anyone else who we haven't heard from today would chime in and i don't know if you can yep see my hand you're on yep um uh so i just wanted to um echo what representative howard just said that i think we um it as we've talked about before this catches some potential holes and um and i think that's really important that we are just the crystal clear in this time of crisis so i'm i'm looking forward to moving this forward all right thank you um representative kawaki where'd you go hold on yes i no i think i unmute it i think we're good thank you um i i i tune very good with where we are but i have two process questions so now that we've taken the senate's version of ours and the senate passed this and now there's an amendment we bring the amendment whenever this moves out of our committee to the floor with our amendment and then it has to go back to the senate for their approval of because we've changed the bill is that what what will happen yeah so i mean we can we can simply change we can simply take the language that was proposed and and add it to make it a change in our bill just as if it were as if we were in 3d um and not have to wait to to do a separate amendment on the floor um we will we would then vote on that and then and then pass it back to the senate for their for their final approval okay and then the second question is that i've been reading the press can legislators both in the house and the senate who are landlords vote on bills like this or do they have to recuse themselves from conflict of interest the conflict of interest comes from uh an individual conflict of interest in as if the whole bill was only meant for you i mean and i think if if um um i mean this is this is a common question for for the work that we do um david do you have david hall do you have a specific uh definition of what conflict of interest is i don't i don't want to downplay it or get it wrong but there because there's a sense that um when we we all have as citizen legislators we all have separate interests and we all have um um uh potential that that it may enrich us personally and i'm not sure that that this crosses that line but david do you have a do you have a clearer understanding or or a better more official definition of what a conflict of interest is i think you you've done well uh truthfully i would defer to bill mcgill okay i'm sorry i know that's not very helpful but um i don't want to misstate your house standards and he is the uh best person to give you specific guidance on my question great you know that's fair enough we can we can ask him directly um if we if we can um tommy yes i i think i can address that uh john uh i think it was my first year in the legislature we were voting on a bill dealing with teachers retirement and i asked i'm a retired teacher so i asked that specific question should i abstain and yet there was no because the bill was entirely was dealing with a class of people not me specifically so i was not voting going to be voting on a bill that says tommy waltz you're going to be getting this benefit rather it's for a class of people and so it should not affect uh legislators who have landlords i wouldn't think so okay thank you um representative hango can you unmute yourself representative khlaki i also asked that question last year because i sit on the board of an agency a non-profit agency and the bill was specifically relating to that type of agency and i got the same response from the clerk of the house and as a for instance i mean i've been clear that for up until up until this coming thursday i've been a member of the board of downstreet housing and community development and as hard as i fight for things like um things like the property transfer tax the proper use of that et cetera um i'm not being personally enriched by that um and given the way that we've changed our our ethics rules we list our affiliations when we when we take our oath around the same time that we we enter each biannium so um it's pretty clear or should be clear by the record where we stand but again i don't personally benefit by um by advocating for better non-profit housing to be built across the state so um but we can certainly get a clarification from from um from the clerk i think i think it's um it's it'll i mean again there are many legislators who are landlords in some way shape or form so um i don't think that it you know it becomes a class rather than an individual issue as tommy was saying i'm good to go it's clear it's clear for me okay hi emily emily hey hi folks sorry for being late i was in other meetings but i'm here now do you want us to review everything we just talked about for the last hour no it's on it's being recorded so i can review it anytime sorry for that that's okay that's that's it that's your three o'clock to four o'clock downtime is to listen to the the stuff that you've missed good i can find that three to four time um all right well i think we're i think i mean committee do we get a sense that we're um okay with this with the bill as it stands right now i think it's i think i think the senate took our work seriously and and and made some made some tweaks to it that work and again what popped up i i totally appreciate uh christelia's comment that this is something that didn't come forward in the last several weeks because of the onslaught of everything else that that the banking association and and folks involved with this were we're looking at over the last several weeks um it's actually a month now um by the calendar anyway and so our but in in terms of um again we're not in a place where we can take an official vote yet until that process has been set for by the speaker and by the house rules so um i mean generally speaking of um are we comfortable with where we are yes okay um lisa have we gotten most of your questions answers at least at this point in time are you i mean again we're until we actually voted out it's not over so questions are still welcome um as they move on but but have you uh do you feel comfortable with where we are right now yes that was a great tutorial on how the um court system works and why this might be necessary in terms of timing if they change their change their definition or timing of the state of emergency order so thank you yeah okay um all right i think that is um i guess that's where we'll leave it for today we're scheduled for tomorrow i'm not sure what we have for tomorrow um are there things that people want to hear about if we can get a witness to discuss um any of the any of the efforts that are being done i know that there's some rapid response or reliefs organizations that have been set up in several in several areas um do we do any do we have areas that we want to get an update on that we haven't heard from in a couple of weeks based on um i don't know i mean there's so many things that we've heard from our constituents again we talked about the construction industry we've talked about people having issues with ui that's been ongoing and and and hopefully that will solve itself over the next several days with the steps that the administration and the department of labor taken um but there's that's there's little that we can work on then um and not for this time in being but i mean for lisa the representative hango i think i would exempt you from this part of the conversation only because you were appointed right after we finished talking about paid family leave last year but one of the conversations that we had when we were asking the department of labor well why can't we hook this into the ui system there was a conversation about how well we've been working with several other states on a new ui system that partnership has fallen apart which is um i don't think the new system would have been in place for uh by march 13th of this year but um that was really part of a conversation with paid family leave and um and so they're starting again uh so it's kind of it'll be an interesting conversation moving forward with what the department of labor is looking to do with the ui system and if it's going to be robust enough at moving ahead i mean there's no system in the country that was robust enough to handle what we've been going through in the last month which doesn't make it any easier for for our constituents but are there any issues that people want to hear see if we can arrange i've got hands from representative gonzalez go ahead yeah um thank you yeah so i uh would love to hear um from some folks around how people who are experiencing homelessness um what the the shift in services i know that it's agency by agency and and different things um but that is something that i would i would love to to get some knowledge about how what the status of things are so would that be from a service provider or from the agency um i think if the if the agency feels like they have an overview that they could offer us um but again i know that they're you know very busy so i don't i don't know exactly i don't have a specific request so more um if people have ideas around who to invite but i uh i know people have been asking about wanting to make sure that folks are being taken care of who are experiencing homelessness prior to this and then also um with the situation where some folks won't wouldn't be able to self-isolate in where they live and so then what their what are their options and with Goddard not being a site anymore um but then what are the options for folks if they if their housing situation is not um stable enough for them to it's it's oh it's not um roomy enough uh for them to be able to self-isolate what are some other options so two things that are separate but combined so to that i mean i think in central vermont there is and i believe chitin county i've seen ads in seven days for the same type of organization which is which is the rapid response um in our case it's washington county a bit of lois moille county a bit of orange county which are the service areas of both down street and capstone which is the cap agents the community action agency um if they have been organized in a way in a response category along with the department of health to provide a lot of those services so perhaps if we can find someone from there is that is that just i mean that's not going to be a i think that's going to give us a little bit higher up on the elevation rather than someone who's running a homeless shelter like good samaritan in central vermont um or or cots and in burlington but maybe we can start with that if i if we can get someone to testify on a short short notice yeah we'll take a look there thanks matt um i actually had a question for chair marcot but he took off if he comes back i'll oh there he is hey hey how are you um it's kind of an quick question just uh related to ui that popped up with a constituent yesterday so their son works under um 10 hours a week so it doesn't qualify for ui state benefits does that still disqualify them from the six hundred dollar federal um allocation on top of that i i believe so because in order to get the 600 you have to qualify for state unemployment i believe i kind of thought that would be the answer but i just wanted to affirm it a little bit thank you very much you're welcome all right um representative kalaki can you unmute yourself there yes it's similar to represent gonzalez in um i'm interested to see what's happening with our homeless population because it's just been announced in south burlington that the hilton one of the one of the hotels is actually going to house people as a report who don't have homes to as they recover from this so that and it's it's a lot of people are saying so what's happening with this population how are we protecting them so i think if we your your example's chair would be fine it doesn't have to be in chitin county but just to get our grasp of you know we we moved a lot of people out of the shelters in chitin county they went into hotel rooms to to be safer uh and then those that are sick are not going to be moved into this um hilton uh in but how big of an issue is this in our state that would be great if we could get the integrates for this model and is that is that do you know what organization is doing that is that cots is that is that shempling housing trust do you know um you know what i will go it was in digger i'll look it up as we're talking and i'll come back in and let you know okay so no i mean it would be good to know i mean chitin county obviously has a density that's far greater than than most other places in the state but nevertheless that's um and they do it with a different slightly different style i think just because of that then then um then uh then here in central vermont or or in any other other counties that we that we've heard from in the past um representative hango um i don't know if anybody saw the chat just now what representative zot said he thinks this is the holiday in and not the hilton in south burlington which is what i thought also but then i thought maybe the hilton's also doing it um but that wasn't what i was going to suggest i've been trying to listen in once in a while when senate economic development and housing have their meetings and it's kind of hard with my schedule to hear a lot of what they're hearing but i find it somewhat helpful especially when they have housing folks coming in talking to them and this morning their their discussion started with a plan of how they were going to try to use federal monies and i missed a lot of it but i think that would be interesting going forward to hear how we're going to use the money from the federal government which isn't even here yet um or how we're thinking of using those monies for housing um also treasurer pierce gave a presentation this morning which is on senate economic developments um website which is quite interesting so i don't know if we can do more with them since we have limited meeting times um and that would help administration officials who are being asked to testify in multiple places sure and i i think um maybe ron if you hit the phones after this meeting and find out from maybe from shone brown or sarah phillips if who would be the best if they're even available i don't know if we need to go um do people remember do we need to go through um our liaison or is there a specific liaison that we talk to in order to request time from the administration um there there is and uh they're all kind of swamped but i'll um i'll see what we can do i also have that email from um sue minter and eileen peltier peltier thank you from last week where they talked about the um consolidated work they're doing right in washington county so if you want to chat for a minute afterwards we can formulate the question we want to ask and i can send it out to likely folks yeah no i think i think it would be i think that would be good if we can and if we can reach someone i i mean it's easier for me to think of central vermont but i think hearing from shitton county as well or other parts of the they're available it's a very short turn it's a very short notice i understand but um that would be ideal the other thing um in an email correspondence i had with gen holler from vhcb she did mention that the money like we put five million dollars as a placeholder and there's still no number that that's no one can work with with any kind of confidence people have been making estimates that are that are twice that but um in terms of long term perhaps through the end of the year but the um what gen holler mentioned was that out of the federal money some of the she calls them esg grants and i think their emergency services grants that usually go through the agency of human services or would be used for the for the purposes that we had delineated in our draft legislation so um but but i think i think these other sources would would have that information as well so so ron and i will check that out and we'll we'll get a schedule out to people as soon as we possibly can this afternoon so that you're prepared for for um some work tomorrow and we're on it one one p.m. yes we are one to three all right and that would be so are these two times um this 11 to one and and one to three on wednesdays is this if um does this still work for people next week if we do the same time frame okay and again um i think we're i think we can say we're pretty much done for today so if you do have other suggestions um please email ron and i and ron and me and um we'll see what we can find for tomorrow and then again look to your emails about the schedule for the training for the zoom and everbridge voting you know what it's going to be like on the floor those that should be in your legislative email box so anything else for today good to see everybody it's remarkable how many we all choose the same backgrounds i've been noticing that so i tried to change it up but just didn't feel right i just got a green screen so i'm figuring it all out so we'll have some fun soon i don't have i don't have the bandwidth to to a background change i well my computer's old enough that that apparently it's not it's it doesn't it doesn't work quite the same i kind of think that we're we're looking at what what angela zakowski had where she had the different placards you know just behind her you know it wasn't even a green screen it was very professionally done um look so um all right so again i'll i'm gonna hang out and talk to ron for a minute so good to see everybody no um we'll be adjourned thanks okay thank you i'm ending my stream