 Yeah, so I don't know. I don't know, there are some over there. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Okay, now that you're moderators, please move to the right. That's what's on the screen. Thank you for coming. It's great to have you here. Hi, Jenny Lyons, one of your senators from Chippin County. I do live in Wiltson, but I worked in Burlington for a while. My name is Jenny Lyons. My name is Jenny Lyons. My name is Jenny Lyons. My name is Jenny Lyons. I do live in Wiltson, but I worked in Burlington for almost 30 years. I'm from Howard Center. Hi, I'm Ashley Dimonsky. I'm part of the 4-5 FFU steering committee, and I'm part of the Bronx. Hi, everyone. I'm Mohammad Jafar, and I'm also a part of the steering committee, and I'm a part of the Bronx. I'm Spencer Smith. I live right across the street in Flann Abbey, Walker and Holmes. I'm a little dirty. You're all right. I'm nice. I'm Inspector William. I'm in the Red Rocks. Robert Crawford? Overwatch. Ben Travers. I'm on the 4-5 steering committee. I live here on Holm Avenue. Khalil Zalouf. I live over at the corner of the Parkland. I live in Harris. I'm Sheridan Baum. I'm on the steering committee here, and I live under... I'm nine. I'm represented in Jill Crowings. I represent District 6-3, which has a silver of 4-5, and I live on Spring Street. Hi, everyone. I'm Lucia Camperiello. I'm also a new steering committee member, and so thank you if I reintroduce myself to you now three times. I probably will do it for another month or two. Nice to see everybody happy to hear Flann and Pine meet. My name is Jack Teller. I live at 59 Soft Press Drive. I'm Alice Amaro. I'm here from Mascoma Bank, and I live on Walnut Street over in the Old North Bend. I'm Lauren Lombra. I am a CEDO intern, and I live in Southbrook. Hi. I'm Pet Kiyomariwara, a CEDO staff member in NPA Sport. Thank you. Thank you. Have a camera. Just to let you know, this is the last NPA meeting of this cycle. We always think July and August off. We are talking about putting together some kind of social event in the summer. We're staying tuned for that. We might even do a joint of the board of states in discussions on that. So we always start with public forum, and we would like to kick us off on public forum. Yeah, I just wanted to express a concern about the neighborhood physically. You know, we haven't had drinks paid for many 25 years. When I moved here in 2007, it had been paid for many 20 years. Flynn is in terrible shape now. They're digging it up. We have traffic jams. We have traffic jams from the soft-lighted pine all the way back to City Market or further in the summer because there's no left-hand turn lane to go down upon. They put up some lights that they haven't got a left-hand turn lane. They have a left-hand turn lane for people coming the other way in the pine, which rarely happens anyway. So I feel like, and then we had the bus situations that the woman came and talked to this last time when she was here. And she talked about how there was enough ridership on five and I'm looking at all these huge buses. What about changing our whole concept of transportation in these many buses? Electric ones? I bet we could find somebody in Japan one of the car companies to make 50 other trucks and these would sell them to other people. So I just feel that they don't come on the ground or they put an announcement in the paper. They mail a plan which nobody can read, except if you're an engineer. And second, second, third, maybe other, you know, what about these things? Do you mind if I sit on it? No, I don't. No, I don't. So, all right, I had a couple good conversations with folks on this. I think there's some other concerns. Other folks as well. You know, I can tell the numbers for the parkway of the family. It's a green place for a shower around Pine Street. I think we spoke at a meeting about a year ago with some of the local representatives as well as part of the public forces here about kind of the status of the neighborhoods down. Some traffic calling was for some time now. And the work hasn't necessarily happened. And the answers have been relatively vague as to, well, maybe this and then that. But there's no schedule. It feels very kind of loosey-goosey. I just, I think it's maybe an opportunity for the MPA to make this start conversation. Not only with TPW, but also with local businesses, as well as with the police department enforcement. You know, our road is technically, there's no tractor trailers allowed down it. And even before the construction blocked up Pine, there were tractor trailers all the time. There's people speeding pretty regularly coming off of Shelburne Road. The speeds on Shelburne Road, I think, contribute to that. Because people are going way over the speed limit already. Then they take a left or right under our road when you first come down. So it's very easy physically to go as fast as you want. So that's my main concern. I think there's an opportunity to talk to local businesses as well. Build awareness with the group clubs. All the great businesses that we have growing, which is awesome. So I think there's an opportunity to talk to employees and customers at those businesses to recognize they're driving through people's neighborhoods on the way to Happy Hour or whatever meth they're going to. And it's great to have those opportunities. That's why we moved here two years ago. But at the same time, we need to build that understanding of this community. And it's not just a high-level program. But there's also ways that we can address from a pre-pronged approach as opposed to just talking to DPW and the pressure company and issues that are going to be a great opportunity. William, if you could invite two or three people from the city or the local businesses to the NPA, who would you invite? Well, I'm pretty different to Chief and Spencer. And we've been talking for a while about DPW and these stuff. You know, I think Brenda Del Poso would be great one if we're talking enforcement. And I think that from a business perspective, you know, I'd love from any of the, I think the zero gravity crowd right in that zone, which is at the bottom of our hill, but any of the, maybe even the car dealerships too, because that's part of the tractor-trail ratio is cars being delivered and driving at the dollars too. So I think any of those big businesses, maybe a representative from three of the big ones there to just kind of talk through it. And even if there's just an emergency, I mean, customers and employees that, you know, they need to be in the neighborhood as well. Yeah, so I mean, in the same vein, I'm just going to follow up that, you know, we've heard about this up to date and people may have seen this in local papers and so on. But this past Monday, the city council approved of a zoning change in our neighborhood, which will allow certain commercial uses to move into the neighborhood. One of them we'll be hearing from shortly, from the cell at bay. But the one that I think folks have been following most closely is the addition of a performing arts venue down at Industrial Parkway, which another thing that's going on is soon, that's now no longer going to be known as Industrial Parkway. That will be Queen City Park Road, which will just be an extension of it. But in any event, I'm anticipating that now that the zoning has changed that Burton, along with its partners like higher ground and some restaurant partners, will be applying for a permit to construct a concert venue there. And over the coming months before the development review board, I think we should work to keep the community involved with respect to those meetings. But I also think to sort of piggyback on some of the other comments that were made here that there's room here for a real comprehensive look at the infrastructure in this neighborhood and how it does and does not accommodate certain uses particularly since we've now taken a leap here in rezoning an industrial area as a commercial area. And so I agree that not only should we be continuing discussions with DPW and the police department, but also continuing discussions with Green Mountain Transit and I like the idea of bringing the business community to to really look at this comprehensively because I think it's pretty clear that there doesn't appear to be the bandwidth right now to handle the type of traffic and other goings-on here. I hate to keep talking about traffic and roads, but we're really happy with Austin Drive's new paint. It absolutely would weigh a long time. It's beautiful. However, the intersection of Austin Drive where we have the real sign and the message line that goes over to Thunder Road in San Diego is that the life path markings are in the middle of the street. It's extremely dangerous. It was already a dangerous intersection and there were no bike lanes. So now the bike lane literally goes in the middle of the street around a very, a blind curve. And so I'm really scared about it and I've already done my own, all the public works like that. Shift it over to the parks department people and I left a message for them. They didn't really call back. I know I'm not the only person who raised that issue, but it's really dangerous. And I don't know what the design was and I don't want to complain at all about the pavement, but I really understand about the way the bike lanes were marked there. Because they literally are in this middle of the street and it continues. If you walk from my house over to Oak Ridge Park, on that street, there are also on the straightway the bike lanes are in the middle of the street. So I don't get it. Right, so there's been some chat on the front porch form of that. Has there really been any response from the city? One of the front porch form chat people said he had been in touch with Joan Shannon. What she has said back to him, I can't see. But she's aware of that. I just think it's a really dangerous intersection. There's another street walk down. I think it's Loomis down in New York. I don't know if it's from South Union or from other women's side. And maybe all the bike lanes are in the middle. Is this a bike street? I mean, I drive there every week. So it's very strange. I think these people will get out of their offices. I'm assuming there was a design reason, but it's not a signal. Are there any comments? For me, I'm here on behalf of Loomis. So I wanted to come because I know the next meetings, I think September 19th or something like that, because Nestle Bank is moving into the south end. So just to back up a little bit, we are a mutual decourt bank. And originally we opened up a couple years ago about 120 years ago in Lebanon, New Hampshire. And so we are officially, we have New Hampshire roots, but very quickly moved across the river. And we are in 28 locations, not from valleys. Most of our employees actually live in Vermont. Half of our executive board live in Vermont. So we're very much in Vermont Bank. We've had a commercial presence here in Burlington for about six years. I think we invested about 30 million in commercial last year. So we have quite a presence here. What we heard from our commercial folks was that they wanted a branch. We heard that Nestle was a really cool bank, and we actually want to bank with you. So I came on to the bank about a month ago. About three years ago they started researching that. And the decision was after talking to community members and listening to folks to open three locations. So you might be thinking, wow, what a blitz. I call it grassroots banking. And the idea is really just small locations, not your traditional open up a huge bank, a huge parking lot, and have people come to you. We opened up small locations and people are our thing. So we are going to the people. So we have a branch open at 1185 Shelter Road just about a mile. I'd like for you to get there. So that branch opened up a month ago. Please stop in. It's fully functional. And what we want is for folks to come in there, let us know what you want, open an account, talk to us about what we can offer, eat free ice cream. We offer free ice cream from Ben and Jerry's, Chester's, chocolate from Bleak Champlain chocolates, and cabochis because they're all B Corps too. So part of the thing when you're a B Corp is you promote other B Corp businesses. And so then in September, we are slated to open up our mall tax building location. And I will be running the one in the old earth end. So the mall tax location is going to be a little bit of a larger branch than our Shelter Road branch because it will have three meeting spaces. That will be free to the community because when we spent all that time listening to Burlington, Burlington said we need a bank in the old north end and we need more meeting space. So we are answering that. So we're really excited to be in Burlington and out of our whole team, they hired me because I'm very, very much committed to the city. I'm a huge part of the old north end community and they're so committed to this community that they found me and hired me. And I think that says a lot about me. They're not bringing people from the outside to really anchor into the community. They're hiring from the community itself. So just wanted to say hello. We're just more than excited to be here. We're going to have an open house on, let's see, it's next Tuesday from five to seven. Our bank is actually open until six, Monday through Wednesday, and it's open until seven, Thursday, Friday. So you can come in late hours. We open nine every day. Saturdays we'll be open in ten to two. So does anybody have any questions? Could you explain the reason why we closed this? Yeah, yeah. So actually I'm going to back up and just say that a mute will make because we like talking about the tiers, right? So there's credit unions, mutual banks, and commercial banks. Credit unions are member-based, and they're actually, they're not banks, but they're a financial institution that you have to be a member at certain criteria to be there. Mutuals are like sort of a hybrid of a commercial bank because we're actually a bank, so we're regulated. So in some ways there's a little bit more transparency because we're more regulated. And we are governed by community members on boards, so we are governed by the community which is similar to credit unions and we're very value-based. And then there are commercial banks which are traded on the public stock market. So they are driven by their stockholders. So that's sort of what their orientation is and what their commitment is. So B Corp. So we've been a mutual since we began as a bank. And a few years ago we decided to just kick it up a notch and become a B Corp. So B Corp is a benefit corporation. It's a certification that you have to go through. And you have to answer this very strenuous test of like the triple bottom line basically. So social responsibility, environmental responsibility, financial sustainability, and community commitment. And so after that test was passed we're one of four B Corp banks in the country. We weren't the only one in the Northeast but there's a great bank in Brownover that joined the B Corp banks just a month ago. So that's what a B Corp is and we're pretty proud of it. And it's actually really hard for a bank to be a B Corp just given the nature of a lot of the business. So I think it says a lot about Nascola. Thanks for asking. Welcome. Well, I hope to see you in the Shelburne Branch. I'll be there until we open up our Old North End Branch. Great, thanks for having me. Thanks for coming. I'm Kathy Buscalea from Howard Center. Most of you probably are familiar with Howard Center where the designated agency in Chittenden County delivering developmental services, mental health services, and substance use services to children and families across the county. For a pretty big presence in Chittenden County, we have close to 1,600 staff and 60 locations across the county as well as we're embedded in almost every school in Chittenden County. So I'm here today really to talk about 1138 Pine Street, our location down there. And I had heard that at a previous meeting here there were some concerns raised about the future of Champlain Parkway project and the fact that we have some parking, overflow parking for our staff on the future Champlain Parkway site. So I heard that people were concerned about what we're going to do with our staff cars when we can no longer park parkways. So we have a plan for that. We are going to be putting in 40, expanding our parking on our existing lot at 1138 Pine Street by adding 41 additional parking spaces. What is now, if you're familiar with that property when you drive in to our site there, on the left we have a wide swath of green space between our, what is our now entryway and the south meadow properties that parallel Barrow Street there. So we have been going through zoning to get approval to add these spaces. I was just in front of the DRB on Monday. We received approval to move ahead with putting those additional spaces in. So we are hopeful. So we share the current parkway spot with CCTA and we have about 45 spots there for our staff. Rarely are there ever 45 cars on our side of the lot there. There are occasions when we have big events there like yesterday we had a reclamation at that site and so our side of the parkway was filled up and we were over on to Pine Street and South Crest and everywhere in between because there were a little large in that. But we feel like with 41 spaces we should be able to accommodate the loss of the parkway spaces. There's been times when our staff are not parking on the parkway and are parking on South Crest I look at you as you said doing it on South Crest for Pine Street when it's wintertime and it's dark or people are feeling unsafe about walking to the parkway we have had some staff cars vandalized on the parkway so there have been some concerns about that. So I'm optimistic that with parking on our own lot with appropriate lighting and proximity to our building that we'll be able to sort of mediating some of that on the street parking to provide questions about that and how we're related and happy to trust you. Yeah, living on South Crest you know trying to get out to Pine Street in the morning there's cars 12 on each side parked. You can barely get one car through if there was a fire you couldn't get a fire through. I don't know if it's legal or not I mean it's hard even to see cars coming on Pine Street lucky somebody doesn't get hit. You know and there's been a crescendo of cars on that parkway. I mean last week there were an excess of a hundred and four cars okay and you know I checked with somebody from CCTA and they kind of said well we use a little bit of you know and even if you put 40 more spaces you could have an extra 80 more people visiting Howard and you know I'll be honest with you the path of least resistance is where they're going to park the quickest way they can get to Howard and you know I just don't feel that everybody has responsibility only in business they shouldn't take over a street as a parking lot you know and I think it should be monitored and especially now with the rezoning of the industrial avenue we've got the Beltway coming and they're putting toxic waste on the Beltway that they're coming from the city there's so much interaction going on South Press Drive just it's scary you know and when we first moved here back in the early 90s where it sold the land off to South Metal Project there were only three houses a gym and a building and I don't know Howard's close places or not but Howard is really got a presence out there now and you know they haven't gone through anything there's only nothing they just more or less I checked the files today but they've just grown and you know I mean it's easy to say we've got 40 new spaces but you know when you see 125 or 150 cars parked up to South Press, Pine and Beltway I mean we're still going to have a hit right so I hear your concerns and I share them I mean I pay particular attention to that since I've been involved in this addition to the parking lot and I have talked to our leaders that we now have an additional location on Hurricane Lane in Williston and so we have a large conference room there and so we're looking at making sure that our staff are scheduling large meetings there reducing large meetings at the 1138 site making sure you know so I think the day you're referencing there were two large group meetings scheduled at that 1138 site that people were you know one of them was oh we're going to meet here and then go somewhere I'm thinking like really you're going to all just come and park here and then like go somewhere else like don't do that so we are we are looking to take action to address that and moving those larger meetings to different locations and paying attention to when meetings are being scheduled there are there going to be adequate spaces we have staff meetings on Wednesday where a lot of our teams are all having staff meetings that are requiring you know everyone to come to that building to be on site so we're looking at dispersing those across some of our other sites so we're aware of it and I was welcome you know I can get in my car to see things that are concerning you could certainly call me or send me an email because I want to know about that I think that you know it's just everybody in the south end you know going from Edlin, to Burden, to Rhino to all those houses on Pine Street you know everybody in the area has on site parking so they don't interfere with anyone's neighborhood you know and I couldn't tell you on Pine Street or Homeowners or it's all Howard Park you know yeah I think the same thing happens up the street at theother.com where you see cars parked you know everywhere actually they're pretty proactive in telling people where to park and not to park you know and I've talked with a couple of people who work there and you know they're very concerned about that but you know I just think that you know you've got other like Richard Street down there and the Lyman Avenue and Ferguson Avenue you know where people could be parking too for a combination you know I just think that South Bend doesn't park as much as probably Richardson Street and Lyman Avenue and also the Clarks Park so I just think the best interest of the neighborhood would be to monitor it you know you know once you start losing out on the street a small question there was a three-story building that's across and there's no windows and what was it? Which was where? Right here? Oh so well actually that side of the building where that sign is is not Howard Center you see the little arrow pointing to the front door but that is a UVM UVM is I guess leasing that side of the building we don't own this building we lease it it's our office space so we don't You know what they do in that building? I mean at first grade So what I think they do in that building is I think there's bodies in there That's what I think of Yes Yes No There's some sort of I mean I've not been there but that's what I am Yeah like this is our administrator I was talking to Howard Center part of the issue and related and it seems to come back to some of the things that we were I was talking to Kathy before the meeting a little bit about you know there's sort of underlying issues of people creating a work one person in a car I mean dealer.com they talk to their employees that either on Locust Street or all the way up Locust Street every single day with dealer.com people because they get out of their car and they walk back down the street so it's you know the whole issue of moving people into Burlington to work and how they get there is one that we will be continuing to talk about And apparently more and more people are not wanting to ride in the public transit so they probably have their car Well they have their car and they sell it to get it down Okay Thank you very much Thank you We are fortunate to have with us tonight Gino and Jimmy I was hoping for also for Chris and Brian Of course Maybe they'll show up Would you like to come up? Close with me together? Sure They could sit at the table That'd be great What's your name? I guess one of the ways we thought about this and the format is likely lots of time for questions but maybe each of you could take some time and talk about this last session maybe in the format of accomplishments and challenges You are the senator I'm happy to have you I'm here that we'll be crossing So as well as you guys So I'm a representative of Children's Community and I served I've served in the house since 2012 and most of you may know me from my work at Planned Parenthood I worked at Planned Parenthood for a long time and now I'm currently the new executive director at Emerge Vermont that recruits and trains women to run for office This was a really incredible legislative session I think we have a lot to be proud of and a lot that we still need to do to help Vermonters You know my mission coming into this legislative session was to really work to create an economy that works for all Vermonters not just to select you a Vermont where our families and communities can thrive and where the Vermont dream is accessible to everyone So we think about that work I think about it in three sort of categories of the economy and workforce development community and family health and the environment and climate change So I'll just do a little high level overview of the work that we did in those three sections When it comes to the economy and workforce development for families we invested over eight million dollars for child care and workforce development I see someone who looks real good which is really, really important I think it's I'm not going to my district access to child care especially slots for infants is a challenge and so that was a really high priority for us this legislative session We made investments for new Americans through the department of labor and investments in the Vermont State College system So again really for focusing on different aspects of workforce development through different communities So those are some of the three in that range In the community and family health arena we did increased investments for mental health services We expanded dental care for people that are on Medicaid and we increased the benefit for reach up families across the state which what hasn't had an increase in years and years and years so that was long overdue so we were proud of that We did pass a gun safety bill that really addressed public health and public safety measures creating a 24 hour waiting period to purchase a gun Unfortunately the governor vetoed that bill so we will be coming back to the session to review what else we can do when it comes to gun safety and public public safety In the area of climate change we invested an additional 1.3 million on top of 19 million for weatherization The great thing about weatherization is that not only are we typing out homes but we're creating jobs and helping older homeowners with their bills so that's a great accomplishment We did increased money in donations in incentives for electric vehicles for low and moderate income families in the state and we created a long-term funding source to clean up our lakes and rivers which is really important it's a public health issue it's an economic issue and it's a job issue as well So that's a broad range of things that we did this legislative session One of the efforts that Senator Lines and I worked really hard on was an effort to protect reproductive rights in our state Before this last legislative let us say legislative session we saw what was happening with the Supreme Court and Trump's nominee with Brett Kavanaugh and thought we don't have full protection in our state For years and years and years we basically had a culture and a practice of how we did things before row even a year before row and we always thought this is the way it works so long in the you know with your medical provider and that's where it stays with the shift on the Supreme Court it became clear to us that we needed to act to protect those fundamental rights for Vermont so that was a two-pronged approach one was the short-term measure with H57 that basically just codified what we have in practice now which is medical decisions stay with a patient and their doctor and then we have a long-term effort that I'll let Senator Lines talk about which is to change our state constitution which is a longer process so that's why we passed H57 and so I was really proud that we were able to pass that quickly this session and that the governor signed it so that's my broad overview so Jill has accomplished everything seriously she has given a fabulous overview of the work that we've done I didn't mean that she did it all I'm saying that we worked very well together both the House and the Senate to accomplish the goals that Jill has talked about the most important thing that I can say about this session is how well we collaborated between House and Senate regardless of what you have read about in The Digger or another place the work that we did was collaborative work and not just House and Senate because I think that happens quite a bit at least in our case we do work very well together but also I found it a lot easier this session to work collaboratively with the administration along the lines of some of the things that Jill has talked about our biggest commitment this session the first year of the biennium has been a commitment to people we've really turned the corner on investing in people and that goes to talking about and actually getting results on childcare building a new childcare subsidy system that is going to be highly effective for families and children and then as we took testimony in the Health and Welfare Committee that I chair in the Senate we heard that people were unable to afford childcare because their reach up payments were so low so as Jill said we made a commitment to increasing those base payments that have not been changed since 2004 this is this to me is very exciting I've been trying to have some investment of this type for a number of years so those are super accomplishments the dental care that we have provided for folks on Medicaid includes two prevention visits a year and cleaning so before and the cap for before you start actually paying has been raised to $1500 for folks on Medicaid why is that so important because when you have a smile and you can talk with people you're more apt to get a job or to feel comfortable in a social situation so that that is that is actually the dental Medicare coverage is unique in the country it's first of its kind and it's awesome and we've done we've done some other first of the kinds in the nation but this one I think is really very important and talking about the Howard Center I really want to congratulate the Howard Center on their work I know parking might be a problem but we've we've taken a lot of testimony from folks across the state about our mental healthcare needs the waiting lists that we see in emergency rooms how we treat folks with mental health issues and the Howard Center is a leader in that what we have done this year I've been working gradually over time to ensure that we have increased funds available for our designated agencies you can't as a state say please go out and do the work of the state and then not pay to have that happen significant money in increasing payment for workforce in the Howard Center in addition to that some of the workforce development funds that we have put into the budget and I must say most of the work that the senate did in health and welfare ended up going into the budget because it was all about money and improving conditions for people but over the past several years the medical center two years ago invested money that went to the Howard Center this year we have invested money in base payments for workforce and we in addition have established some workforce development funds both for child care to increase child care workers and to increase the number of folks who might go into mental health services those are huge accomplishments we will begin to see results from that work I would hope within the within the near future the I was at a meeting this afternoon actually it's an all-day meeting on the justice oversight committee where we were talking about beginning to talk about mental health issues in criminal justice and I know that's been an issue in recently in the news and we're going to try to tackle that issue as best we can so the as we work on mental health we're looking at forensic mental health we're looking at care and treatment of folks who end up in the emergency room we're looking at that diagnosis and how best to treat people in the community and community resources that are needed in one of the bills that we passed we put in a section that links the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board affordable housing funding with our mental health transitional housing and other housing needs that's a creative way of solving several different problems all at once the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board is extremely excited about working on that when we had them in committee they actually did an extra report for us demonstrating how they could commit themselves some of the money that they have for affordable housing to for folks who have mental health needs we worked on climate change I know that we worked on a lot I got three four pages of just lists of things that we have done I'm really talking now about what we did in the Health and Welfare Committee we also did a great deal of work in other areas including in weatherization we did talk about how we should regulate scooters yeah well I was listening to the bike path conversation and bicycles and bike paths and now we have a new mode of transportation and should we have helmets or no helmets how should they be regulated and I think Burlington has already started that conversation we in the area of one last thing and then I'll let Brian have a chance to talk but two more things one area that's near and dear to many of us of course is prevention as we look at the opioid addiction problem and other addiction problems in the state it becomes really clear that we can save a lot of money and save a lot of lives and increase longevity if we have a robust prevention program so we now have in our state a chief prevention officer who will work very closely with the Governor's Office also with the Department of Health and will expand the community work that we have in our state so we'll see more and more prevention work going on within communities that will be funded the result of which will be savings and that means saving lives and saving money in our healthcare system it's not a short-term process it's a long-term process but there are a number of us in the legislature who are very much committed to this to the whole concept of prevention it was great the issue really started to rise to the surface more and more as the marijuana conversation went on people were concerned about what do we do about kids so this is a this is a certainly a response to that that the last it's not going to be the last thing I say you could never tell a senator to talk to you we could really listen but I just would like to say that I did work very hard on the constitutional amendment for reproductive liberty started working on that last summer and completed and then helped work on the sort of the age 57 language those I would encourage you when the constitutional amendment comes up for a vote in November 2022 to all please vote for it it's very good so anyway thank you for letting me go on I say that must be the most advanced notice on a vote anymore it's in my brain but it's important it's important that we start increasing people's awareness about that and that the community has a lot of time to debate that issue because it's a big deal to the constitution so thanks for your work on that in the Senate so I was taking notes while you were speaking because there is so much going on and I was like writing things and trying to figure out what am I going to say that they haven't said so that it's fresh so I don't think I'm going to repeat anything in my update so I'll start by introducing myself to those of you who don't know me my name is Brian Gina I live in the old North Bend in Ward 2 but I'm in part Ward 2 that's in Chittenden 6-4 where I represent part of the old North Bend and most of Ward 1 of the East District and the hospital and UVM so that's sort of section of Burlington and what I call my real job even though this is a real job my real person job I'm a clinical social worker so I have private practice on Main Street in Burlington where I provide psychotherapy services mostly to children and teenagers and families I also work part-time for the Howard Center in Firstqual which is the county's crisis service and I do that for the six months of the year that I'm not in the legislature and I'm also a DJ and a performance artist I'm in this field the last cabaret once I've heard of that group and a DJ and working bars downtown so those are sort of other main things I do with my life besides being state representative I take all those experiences into the legislature and so I'm on a health care committee which was a smart choice of the leadership something there I love your children she's the she would have told them that you're the majority leader so I don't know how much influence she has on that but the Democrats are controlling and I'm a progressive and a Democrat fusion person although in my heart I'm like a Democratic socialist independent libertarian I'm a little bit anarchist but that would be a whole other conversation we could have a conversation about labels and another idea but I'm just pointing out that the leadership of the House decides what committees people go on they put me on the health care committee which I think was a good choice considering that I have a lot of experience on the ground working in the health care system and so the first report I'll give is from the health care at the House Health Care Committee and Senator Lyons is the chair of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee so are these kids in here like when is she going to say not say something you say a lot there's a lot like what my colleagues said there's probably hundreds of bills that passed and I don't know the exact number and the governor signed all that he will like today we got to notice that he's gotten through them all so we can sort of breathe easy on some of these things that pass through so now I will just jump right in and listen to a few things and try to keep moving along so each 524 and I might get some numbers wrong so I do forgive me but it was a bill that was generated in the House Health Care Committee and it was an act relating to the individual mandate and health insurance and the health insurance marketplace and so the story behind this bill is that in the House Health Care Committee we were looking at reports that we had asked and I've been in the legislature since 2016 I think others mentioned that so I'm probably the newest one on this panel so this is the ending of my third year and I've been on the Health Care Committee since 2016 and in 2016 there were some major changes that began on the federal level as control of the executive and legislative branch shifted and with that shift in control came attacks on or that's a little bit of a term so I'll try to do more control like changes made to the policies guiding our health care system whether they be changes in law or changes in funding or court rulings and so what happened is the Affordable Care Act when it was put in place instituted a lot of protections for people and it structured our health care system as a marketplace where health care is not a human right but a commodity that's bought and sold and it required people to purchase a product from companies and but with those requirements also came protections that we did not have before and so when certain pieces it's like the health care system is like a game of Jenga which is that game for people who don't know where you stack wood delicately and then you have to slowly pull pieces out without knocking it over and so that's what's happening now is on the federal level people will be like let's get rid of the individual mandate and they pull that piece of wood out and they're like oh it didn't collapse now what we can take out let's take out this form of protection let's take out this piece of funding and that continues to happen and as that happens it becomes increasingly unstable and so after hearing a lot of testimonies from different stakeholders the House Health Care Committee decided to create a bill to look at the individual mandate and other protections of the Affordable Care Act to stabilize the health care marketplace while looking forward at where we headed so protecting what we have and thinking about what we want sort of working towards what we want and so there's a lot of pieces of that bill and I won't go through all of them two pieces that I'll mention because there were things I was advocating for separately of the bill because they were like bills I had proposed that ended up getting like added into this bill and so there sometimes we call bills Christmas trees which is like you keep hanging things on it and sometimes it takes a second to hang on it or kind of you're like whoa that's a weird ornament but this tree had a lot of this tree was a well-coordinated tree that matched it was a very nicely put together tree because these ornaments when you put them together actually what we did is we looked at the Affordable Care Act and we said what do we need in this bill to give us the protection of that act and so one of the bills I had proposed which was protecting people who have pre-existing conditions was added in to some other protections and then we looked at the individual mandate and there was some disagreement around the individual mandate some of us felt like I was one of them so to be honest I don't think we should force people to buy health care I think it should if we're going to do that we might as well just have it like be attacked attack use tax money and fund it but in my committee I thought that was like a timer already I don't know I don't think I can go on fast with anybody else but in my committee I was on the minority side in voting against a penalty for the individual mandate like I wanted it I think I thought we needed a mandate but we shouldn't have a penalty we should have like incentives and then my committee passed a penalty but then it went to the House Ways and Means Committee and they guarded the penalty because because they felt like it was I'm not going to do that it has to do with like the level of tax system it would take to implement it and enforce it was complicated and so then it passed the House and the Senate without the penalty and so we have an individual mandate but no penalty we have a bunch of the protections in fact all the protections of the Affordable Care Act and then the last part of the bill is the looking forward part so there's some studies so one of them studies the affordability and health care and it looks at the connection between the total the cost of health care and people's income and that was the piece that came from a bill that I proposed then there's one that came from another bill that looks at the possibility of a regional universal health care system like partnering with other states to create one since it might be more affordable than doing it on our own and then another one looked at Medicaid co-pays and and then one looks at this thing called the merged market which if I start talking about people might run out of the room but because it has to do with the like details of the different markets and health care like small group groups individual etc so that being said there was this one big piece of work I spent more time on it than I wanted but you get the gist that like that was what I I guess it's only fair because the house health care committee spent most of our time on that because it was so big and then once we passed that off to the senate we got some great senate bills to work on one of those is it eliminates pre-authorization for medication assisted treatment so now if anyone wants medication assisted treatment which is treatment for opioid or substance abuse disorder that you can get like on demand without pre-authorization no matter what your insurance plan is it was available for many plans but now we've just made it so that people can get that treatment and that we clarify that's not just the medication but it's also the psychotherapy so people can get the medication and they can get the mental health treatment without any pre-authorization when they are ready to get that treatment another thing you mentioned investments in the mental health system but I don't think you mentioned specifically the designated agencies or the amount so I thought I just would clarify that we've invested 5.2 million dollars in our designated agencies which are the this community mental health organizations around the state and you did mention that we asked them to do work we call that an unfunded mandate for many years designated agencies had to do this work without being given enough funding and we've given an injection of funds into that system to hopefully help it may not be enough in the long term but it's it's helpful for now one last thing related to health care shifting into like sort of justice related stuff and I'm going to tell you about a few things there it's that the for the second time in my time the the legislature passed the general assembly passed a medical monitoring bill which holds businesses accountable for poisoning people that if people get if there's a toxic exposure to toxins because of negligence or some kind of criminal or negligent act tortuous act I think is the word that companies would have been held accountable for paying for the testing needed by people or a population of people to make sure they don't get sick from that pollution and the governor vetoed that and he vetoed it because of concerns of how it would affect insurance rates for businesses and that would make Vermont not a place that's not promoting business and I guess I just question you know what's more important the health of people or the profits of the business if the business is going to create that pollution they should be I was very disappointed with that veto and I'm hoping we can overturn it when we go back because we may have enough votes on that one unlike some other issues so just give two examples of some some social justice related achievements age three which was act one it creates it is the ethnic and social equity studies or standards bill and it creates a working group or it empowers a working group there's already a working group that's existing in the community working on this issue it empowers them to work with the communities around the state to create a curriculum that will more accurately represent students in the schools so looking at the different social and ethnic groups that have contributed to our society and teaching that in schools so that all children can see representations of themselves no matter what background they come from and that includes and racial groups it also includes women as a social group queer people disabled people so when the work of this group is done the state Board of Education will review there's recommendations that set up a curriculum and it is enforced on school districts they can choose to use it so there'll be a curriculum available for school districts to use if they would like to provide a richer education for kids that and there's evidence showing that this kind of education improves outcomes for all children because it it shows that all people belong and all people have something to contribute another social justice related achievement is that Vermont became I think the third state to change Columbus Day to Indigenous People's Day so what this does is it's pretty much that simple like we will now have Indigenous People's Day to Vermont if you want to celebrate Columbus Day you can no one is going to stop you but the state is going to change that and it was a pretty significant victory for Indigenous people in Vermont I've been working with different tribes in Vermont for three years so for us to be able to finally do this it provides a tremendous sense of relief for people who for hundreds of years in this state subject to oppression to eugenics to all kinds of economic and social oppression for us to recognize that first there were people here before there was in Vermont and before there was the United States and that they're still here and that we're going to celebrate the foundations of the society that we should celebrate the original people who were here and take it from there and not celebrate one male who came out of many and perpetuated incredibly violent acts upon other people and I am part Italian-American well actually culturally all of my grandparents were Italian but genetically it's more complicated but and that could be another R&B and not but growing up with four grandparents who were Italian I grew up in a community where Columbus they was celebrated and the story we were told of Columbus was not accurate but rather the Italian-American community come together and find a new way to celebrate our community and there was a bill that was put forward in the house a short form bill suggesting that that there would be a new Italian holiday I don't know if the state really I don't know if the state really needs that but I think the community may need it and so I'm excited to talk with other people in the community about how we would celebrate Italian-American or Latin-American contributions to society I think I've caught up with you both at this point in time so but I'm going to end I'll end with two sort of like works in progress unresolved things and then maybe I'll drop one more thing that we can all talk about nothing but others on the spot it says interpretive dance yeah we could do that the older than FPA has requested that I do an interpretive dance report but we didn't have enough time for our meeting two weeks ago or a week ago so I owe them one but it is it would that would be the part it would be the end of the session that I would need to an interpretive dance to represent but so just in terms of climate issues we've heard that there are some of the investments and positive actions but I will say as a member of the climate focus that I was disappointed that we didn't do more and I think that looking back we really are not we really messed up over the last 10 or 20 years around climate and as much as it was hard to get those things we got it was incredibly hard so I don't want to take away the work that we all have to do to get those things but if we don't do like 10 to 100 times more we may be facing a catastrophe like that hasn't been seen by humans in terms of the impact on our ecosystems ecosystems are collapsing all around the world and our entire economy has been built in a way where the leisure books don't take into account the financial impact the actual cost of ecosystems and the impact on people and so we have an economy that's been structured in a way that it exploits and it extracts human resources and it's extracting and exploiting our ecosystems and when people talk about if you keep building your house using your foundation's materials what's going to happen when you undermine the very foundation your house sits on it's like taking stones from your basement and piling it on your house saying oh we're throwing as you're pulling stones out of your basement or it's like the Chenga thing you know again the Chenga analogy and so the climate caucus which is about 40-something members of the house are meeting over the summer and doing some work in subgroups I'm the convener of the Green Economy subgroup and what we're really looking at is trying to come together around a core set because there was like 60 bills or something and some of them were repeated themselves related to the environment they're running even more and so we're trying to kind of figure out a key package of things to try to push for in the next year that would get us going in the right direction one idea that I'm pushing for is this idea of a zero waste green economy study which would look at Vermont region by region look at the waste streams of every region and find what kind of economic activity could use that waste stream as source material so that we can close the loops in each region and we completely eliminate our waste while in a way that builds the economy creates jobs and then figure out in the long term how do we phase out the worst things we're doing like for example replacing plastics with half-faced plastics or something so I could go on about this topic but I'm not I just wanted to say that as much as we did I think we have a lot to do and that's going to be a hot issue in the next session and then one last thing the women's caucus which I'm part of I don't know if you both are part of it because you're so busy you're always in other meetings I'm not a former chair of it and it has to belong to this right so we're being like the multi-spirited person reporting on women's caucuses work but but the issue that the women's caucus is working on is prison reform and specifically with the women's correctional facility and so as part of that piece that I've taken on is trying is advocating for a change in the model of the correction system towards what they do in Norway and so I would encourage everyone to check out to google the Norway model and check it out it's an approach to corrections that's drastically reduced recidivism because instead of treating people like prisoners they treat them like citizens the ideas or neighbors they're thinking like this is my neighbor when they get out how do I want to treat them now because they're going to be my neighbor one day and it's a completely different way of treating people who made bad decisions or mistakes that reduces recidivism and actually saves money in Norway and so I'm going to be advocating for that over the summer in conjunction with the general efforts of the women's caucus and so that's another thing you might see some changes in our correction system coming because we have to upgrade infrastructure so do you want to jump in on that? I do go ahead so and just to say that we have a study going on with the justice center it's part of their council state government justice center and we're looking at alternative models especially for the treatment of women because the Chippin County Correctional Center really needs an upgrade so rather than move forward directly with a new facility understanding what we need for folks who might be in that facility or need to have special treatment in the community as part of that facility so we have that that study is going on at the same time we're trying to sort out how to invest in we can't fix that facility it's not it's just not fixable so so deciding where and how to build what so it's not a simple issue and it isn't simply replicating what another country is doing in Norway but the the lessons that we learn from other countries I know Germany has a fabulous model for a prison system correction system so as a member of the justice oversight committee I am working on that and as a member of the institutions committee I'm working on that as well and it's great that we have so many so many legislators really invested in making this type of change but it's not going to happen overnight I know that when we were taking testimony on some of these issues in our committee people were coming in and saying we have to do this right now and the right now is a difficult answer because first you have to decide what the this is so what we are working on that and it's going to be great it will be a it will be a change and it will be something different so it's exciting and in terms of climate change because I know Brian wanted to talk about that a little bit that Vermont is thank goodness we're way ahead of some of the other places in the country I do teach environmental science so it's something near and dear to me and I have been working on it for many years but the the next step in meeting our climate change goals are going to be some of the harder steps we really we've got a little hanging fruit we have efficiency we're working on weatherization and now we're going to have to combine our electric efficiency with our thermal efficiency that we started that I put that into legislation in 2008 or nine I think it was to have a comprehensive energy efficiency utility that combines electric and thermal efficiency and now we're starting to talk about doing that so it takes time to get to bring people to a new way of looking at at change the infrastructure that we're developing for electric vehicles across the state is going to be exciting we may have the administration is looking at having a charging station within 30 miles of every individual who's in the state to me it should be closer but so these things are going to happen but then we have to be able to afford the vehicles and we do have to be able to have the mini buses that are going to carry multiple passengers that are electrified and we need the school buses that are going to do that so it's going to be some heavy lifting right here it's not just us in the state house being excited about making these things happen it's going to be all of us in our local communities figuring out what it is that we can do it is a challenge and it's the bike path and it's the scooter path and it's the new the new bus so I probably could talk for several hours on how to change itself so I won't do that but I think you know Brian's brought up a really critical issue that we are looking at but we can't we can't do it we cannot do it it's right here that has to happen right here right here you guys should do one Burlington is doing a great job yes thank you all for reminding us of everything that happened in this session so much was obscured by the ending of the session and all the publicity that came around that so it's very helpful to have and thank you for all your work all three of you on this in the legislature and in this session questions for our legislators so people who are paying attention a lot of people who pay attention who know all the stuff that you record and all the stuff that will build a co-cast however the end of the session certainly not the bad-tasting environment and the strong and democratic support and I thought it was an opportunity to slander the super majority the last session being against the governor at this time we have the super majority so I thought it was you know it's like during an arch just after brushing your teeth so can you talk a little bit about why that happened and what you think that means going forward I can start with that and I can let you guys jump in so one of the so on raising the minimum wage was one of the big issues and then paid family and medical leave was the other issues that we were working on together really hard on in the house on the minimum wage bill when we started hearing a testimony and going really really deep down really really deep down about let's make sure we're not creating any unintended consequences with this an issue around Medicaid coverage came up in concerns from designated agencies saying that if you're pushing the minimum wage up this fast at this level then there's they have very set tough budgets and that if we go up too fast they're going to have and there was a group of members who were very concerned that what we were passing did not address that issue so that was the one thing on that side and then on the other side on paid family and medical leave in the senate there were senators concerned about the medical leave portion and saying that we can't move to an all in system yet and that it has to be voluntary so we had this rub back and forth when we've been in the house we're like come on all in on medical and the senate was saying it's fine and those group groups of people who were concerned about it were just saying we can't come to this solution after we've already been here for two extra weeks and at the end of the day the challenges that even if we had pushed something and got a vote through there wasn't enough votes to override Governor's veto and so we said you know what maybe it makes sense for us to actually do work over the summer in the fall to figure out how we can address those concerns and say alright these are good and we've been working all these together we have solutions and we're going to get them to the governor as soon as possible and there are other bills that work also wrapped up at the end that people really wanted to get asked and get to the governor that we didn't finish on like a task and regulate from marijuana bill and a couple others around climate change as well and so yeah the list starts growing which it was cars that we also a member of the house represented about four guys passed away and so we actually don't have a majority so even if in the governor had a majority we don't have a majority so there's 95 Democrats and then if you build a coalition of people you can get to a veto proof majority but we just didn't have that with losing this member of the governor not appointing someone today so I agree like it was very, very frustrating but what I'll say is I'd rather pass something that's really good and addresses these concerns and doesn't have negative consequences that we can all get behind instead of shutting something down members' throats and then not being able to overwrite it with a veto so I totally get that and I guess I wasn't specific enough to my question it was less about what whether this bill passed it was that the House and Senate did not act in concert and that appearance was was that right it really didn't so that's really where I'm talking about in terms of regardless of what the press has put out there there was a lot of good will in the conversations and the negotiations and even even though the press said that it was just a horrific event the protest and the speaker are talking together they're friends I mean they get along Jill and I and Brian and I get along very well it was it was truly about policy so when you start saying that it looked like a real severe conflict the conflict was about the differences of within the policy and I do completely agree with Jill and I think my Senate colleagues would concur that we have a whole year coming up our goal is to work as quickly as we can and to get some good work done during this off-session the months that were away and bring something back that we can all vote on support so you know I'm sorry that of the appearance of significant conflict I think it's good but it was a good demonstration of differences of opinion that exist within the whole and raw I mean so as a as a Democrat I I think this is fine we all have different opinions but we know what our goal is we do want a medical family leave and we do want to have an increase in the minimum wage so that we can begin to live on in an ever-increasing economy so I think that that's a common goal we're going to get there I have no doubt that we're going to get there I've been in the Senate long enough to remember when with Janet Munn and we were together and we wanted to have a new way of approaching minimum wage and I said you know what about putting a CPI she said nobody would ever support that but we did that but it didn't it wasn't done in the first year it was done in the second year it takes time to get this stuff done making sure that people who are sick themselves can take time off to me that's important and that's a different opinion and policy between the house and the Senate so we're going to work on that stuff I do appreciate your question now it was it was very frustrating for those of us sitting in the State House to see that the conferees the people negotiating together not able to reach resolution the leadership not able to reach resolution and the rest of us were really handcuffed but that's what happens sometimes yeah I would just like express I'm not I don't challenge any of the like information that my colleagues gave but I just want to share like that my experience where it was actually incredibly negative and that I didn't believe feeling hopeful about the functionality of our body I just have to be honest that sitting there in the end I was painfully aware that there were some policy differences and that people were having a hard time getting around that people who are working behind the scenes really hard to negotiate that so that that was going on so people should know that there was like there were definitely people in leadership working really really really hard to overcome these differences and sometimes you know I was on the school board like many of you know and I've been through really difficult negotiations and when you have a difficult negotiation sometimes you need to break and then you come back and you need to break and you come back and close the contract and I was the only one who said no because I didn't think we should do that I felt like we needed to keep going back to the table so likewise I was like I was the one person who got up and it was really hard to do this and question the decision for us to pass the budget attached to I mean there was because the senate basically had the budget and wasn't sending it back to the house all of a sudden for me at least as a Microsoft budget now by taking a childhood beverage bill gutting it putting the budget inside this other bill and everyone needs to vote yes on this week at home and I was sort of like I was sort of like no no this is not how we do things like I can't do this and so me and like one other person I mean Selina and Colbert voted no and I think maybe one other person because it was voice spoke but I got up and I was like no disrespect to you I'm voting no on everything because I'm like I'm going off the rails with this if I can't do it and I was like there was two or three of us who started voting no no no no and then the motion to adjourn came which Jill was one of the sponsors of so that was really awkward having to question you in front of everyone because I was questioning what's going on here you know but I asked you and you answered me and I was like I can't support that because I didn't feel like we could unilaterally adjourn and not took for the house to walk off like that it was sort of like walking away angry and imposing a contract and I didn't think that I didn't know what the Senate was going to do but I didn't think that was the way we should be acting and I'm not saying that that the Speaker of the House didn't have the reasons either because I don't think that I don't want to get into the personal dynamics but it's hard when you're having disagreement sometimes like when we have leaders of each body and I ask it's a hard tough dynamic and I can understand why someone would want why you'd want to just walk off and like be done but I just couldn't agree to walk off and be done I wanted us to just as much as it makes my life difficult I wanted because I wanted to leave be done you know I would rather us have left for the weekend and come back or something but that being said I expressed my opposition I lost the House decided to adjourn then luckily so I could at least vote in the conscious yes on the project because that made me feel a little better like that happened and then we left and so I just wanted to share that because it doesn't I don't mean to undermine any of the hard work and I don't think it means that the House and the Senate aren't working all together because as we show we pass like so much good stuff what I think it shows is that we're all human we're all vulnerable we all have weaknesses as well as strengths and the reality is that it's hard like when you're trying to do a negotiation it's hard and sometimes you have to step away and take care of yourself and come back and unfortunately it didn't end that way this time and I do think what came out of that though is like a commitment over the summer to get this done so I will just vouch that there's been a commitment made to me by people that we're going to work on this over the summer and do it so hopefully we can get there so I don't need to go off too much but I have to be honest with you that I didn't like the way it ended I still feel pretty gross but you liked it yeah but what I'll say to that is like so we've already started to get some of the information that the Medicaid provides of the Medicaid issue we're already looking on getting those numbers so we actually know what that difference is with raising the minimum wage and the impact that it has on designated agencies and it's going to take us like that was the whole problem is getting that information and we're already starting to do that work now anyway what about the senate side like is the senate working on getting over their issues around them the paid family needs like I'm just curious you're just telling them on your question yeah I like where you lean around too no one's telling me I'm like out of the loop you know so that's part of the problem is there isn't let me just say it's not my committee and I'm not part of the negotiation process but I've been reassured that people okay thank you just to follow up on that beside the policy issues beside any personal kerfuffle that was going on what role does the fact of having a citizen legislature that has this pressure to finish to finish the session so that people can get on with their life what role does that have in it that's a really good question because where does we target a date by which we're going to adjourn and we budget for it so then every time we start going over that timeline we're going over the budget and that and we get a lot of negative emails and negative press from time to time about our going over that budget so when we when we went over this time it didn't feel good it doesn't feel good to any of us because we really want to get our work done we want to do it in a timely and cost efficient manner so it does have an effect you're absolutely right I think it's healthy though that we have those limits otherwise I'm not saying everyone but there would be people who would never stop and we would just be spending people's money and passing laws endlessly and so it's good for us to have some structure like it's healthy I think it's healthy I think it's healthy to have structure limits you know that's the way you can get it it's not it's about it's about $500,000 a week that we go over it's a lot of money we could use that for other stuff for so much other stuff yeah another question I have a it's hopefully a short question and maybe a longer question short question is you may have alluded to it Brian but on these bills that have been vetoed is there a plan to have a veto session this year so we can take up vetoes in the game like there's no rules saying that when we can and can't when it comes because we're still in the biennium the reason for the veto session last year was because it was the end of the biennium so if there's a deficit budget when we adjourned we adjourned until January if we we could have adjourned to a date certain to cover a veto session we did not do that so any veto session will take place in January so the difference between last year it was the budget and we need a budget in place by next date or we have a government shutdown which we were not for no what happened so this time there will be votes on the vetoes when we get on certain ones when we get back is there a reason why we didn't do it because no one ever explained to me why we didn't schedule a veto session there wasn't votes on any but why don't we do it just in case we just both the governor wanted to ask that because we can do it in January the governor can call us back for a special session it's about 50-50 over the course of history whether we do it or not do it it's not uncommon I'm still loose so as you can see I ask questions that I'm learning because I really thought we should have known who the governor is in his history like the best predictor of someone's future performance is what they've done in the past so I was like alright you know like we should probably have a veto session well but here's the thing about a veto session if you call a veto session in the interim months there's no guarantee who's able to show up so if you're going to call a veto session for something you truly value and you want to have the votes there you have to make sure everyone can be there on that date so that's one of the reasons to allow this to carry over to January when we have you know we're on the first year of the biennium I also like to think it gives room on or some opportunity to voice their position to their legislators and learn more about why he vetoed it and whether they think it's a valid idea and we'll have that opportunity in January I just I second question it's okay it's just it is with respect to the governor and you know I look to our southern board in Massachusetts where they have a Republican governor and a Democratic legislature and they've passed the $15 minimum wage they have the friendliest petty family use system in the country including medical leave for people to take off and they're taxing and regulating cannabis which are obviously three of the big issues coming in this past session and so I greatly appreciate the work that you all are doing and it's heartening to hear that we're continuing to hammer out the issues over the summer but I'm also you know the reality of this all is that we still have a Republican governor and I think there's still some really big question marks as to that even if you amongst yourselves are able to come do an agreement whether the governor would ultimately sign off on something like that and from my perspective one of the frustrating things has been and I suspect and I've heard frustration from some of your colleagues as well that the governor should start taking this I don't know attitude towards everything and I don't really see you know I'm a Democrat right so this is going to come out here but I don't really see what his priorities are and in Massachusetts one of the ways that they were able to get these things passed is through what they call the grand bargain where Charlie Baker governor there has his priorities with respect to lowering the sales tax for example and things like that and they were able to make some concessions with the Democratic legislature here so I guess my question is while you're negotiating amongst yourselves is there any room for negotiation as well with this governor does he have any priorities in which the Democratic legislature could make concessions and engage in some horse trading here to get these big ticket items across the finish line I know that's a loaded question but it's tough to know what his priorities are if you look at the budget you can see some of those priorities so in his budget he was cutting a number of human services programs that we had to develop and reinvest in he did have childcare money but he took the money from places that we would never take that money from so being able to say that his priority is people is just not there this really is not there and so and then can we negotiate can we negotiate a priority that he has for paid family leave or minimum wage where would you begin I mean I don't know where I would begin to look at a trade I really don't maybe a state tax I don't know I mean I think it's a it's an interesting comparison I think that Governor Baker and Riverside are very very two different governors and very two different styles and like I don't know how it works with Governor Baker but I think one of the challenges we've seen with this governor is that as soon as we move a step towards a position on something that they have and wait for something to come back the goalposts move and they move and they move and they move and they don't really know where they're standing to begin with on some of these tough issues and then as you start to get in there and say well what about this what about that and then two days later oh well okay now this and it's just really challenging and so I don't think I haven't heard and all the options that the speaker of the program had talked about to the governor he has not identified anyone that has said yes I can support that let's talk about it it's been I don't know I'm just waiting until they pass something and send it to me and that's not a way to govern it's not wait and wait you have to be at the table with us and so again it sounds like maybe governor makers more at the table on these negotiations but that's a struggle and a frustration that we have in the building with this administration I would just add to that that I think everything you both said is totally accurate and that it is hard to negotiate with someone when they when they don't come in with a starting point to start from when they change their position every time you work with them and also the strategy in my first term was he did come in strong with these bold things that he wanted to roll over like making school boards redo their budgets and go down them again and like these really big ideas and then but then when it came down to the end of at the end of the sessions he kept moving the goalpost like he said this time around it was like he totally changed and then I think another further complicated factor and this is said with love and it's not meant to be like like judgmental of my colleagues but it's hard when you have within the house you have like like in the Democratic clock there's a wide range of perspectives getting consensus and that caucus alone is hard and then when you try to incorporate professors it's even harder and then and so that super maturity is actually not as united as everyone thinks and then when the House and the Senate coordinate the strategy I think that's sometimes hard so those are things we can work through but like when you add that into the mix with the governor I think it's not as easy as us being like here's where we're at here's where you're at and how do we trade because there's so many moving parts so I just want to throw that out there that it's actually even if he was coming in like in a black or white position we would probably have a lot of work to do to come to some agreement because when there's disagreement within caucuses of one body or between the bodies that actually I think gives him more it gives him more power to be able to be like I don't know I don't know what you're doing I don't know what's going to happen well it does pit House and Senate and then it pits members of the caucus and so when you're trying to figure out what's going on the executive so he splits up he's able to split us for like he's able to get Democrats putting in amendments to weaken the bills that the party has made a priority I mean that happens or they like team up with Republicans to weaken bills that are Democratic Party priorities and so when that happens like what is going on you know and so I acknowledge that that makes things really hard when you're a leader trying to unite a group of people and you have people blatantly acting against what your caucus and the state party have platform on because it's hard but they have they have reasons though so I don't want to discount that like people really are afraid that raising the minimal you know that people are afraid that's going to hurt business is the economy they're not doing it to be evil you know like they're not it's not malicious so anyway another question so you have to come down and visit us at the state with your hedge forks and sword chains I don't know thank you thank you very much thank you very much so there's more pizza there there's more pizza there's more pizza there's more pizza and also dreams please partake thank you all for coming thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you