 So I would love to see if we can do a round of introductions to meet Carol. And I'm sorry if you guys have all done this while you were waiting for me. But so on our agenda, we've got yet introductions, review, improve the agenda. What we're going to be doing right now. Public comments. Review and approve meeting minutes. Self-education and learning round table. Report backs from city related city committees. I think that's really just looking at you, Michael and maybe Cameron, if there's any update from the budget. And then creative discourses, work plan update. So how the outreach to affinity groups is going. Handing that over to Michael to review your document. Affinity group meeting scheduling. And also got a request for a fundraising update. So I can just do a quick there too. And then other pro other business of checking in on protests and policing in particular. Website updates was another message and then rescheduling our meeting. So how has it been two weeks? I feel like what is, I'm, what is tie. I like have done nothing since we talked last and yet there is a very, very full agenda. So anything else to change or to add here. Okay. So if you add to the creative discourse, I have the outreach affinity groups funding fundraising protests. Other business. Protests and website. Oh. And we want to add. Meeting time. Meeting time there. Okay. That's please. Okay. So hi, Carol. I'm Shayna. I'm the chair. I'm the, I'm the bossy pants. I'm the bossy pants. I'm the bossy pants. I'm the bossy pants. I don't know if I do myself. I live on Kent street and I do community organizing with community groups, fighting pollution threats in their neighborhoods for my work and also do a lot of work to get women elected into office with a marriage for a month. Michael. Do you want to go next? Okay. I'm Michael Sherman. I'm the. as the editor of Vermont History, the journal of the Vermont Historical Society. And occasionally, I am a baker at the Mangi's Bakery. Jeremy, can I go? Sure. Hi, everyone. I'm Jeremy Baudry, resident on Elm Streets. I'm not familiar, of course. I work for the UVM Medical Center doing kind of patient experience design and quality improvement type projects. Fairly new to the committee. I think I joined in November. Still finding my way, but happy to be here. I can go next if it is okay. I'm Pilling Cone. I live in Montpelier and work for Norwich University. I never like driving in the snow to Northfield, although it's a very nice route, right? I take route 12. But I'm so happy doing remote teaching this semester. But I miss my students too. So, and I have been working in this competition since last year. So nice to meet you. Okay. Cameron, do you want to go? Then we'll have Cameron and Carol go. Awesome. Just for the record, my name is Cameron Niedermeyer. I am the assistant city manager and staff support for this group. And I know Carol. So, over to you, Carol. Still for you, Carol. Sorry. Yeah, Carol Planner, CJC. Yeah, I'm the director of the Community Justice Center. And I actually live in Jeffersonville. And I also, in the winter, I'm really enjoying working remotely. I'm just in Montpelier one day a week right now for the foreseeable future too. We're doing everything remotely. And I decided to come. I've been wanting to come to this meeting just because I have an interest in, you know, what you are going to be talking about and working on and to see if it's helpful for me to attend the meetings and just learn more about what's happening and if that's going to inform our work in some way. Or if I can be a resource for your committee when you're planning your work. So I'm happy to meet all of you and I look forward to learning. Can you share a bit more about what the Community Justice Center does? I'd like to learn more. I wasn't prepared for the elevator speech. So we do restorative justice process for basically the focus is to help people be accountable when they commit offenses and crimes. And we center the practice on the needs of the people who are affected and we include the community in that. So people who are referred, and they're referred in many different ways, they meet with a panel of community volunteers. So it's usually between three and five people. They talk about the decisions and actions that led them to having a charge or whatever the offense was. And then they find ways to make things right. They hopefully gain a better understanding of how their decisions and actions affected others. And then they write up an agreement that basically addresses how they're going to fix things, how they're going to avoid future offenses. And then when they complete the program, they've completed it successfully. So we get pre-charge cases, which means we get direct referrals from the police, so it never even goes to the state's attorney. We get referrals for people who have been adjudicated and are on probation. We get referrals directly from the state's attorney. We also work with the schools to some degree. We have people in the community just call us because they're having a conflict with their neighbors. So our conflict assistance program we can do mediation for them. We work again with the school district doing some mediation occasionally. We also work with people coming out of incarceration to help them be successful in the community. So we have circles of support and accountability for those folks and we have a transitional housing program. And then we have a part-time staff person who works directly with the people who've been affected by crime. So that's just a lot. We do more than that too, but that's the in a nutshell. I have a question. Are you a city organization? I mean, are you funded by the city or? We get a significant amount of in-kind contribution from the city, including so we're a grant funded program and the city provides us with our offices, use of copiers, the finance department processes our grant for us and does all the accounting for us. I'm supervised by Cameron and Bill and I'm sure there's more. I'm sure there's more. So it's a significant contribution. So we're basically considered a department of the city. And so we have a tremendous amount of support in that way. Thanks. Yeah, about how many like staff and volunteers are there total? I guess there are four of us. Quite the extent that you guys worked on. Yeah. Yeah, there are four of us. So there's myself and Alfred Mills is our re-entry coordinator. So he does the transitional housing in the circles of support and accountability, works with those folks. Pat Hoffman is our victim services specialist and Erin Anderson, Pat works about 12 hours a week. Erin Anderson works 24 hours a week and she's our restorative programs coordinator. So she does all of the restorative panels. And then I do the conflict assistance program and we also hire out a couple of different local mediators who will hire her out to do some mediation for us if I can't fit it into my schedule. Thank you so much for coming and feel free to please jump in at any point except for on voting and share your thoughts or feedback or reactions or anything like that. What you said, I'm here to learn. Well, I'll try to remember to give context, but if we are forgetting, please jump in. And let's review and approve the minutes from the last meeting. So folks have pulled that up. You want to do the agenda first or? Oh, we don't need to vote on the agenda. I thought now, the negative check of just anyone have anything to add, any concerns of this? Cool. Thanks for checking. All right. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from our last meeting. I had a couple of edits. How do we which we I think we can approve with edits, right? Yes. So there are two things I saw Michael and item seven. Just as a factual correction, I believe the first public budget hearing was last Thursday or last Wednesday. Is that true? Or city council? Technically, we have three. One is for the proposed and then council per council adopts it as the recommended budget of the council. And then we have two more public budget hearings. There, there's technically three. So I don't know how that amends your. Well, I mean, it's easy to amend which the question is, which is correct? Is the first public hearing on the budget scheduled for the 21st or did it take place? Oh, no. Yeah. Correct. Okay. Yeah. The first public budget hearing was the six tomorrow is the second one. And that's when they approve it to go to the voters in March. Sorry. Okay. Yeah. That's, yeah. That's what I meant. Sorry. Sorry. So it's amended to strike first and right second. That's right. Right. And then just a minute. Just a minute. One second. I'm just strike through and that was not a Thursday and don't need to even mess with that. So that was a Wednesday. Wasn't it January 6th? Mm hmm. Yes. Okay. And okay. Good. Next. Okay. Next. Item number 10. And if my memory is false here, let me know. But what I think that the, the issue with Elizabeth Parker, the reach out was that we weren't clear on what she meant by a community survey that she had referenced. And in fact, I was the one who reached out to Elizabeth to get clarification, which I did do. That's another issue. It was like, when I should report back on that, but so it wasn't necessarily about communication was about a survey, a possible survey from sustainable Montpelier that we didn't understand. And I reached out. I was asked to reach out to Elizabeth to help with the community service. So it's to help with the community service. Just clarification about what she meant. Clarification. While Michael's doing that, you guys know those like weird strawberry candies that all grandmas have in their houses? Yes. Yeah. My husband bought me a bag for my birthday. That's, if you see me doing something weird in the background, it's me eating giant pile of these strawberry candies. Yeah, I love them. And I can only find them at dollar three dollar store. That's it. I cannot find them anywhere else. I'm going to send you the Amazon link. I guarantee you. Please. Yeah, one package for myself, one package for my kids. I don't touch mine, you know, I really love them. Thank you. And today your birthday? Happy birthday. Yep. It's coming up on the third. No tip. All right. Okay. So I did, I made that change too. Is there another? Those are the only two? Those are the only things I saw. Okay. I don't have anything to change, but I will ask one question. What will I do as a point person for the, you know, Let's talk about that. Yeah, because I was going to reach out to you and I never did. So here we go. Do you want to do that now or? No, I think we should touch face offline. Okay. So I will make a motion to approve the minutes as amended. I second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Awesome. Cool. Thank you. Thank you for the changes, Jeremy. Thank you. I did not notice. That sounds good, Jack. So self-education and learning round table. So Carol, this is just an opportunity that we have to learn from each other on the work that we're doing on our anti-oppression. So our anti-racism, anti-classism, just learnings that we're doing that we want to share. So it could be folks you've read, conversations you've had, whatever it is. It's just kind of an open space. Well, I was in the audience for a program sponsored by the League of Women Voters on Mental Health and Policing. And that was helpful to find out what other places are doing and questions, presentations by the chief and by someone who is in, in Rutland who is, it's a kind of an outreach. People who themselves have had mental problems or problems in the past, service mentors to other people, to people who are dealing with those. And what was the third one? Oh, I had my notes here somewhere, but I've forgotten. Anyway, it was really helpful. And I did get to hear some other models about the way police interact and use outside resources for dealing with mental health issues as part of their police calls. And chief talked a little bit more about the arrangement with the Washington County Mental Health for having a someone who is specifically assigned to work with the police. I think that that was filmed then. So I think it will be available because it was done as part of the color-covered library programming. So if you're interested, keep an eye out for that. Yeah, Michael, if you have the link, if you wouldn't mind sharing it, so I can put it in the newsletter as well. Okay, I'll keep my eyes out too from Fort Ford. Our cameras just got out of fingertips. Great. No, that was something different. Sorry. Oh, great. I wanted to share, I had recently had a conversation with the Reverend at Christ Church and they were talking about the new bishop and I had heard about her, but I wanted to do more reading. Vermont had, well, I don't know what to the Vermont Bishop for the Episcopal Church was ordained 2019 and she's the first Black bishop that Vermont has had. I was doing some reading about her and what she stands for and she had written a very interesting letter, sort of social justice, since I included that link. I thought that was really interesting. So she's worth researching. She has some very, her work really aligns with what y'all are doing. So thank you. I'll share that recently. So I worked in the Hardwick area for many years and was part of a group called Community Allies for Safety, Trust and Respect and I'm still on their email distribution list and they started a book discussion group on a book called CAST, C-A-S-T-E and I attended the first, they had met once before and talked about what their format was going to be and I attended that first book discussion last night, which was really great because I mean, I learned some things from a historical perspective, things that I didn't really understand about. I mean, I know what CAST is and where it exists, but I didn't really look at it as how it applies in the United States and historically how that, how it was set up and how laws were created around keeping this system in place and how it relates specifically to race and black and brown people. So that was really great and it was really expansive in my thinking and one of the things that struck me the most in the first part of the book that we read was that Nazi Germany actually used the United States as a model to develop what they were doing with the Jews and that just, it increased my shame and guilt about being an American and I recognize that I wasn't personally responsible for that, but really just shown a different light on who we are and where we are and how much work we have to do to fix it. I think I mentioned this book last one time back. I have a copy if anyone wants to borrow it. Yeah. I read it. So just let me know and I'll, and we can arrange to, you know, get it to you one way or another. I feel like this book just keeps popping up, so I think I'm going to have to read it. Okay, let me know what I got to you. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? So this is obvious perhaps since we celebrated the memorial for Martin Luther King on Monday, but I have been spending more time listening, reading, thinking about Martin Luther King Jr. So I did, again, watch the I Have a Dream speech that he gave at the March on Washington in 1963, which might be unremarkable, except honestly, I don't remember watching that speech until I watched it the first time, maybe a few months ago. Of course, it was hard to snippets of it, but never recalled being shown it in any of my public schooling education or beyond. So seeing it for the first time, you know, after doing some other work along kind of anti-racism, it was a very powerful experience. And then watching it again, you know, a week or so ago after the, you know, the insurrection at the Capitol, also another powerful experience just to hear the power of his poetry. I mean, he's a preacher poet, very moving, the way he talked about the power of imagination to envision a thing, a world that seems impossible that we can't possibly imagine. So it was a very kind of inspiring thing for me personally, just to experience, and then just connect so much about why we're doing, you know, work on this committee and other things that we're doing. Interesting little fact about that speech that I heard and kind of learning more about it. His prepared marks did not include the whole I Have a Dream second half of that speech. So he had written some prepared marks, which is, you know, the first several minutes. And the story goes that Mahalia Jackson was in the audience with him on the dais and she yelled out to him, tell him about the dream, Martin. And that kicked him into this, what is the most famous sections of the speech about, you know, I Have a Dream and kind of listening out what that dream meant to him. So it's an amazing speech, amazing story, still so important for this time. So I don't know if you've seen it recently or listened to it recently, but I really recommend going to it, you know, especially if you're having, you know, a lack of hope or faith or whatever it might be. I think it's a, it's an amazing reminder of the kind of world we're trying to build. And just similarly, I just want it was like, this is so obvious, but the inauguration today and just, you know, hearing in the, in the, in the speech, you know, naming of like white supremacy and like calls for racial justice and that I just show just showing like how much work has been done the past four years in particular, gearing up this summer to like put that, you know, put that in press four years past, you know, 12 years past 400 years to, you know, put that put that in to get that named in the inauguration and just like that the first section will be like reversing the Muslim ban and expanding the eviction moratoriums and things like that just feels, feels really powerful to name today. So I'll add one final one more thing, anti-climactic, but related to what to what Jeremy was talking about. I participated as the moderator of a program sponsored by the the Montpelier Senior Activities Center and the Council on Aging. It was mostly with AmeriCorps and VISTA volunteers. And the topic was obviously related to aging, but we focused in on on aging in place and food security and food security. And it was interesting to hear, but I mean, there were there were three of us who were seniors who were able to talk about our experience aging in place and and then a little bit about the about food. But it was also interesting to hear what the what the AmeriCorps and VISTA people are doing, working with elderly people who are living alone. It's not it's not a constituency that's been on our radar very much. But I think, you know, I'm not sure, you know, what we have to say that about or if we want to try to include it. But it was interesting to take this take into account some of the anecdotal stuff that people are talking about about why people don't, you know, aren't eating well or why people who are living alone fail to, you know, thrive and sense and to some extent how they thrive. So as I say, I was just the moderator, but but it was it was very interesting. And there are some resources that were that were identified and I can pass them along if if anyone wants them, I'll do that. Kind of a newsletter. Please include in your newsletter, Shayna. Yep. Okay, cool. Well, maybe we back in transition us to other just report backs from other city committees as well. So, you know, anything to know about the budget with the meeting tomorrow, hearing from your conversation with Elizabeth Parker, Jeremy, and on the place in schools meeting with Tisha and Michael. I want to start. Nothing specific with the budget. There was only one change from the last public hearing. The council voted to include a $20,000 addition to go to the capital area neighborhoods, which is great. They've been a great partner in getting the word out and communicating for us in avenues that we can't read people with like for things that need a personal touch person person helps us really expand our communication past the internet does have a slight tax implication, not a lot, but you know, we came in no tax increase and they've added some things that have incrementally raised the tax. Great, but not a significant amount. It was only $20,000. So that's really the only update we'll hear tomorrow if they want to add anything else. I haven't heard knock wood of anybody last minute petitioning. I only say that because I really want to know first, you know, what's going on. So it'd be interesting if anything does show up tomorrow, but tomorrow's the last day to be petitioned to put on the ballot. So we'll see. But I don't I don't know. I haven't heard of any other interest for anything else up. So that's my budget update. Jeremy, do you want to share more about talk like a little bit? Yeah. Played back and forth. So I just spoke with her this morning. So you recall, we were a little bit unsure about what Elizabeth meant when she started talking about a possible community survey for Montpelier. Because she referenced a few different things. She referenced a community survey that was recently done in Barrie. And she'd also mentioned that in the past, Montpelier has done, I think, a 10-year, every 10-year survey, which they did not do in 2019 when I think it was meant to be done. That's great. Yeah. So I just asked her, like, what are you talking about specifically? So there's not really anything there right now. I think it's her notion as a staff person for sustainable Montpelier that she would like to do some kind of a community-wide survey that is online, so easily accessible, that really kind of digs in with residents about what's important to them at this time about the city and community itself. So yeah, there's really nothing determined. There's no plans. There's no conversation with the city about doing this. If she said if they were to do it, it would be in collaboration with various committees in the city like ours and also other city departments. But there is nothing in the works around a community survey from sustainable Montpelier. And did they have specific questions they wanted to put in the survey, even, or that we were doing? Well, she kept talking about... Not even yet, not yet. No, not yet. I mean, I asked her if she can get a hold of the Barrie City survey that she shared with us because it sounds like that's a model for her. And I haven't seen the 10-year survey that the city has done. I think it's from her perspective, the city survey that's been done, she used the word sterile. I think there are some more meteor issues that she would like to get into with a survey, a new survey that she's thinking about, but she didn't get into any specifics. I know she's very focused on kind of economic justice and kind of class issues. So I assume some of that would be in it. But yeah, no specifics. Michael, do you want to talk about the briefing? Okay, so Keshav Ram did attend a part of the last meeting of the police review committee, explained what the project that they're doing for us is about, had some discussion of methodology. We in turn explained to her what our committee is doing and that our interest in getting some information from the small group discussion or the focus group discussion groups about attitudes and experiences and thoughts on police, the police and policing as somewhat different issues. And Keshav agreed that this would be okay. We as a committee had drafted a few questions and we appointed one of our members, Dan Towell, to be liaison to Keshav. And he has or will be passing those questions to her and she and her colleagues will vet them and then let us know in the police review committee if she wants to revise them, have different questions, what's going to happen. But she was agreeable to devote some time in their conversations with the different focus groups to policing and police and the Montpelier police specifically. So that's good. And as things develop, I'll keep you informed. Thank you. Awesome. So moving into great segue, good order, note itself for talking about the creative discourse work plan update. So Carol, we have hired this, Carol and listeners at home through Orca. We have hired creative discourse as a consultant to help us identify what are the major issues and that we need to address in as a study to make it more equitable and just and welcoming to all in particular, you know, focusing on folks of marginalized or oppressed identities. And so we are doing a series of focus groups with we folks over the next few months, starting with folks in the city with black indigenous people of color folks in the city. And we'll be doing kind of doing doing these these conversations that this this consultant is hiring is kind of someone from the outside. And then they'll be kind of pulling those into some recommendations. So Michael had proposed kind of an outreach document and kind of a starting point. So just again, as another quick reminder is that we don't want to be the consultant we've been worked with in ethics have have they've worked in ethics and they've run into some issues around like safety and transparency, right? So if you're like, okay, here's the list of everyone that we know who's a person of color who lives in this town, like that could be it could be like not great to like, have that be, you know, super public. And so if there, you know, is any way, you know, if you have ideas of people to do it to send them directly to me or directly to Keisha. And if folks, I realize not everyone have her email address. So I apologize if you do need that, let me know. And they'll be kind of consolidating the list so that they're not boyable, essentially. And so, yeah, just as a quick reminder, sort of like not, you know, saying specific names whenever possible, or, or things like that. But I think what Michael had said was great. So this is a heads up before we're diving into this conversation. So take it away, Michael. Well, as I said, in the cover letter that I wrote to me out, I just sat down and thought about, I had sent a few of these things to Cameron. And then I realized that some of the names that I had put on, because they were, I thought they were in sort of in my area. The one I'm doing is the leaders of nonprofit organizations. And then as I looked at that again, I realized I should have looked all the way down the list of nine, because some of them fit better in some of those other places. So it was a bit of sorting for me. But I thought, well, this is, we should, I should just throw this away. And maybe it would be helpful to help others who have taken on one or another of these, these focus groups to just sort of get it on a list. And people can start adding to the list. And Cameron alerted me that it's not, it can't be a reply to all. So I volunteered that you can send them all to me. And I'll add, I'll keep adding to this list. And we put putting names into the appropriate categories. And at some point, bring it back to the committee and said, here's what all of you have suggested, suggested. And I hope, you know, the idea was, well, maybe it'll, you know, it'll give those of you who've taken on different other ones, some starting points, if you haven't already thought about them. And this is what you can do when you're retired and you have nothing else to do with your life. Nothing else. Yeah. Anyway, you know, it was just, just a way of getting it, getting this pushed off, you know, giving it a little shove to get it started. And if it's useful to you, fine, if it's not, well, since your, your previous comment, Shayna, about safety and anonymity, that is a complication that I hadn't thought about in this. That's why I thought you were reaching out to me initially. So, no. I mean, if we don't want to have a list that's circulating even among the six or seven of us, but that you really want to be the one person who collects, especially names of individuals who would or would not want to be identified publicly. I mean, this is not, I don't, this, I guess, if, does it become a public document? Cameron, if. So, here's the thing. We've contracted with Kesha. She is, and her group, are not government agencies. That's one of the reasons that it's important to have these sort of things handled by a consultant. Because if I created a list of who was in being involved, that could be considered a public document. So she has taken care of that for us. That's their job, and that's their role, and that's them to protect the anonymous nature and the protected nature of these, these conversations. So, you know, my approach to this was to reach out to groups like organizations, and then they can figure out between themselves who they're going to invite, right? If they, like, will do an open call to their folks, that's not us to decide, right? So if we do as much outreach to groups as possible, and then just pass that information to Kesha, then we won't have to worry about it, right? Yeah, like for your, your document, Michael was like, this is a person who is like known to be the convener of, you know, the Black Lives Matter march or whatever it is, right? As I'm looking at this list again, they are, most of them are directors or people of agencies. There are, there are a few here that are individuals whom I know or know about who are not in that category, and, and I can take those off my list and send them to Kesha. And then, and then I guess the, you know, it looks, especially the group five, the BIPOC residents and the LGBT plus. The rest of them are people who are involved with organizations. So I'll do that. I will delete those folks from my list and send the names to directly to, to keep, send them directly to Kesha. That's the best way to do this. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, does this spark any other questions or comments or ideas from folks for discussion? Yeah, so, so I guess I'll sort of cut in because I've been doing a lot of work with the staff. I volunteered last time to reach out to the LGBTQI community and I have spoken to quite a few folks that they want us to just set a time and date and they'll invite people, right? I think that's the the rub I've been coming into is like, I just want to tour that creative discourse can can be there, right? And, you know, I do intend to have these things over zoom. So right now I'm working with staff to schedule the meetings. I did have a clarifying question, Shayna, because I was copying on a few emails with creative discourse and I just don't understand. I'm just not clear who they want to meet with. Like, how many meetings do they want to have with staff? Because they were saying two, three different groups. So I don't know what they're asking for, honestly, if they want to meet with my, you know, Blacks like folks in my, that work for me or do they want to work? Do they want to meet with them separately or do they want to meet with them with their departments? So I'm just not sure. Yeah, we, and that's, and it was confusing by email and I think that would be like, when we're talking, let's just like, like, get that figured out. And so we haven't figured out a time that we can talk either this week or next week yet, but if we do, can we just invite you in and if you can make it or like, can we schedule a meeting that you can make too? Yeah, yeah, just whenever it works for y'all and then I'll jump in. Just because I don't want staff, you know, set up for this time, if they don't even want to speak with them. So, so that's ready to go at the time though. You know, we've identified that would be involved. We have, I have my set groups and the folks that I spoke to and a couple different organizations, let me pull that up. Right, Vermont, the LGBTQIA Alliance of Vermont, and then Universal Unitarian Church has a group. So let's talk to you so far. It's large organizations. So ready to go. Awesome. Cameron, the group you're in touch with at the Unitarian Church, if I understand right, would probably include quite a few young people. So that might be an interesting kind of, you know, double hit for them in terms of people they'd like to talk to, if we're thinking of the same group. It was the Unitarian Church Welcoming Group, Nancy Schultz. Yeah, okay. Okay, there's a different youth oriented group I'm thinking of. So yeah, thanks. And then I'm sorry it took me so long to get the sample language, but I did include that in my email that I sent out. So if you are, you know, if you're looking for some, some sort of sample language that would be really helpful. I think that could be helpful. But in that they also have this stipend language. And so I didn't know, I have not moved on like figuring out what we can stipend people we have. So as you guys know, so maybe I'll just move us into the, to the fundraising and money talk, unless there's anything else to talk about here with, you know, organizing the meetings or scheduling the meeting. So I think we still have to go ahead, Cameron. Oh, I just had a question about the stipend situation. So do they straight? Does creative discourse still want to put that on the table when most of these will be zoom related? Like how? I don't know. That seems something different to me. Like I understand like incentives, right? Like gift cards, that kind of thing like what we talked about before, right? Yeah. But I think that that there's some interesting things that we talked about like childcare and whatever, like do we still how deep do you want to go with that? I think that's a decision that you all have to make about what you want to offer for support for like a zoom meeting versus like an in person meeting. And that just might be a conversation point that you have creative discourse. I don't know. Well, and I can just say from my experience, as you guys know, I'm working with Keisha in my work capacity on the environmental justice policy project. And we've been still stipending people during while meeting on zoom because recognizing that it's still taking people away from their jobs or that they're going to have to order dinner, not make it because they're on this call or just like recognizing that it is still like a burden and wanting to be able to compensate people for their time. And for that that work of participating in this in the same way. And so right, well, it's like 150 for in person is what they have here. And I think, yeah, for the project we've been working on, it's been like 40 to $50, I think, for, for, you know, compensating people for that. But, you know, that's, that's thinking that it's including not just the meeting, but also like, yeah, me calling them up and being like, okay, and like, can you invite five of your friends? And then they call up 10 of their friends in order to recruit five people to come, you know, so it's just like kind of compensating for, for all of that work. I, right. So we do have we've had $2,718 in the bank. We have another $3,000 committed. And then I did just send in an additional application for, I can't remember how much it was, Michael, was it $5,000 from the Acorn Foundation? That's right. Yeah. So we had a goal of getting $12,000 fund raise from, you know, not from the city to get us to that $22,000 before kind of the start of these meetings. And so we're not there yet, but we are moving along pretty, pretty good. And those $700 that we've raised from individuals in particular is, is in particularly useful because it doesn't, there's no like grant deliverable or anything associated with that. So we can use those to use as incentives or stipends for participation. And then Golly, what about Montpelier Life has also offered, you know, working with Montpelier businesses to, to be able to offer some sort of like incentives as the form of gift cards or raffle prizes or, you know, something, something, you know, maybe a little bit more local and tangible to compensate people for further time. And so we just haven't really talked about this yet as, as a group. But so yeah, just first of all, does anyone have any questions about like our budget and how kind of where we're at? And then, yeah, like how should, does anyone have any thoughts about how to do the budget and yeah, or the stipends and compensation? I mean, I agree with you, Shayna. I think it's important to compensate people for their time and their contributions. I guess I would rely on creative discourse to help gauge what the appropriate amount is kind of just in terms of past precedent. Of course, working within our budget. So I don't have necessarily an opinion about what the amount is. But I do think it's important that we offer some stipend. Is that to everybody who participates or yeah, okay. No, no, good question. I was nodding because I was thinking. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, what do you guys think? Like for staff, I'm thinking particularly about for staff, right, if this is like part of their job working in the city, would that be appropriate to offer compensation for staff? Not for my staff, no, because I'd be scheduling that on a work day or within their extended hours that they get to be there. That's not a thing. No, no, no. And so then we for other meetings too, just because there it can be some like weird like class stuff coming up and that we, you know, really so that people don't feel like, oh, no, no, no, I'm not going to take this. We would be like, no, this is what everyone who is here is getting. And if you don't want it or you don't need it, like, donate it, give it, you know, give it back to us, whatever it is. But like as part of this process, like, you know, give it to the food bank, like we are, if you were coming to the meeting, we are doing this, you know, it's like, you don't have to like ask for it. Like it's a clear, you know, set of what's going to be happening. But yeah, except for people who are being paid otherwise to participate. Cool. But yes, and just ask creative discourses. Yeah. And any other, any other thoughts? Okay. Cool. Anything else around our kind of work plan and updates there? I'll move on to the business. Well, just let you know that I'm running out of options here on my list of that I developed from the big thick book, because almost everyone I have contacted one way or done more research requires a 501c3 status. And I had, I looked at the Gill Foundation, which meant mentioned in their, on their website that they had given to state agency gifts, 4.76% of their funds. So I, they are by invitation only. So I sent an email, I got a phone conversation back and he said, no, you have to have 501c3. So I don't know how they did, how they gave money to government agencies, if that's their requirement, but he was pretty clear that that's that is a requirement. So I'm down to, I think my last two on my on the list where I haven't made any contacts yet. One is the Ruderick MacArthur Foundation in Illinois, and they don't even have a website. So I have to have to give them a phone call. It doesn't sound as if they're really interested in giving away money, but all right. And the, the other one is the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, which is a big foundation. And I haven't done the, I haven't done the web search yet to see if we're going to run into that. So I'm thinking that our, otherwise also the Annenberg Foundation. So I'm thinking that, you know, we, we may need to be starting to take seriously the possibility of talking to people in the community, trying to identify people in the community who might be interested. I've made a tentative stab at it with one person I know who is well connected to other people who have, who also have means and interest in social, social equity. But I think, you know, we're all going to have to sort of decide whether we really want to go and start not, you know, calling in whatever chips of friendship or, or, you know, good works we've done with other people to see if they're willing to come back to, you know, give to us. You know, it's a, it's another job for our committee and different from what we probably any of us signed up for. But if I think, I think we're facing the reality that that's, that if we're going to make this goal, we may have to, we may have to do that. And I'll put that on my list of things to talk about with creative discourses as well, because they had some good ideas at the beginning that didn't pan out for us, but that maybe they can do, do more for that, like do introductions to, to who's, you know, funded them to work in Burlington and Essex and Winiski. And because, right, it's just, that's so frustrating. And thank you for doing all that work, Michael. Well, I mean, yeah, some of it's, it's just time at the, at the computer, but some of it, you know, has been playing telephone tag and it's interesting. So, okay. Okay. You're welcome. Cool. All right. Other business, Jeremy, do you want to kick us off with kind of just protests and, and to leave things and like potential committee comments? Yeah. So I emailed China earlier this week about a couple of things that came up for me. And the thread with them is they involve the police department. And so I'm offering them up really for discussion. Again, being new to the committee, I'm not sure what our purview is and I'm not sure what precedent has been, but I just thought of our work as, as these two things came up for me. So the first has to do with the budget. Did anyone attend the January 6 public budget session? There was quite a, there was a good turnout of folks from the public speaking about the 10% near 10% increase in the police department budget for this coming fiscal year. You know, the, the main point is in this time of austerity, when other programs are being cut or eliminated, is it in our best interest to increase the budget for the police department? That was the basic gist of a number of comments that came up. And so I was curious if that is something we wanted to discuss at the committee. We've done some work to kind of give a tool to the council on the budget. And as we think about equity and as our charge, you know, dictates, do we want to discuss that and take a stand? I think what, with that particular discussion at council, I was a little bit, I was not impressed with the response from the city manager or a few of the council members and the mayor, which left kind of a bad taste in my mouth after viewing the kind of resultant discussion. So by the way, a proposal, I guess, you know, proposal that we could make as a committee is given the optics of austerity and an increase in policing and a larger context, a larger conversation around policing in the country, would we recommend that the police department budget stay completely flat? However, that is done. I do not know. I don't know the details of the budget. Let me shed some light on this real quick because I was really working against ourselves here a little bit. There was not. So the budget kind of fell out this year is there is a increase to the police budget, but it's not actually an increase to the police budget. So bear with me for a second. What happened is one of our funds is decimated. A lot of our funding comes from something we call the parking fund, right? People put me into the parking meters. We get money for tickets. You know, there's a lot of different funding streams that come into the parking budget. Our jobs were paid out of the parking budget, right? So my job was allocated to the parking budget. It's just a revenue stream. And so all of us whose jobs touch parking gets paid out of the parking budget is gone. Basically, we turned everything off. There's no money. And we needed to take all of the little portions that were that have been paid out from the parking fund and move them to the general fund or otherwise people weren't going to get paid, right? So for my instance, like my budget, the city manager's budget, a lot of the police budget was stirred by something that's not in the general fund. It was another fund. We had to take all of that money that was in the parking fund budget pot and moved into the general fund. What you're actually seeing is an increase, but that increase just existed out of other funds. So it looks like an increase. We actually decreased the amount of police officers that were funding this year by an entire police officer. When you only have 17, that's a huge deal. So we got an entire position and most of the money that you see is an increase for police. Not only is it the salaries from the parking, but it's also for our dispatchers. We've worked to make sure that our dispatch team is up and they did new equipment. And so one thing that we weren't, like they're on our list of priorities for our capital fund because those things are important, right? We have old radios and old consoles and all those things need to be upgraded, right? So I don't think maybe we did a very good job presenting why it looks that way. I don't, I agree with you. I do not think we presented that correctly because it does make sense to be mad that there's like a visible increase in the police budget and it's just because we moved money that didn't exist anymore, we had to pay it out of the general funds now because there's no other way it's coming in. And so we do a very good job communicating that, but it is a misconception that we added more money to their budget. All we did was take money that was supposed to be coming from over here and we moved that to the general fund. So I'm just, I wasn't at the meeting. And so is the funds coming, like, but this is for next year's budget. And so it's assuming that we won't be able to get any funds in from parking or from other places for that future budget? Because aren't those, aren't those revenue sources back in? Not really, no. It's, it's our parking budget right now, to be honest with you all, has barely covered the people that maintain our facility, like our parking facilities. Right. So the people who, and that won't be back by 2022, you think? You're not, you're not budgeting on that. Okay. We are not budgeting on that. We think that, and then if it does, then would that go to other places or would that then go to the general fund? Is that like no longer bookmarks for the police? Yeah, we're figuring that out. Right. It's no longer bookmarked for the police. We don't know what we would do with that. I mean, I'm, there's a plan, but I don't know if I what to tell you about that right now. If the parking fund does recover, a lot of that we might be able to shift back. Like if the parking fund recovers enough, we might be able to shift all the things that we move to the general fund back to the parking fund to take the pressure off the general fund. But there has been conversation about re-looking at what the parking fund is used for. Before, when it was conceptualized years and years ago, it was four things like fixing roads and really working on capital projects instead of paying people. Right. And that's probably where we should be back to. It makes more fiscal sense to have the parking fund do things like that. So, Jeremy, I didn't mean to be adversarial. It's just, it's something that I just want to be very clear that we didn't add anything. We just move things. And so it's a bad year to do that. It's a bad year to do that without a robust conversation about it. And I don't think we've had that robust conversation because we didn't add. We actually cut quite a lot for them. So, all of their equipment, they're not getting any new equipment really. All their cars, an entire officer, they put a lot on the table to be cut. So, it's a bizarre time to have. So, that's my explanation of what is actually happening within that budget. Yeah. Thank you for clarifying that. Is there a plan for communicating this information more widely to the public? You know, it's a conversation that I've been having with Bill and it's sort of the budget is his thing. So, you know, that's a continued conversation I'm having with him. Yeah. I think, I really appreciate that, Cameron. I think it had a lot to do with presentation. And these issues are complicated, too. So, they're not easy to wrap your head around, especially for someone like me who doesn't understand budgets at all. So, whatever leverage you have, I think helping that story get told differently. I mean, part of the problem was if it had been a kind of clear mechanical justification like that, it may have gone over better. The council's response, they should have led with that in their response, too. Instead, they kind of, I wish Lauren was here because I hate to talk about council without her here, but it was a very condescending response in a lot of ways, like, oh yeah, let's just keep talking about it, but we're not going to do anything really or really address your concerns public who are commenting on this issue. So, it kind of like that embodied it even further. It was like, oh, we don't want to touch it, but thanks for talking about it. So, there are a lot of perceptions flying around that, you know, first, you know, certainly it triggered me a little bit as I was listening and watching, but yeah, I wonder if anyone else has any feelings, too, to share? Well, I think also just like in those national context of, you know, defunding police, you know, nationally, right, and having it be specifically be the police that looks like the budget is increasing is important. So, yeah. That's my, sorry, just diving in. Carol, go ahead. Yeah, I'll just say that I happened to be on the email distribution list for the showing up for restorative racial justice group. And just a couple days ago, they sent sent an email out that is asking for people to take action based on that 10% increase in in the police budget. And so Cameron, it was really great to hear your explanation about that because I wasn't aware of that and I attend the budget meetings for the city. So, so that, you know, really wasn't clear. And, you know, basically, they're, they want to reduce funding for police and divert those funds elsewhere. But just FYI, you know, that group is also on that on that bandwagon right now. Cameron, would it help you in your conversations with Bill if our committee requested clarification on this issue and requested that the clarification be public clarification through the public. I mean, I don't want to start pulling the rug under from Bill and the council. But if it's unnecessarily creating a problem or creating a problem, which is, you know, completely missed, you know, upside down, I think it would be in their best interests to hear from us who had to hear it from you that, you know, we're concerned about this. And we think clarification is important for just the reasons that, you know, we put before them this tool for looking at the equity and social justice. I mean, we want to help here, I think, rather than just squawk. I am actually, as you're talking, I was typing an email to Bill really strongly advocating for even like a graphic depiction of like, here's where, you know, here's where the money was, here's where it's coming from and here's why, because I think we've really stepped over that and just assumed that folks had a like the same intimate knowledge of the budget that I have, right? And I really do appreciate this feedback and hearing from you guys because I, you know, there's always learn learning curves with anything and really how we communicated this could have been different. So, you know, I appreciate hearing that. And I am, I am definitely name dropping this committee if that to my, in my communication with Bill. So thank you guys. I think having like some of more of that, that future thinking I think would be helpful too, because I think I'm also the thing like I'm like, well, 2022 like, of course the parking budget is going to be back and also it probably doesn't make sense that the parking budget is paying for a police force like that does not like one to one equate. And, and so like, but to solve also just like that's those are like where my follow up questions are going that I also like would like to have answered and so I recognize this meeting is tomorrow. And so there probably won't be consensus on those yet, but I'm just like recognizing that those those are all those are all part of our of the same question I think. Yeah. So I think the the short and long answer to that is that, you know, the parking fund was just a very steady revenue stream that the city could count on. And so that helps. So anything that we can do that protects out of the general fund protects taxes, if that makes sense. So if we don't have to raise the general fund allocations to what it's paying for, we don't have to like there's no tax change, right? So we can pay people out of a fund, not the general fund, and take the pressure off the general fund, it doesn't impact taxes and was such a small town, you know, city that we live in, taxes are a big deal here. Like, you know, where I lived in Mecklenburg County had over a million people taxes, you could do a $5 million thing. And over the, you know, years that's pennies on the dollar for people, but here there's like less than 8000 people. So anything that we can do to take pressure off the general fund is important. So anybody who sort of touched parking in any, any capacity got some of their funding through the parking fund, right? So we could take that pressure off the general fund. And so, you know, it came out of a place of trying to be responsive to the taxpayer. And I think, you know, you know, how do you anticipate something like this happening? So it is, it is an interesting, like what's the phrase never waste an emergency? It's a very interesting look at how our town plans the for things like the parking fund in the future. I think that's a good point. Any other thoughts here? Cool. Well, I've got it on my calendar to go tomorrow. So I'm excited to actually have it on my calendar this time. I'll be there too for other reasons. Oh, cool. Yeah. Anything else, Jeremy? No, I think there was another issue I thought to raise, but I think looking at time, we'll let that one go for maybe next time or And my only other thing here too was just website updates. I think I forget who raised this, but just that our website is very out of date with just the members on it and with doesn't have anything about the projects that we're going through. And they'd be like a link to our our newsletter sign up or just like just having updated information essentially. And so I could do that, but seeing how far behind I am on so many other things, I wanted to see if anyone wanted to volunteer to kind of write up that new language to send to the city just to update our website. I'm kind of looking at you, Michael, as the writer, but you're avoiding computer eye contact. So no, I know, I'm kidding. I would prefer not to take on another writing project. You're amazing. Thank you, Jeremy. And then Michael, who is do we know who to send it to to get the website updated? Just send it to me. So let me be clear. We want to update the members and we want a blurb about the work with creative discourse. Yeah. And the link to the newsletter, I think. You mean like join us? Yeah. Type of thing. Cool. Can you get that? Yeah. Cool. And then also just a quick plug for remembering to recruit for the committee. Lots of open seats. All right. Our last thing on our agenda is of talking about time. So proposal from Pellin to meet mornings. What we had met with met before for like, since for COVID. I think before that, too, was the 30 to 10 on Wednesday mornings. And so maybe we can start with that time and see if that time works for folks, if we prefer to move into back to back to Wednesday mornings. Works for me now, but fall next fall I am teaching Wednesday and my class starts 10, which means I need to leave the house like around nine. So, were we meeting 8.30? I remember 7.30 to 9. No? Okay. Sorry. Maybe I just, yeah, I'm confused. Oh, I can't imagine I did anything before 8 o'clock. Maybe it is 8.30 to 9.30, is it? I don't remember really, but it is fine for me now, Wednesday, 8.30 to 10. Yeah, I can do 8.30 to 10 on Wednesdays. I can too, but I think in September, I may be going back to work at Mangi's Bakery because Steve Stoffer is going to be having back surgery and he'll be out for quite a while. And that means that I'm on their substitute list and I've already agreed that I would do more work there. So, depending on the day, it was no schedule yet, but it may be that it becomes impossible for me to do early morning because that's when we do the baking. Knowing that that's when Pellan is also going back to not being, won't be able to do Wednesday mornings, maybe can we do this like too late, like reevaluate this late August? And I guess kind of looking at you Cameron, like is that kosher to kind of move our time around like that? Like do other committees do that? Is that? Some do and some don't. It's okay to do that as long as we announce when you're meeting and as long as you're on top of notifying folks and doing the correct procedures there. So, I will endeavor. It's probably not like best practice to change our meeting time around all the time, but it's like if that's the time that we'll generally work better for folks. And you know, that works for Lauren before. So, I know that we'll likely work with her for now. So, that means your next meeting would be the third at eight to nine thirty? Or eight. Eight thirty to ten. Is that? Oh, I can't. I can't because apparently. So, I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry. No, eight. Does eight to nine thirty work for us? No. So, eight thirty to ten is fine. I'm sorry. I just. Oh, okay. People were trying. I was confused. No, I've been on Zoom for a very long time today. And our road kind of cadence for these is every two weeks from that day forward. I just have to block my schedule at work. So, I don't get it booked. Is it every two weeks or twice or twice a month? Oh, golly, every two weeks. And then y'all kind of figured out. It's fine. It's fine. Great. Cool. Okay. So, whatever. February third then. Great. Um, so next steps is I'm going to schedule a meeting with creative discourses with Cameron. Um, send out that newsletter as we are always going to do. Connect with Helen about the meeting and have everyone just be recruiting for these meetings and continue doing that work. Any other next steps? Well, say again, what your, your, your agenda is. Oh, no, this is like next steps, not agenda. You want, but do you want the next step to be in the meeting in the minutes? Um, sure. Yeah. So go through it again. Scheduling a meeting with creative discourses with Shayna and Cameron. Sending out the newsletter and recruit for our meetings, our upcoming meetings and Shayna and Helen connect. R.E. One of the meetings. Oh, and I'm going to update the website copy. And thank you update the website. And I'm on my list. Great. And then for our next agenda, I think it's the same agenda that we've been doing. Copy paste. So the next agenda would be, um, introductions, review and approve the agenda, public comments, review and approve minutes, self-education, report back, creative discourse, outreach, other business. Next steps and close. Copy paste. Cool. All right. Can I get a motion to adjourn? Wait, just clarification on, um, the next step, recruiting for the, the first of the small group forums, right? Focus groups. Yeah. Okay. Community conversations. Okay. All right. And for the committee, that is also evergreen. Right. Okay. Alrighty. Good. All right. To adjourn. I'll make a motion to adjourn. Second. Second. All in favor? All right. All right. Thank you all. Thank you so much, Carol, for joining and for sharing. Yeah. Nice to meet you, Carol. Have a nice week, everyone. All two weeks. Yeah. Good to go.