 Hi, everyone, to the COVID transition team. I'm Brian Camping, your host. So what we have, and what we have, I think might be in everybody's inboxes, is a draft letter from Luke, based on all the information that everyone has provided us. Thank you, everybody. It's a draft showing, again, the holes that we've identified after hearing from the administration, as well as from hearing from our colleagues, as well as I think a lot of us branched out and talked to different people. So we have a good draft, and what Richie and I thought we would do, and I'll let Senator Westman jump in, after Luke takes us through the letter, we thought we would give everyone the day to take a look at it, to think about it, to edit it, and then we could meet again tomorrow. Add to it in the, oh, okay, yeah. Add to it, and we would take a look, we could meet tomorrow, make edits together. If you want to, you could always email any thoughts to the two of us by the end of the day, and we would have time again tomorrow, and then we'll work to get it, the final draft, everybody Friday evening or Saturday, to sign off and we'll send it to Tim from there. Senator Westman, am I missing anything? No, I think you're doing fine. Okay, so with that, I think, does anybody have any questions before I turn it over to Luke to take us through the letter? Okay, great, all right. You drove Mark right out of his chair. Really? It's not the first time. All right, and then with that, I'll turn it over to our Ledge Council, Luke Marlin, to take us through the letter. Thank you. Thank you, good morning, everybody. Can everyone hear me okay? Or is the microphone too loud? Just let me know. Good. So it's good to see you. I sent you earlier a nine page single space letter, and the reason why I say it's nine page single space is there's a lot of text in there, and I assume that all of you or most of you had not had a chance to read it this morning, which is perfectly understandable. I don't intend to read it through for you. I think you should spend time to look at all of her and talk to the co-chairs and modify as you think best. So what I intend to do is just sort of walk you through at a very, very high level, and then turn it over to the co-chairs for any discussion about parts of it. This is a little different than a bill. So in a bill, I would testify about legal issues. I may be alert you to some decision points, and there'd be a detailed discussion. This is a letter. So it's really your work product that's meant to express your point of view on policy issues. So I don't really have a legal role in this. Our role is merely to try to help you pull together a letter that is a letter that you want. I'm gonna share the screen, which should have the text that I sent you earlier, and can all of you see that? Yes. If you can't wave your hands, please. Great. So it's dividing into four parts. First is economic development and much of that concerns broadband, but also concerns some other issues, healthcare, education, and government. Government remains to be filled in. If you've had a chance to look at the draft yet, the fourth category government is something that's still a work in progress. As to economic development, you notice the first issue is broadband expansion, and this was largely developed with the co-chairs. It also is based on your discussion last time you met, but it's been fleshed out extensively over the last couple of days. It really focuses on these three issues, A, B, and C. Number one, how important broadband is, that's A, B. The suggestion is that money be spent that only furthers long-term goals, not something that may not achieve those goals of true broadband expansion throughout the state, and then using creative solutions. So I'd ask the co-chairs, I don't wanna read through a letter. It's not really the best way to convey information. Do you wanna pause and have people skim it, or what's the best way to proceed in your minds? I would say, let's run through this. And during the day, people kibitz and get comments back to Brian and I, and we will make sure that the group gets to look at the inclusion. Sure. So I have on the screen, or I don't know if it's easier to pull up on your screen the email I sent you earlier. I have A, which is the first broadband category about how important it is for economic development. And I'll pause there and let people look at that. This is really setting forth the case for how important it is and why Vermont needs a true broadband expansion throughout the state. And I'll sort of pause and then keep moving ahead, but please ask questions. Or if I'm going too fast, just please tell me that and I can stop. Now you'll notice in the paragraph where I have the cursor right now, we refer to existing law, 30VSA 202C. And this is really the current statute that sets forth Vermont's goals for 100 Mbps symmetrical service. So this is referencing a current goal that's set forth in statute. And it's saying that that is the goal we should achieve, not something less. Now, moving on to B, this is more A set the stage, B is the argument that Vermont should only spend money, whether that's federal, cares money or something else to further this goal and not do something less. You'll see a reference in the second paragraph to what we know so far about the governor's proposal and C, and once again, please stop me if you have a question or comment or please tell me to speed up or slow down whatever works best. C is the argument that the state should use multiple creative solutions to achieve this goal and gives an example of community broadband. And then this paragraph that I'm highlighting right here with my cursor is merely a concluding paragraph that sums up A, B and C. Luke? Yes. Is it possible to widen that and make the print just a little bit bigger? Let me see, I will do my best. Senator McDonnell, the other thing is, at least with my computer, that's great, that's perfect. Wonderful. Okay, thank you. Thank you. And I'll move down so you can hopefully have all a C on your screen and the conclusion. I'll pause there for a moment and then I'll keep going. So as you'll see, much of this language, unlike a bill, is advocacy. And that's fine, it's a letter, but it's something that you should look over carefully to make sure that that advocacy express what you intend. All right, the next economic development topic, and I'm just trying to close some screens here so bear with me, is I termed it as incentivizing worker return. And this was an issue you discussed in your last meeting. And it's the issue of businesses indicating that they're trying to bring people back on as they restart, but some of them may be having trouble with people reluctant to return to the workforce for various reasons. So this is, try to get, I can't get the whole thing on the screen, but if you see those first two paragraphs, I want to page down. There's some background about the additional unemployment benefit. There's a link to a document that JFO provided. And when you click on that in the document I emailed to you, it will bring that up. And then there's a further paragraph that discusses communications that some of you may have received from various businesses and then a conclusion. So once again, this was developed with Senator Westman and to a lesser extent with Senator Campion. It is merely a first draft. You may like some of this language or dislike some of that language. That is something for you to discuss and decide. And I'll pause there for a few moments before proceeding. Is this, are we discussing this now or what? No, I would rather get you weigh in with us afterwards and you had suggested, I will say to this, this is not, you were heard loud and clear when you said you don't want to cut existing benefits. This is designed to stress that we need to do those things that will move us forward to get people back to work. Yeah, I think I would just suggest wording changes but I can't answer it another time. And if you could do that, send it to Brian and me and we'll work on it. Okay. And I assume once again, I'm really trying to reduce your thoughts to paper. I assume that there'll be changes, which is just fine but I think the proposal to send it to the co-chairs and then come up with a final version for me to include in the letter is a good approach as opposed to all of you sending me different proposals. The next category was assistance in restarting and in marketing and advertising for small businesses. This is again, something you touched on at your last meeting but it's been fleshed out substantially. There's an introduction, introductory paragraphs about the impact of the pandemic and there's an explanation of the challenges that businesses face and then in these paragraphs there's a summary of what the governor has seemed to propose and some suggestions how to focus those efforts. So in this paragraph that begins the governor has proposed, there's three ideas put forth that is something you should look over and determine if you agree with those or not and then communicate with the co-chairs. The next area is housing. Once again, as in the other areas there's sort of an introductory sentence or paragraph. Here there's some background information as to how funds are provided to community agencies to provide for emergency housing and rent help, et cetera. This is only meant to be general. This was something that I put together talking to the attorneys with expertise in this area and JFO also contributed to, if you think anything is not accurate, of course, please point that out. So I would just say in that we already have the back rent program and we're trying to start a new program for the, so somehow there's a disconnect between what we're already doing and what we're trying to start. And you'll see now once again, this is all under housing, which is in bold, but you'll see just as under broadband, there's subtopics. That's the A and the B right here. So beginning with A, there's a discussion of emergency housing assistance and long-term homelessness. There's some summary of what the administration has proposed. There's some background on the levels or the need for assistance. And I'm just paging down, I'm gonna stop right here, but there's a discussion of what the governor has proposed and then there's some discussion suggested language, I should say, about questions in essence you have as to that governor's proposal. Yep. I will keep going. The next category, once again, under housing is rent stabilization. There is a introductory sentence, a summary of what the governor has appeared to propose. And then in essence, questions from, or potential questions from the working group as to how that would work. So this goes back to what Senator Westman referred to. It's asking questions about the governor's proposal is it indeed the best suggestion how to use this money? So that is the economic development section of the letter. As you can see, it takes a majority of the letter. Healthcare is shorter, doesn't mean it's less important, but it's just less text. This was largely based on what Senator Ingram had sent in, or I think on Friday. She had sent in four points. I added the fifth point that I just highlighted based on input from center campion. So this sets forth five issues or things that you might think are important. I'll also review it and give feedback to the co-chairs. Can I just, I think the letter though, if there are seven pages on economic development and one paragraph on healthcare and then just a couple paragraphs on education, it's completely weighted in this direction of thinking that we think economic development as laid out is the most important thing. And that is not what I got from our conversations. And I don't know, Luke, it's just cause you have the most expertise in those areas or because Deb and I didn't provide you with what you needed, but I didn't ever get anybody calling me to ask me questions for more details. So I just think this letter will come across as, oh, this is an afterthought, a pandemic and healthcare is not really that important. So let me jump in before the co-chair goes. This is your letter you modify, you give advice to the co-chair, you come up with a consensus. This is not my letter. I'm merely trying to reduce language given to me by various parties put in a letter for you then to review and modify further. So that'd be something I think you speak to the other committee members, to the co-chairs. Once you arrive as a working group at a combined product, then I'll do my best to polish it, but that's only my role. So it's not my letter, it's your letter. And maybe we may find again, and that there again, the holes are in one area more than others. In other words, there may very well, I see what you're talking about Ruth with regard to the sort of, she will be aesthetic impact of seeing heavy economic development, but I think one of the things we just need to look at is to see, okay, is that where things aren't being addressed and whether that health, education and other areas are being addressed? I also just think the economic development piece seems to have more verbiage, more statistics and facts and background numbers and whatnot. I don't think it means it's more important, it just means there's more information there. I don't think it is a sign that it's more important than the other parts. I don't know, I just feel like there's a lot more fleshed out and a lot more research from the council was put into that section. And apparently we hired a consultant to deal with the broadband thing, so to help us on broadband, but we haven't done that in other areas. So I don't know, it just, this is the first time I'm reading through the letter, but it turns me in the right of way. I would agree with it. I just wanna say I agree with Ruth. I mean, yeah, the impression that you get is that one is much more important than the rest of them, so. So I would say to you add to both the area and then flush it out a little more. And what I would say is, Luke did some research, but I would tell you I would think that the push to the information that is in there really did come from the conversations around broadband mostly with Mark and myself. And when it talks about getting employees back to work, those were conversations I had with Jim trying to reflect that. I totally think healthcare and education are huge issues. If you feel it needs to be flushed out more, go to it. Rich? Yes. The notion of one part being bigger than the other is simply like on the front page, the papers that are above the fold. And I think that comment is, that's a reasonable comment. The dilemma with broadband for those of us that have listened to testimony hours at a time is sometimes we listen to someone speak for 20 minutes and then we finally ask, what are you talking about? 25, three or 100, 100? And that's that, until you get to that and answer that question, you don't know what you're talking about. Most people know what daycare is. They know what going to work is. They know what unemployment is. So it requires less explanation, but it doesn't appear to be front page above the fold and we need to deal with that. So thank you. And yet, I would say, people that read this, people, constituents, others, we're talking about sophisticated folks. I think your points are good ones, Senator McDonald, that those of us who have been in the broadband conversation for so long, it others haven't. So it does take a little bit of a narrative, can be helpful, but yeah, I guess, I mean, I do caution us just to make changes for aesthetic purposes, even that people can read through and digest, but certainly I think any edits at any level are going to be welcomed. Thank you, Ruth. Receiving onto the education section, this is largely based on the proposals that I received on Sunday, but fleshed out and reorganized a little bit, but you'll see it hits on the different categories of childcare, K through 12, higher education, health and safety and arts support. Once again, this is only a starting point. Please read it through, suggest any changes. As you develop the changes, and of course we'll be incorporated into the letter. And then last is government and just there was no discussion about what to put here. So it's blank at this point. And I have some stuff we can add that, great. Could you go back to childcare there for a second? Sure. Can you see that? Okay. Yes. Yeah. Okay. We need to work on the connection between what Senator McNeil was referring to and Senator Hardy was referring to that you can, if you can't get a place for your kids, it's kind of hard to go to work. Absolutely. And if you go to work and you're earning less money in work than what you had to pay for your childcare, it's kind of hard to go to work. So we get some chickens and eggs there that need to be explained. Yep. I can certainly flesh out the education part a lot. I just, I'm surprised that everything, that the beginning is so fleshed out and this part isn't so, but I will try to find time today to do this. I wish I'd gotten a little bit more heads up about this with you. So I just say, we have no deadline to get this in. So if it takes a couple more days to get this right, we wanna get it right. Okay. Thank you. And then last is simply a concluding paragraph and then signature lines for each of you. So co-chairs, I was expecting to see something this morning, but nothing as thoughtful and organized and sophisticated as for a first draft that I've seen. So this is, I'm very pleased to see this first draft as thoughtful as it is. Well, thank you and thanks, Luke, for drafting it and for everybody's input. So we're going to suggest that this afternoon with four o'clock work for everybody to a short touch base and to run through where we are with comments back. To meet at four o'clock or send something back by four? No, well, any of the above, but just we all touch base again at four o'clock to see where we are. If appropriations might not be over, but if so, good. Do you wanna try 430? I'm looking up finances schedule right now also, just to take a quick. What is your thought that we would do at 430 or 4 or whatever, because I'm basically in committee or floor from nine until four. So... Well, maybe we can do it later, but I thought before we touch base with anyone's ideas, because we're gonna get feedback. And at least I hope that Brian and I will get feedback. And we will begin to talk about how to add that into the draft. And I think before we go to a lot of work to add it all in, we should at least just touch base. I think that's a good idea. I'm listening a short meeting to do that. So let me just pull this apart a little bit. So if we were to meet later this evening, after we received everyone's feedback, we could do one of two things here. We could, Richie and I could take the evening and just review and look at everyone's feedback, or we could all meet again early this evening and take a look at what we've received and kind of... I don't think you'll have feedback by four o'clock. It's mostly because most people are working. So perhaps what we do is, if people could get feedback to us by later in the evening, and then Richie and I could just take a look at the feedback and then we'll be back in touch with all of you. That might make the most sense. So if we could get things from people by maybe six, Richie and I could touch base. How about we meet tomorrow morning at the same time? Yes. That sounds good. So that'd be better. Okay. Then we'll plan on tomorrow morning at this time. And if you guys, if everybody can get your comments, if you don't get your comments in, we'll take comments tomorrow. Yeah. I mean, I kind of like the idea at some point, talking about some things rather than having to write everything in. I mean, I think... We wanna do this in a combination of both. Yeah. I think that's a good idea. Alice, if it works for you, if you could just forward whatever you might have, then we could at least get it kind of in the draft and then we could give people time to look at that as well. But if you prefer to do it another way, that's fine. No, no, I just assume that's fine. Okay. And then once we hear from everyone else, whoever else emails us later today, then maybe we can have more of what might be similar to a committee discussion tomorrow morning around the various points. How does that get? My understanding is you'll wanna meet again tomorrow morning. Of course, we'll set that up on Zoom. And Senator Nica, if you send me texts, I can put that in the draft. That's what I've done with other folks. But as far as the other issues where some of you may disagree about what should be in or text, that's something I don't wanna get in the middle of because I'm nonpartisan. And so that I think that's something for you to discuss amongst yourself. And of course, once you begin to arrive at things, I'd be glad to incorporate and polish and work with you. But I don't wanna be in the position of appearing to favor one individual perspective over another. So please keep that in mind. Sure, of course. I still think it would be helpful to have you there in the morning. Of course, I'll be there. As you go through things. Absolutely. And you might have questions that we would shoot out and you could also incorporate what you're hearing as we take perhaps, you know, straw poles and things like that. So if I may, I'm actually to Mark's point about, you know, some issues, you know, you listen to somebody talk and they talk and talk and talk and talk and then you ask them, well, what's, you know, bottom line and with like healthcare and education and people know what those, you know, I don't, cause I'm like sitting here thinking, how can I like pad the healthcare part? And I'm thinking to myself, well, no, I don't really wanna get in that mindset. Maybe it's a combination of, you know, adding to healthcare and education, but maybe peering down some of the other stuff. Cause I don't, you know, nobody's gonna read. If we come up with a document that's 25 pages long, I'm afraid it's really gonna be kind of ignored. I would rather this be something that, you know, our colleagues and, you know, other people would maybe actually take a look at. So, so. I think that's a great point. Really, let's move into editing mode a little bit in some sections of this. Yes. And I think you're, I think that's an excellent point. Yeah. Is that the future Senator of Linger County? That's right. Calling for editing. That's right. My cat, my cat would do a bang up job. Get back some of the pages. Well, it might come to that Senator. All right. So we can all keep an eye from for the editing perspective. I think that's an excellent point as well. We want this to be accessible, you know, people are busy and so yeah, great. And people already have a lot, you have quite a bit of background on all of these things. You're right about the fluffing things up or adding just to balance it. So, great. So you want a meeting just so, Mariah can hear clearly you want a meeting tomorrow at 730. Is that your goal? Yeah. That's the goal. All right. I will get that meeting scheduled and send you guys all the information shortly. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Anything else from anyone? No, thank you, co-chairs. Thank you. Get in there. Thank you. Bye.