 So, committee, we are looking at 155, and Amron, would you like to give us any changes that have been made since the last time we looked at this? Yes. For the record, Amron Average LA Legislative Council, you have two bill drafts posted on your webpage today. One is S155 as introduced, and then you also have draft 1.1. So, draft 1.1 is a strike all amendment to S155, and these are some changes that have been discussed in committee as well as some additional requests from the chair of the committee. So, I have done this as a relatively clean copy because some of the language I changed was just removing language. I have put comments along the side so you can see where the language has been removed. So unless anyone wants- That's why it's tiny. That is why it's tiny. I apologize. I will send a second clean version also for you that is bigger. So unless anyone would like to have more detail, I was just going to move to the spots where I made changes. Does that sounds- I think that sounds okay. Then once we go through them, then we'll take the testimony on whatever parts people want to speak to. Okay. The first change is on page 2. This is, I would say, a significant change from the last version, which is to remove the DMV law enforcement officers from being transitioned as of July 1st, 2023. As you will see later in the bill, they are being added to the study towards the end of the bill. So you'll see on page 2 in terms of the agency of public safety structure in subdivision 2, the Department of Law Enforcement, which includes the division of the Vermont State Police, and then it is silent on any other divisions that will be added at later dates. Then moving down onto page 4, you may recall from committee discussion about whether division directors would be exempt or classified, and DPS requested that there be some flexibility here. So I've added a line in here to note that these division directors could be in the classified service or they may be exempt. The next change is all the way down on page 12. There was a previous Section 3 here that was the transfer of the Department of Motor Vehicles Enforcement Officers that has been removed, and the remaining sections have been renumbered. In Section 6, which used to be Section 7, I've revised the language to remove some of those portions that discussed DMV enforcement officers being within the agency of public safety. I kept this section in just to make the change to the title for the commissioner, so it is Commissioner of Law Enforcement rather than Public Safety. The next change is down on page, scrolling, I think we're getting pretty close to the end now. In the reporting section on page 26, Section 19 creation of agency of public safety reports. In subsection B, you'll see that the Department of Motor Vehicles Certified Law Enforcement Officers have been included now in the study that the agency of public safety is required to do reporting back on October 15th, 2023. This is about the feasibility and invisibility of transferring the operations of those officers. Then the next changes on page 27, this is an entirely new section, Section 20 Unification of Animal Welfare and Related Public Safety Functions Report, subsection A. Honor before January 15th, 2023 the Department of Public Safety in consultation with the Agency of Agriculture and any other state agency division or department where domestic animal welfare functions reside, shall report to the House and Senate committees on government operations with a plan to unify the domestic animal welfare and related public safety functions across state government. The report which shall include draft legislation to enact the plan shall focus on the intersection of existing domestic animal welfare functions and the role of the Department of Public Safety and shall include one, an inventory of all existing domestic animal welfare and related public safety functions across all agencies including citations to existing statutes. Two, an inventory of all personnel with job descriptions responsible for carrying out the functions of the inventory required in subdivision one. I'm now moving on to page 28. Subdivision three, a recommended location and position in state government with responsibility for all state domestic animal welfare and related public safety functions, including enforcement. Four, a recommendation on whether to move all domestic animal welfare and related public safety functions to a single agency or to maintain a multi-agency approach to be coordinated by the position recommended in subdivision three. Lastly, five, a plan to ensure that domestic animals transported into the state from other jurisdictions meet health and safety standards and that the businesses that import domestic animals into the state are registered or licensed or both, and meet health and safety standards. Lastly, subsection B, the department shall engage with the animal welfare coalition consisting of the Animal Cruelty Investigative Advisory Board, the Vermont Humane Federation, and the Animal Welfare Regulations Coalition as needed to comply with this section. This was added and you may recall, there was a conversation in committee at one point about that advisory board, which is currently part of the department or attached to the Department of Public Safety. Then I made some minor changes to the effective dates, not the date itself, but I had to make updates to the section numbers after I renumbered and those are all the changes. Okay. Committee, what I'm going to do, I think is do it this way, ask first of all, go through those changes that have been made and so that we can take comments on those changes and then we can deal with the bill as a whole instead of trying to take testimony on the bill as a whole. Before we look at the changes that Amron has made right now, does that make sense to you so that we can decide? I mean, there are really two major changes in here. One is the DMV and one is. Amron, did you put the DMV back into the study at the end with Fish and Wildlife? That is in there, right? Yes. Okay. So that and the animal section really are the major changes here. I'd like to make sure that we're okay with putting those in that way before we get to general testimony. I see that Tony Fakos is with us and I will say that one of the compelling reasons that made us do this is that the DMV was being moved and the others were being studied. The concern was, what if they find out that they're not going to move anybody else and that DMV has already been moved? So we just thought it was conservative to put them in the study as well and at this point and so that there could be more discussion and more impact studies. That was the reason and the Animal Welfare Board came to us because the Department of Public Safety already has the advisory board and yet there are sections of Animal Welfare that are scattered throughout and this is, again, just a study to see where it should live and how those issues should live. So does anybody have questions on those two issues and whether or not they should be in there? Committee members, how about anybody else? That's joining us here in the room. Tony, do you have any, would you like to comment on that? I know this is a little contrary to the testimony we heard from you, but. Sure, for the record, Director Tony Fakus, DMV. I have Chair, members of the committee, thank you. I just want to say on behalf of DMV, we do sincerely appreciate all of the effort that you and this committee has put forward in trying to improve public safety here in Vermont as a whole. And as I said, in my last testimony, we'll be successful no matter where we end up and we will always be a partner in looking at this and the future and we look forward to seeing where we all end up, but thank you. Great, thank you. And then I would ask particularly, I guess Commissioner Shirling, if you have any comments on the language around the animal study group? Thank you, no, Madam Chair. There's been an extensive email correspondence today, as you know, trying to help Amron Hortsmith scope. And I think it's in pretty good shape. Good, thank you. There were a lot, as he said, there were a lot of emails around, is it a companion animal? Is it a domestic animal? Is it an egg animal? What kind of an animal is it that we're looking at here? And I think Amron has threaded that needle very well. So, okay, so does anybody else have any comments on those two? Or should we assume that they're going to be in the bill? Okay, I think that we're going, the changes that you've made there, Amron in draft 1.1 are good. And we will thank you, Tony Fakos. And I think that Ben, what we'll do is jump to other testimony. And we have a lot of people here. And I do apologize if anybody got the impression that I didn't wanna have people testify. That is the farthest thing from the way I try to operate this committee and the way the committee itself views our responsibility. So we had not heard a lot from people about this issue. We did have some people testify before about a year ago. And this is an entirely new draft since then that was made partly in response to some of that testimony from many places. And then we did have some testimony around the community engagement, office of community engagement. But with that, what I'm gonna do is just call on people and you are free to say whatever you want in response to this bill and where you are and what your issues might be with the bill. I will say before we start and I'm not trying to limit your testimony at all but I will say that this is a reorganization bill and it does not solve the other issues that of law enforcement that we're looking at. This is, we have worked a lot on law enforcement issues in this committee and in judiciary over the years and have made many, many, many changes. And currently more changes are being made as Heather Simons can attest to from the Criminal Justice Council and other places. So this really is about this bill. But with that said, I'm going to just try and bring up my agenda here so I can see people's names where we are and who's on the list. And I know that there are a ton of people's names on here but the way we do this is everybody who has been following the bill is re-invited and that's why you see so many names like Mike Shirling and Chris Burkell and Heather Simons on there repeatedly. But with that, I'm going to jump first to, well, I guess on this one, I don't think we've heard from Chief Pete on this bill, have we? I see you're, I'm skipping over all of the, for the time being for right away, I'm skipping over all of the law enforcement people that we've heard from a number of times and jumping to those who we haven't heard from on this issue as much. And so Chief Pete have, I don't think we have heard from you on this. Were you interested in testifying on this? Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the committee. I'm just here in the capacity to represent the Vermont Association of Chiefs of Police and to answer any questions that folks may have of me in that representation. Okay, great. Thank you. Then I think what we'll do is the next person that I have on my list is Maya Schultz, but I don't see Maya. Yeah, I'll reach out to Mia and Stefan's running a little bit late if he's on your list. Okay, well, he's far down on the list, but so we'll just jump over Mia for the time being. And the next person that I have on my list is Mark Hughes, but Mark sent a note earlier today that said he was not testifying on either of these bills today. So on that. So, Etan, I believe you're on up. Wow. It's the banana belt. I think it is indeed, yes. How are you doing with all that snow down there? How are the bananas? I have to say, I'm wondering where all that snow is, but I'm not complaining. Are you in Putney? I'm in Putney. Do you have a lot of snow? I guess the south end of the village has more than the north end of the village. It may well be, yes. Oh, boy. Okay, so would you like to join us? And again, as I said, feel free to comment on the bill in general, specific aspects of the bill. So go ahead, please. Okay. For the record, Etan, Nasred, and Longo, I am the co-director of Fair and Impartial Policing Community Affairs, and also chair of the RDAP. I really want to stay in my lane, which is to say, as far as this bill is concerned, I really would like to address really matters of Fair and Impartial Policing as they might in fact pertain to an agency of public safety. You know, I was listening to you, Madam Chair. I don't remember. I remember speaking about this at some point. I don't remember to whom. I don't remember when it was, but I do remember sort of pointing, saying to people that in my day-to-day life, with the state police, I receive on the order of about three a week, requests, concerns, something, from various people around the state about issues relating to Fair and Impartial Policing. So these tend to be about people feeling that there had been some, what's the word? Something, let's just say something wrong has happened regarding policing. And they write to me, most of the time I have been told they find me on the website for the state police and they write. I am then in the somewhat unenviable position of having to tell them that my purview is the state police and no further. But what people are talking about are, all inconsistencies basically, in law enforcement, in policing throughout the state, that the Fair and Impartial Policing policy, notwithstanding their experiencing forms of treatment, wherever they may be, that they may not experience in other places. My feeling about an agency, particularly when I read the earlier parts of this bill, have to do with the idea that the bill is concerned with standardization in many ways, with bringing things together. And I think clearly the Fair and Impartial Policy as it stands at the moment is something in which there's enough room for interpretation that things fall through the cracks. And that people of color in particular cannot expect the same kind of treatment in, I'm just picking places, don't anyone think I'm saying this, but in, all right, I'll be better than that. In town A, and in town B, and in town C, different things happen. My feeling is that this move towards an agency may help alleviate some of that. I am certainly given my position hopeful, but that would be the case. It's still not right that what goes on in A and what goes on in B and what goes on in C are very different. And frequently there are no backups in these places. What I can tell people, and it doesn't go over very well, is well, you can talk to the chair of the select board. The problem with that is often in our small state, people are friends, not that that's always a problem. But in cases like this, there may be a conflict of interest that comes up simply because it's a small place and people know one another. So that's not a particularly workable solution for many people. It's not a satisfactory solution for many people. And I do think having an agency might get us around a lot of that. I've been giving that a lot of thought lately. So I think I'll just leave it there because you've got a lot of people in front of you. And I see Senator Roundhills here and does that. Hello. Hi. Madam Chair, I don't write a thing. That's a good question. Yes, please. I think my deepest struggle with this bill doesn't contradict what you said. It's not what's in the bill. It's what's not in the bill. I think what you said still gives me concern that the idea that we just hope that this would lead to more transparency, a place where people can watch complaints where there's a standardized process for what they learn about the outcome, where people can experience some sense of accountability. So I certainly, in my mind, an office of engagement just doesn't write a lot of the wrongs of unfair and partial policing that has happened in the past or that people are experiencing. And I wonder if you think there is something proactive that could be put in the bill that speaks to your work, that could make sure it's cemented into the agency so that we're not just hoping for the best, but that this bill has something that gives people a sense there will be greater accountability oversight and transparency. I would say, and I need to think it through a lot more, but that one of the things that would be important is that the already extant review of the policy that goes on, it's now supposed to be, I believe, every two years by the council, would be something that is also reviewed by this office of community engagement and that that review would be advised by the feedback that the office is requiring. And that that would be also on a fairly, I would say on a much more frequent basis, maybe an ongoing basis indeed, that this office of community engagement would not only engage the stakeholders, but have a specific task regarding the fair and impartial policy that has to be completed. Interpreter. Yes, sorry. Go ahead. I was just gonna talk about reporting out and I'm not sure how that would be. I would imagine that would be to the council and I think that would be appropriate, though I certainly don't wanna give the council more work than they already have, but in terms of just structural and structural issues, I think that would be a place to go. That's a beginning of an answer for you, Senator. I haven't, you've got me. So given that, I wonder if an additional charge in the section on community engagement could be that they are charged with developing a policy that requires developing a policy that requires review of all the policies, not just fair and impartial policing policies, but a review of all policies at least annually or something like that. Something like that. And I would also say that one of the things that should be used are the equity impact assessment tool that has been introduced by the executive director of racial equity that we would use that in a way to structure and facilitate that review. Okay, I think that sounds reasonable and something that can be added. Yes, Senator Rom-Hinsale. I think I may ask this of several of the witnesses we have, but Atun, when you hear Office of Community Engagement and you think about the people who come to you with grievances and concerns, do you feel like that title for that office, that sort of underlying spirit of what an Office of Community Engagement would do would feel in any way like it adds the right value for them that it speaks to what they're asking for? Honestly, no, I don't like the title. I don't know what I would like better, but I think it's a great improvement over community relations, because that had a more, we're getting there, I guess is what I'm saying. It's getting better and better. Every time everyone goes over this, it's getting better and better. I don't think this is quite it yet. It doesn't comprise the notion of complaint. It doesn't comprise the idea of review. And those are two things that we just earmarked right now as being very important. So I think that whatever title, Office of, I'm stuck. Oversight, yeah. Oversight, yeah, it is more like oversight, yes. I like that better. For the love of all that is wholly jump-knit advisory, everyone will freak out and start screaming and throwing things. No, don't do that. But something more like oversight, I think, would be far more to the point. Yes. Thanks. Okay, thank you. I'm gonna jump to, thank you. I'll see you at breakfast. Yes, you will. So, Susanna, thank you. Hi, good afternoon. Susanna Davis, Racial Equity Director for the state. I actually can be extremely brief. I came in, actually it was a month ago today, January 20th and spoke in support of the decision of an agency. I spoke mainly about the importance of consistency and uniformity in the way that people are treated across the state. If you are interacting with law enforcement in Bennington, Brattleboro, Barton, or Burlington, you should have some sense of what you can expect. And there should be some level of accountability that is uniform across the state. I also spoke about something similar to what co-director Nasred Nolango said, which was that oftentimes I get contacted by people who are afraid or aggrieved or aren't sure how to proceed. And if we thought that the FIP co-directors grip on some of these agencies as tenuous, then Racial Equity Office is even more tenuous. The fact is that there's a lot that we can't do and that is a major point of disappointment and frustration for us because inequities don't know political boundaries, right? Injustice doesn't stop at the county line and say, well, sorry, it's outside of your jurisdiction. So it's no longer your concern. It's always our concern, especially if it's happening in the state. And so being able to create a more unified system means that Racial Equity Office will be able to put more eyes on the work. It means that the state will be able to put more eyes on the work and that we can have greater consistency. Those are the things that I mentioned in the last testimony, I stand by those remarks. Also want to recall that same day of testimony we heard from Milda White who made the important point regarding the Office of Community Engagement. One of the points that she made, which I thought was very astute, was that community engagement should be happening throughout any agency or department and it shouldn't be siloed in an office. And we feel the same exact way about racial equity, right? Or health equity or education reform or what have you. So in thinking about that, I would say that AOA racial equity is ambivalent to the question of whether there should be an Office of Community Engagement, but rather what we prioritize is that there are two things. Number one, an appropriate venue for members of the public to feel comfortable approaching the agency for any issue, whether it's fun stuff like, hey, let's play basketball with the police officers, if that's your thing, or for serious things, like, hey, we want to have a serious discussion about community safety in our community. So whether it's the more lighthearted or the more serious things, there should be a place where members of the public can go. And when I say members of the public, I'm very aware not to use terms like citizens, because not everyone's a citizen and not everyone is a resident either, right? Policing in Vermont goes beyond just the people who live here. So any member of the public should be able to approach us for any reason. And we should also have a robust structure for handling complaints. And the reason that this is an important part of this is because if we're going to consolidate, that is necessarily going to reduce the number of pathways for people to bring complaints. We are going to be addressing complaints under a unified system, presumably, which means that people will have fewer options to do so. And that's why those fewer options need to be exceptional and effective and trustworthy. Now, in jurisdictions where I previously worked, we had entities like a DCRB, a Civilian Complaint Review Board. There are lots of models around the country for different ways that complaints or concerns can be lodged. I am going to decline to propose any specifically here because there are lots of professionals on the line who could give detailed examples of what could work here. But I will say that when it comes to community engagement, I see it as two hemispheres. One is a complaint process and two is the everything else process. And the everything else really should be happening throughout. That's something that I strongly agree with Wilde on. And I think to Senator Ron's question of what does community engagement mean to you, I couldn't help when you first asked the question of the previous witness, I couldn't help but to think of LA County, LA County Police, which has a public relations team of I think 42, 42 people whose job it is to get on Twitter and say, what explosion? I didn't hear an explosion. What truck full of fireworks? Right? That's not what we're looking for here in Vermont. No. So, you know, community engagement, I think can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but at its core, it has to satisfy the need of the community, not just our level of willingness. In other words, if community says we need ADCD, it is not for us to say, we'll do B and C, but that's all we're willing to do. I think as long as we're satisfying the need and the community feel that we are accessible enough, that's when we'll know that we've done it accurately. And again, there are lots of models nationally that we could look to. I do have a lot of faith that if we do process equity right, then we can figure out a structure that is most effective for the people we're trying to reach. It's not just about the members of the public who already feel comfortable coming to us. It's about those who don't and why not and what can we change to get them in that place? So, I have a couple of questions. Thank you so much. I guess my question is, and I don't care what the title is, but I think that in the bill under the explanation, what it does is it calls for whatever this entity is to create this process. We're not, we haven't tried to create it. We're leaving that to the entities, which I assume are going to be Aton and you and Will Dine and the commissioner and community representatives to create that process and that structure. So I'm a little bit confused about whether we just get rid of it or if we expand it. And I also have some concern, and I'm not sure that this is where you were going, but when we talk about lodging complaints, I believe that the community justice, I mean, criminal justice council oversees law enforcement and that they do have a process for lodging complaints. And I don't know if we want, maybe we want to have more than one place where complaints can be lodged against law enforcement or questions asked, but I think we need to be very careful that we don't set up a conflicting process with the community justice, criminal justice council. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm glad that you said that because I didn't want to come away from my testimony and find that somehow the DCJC was ineffective or inadequate. I think that that is a fine and functioning process. And I do agree with something that you touched on, which is that we want to make sure that there's a no wrong door approach that people who may not be aware of the DCJC either have an easy way to get connected to it. Maybe that just means doing better publicity about it. Maybe that's all it takes. But if not, or if there is some other barrier or chilling effect that may be created, then we could consider perhaps, is there a side door that we could have for people? Again, what I don't want to do is create more bureaucracy or disjointed parallel processes. However, on the topic of policing, on the topic of law enforcement, it is fragile and our relationship to the community is fragile. And so as a result, we may have to think of ways that are not just beneficial to us from a sort of governmental efficiency perspective, but also that are actually gonna bring people forward. Madam Chair. Yeah. Yes, sir. I could be wrong as well. And maybe Commissioner Shirley could help shed some light, but as I understand it, if there is a complaint against state police, that still would go to the Agency of Public Safety and CJC is investigating local law enforcement. So already there's challenges for people to know who they dealt with, where they're supposed to go, who's in charge of what the process is, what information they need to keep on hand in the immediate aftermath. CJC, as I understand it too, it's very much a certification review that would be post-dated in many ways. I don't know that it has to do with sort of immediate remedies for what occurred for somebody. And I do commend Commissioner Shirley because as I understand it, I believe in his own judgment as a leader, he has, as I understand it, started to share a little bit more information with people if something happened, what happened, what, if there was a finding of fault or misconduct, generally what kinds of impractions or punishments or what have you were levied against officers within the state police? I think that right now is a judgment call. I don't know that that's embedded anywhere. So depending on who the commissioner or secretary is, the practice of how transparent and what's shared and what internal findings look like and how the process unfolds still is not standardized. So I just wanna, I may not have, and all of that fully correct, but I do think it is as to the director's point, there are a lot of wrong doors for people. I don't think they know automatically where to go and what information they need to have to get help if they feel like they need a remedy to a situation they experienced. One of the things that we could do is probably get out our, sorry, one of the things that we could do is make sure we get our ethics bill passed so that there is that funnel that anybody can use for a complaint or a question about anybody, including law enforcement. I just wanna make and I may misunderstand completely what people where we are, but in my mind, this is far more than a complaint bureau. This office should not be seen just as a complaint bureau. This office is because the agency, whether it's emergency management or law enforcement or fire safety should be engaging with the communities. And I think that this office was intended to be that the office that set up the processes for that engagement and how it happens within the agency. That was my understanding when Representative Colston wrote the language, that that's how we looked at it. And engagement might be a really dumb name, but I'm not sure that I agree with oversight because it isn't really oversight. It's how do we meet the needs of our community, whatever they are. I put some iterations on paper and one is the Office of Community Standards and Safety from what I heard from the first two folks and I'd love to hear additional testimony. I really, I guess where I am is talking about, and I agree, Madam Chairman, Chief Pete can attest, when we did work with Montpelier on community safety, it was everything from, I wanna see them on bikes and back on foot again, so I know that they're in my community and I can interact with them, to I don't like that there's people with guns in my neighborhood. So it is a huge range of what people want to say from I want to talk to them more and experience them as Officer Friendly too, like this isn't working for me. So I think either we use a name that is broader and captures more of that engagement can be really triggering for people who've been impacted by the police or we leave it unnamed and talk about that range that Susanna mentioned from the basketball game to the horrific experience that they want some remedy for. I'm gonna jump to Senator Clarkson here in a minute, but I just wanna make sure that we're not talking about just law enforcement here. We are talking about an agency of public safety that is far more than law enforcement and that the Department of Emergency Management should have the same kind of, so it isn't just going out and saying, what do you want your police to be? Right, and to Susanna's point, that should be woven throughout. I've talked to Erica Borneman about ensuring that emergency communications are in other languages and things that they need to be thinking about before someone complains to some department, so it shouldn't be threw out. I'm not saying it isn't, and I think fire safety frankly does a pretty good job trying to be proactive and explaining to people why they need to care about fire safety. But I think this is an area where people are certain that engagement isn't necessarily what they're looking for. Okay, Senator Clarkson. Thanks. I'd like to go back to Susanna's referencing of Wilda's testimony because I also heard Wilda saying all these things, but also hopefully that this office, whatever we name it, would be sort of a guiding compass for other departments in the agency and reviewing how they do their work and helping each one of those departments do a better job in terms of, through the lens of the values that we're espousing here. So for me, what Wilda said, to me, this office just would be also ensuring that that lens is applied to the work in all these departments, so there'd be this element of just review and constant improvement on how we interact, how we do business. Good, okay, thanks. Yes, Senator Colomar. Thank you, Madam Chair. I've been giving this a little bit of thought too since we began looking at this one section in the bill. I don't know whether this, and I was intrigued by Senator Rom Henstiel's recently suggested name. I don't know whether this would work or not. It's just I'm throwing it out on the table and trying to add to the discussion, if you will. How about the Office of Community Collaboration, or even better, in my view, the Office of Community Empowerment? Because I think there's an element in that second piece that allows for, and I understand where Senator Rom Henstiel's coming from in terms of accountability, but if you say accountability to most people, I think they assume that you mean, ah, I gotcha, you're doing something wrong and I gotcha. And I don't know that that is always gonna be the case. I would like to see this, much like we talked about with the ethics bill as the Office that is a portal for allowing people to have a whole bunch of input into how they see their community. So those are just my thoughts. I think empowerment is a great improvement. Here, here. I like it. Yeah, I'd love to hear the thoughts of others, but I really appreciate that Senator Cullinmore. I really, I do think for many people, the opposite of engagement is empowerment. So I really just really appreciate you raising that. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Susana, thank you. And please stick around, unless you had something more you wanted to say now. I do just have one more thing on the last point that we mentioned. I was also very inspired by Senator Rom Hinsdale and Senator Cullinmore's suggestions for a possible name, but I just wanna say that whatever we land on, we have to do it. We have to do the thing that we call it. Yes. Yeah. Yep. So I'm gonna ask, as we're going through these, if I've made a couple notes here of things would be added to the responsibilities? And as we go through this, if people have suggestions for things to be added, like Etan recommended the ongoing review of policies, setting up a structure for that. And setting up a structure for embedding this into all the departments and offices in the agency. So I've got those two kind of things on my list. And if other people keep a list and then we can have Amron see what we think about those. Does that make sense to everybody so that we can kind of keep this? Okay. Great. So I'm gonna go to Kaya. Well, let's see. Oh, there you are. I see you. So Kaya Morris, would you like to join us? And I also see that Dan Fingus is with us. I don't have him on the list, but I see he's also here. So Kaya. Hello. Good afternoon, everyone. So for the record, my name is Kaya Morris. I use she, her pronouns. And I am the executive director for rights and democracy. I am joined here today. Sorry, can we just pause and celebrate? You have been elevated to executive director for rights and democracy. This is exciting, Kaya. When did this happen? It began this week. So we are capping off the week with a bang for sure. It started off with a bang and it's finishing off with fireworks. So I'm glad to be able to be here and as well to welcome Dan Fingus, who is now in my previous role as the movement politics director and will be helping to support our advocacy here in the state house. So I don't have a ton to offer. I'm listening and I'm processing through so much of what's been said. I think going back to what Dr. Davis was saying around thinking of how we don't have measures of accountability, I'd love to see more clarity around that because as we are looking at communities to create mechanisms for holding public safety accountable, there still needs to be one more level for people to almost have an appeals process, so to speak, somewhere else to go. So I appreciate the no wrong door approach of wanting to find that. I'm a little confused as well as to what the relationship between this and OPR is but I'm just, I'm new to this conversation so I'm not sure if this is meant to enhance the work of OPR, take some of their load off but they also have a, that's part of their function within state government is to look at some of those pieces. I can tell you with regards to the questions earlier around the criminal justice training council and dealing with local law enforcement versus state police with regards to complaints, that system is, it's non-functioning. It is completely non-functioning. I can tell you from personal experience that we filed a complaint in December of 2019 that has never been pursued, period at all. So if that is meant to be a mechanism for people to utilize communicating concerns and having them be investigated in a meaningful way that's not a functioning system. So what is positive about the three folks that you have there is that you're trying to increase capacity. So those are just my some kind of high level views. I'm happy to, I'll be here on the call to respond if there's any other other direct questions but I am more than excited to introduce you to Dan Fingers and to pass the mic as he can give a better and a broader statement from Rights and Democracy with regards to this particular bill. Thank you, Kaya and congratulations. So Dan. Great, thank you Chair White. Members of the Senate Government Operations Committee. I am Dan Fingers, Vermont Movement Politics Director for Rights and Democracy. I have been with Rights and Democracy for the past three years in a different role. So I'm not new to the organization and just trying to fill some very big shoes that Kaya is leaving behind. While we're here to discuss S-155 and S-250 specifically I wanted to start by talking briefly about the things that RAD considers when we consider legislation that concerns criminal justice, law enforcement and how we design those systems. We all know there's an enduring issue of police violence across the nation disproportionately impacting communities of color those experiencing poverty and individuals and mental health crisis. A just and transparent criminal justice system is a crucial part of building an inclusive and equitable Vermont. Accountability and transparency needs to lead to true justice. All Vermonters need to know that if they are treated as subhuman or assaulted or degraded or have a loved one die at the hands of someone employed in law enforcement there will be accountability. All Vermonters need to know that those in power in law enforcement departments and agencies see their jobs as public safety and serving the public and not in service of their officers and employees. So with all that said when it comes to S-155 and specifically section 6084 which calls for the creation of the office of community engagement we feel that a more robust and systemic approach to interacting with and listening to the community's needs is an excellent idea. We believe that an office of community accountability would be a better option. It is no longer acceptable to just get community feedback and have community engagement that would look like more coffee with cops and other such superficial events and programs. These serve much more as photo ops and spaces that are only accessible to those who are comfortable engaging directly with local police and other public safety officials. Real community accountability means not just mechanisms for engagement and feedback which the current language calls for but actual mandates and mechanisms that turn feedback into system change. Like director Davis said we must not just choose and mandate a couple of activities as currently there is nothing in this bill that requires the office of public safety that to do more than get feedback and keep a list of stakeholders. We need a stronger vision for how state agencies interact with in our responsive community especially those who have historically been ignored. And just lastly, as we consider stakeholder the stakeholder piece of this office we must also create systems that compensate stakeholders for their time in order to eliminate the imbalance of paid agency staff interacting with uncompensated community members which puts further pressure and stress on our community leaders most impacted by the current law enforcement system. Thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna ask you if you how you would, because I think that you're right here that the way it's currently written it creates a structure for community engagement, empowerment, accountability, whatever we call it but it doesn't then translate that into the actions for systemic changes. And I wonder if you have some language that we could put in there that would then say, okay now we've created these systems to get to work with the community how do we now ensure that those changes are made? Do you have any suggested language for that? I'm not sure I'm not putting this very well but I think that that is important. Well, I mean, I think like Mr. Nasred and Longo said earlier I think the consistent or annual review of policies I think having something written that what is coming through this office is actually considered in that review. I also it's a little glaring that it doesn't really explain like this office and the folks running it what their role within the rest of the agency is and how the work that they're doing can actually drive the agency and not just be kind of the public face of the agency. And so it seems like thinking about how this piece of the agency has is empowered to actually like push the change internally within the agency and move the bureaucracy. I think that's really crucial. And again, when we think of stakeholders especially if we're compensating stakeholders having as many folks who are real stakeholders involved in this process in a way that's meaningful and not just advisory could really make some changes. Yeah, and I'm not sure how we that we can get as detailed as saying who we pay and who we don't pay but I think that we can say that there needs to be meaningful. Accommodations made for people to be able to provide meaningful input. And I think we I mean, we can put this in here. I don't know that we can go any farther in terms of saying who should be paid and who shouldn't but I think we can put in here that there needs to be some avenue so that people can have meaningful input. And that why I was trying to get at that at your statement about that by saying something about embedding it into the all the departments and stuff but that wasn't very well, very articulate. So I think that hopefully are really amazing people that work on our bills can craft this into good language. But thank you. If you think of anything while you're listening please I usually don't look at my emails while we're doing this but if you have some language that you can think of email it to me and I'll make sure that we talk about it and okay. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much and congratulations on your new job. Thank you. Thank you. Well, he might think better about that when he has to start dealing more with us. Okay, has Stefan hasn't joined us yet but Falco is here. Falco, would you like to join us? Good afternoon, Falco Schilling. I'm the advocacy director for the ACLU of Vermont and thank you so much for having me this afternoon. I believe this is my first time having the opportunity to testify to the committee and I'm happy to speak, focus in on the Office of Community Engagement section of this bill but generally, we have no major concerns with the bill as a whole and in terms of looking at the Office of Community Engagement, I think would echo a number of the things that other witnesses have said up until this point Dr. Nesra and Longo made an excellent point that one of the focuses of this work should be an iterative review of processes within the agency and making sure that those are meeting community needs. I also understand the idea that we might not want to be too prescriptive of what exactly this office would be doing before we actually create this office, putting too much of that in statute right now without asking people to do the actual work and think about it is something where one thing that I think might be valuable is creating report backs at least on how this work has gone since the office has been instituted at least initially to see how that work has been happening but I think on an ongoing basis. So I think that is the one thing that seems to be missing here is there is a charge to do this work and to engage the community just says go do it. We don't know how that work is happening and I think that's information that should be reported back to the stakeholders who are going to be engaged as well as the legislature who is doing this oversight role because I could see getting this office off the ground, beginning that work and then bringing reports back to you and how it's going. And then maybe that's when it's the time for the legislature to be more prescriptive of exactly what this role or this office should be doing, getting down to who should be on, who's getting paid to be on advisory panel, things like that or not advisory panel. I think Dr. Nesrad and Blango's criticism of that language to heart. But I think the report back feature in creating that feedback loop is really important for meaningful engagement. So that's something that I think we would be looking for. There was some suggestions that maybe this might go in a direction of more of a citizen oversight board or citizen review board. I think that is a larger departure. That's something that we could be supportive of and be happy to provide language around and ideas around positive models if that's where the committee is going. But initially looking at this bill and trying to create a mechanism so there was engagement across the spectrum of public safety. I think one, making sure that there's more information provided on how that's happening with regular iterative reviews of policies and also the chance to review the work of this office from both the legislature and community perspectives would be things that are important and should be considered. And then as to the name of this office, I really, really appreciate the comment that whatever we name it, we actually have to do it. I love the idea of an office of community empowerment but in some ways calling an office that which is not accomplishing those goals can feel almost worse than doing it in the first place. So we don't wanna call an office of empowerment if it's not actually empowering people. If it's really an office of engagement that's what's happening. Having an accurate name I think is important but if we are going more into the areas of accountability or oversight that seems like a larger diversion from this bill but something we'd be, a conversation we'd be happy to engage in. So those are my brief comments on this bill up to this point. So I'm going to comment on your, just respond to your comment about the oversight. That is not the intent of this office at all. And I think that we're looking at oversight in other avenues, but this really is a reorganization bill. That really is all this is taking a department and making it into an agency. And we are putting this in here because we heard that the department or the agency needs to have something like this, whatever it is called and however it is structured. So I appreciate your comments about not being too prescriptive here but letting it be created and then reporting back and maybe that's when we become more prescriptive if we feel that it isn't actually doing what we had hoped it would do. So thank you, Falthal. Alison, you had. Yeah, I was just going to say I think that the idea of a report back is really important because we need to see how we're doing and what this office's impact is on the rest of the agency, how it's improving engagement in every department and how it's empowering community engagement. So I think that's a great idea and maybe if we gave it two years to get it set up, I think it's going to take a while but I think two years would grow. Oh, I see the chair wants to see it sooner but I definitely think that that's great. So thanks. I think we could have a report back on how the setup is going. They may not have results yet but I think that we should definitely have a report back in a year of how it's being set up and where they are. So Senator Rom-Hinsale? I guess I just want to say that one of the things that's starting to trouble me is that oversight is being framed in a potentially negative light as the idea that there's some form of punishment already when a complaint system already exists where right now we've been talking for years about data collection and analysis and ensuring that we're moving in somewhat of a streamlined direction toward improving some pretty deep racial disparities. And so a law enforcement that wants to have its own oversight and its own ability to track whether it's improving or not improving in terms of those measures is not necessarily some kind of external force telling them that they're not doing a good job. It's a way to have internal oversight over some pretty critical goals to improving public safety in the state. And two, I also, I worry that engagement is seen as potentially a neutral idea that engagement is generally gonna be neutral to positive but for many people, particularly people of color we've seen engagement offices put out media relations pieces that say George Floyd's murder was a medical incident. Or obfuscate information that came from the Minneapolis police department Allison you looked confused. But there have been relations and engagement offices that have served to obfuscate what has happened in a situation from the perspective of the community. So I just don't wanna get us in a place where we think oversight is some kind of negative attack on law enforcement and engagement is some kind of neutral tool that law enforcement has available to them. I appreciate that. I do think that oversight is as Julio has reminded us there are many, many, many different models of oversight committees. And we are not, we're not going there in this bill. This isn't a bill to provide an oversight committee for the agency of public safety. I mean, at some point we might get to that but this is for the entire agency not just law enforcement. And I think we have to, I keep going back and I know that Erica said that they're doing fine and we reorganized them last year and they do do fine but they still need to have community engagement. I can't think of it another word for it. And if somebody else, I guess Falco said maybe empowerment was a bit too aspirational. And if we use that and didn't really get there there might be more of a disappointment than anything. I thought it was a great idea, but so Falco Falco, did you have anything else? I do appreciate the idea though of not getting too specific on what it should be doing and how it should be doing, but having it, I do say that it should, they should come back in I don't know how long it takes to set this up come back in March of next year with a report. Yeah, all I would add is I just reinforcing the idea that if we're asking people to give their time and energy as stakeholders to engage with the agency we wanna make sure that that feedback is listened to and taken seriously incorporated. And I think that is one of the iterative feedback process is what's gonna be most important and making sure that this engagement is meaningful and has a positive impact. So I think that's all I would add for now. And the way to do that is to report back to report back to the stakeholders and to report back to the general assembly. I think that's at least one way to start getting at it and we'll see if that's adequate. Yeah. All right. Because I do not see Stefan yet. Yeah, he might weigh in later in the afternoon around the policing bill who's just running late on the NS250, he knows he might miss this discussion. Okay. All right. Thank you. So would anybody else like to offer any comments on the bill in general or this particular section? Has anybody come up with brilliant ideas as we've been listening? Yes. We don't want to say something. I'm either at a let's not try to name it so we don't give it an overly lofty title. We also don't give it a title that's triggering and kind of has the opposite effect of what we want or my latest is the Office of Community Resourcing and Empowerment. I've got a whole list of them here now. I keep editing one so that I don't just have a whole list. You know, maybe we should name it the Office of XXX and ask them to come to work with the stakeholders to come up with a name. I'm not sure you can do that, but... The blank part I agree with. I don't know if there's silence because XXX has like kind of a different meaning than completely blank slate, but yes, I think being open to an entitled office. And I don't know if we can do that when we draft legislation or not, but I really don't care as much about the title as I do about what it's going to be doing and how it's going to be. I would agree. And the nice thing about legislation is we can change it. I mean, we can change that title as can the... We doesn't need legislation to change it. I would hope the secretary could do that with the people involved. So... So I see Julio has his hand up. Hi, yes, Julio Thompson, Attorney General's office, civil rights unit. So the committee asked our office to appear. The background I bring here is less from my experience in our civil rights unit, more my professional experience dealing with police reform and a number of jurisdictions and working on a number of pattern and practice investigations with the Department of Justice and the number of consent decrees work that I'm still doing. I just wanna offer, and I don't have a view about the title, I do wanna offer a little bit of context for these kinds of functions and other law enforcement agencies and point out some functions that they serve or have served in other parts of the country that haven't been mentioned today and then draw to the committee's attention an area of focus for this legislation where the committee might want to get more detail about how the Office of Community Engagement, placeholder name functions vis-a-vis the Department of Law Enforcement because right now this bill doesn't house that office within the department, it's outside of the department. And there's pros and cons to that, but I think there should be testimony elicited on what the interaction and access one office has to the department. The historic background is that since the late 1950s thousands of police departments have assigned officers to serve in some sort of community liaison program for much, and we're talking, there's over 18,000 agencies in the country. So not to single anyone out, but for many of those history has shown in there's stacks of research and scholarship on this, for many cases those are used basically to create a buffer zone between the operational side of law enforcement and the community where it provides political cover, it may limit liability, it may ease community tensions or at least provide protection for the elected officials in the department. But it wasn't really intimately involved in actually being a co-partner in public safety, which is the much more modern view. Some, the phrasing, if you do the research now you'll hear phrases not like community oriented policing or problem-based policing, but community driven policing where the model is that the community is a partner not someone to be consulted with, not someone to have a meeting with periodically as something of a courtesy where the department has already made its decision, and then it's a check-in with the community. It's a very different approach that's being used now. And there are different roles of community partnering that haven't been mentioned. It's not just fair and impartial policing and that just doesn't mean to diminish it, I mean only fair and impartial policing, but it ranges from things like identifying what the public's health and public safety priorities are and do the officials who are tasked with it with engaging or whatever the word you wanna use with the community, do they have access to or a say in deployment of resources? Do they have, will they be listened to in terms of deciding where to put cars and people? Or where not to put cars and people? Or policy training is there, are they involved in policies or training related to language access, to ADA accommodation, to dealing to their crisis intervention program, to peer intervention programs? Are they involved in, do they have any interaction with the agency's internal complaint process? So for example, some police departments have their internal affairs or the equivalent, do audits of their complaint policy processed by running stings. They make false complaint, they make up a complaint, they phone it in and then they follow that complaint with throughout the system to determine whether officers and supervisors are actually reporting, logging and investigating complaints. Do they have any audit? Do they have any involvement there? Some modern forms of, again, community driven or community concerned operations includes not from a punitive standpoint, but just more of an informational standpoint, randomly auditing body-worn camera footage. So they can see firsthand how officers are engaging with the public in certain communities. Not again, not necessarily looking for trouble and to discipline them, but maybe to get a sense of what the departments and what the community's temperature are. And especially with policy development, the history generally is that the department tasks a few specialists to write or collect policies from other agents. They write the policy, they're happy with it and then they send it out to the community, usually an abbreviated time period for the community to comment with little introduction or very few opportunities for consultation, but the more modern approach of policing for some policies is where there's a real need is to go to the community first. So for example, and this is the last example I'll just offer and then I'll take any questions if there are any. In 2018, for example, San Francisco County Sheriff, Vicky Hennessey was the first woman elected sheriff for that county. Knew that they were having difficult interactions with the LGBTQIA plus community. It's about 1% of their contacts but a very highly vulnerable community. And so they needed to have policies and training related to how deputies addressed people, how they checked their identification, how they searched them and how they arrested and housed them safely. And so in order to do that rather than going to other police departments and collecting the policies and then writing it and then sending it to the community, they went to the community first. They went to the transgender advocacy community. They went to the local human rights commission and different groups and asked them to outline the policies that they need and then work from the community into the department rather than the department into the community. So I know this legislation isn't going to dictate what that office does, I get that. But when I do see a structure and that's what the bill mostly is is arranging structures, I do ask and would like to hear testimony on the fact that you have a deputy secretary who runs that office but that office is not within the department of law enforcement, how that affects access. For example, community partnership, can be very operationally significant. For example, if there are planned demonstrations, as we saw over the last few summers where people are going to engage in First Amendment group demonstrations, knowing and having communications with the community and then feeding that into the people who have to provide public safety and that includes medical services on standby in case people need medical assistance. That's very operationally significant. And so one would hope that that office would have that kind of direct access so they could talk about so that they would have access to operational planning because if it is structurally separate, so it's like, well, your office, this is police tactics and operations and your community communications, then there may be a missed opportunity to actually make for safer crowd management and event management because of that silo. So that would be an area where I think we would want to hear testimony. Thank you. And I think that we need to, one of the charges in the development of this structure is to make sure that it is defined how they're going to relate to the other departments, but we don't want it in the Department of Law Enforcement because this is not a law enforcement committee office. This is for the entire department of public safety and we keep forgetting that, I mean, public safety and fire safety training services under here, we just put in a whole study on animal cruelty issues and how they're going to oversee that, emergency management, the office of training is part of, there's an office of training here, there's the grant management in the support services, there's grant management, maybe when there's going to be, they need to have some community engagement or community input into how they manage their grants or how they award their grants. So this is not a law enforcement office and I think we need to continue to remember that. Madam Chair, my point was very different, which was not, I wasn't in our office, doesn't take a position on whether it should be in or out. My point was to draw testimony on the question of access and participation and contribution to the department because right now it is housed within a department and within the department, people like Aton or who work on FIP issues have access to information that might otherwise be non-public by virtue of the fact that they are within the department. And so if you pull that function out, which offers certainly more flexibility for non-law enforcement functions and maybe an additional level of independence, but the question for testimony is whether being outside of the structure affects access to information that is within the department or impairs or limits contributing the information that that office develops from the community to feed it into the department or the other departments because that's not state, the access issue is not stated in the legislation. And so that could be a cost, that could be a loss because again, historically, community organs of police departments are often quite siloed from the rest of the operation. I remember one retired a captain calling it, that's the Lollipops and Ice Packs Bureau where they go out and they hand out baseball cards and they get in the newspaper and they metaphorically hand out ice packs to the community who's offended by the operational side but they're kind of isolated. And so I don't think that that's the vision here. And so the question is what kind of access would that office have to department operational aspects? Well, I think that's what Dan was referring to now his name, just Dan was referring to when he talked about how is this office going to engage what is the relationship with the rest of the agency whether it's law enforcement or animal safety or emergency management. And I think that we can put something in there that instructs the in the creation of it that it needs to be, they need to define a structure that will make sure that this office has access and I wanna say influence but and I'm not sure the right words but I think we can put that in there. I don't think we wanna put in how it's gonna operate but we can put in that in the creation of it they need to address that. Yeah, and that was my only intent with the testimony was to isolate that issue as something to to elicit more testimony, not just for me but from other folks about that but those structures can create leadership silos and information silos that it may be contrary to the original conception of the Tabasol. So thank you. And I don't think we want that so we're gonna try and get some language around how to make sure that that doesn't happen. Anybody else? Oh, thank you, Julio. I'm sorry. Anybody else have a comment on this section? I don't, has Amron left us? She hasn't been here for a while. Oh, I see that. She's double booked, Madam Chair. Oh, okay. So committee, does anybody else wanna weigh in on this right now? And then what I'm going to do is send some notes to Amron and see if perhaps she can come up with some language and help me committee here understand. So we're going to put the office of community. I mean, I don't, we probably should put a title in there or we're gonna be, it's gonna be too confusing for people but so we need to have a title. How about engagement and empowerment for the moment or, you know, and then we can, you know, we're not voting it out this afternoon, are we? I had hoped we would. We have a lot of stuff that we have to do next week and we're only gonna absolutely have two days. And I think when we get the report back in next March, we can get, that could be one of the charges is maybe renaming, you know, coming up with the appropriate name after it's been worked on for a year or nine months by that time. But we can also have the house rename it. Yeah, I think after they have more thought and the, yeah. So, I mean, so I really, first of all, I just want to say I really appreciated what Julio said because for me, it really underscored the deep concern I'm having with the idea of saying engagement at all. I do think it becomes a buffer and something that can feel weaponized against people who want to get an operational change. So I just, I'm really appreciate that. I'm going back to two words that Senator Colomer used, the office of community collaboration and empowerment. And I feel like that, you know, that's a good way to start out. And, you know, I think collaboration is where, yes, there are, I want to acknowledge people that probably have had the privilege of never feeling unsafe around the police, but do want to create that experience for others of building an early sense of feeling safe around the police. And I think that's admirable, you know, to some extent. And then I think empowerment gets at people otherwise feeling really defeated when they're looking for help and support to improve their community safety experience to get answers or, you know, a path forward for a remedy for something that happened to them. I'm okay with that, yeah. And then, so let me get the list here of what we would like to put back in there. Oh, and there's Amron. Oh, goodness. So did you get that title change? I stepped in right as you were finishing. So I just heard that there might be a change to a name of something. Well, we're going to call it the office of blank, but collaboration and empowerment. Community collaboration. Yeah, community of collaborate. Yeah, community is there. And then committee, the notes I've made here, we want them to develop a structure for reviewing policies, hopefully a structure for review and timing for reviewing all policies using, is it EIAT, what are those letters? Equity and inclusion, I don't know. Well, that's why I'm asking Susanna. Yeah. What are those letters? Or maybe it was Falco that, oh, no, Susanna, there you are. We can't hear you though. Sorry, Madam Chair, could you repeat the question, which letters? Well, it's, we're asking them to set up a structure for reviewing policies. And I don't know if it was you or Falco, I think maybe it was Falco that said in this review, they should use the equity and inclusion action. That's where. Yeah, that was Dr. Nussred and Longo. It's the equity impact assessment tool or EIA, and I've just chatted it to Gail as well. Okay, great. Thank you. I forgot who it was that said it. And I forgot what the letters were. I got the first ones, I got EIA, but I added a T on the end for some reason. Okay. So that's one thing we want to put in there. The other thing we want to put in there is defining the relationship to all the other departments and offices in the agency. And the other is making sure, defining a system that is, allows for meaningful participation. I don't know how else to put it. I mean, we're not gonna say you should pay people or not pay people, but they need to define a structure for allowing meaningful participation. Is that? I mean, can we say meaningful participation in compensation? No, I don't want to say compensation. I think that's for them to decide what meaningful comes because in some instances, it may be compensated and in some not. So I don't think we should be that definitive. I don't think, I don't know how other community members think. What about resources? What do you mean? Well, finding, I don't know, because then you're on the same path, nevermind. I was gonna say talking necessary resources, but. But they may not need any necessary resources. I mean, we want them to define the structure of how they would allow meaningful participation. In some instances that may be paying them. In some instances, it may be providing childcare. In some instances, it may be providing transportation, but they need to come up with a structure to allow meaningful participation. Yeah. Okay. And then the third, the. Madam chair. Yes. I would just say you're right. They need to define the resources they need going forward. They mean it. I don't think we need to put that in there. No, I agree. I think this is part of the work. Right, okay. Okay. And the other thing that we want in there is to report back in a year on the, the progress that they've made toward the restructuring, the report back to the stakeholders and to the general assembly. And then for the next three years, we want them to report back annually, their, their progress in their progress. And what, how the, yeah. Amron, you look into the question. Well, I was going to say, I believe there is already a report back requirement for November 2023. No, this is different. This is just for the office. Oh, we're still all enough. Okay. All in the office of community engagement or community collaboration and empowerment. This is all under there. I see, okay. Yeah. All of these, I think we added three or four bullet points and four. And, and the, yeah. So is any of the current subdivisions one through three on page 11 changing? Was this all in addition to what is currently in the draft? This is all in addition to the, the bullets under the community engagement. What is currently community engagement? Okay. So, I have the name change. I need maybe just a reiteration of, part of the name of this, the equity impact assessment, something. What? What was the name of the? Tool. Tool. Okay. Oh, I didn't get T in there right. Did I have the rest of that? Assessment tool. Yes. Assessment tool, okay. And what is, I apologize. No, no, no. What? I wish I had been here for part of this conversation. And what is it that you would like the office to be doing with this tool? We want them to review, set up a structure to review all policies periodically. And we won't say annually. We should say periodically and using and part of their review will be using that tool. Okay. For reviewing policies. When they review the policies, they need to incorporate that tool into their review. Did they get that right? And the section about defining the relationship between the offices within the agency, what do you mean by that? With the relationship between the this office and the other departments and offices in the agency. Was that right committee? I believe so. We're not gonna tell them what the relationship should be, but they need to be able to define what that is so that it doesn't just become a little silo sitting over there. Okay. And the next was to create a structure that allows for meaningful participation. Yep. I guess we should specify with who? Meaning meaningful community participation. We don't want to use citizens and we don't want to use residents. Community participation. Yeah. Okay. And then, okay. And so I will make a separate subsection for the reporting requirement. Oh, okay. It'll just be easier. Although if they're really doing it right they shouldn't have to report to the stakeholders because they're involved all along but we will put that in there anyway. I was gonna say so for a report requirement there is a, so I should add. So do you want a report in one year roughly and then every three years after that? Make it every two years to start with and then we can, does that make any sense? Two, three. But I think that we should have some consistency in reports for at least a couple of years. Yeah. Absolutely. And who is the report going to? It'll go to the general, no. Can we go to HGO, SGO and House and Senate Judiciaries? Just even though they're not involved in it but I think it would be good for them to see it. And then I don't know how we identified going to the stakeholders. And that was Falco had suggested that but I don't know how we maybe publicly I don't know how would you word that Falco if you're there? Falfa Schilling for the record. I mean, it might not necessarily be necessary to name these stakeholders but you could see they are charged with identifying a list of stakeholders in the bill. And so it could be a report to the identified stakeholders because that's one of the duties given to them under that section. Perfect, perfect because it could would be a public report but it would specifically go to that list of stakeholders and the general assembly. Yeah, because the report would be public to the general assembly but if they're identifying a list of stakeholders then they should at least be informing them of the work. Perfect. Okay. Okay. I think I have all of the substance down. Are you looking to vote on this bill today? I would love to if we can. What I think we might do is I don't know that we're gonna take some testimony on three sections of 250 but I don't know how far we'll get with that and we also have this on the list for next, not next week, but the week we come back I've put some substantial time for 250 to make sure we get through the whole thing. And so if we took like a committee do you need a break? Yes. Okay. Let's take a 10 minute break, come back we'll dive into 250.