 Let's look at it on our own devices. Okay, and then we can see each other's faces Well, we're on our website. Yeah, it's listed under 172. It's So we just posted the link in chat. Yep. We should use our own devices Okay, so let's do that then and walk through that have Tucker walk us through the bill and the the amendment The amendment really is as the secretary said clarification. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. Tucker Anderson from the office of legislative counsel. Wonderful to see you all again and so soon day one. Here we are. I'll walk you through s 172, which is Senator whites bill to provide temporary authority for alternative procedures for the 2022 annual meetings. The authority that is provided within the four corners of this bill is all carried over from two other bills act 162 from 2020 and some portions from act 92 From the same session and those were temporary co vid response authority granted by the General Assembly. I'll start with section one, which declares legislative findings intent and purpose. Under these findings and stated that the General Assembly finds that the continued spread of co vid 19 and Vermont has potential to jeopardize the health, safety and welfare of Vermonters. That are voting in the 2022 annual meetings. Those meetings include, of course, not only the annual municipal meetings, but also the school district meetings that are required by law. Subdivision to it says that in 2021, the General Assembly enacted act 60 to authorize the use of outdoor polling places and the mailing of ballots to all active registered voters and municipalities that use The Australian ballot system for local elections. However, concerns persist for the 2022 annual municipal meetings because And here we come across the first error, I believe of the 2022 session gives us dates in subdivision a that in municipalities applying the Australian ballot system to those meetings. General law requires voters to apply for an early voter absentee ballot and Chris is here and he can probably correct this because he worked with Amron along with will sending, but I believe that's incorrect and that municipalities now under 17 BSA section 2680 Subsection F are permitted to just mail out ballots to all of their active registered voters provided they've already adopted the Australian ballot system. So maybe that's something that should be quickly cleaned up in the bill as it moves forward. But subdivision be is still correct. Many municipalities want to continue their custom of conducting annual meetings using floor votes. Those are the voice votes that many Vermonters are familiar with Subsection B states the intent and purpose of the bill. The intent of the general general assembly here is that the citizens of Vermont should be able to protect their health safety and welfare while also continuing to exercise their right to participate in annual municipal meetings. Accordingly, the purpose of this act is to permit municipalities to by vote of the legislative body apply the Australian ballot system to the municipalities 2022 annual meeting exclusively and to to move the date of the municipalities 2022 annual meeting to a potentially safer date later in the year. These are two pieces of authority that have been previously granted for the 2021 annual meetings. Section two contains all of the operative temporary authority that is granted by this act starting in subsection a that deals with the Australian ballot authority. It's on line five page three. Notwithstanding the provisions of 17 vs a section 2680 subsection a and I'll flag that because this is very specifically setting aside that subsection and 16 vs a section 711 e that applies to school districts. That requires the voters of the municipality to vote to apply the provisions of the Australian ballot system to the annual or special meeting of the municipality. In the year 2022 any municipality may apply the Australian ballot system to its annual meeting held in the year 2022 by vote of its legislative body. Any such vote shall also apply the Australian ballot method of voting to any vote that occurs as a result of the annual meeting. So there's a nexus there such as a budget revote or a reconsideration vote. So again this is applying Australian ballot to the annual meetings of those municipalities. And then if there's a link between that annual meeting and a later vote, then the authority for the Australian ballot continues on and would be applied to those subsequent revotes or votes for reconsideration. Subsection be starting with subdivision be one a municipality may use electronic means without designating a physical location to conduct public informational hearings that are held pursuant to 17 vs a 2680 age in advance of the municipalities annual meeting. To bring us all on to the same page. These are informational meetings that are held where the voters get together discuss issues related to the annual meeting and that in this particular instance are most often overseen by the moderator that is elected at the local level. This subsection is going to set aside some authority for municipalities to conduct these informational hearings using electronic means with a few specific requirements. So moving on to subsection be to and some of those requirements. When a public informational hearing is held electronically under subdivision one, the municipality shall use technology that permits the attendance of the public through electronic or other means. Allow the public to access the hearing by telephone whenever that is feasible. And finally to post information on how the public may access meetings electronically and include that information in the published agenda for the hearing. Final requirement, unless unusual circumstances make it impossible for them to do so, the legislative body of each municipality and each school board shall record any public informational hearing held pursuant to the subsection. As you may recall, the same requirements that we just walked through, and each of the subdivisions a through C, and then that subdivision three were the same requirements that were applied to municipalities under the temporary authority as it was applied to the open meeting law, and some of those suspended requirements to hold totally electronic meetings. So this is taking those same requirements and applying it here to the informational hearings and says, hey municipalities, if you decide to hold your informational hearing by electronic means, you're going to conduct it in this manner with this sort of notice to the voters. And you're going to record your meetings in the same manner that you were recording your meetings under the open meeting law in 2021. Subsection C, notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary in the year 2022, a municipal legislative body may vote to move the date of the municipalities 2022 annual meeting to a date later in the year 2022. And in subdivision to the town of Brattleboro may hold its annual representative town meeting by electronic means. Subsection E, there are two pieces of authority that had previously been granted for the 2021 annual meetings. In any municipality that moves the date of its 2022 annual meeting pursuant to subdivision C one of this section municipal officers shall serve until the meeting and until successors are chosen. Subsection E, there is some temporary authority pulling all of this together. The Secretary of State may waive statutory deadlines or other statutory provisions or provisions set forth in a school district's articles of agreement related to a municipal election as necessary in order for a municipality to apply the Australian ballot system to its meeting and in accordance with Subsection A of this section. That authority applies to statutory provisions set forth in a municipal charter or provisions set forth in a school district's articles agreement, if the waiver is requested by the municipality. The act is set to take effect on passage. And I suspect that if this does move forward that might be fairly soon. I need to move on to the amendment and discuss it all together here. All right. Yes, please. The committee is proposing an amendment to the bill that would add a subsection F that would state expressly that the provisions of 17 VSA. Subsection section 2680 subsection E shall apply to any municipality that votes to hold the 2022 annual municipal meeting by Australian ballot to pause there. This is a subsection that states that when a municipality is voting to hold its future meetings and potentially all future meetings by Australian ballot. They cannot hold that vote by Australian ballot. If there is floor vote municipality out there that wants to move to Australian ballot, they must hold that vote on the floor with everyone voice voting as their custom currently is. They can't use an Australian ballot vote to change to Australian ballot that stays the same. But to be clear, the act what's used me the bill as it is written does not set aside this requirement. So really what this amendment is doing is it's stating very clearly that the general law still applies that we are not setting it aside we're not suspending it, and that if you want to change to Australian ballot beyond 2022, you're going to have to do it at a floor vote according to current custom for your municipality. And we double down with the second statement here, the end of subsection F a municipality shall not warn any question on whether the municipality shall adopt the Australian ballot method of voting on a permanent basis for any or all articles for any subsequent municipal elections. Maybe a bit belt and suspenders or overkill, but we have two statements here that 2680 E still applies, and that you can't use the temporary authority to change to Australian ballot on a permanent basis. Thank you. Are there any questions and I, and I know that that last, the amendment and those two statements make it sound like we're talking to third graders, but there was really misunderstanding among some towns and even their town communities last year about doing that they, they thought they could use the Australian ballot to move to Australian ballot, and a couple towns have done it so. Senator column or did you have a. Thank you, Madam chair, no I'm in full support of the amendment. I don't mind being overly clear. It actually serves us well at least in this regard. I have a question for Tucker though, assuming that all of what you just read at the time reference to 2021 annual meetings. I failed to see how anybody could have had any misunderstanding about what this committee's intent was. I put you on the spot Tucker but I'm not a lawyer so I have no, I mean if I read that it only counts for the 2021 town meeting. How could I not understand that I couldn't make it permanent. There were actually two pieces there that were fairly express that 2680 was still going to apply the first was that all of the authority under the previous act was exclusively for 2021. The second was that we only not withstood one subsection of 2680, and that was subsection a subsection e which had that restriction was still in place. And beyond that I won't comment on what interpretations of this committee's intent or the previous act were out there. I understood and appreciate your response. So yeah I'm in full support of the bill, the underlying bill and also the amendment and as I said, I believe we need to be super clear about what we intend. Yes, Senator Plena. You're muted, you're muted. Sorry about that. I have a question about I thought in the past this one says you don't have to have a designated location for informational meetings. Correct, whereas before we did need a designated place I just want to be clear that that's a change we're making in this way we're doing this I'm not saying I'm for against it I just wonder why be clear that it's a change. But without getting to in the weeds and to about this that subsection is making sure that folks who interpret the open meeting law to apply to these informational hearings understand that they don't have to follow under this authority, the general law under the open meeting law that requires a designated physical meeting location where staff are required to attend. Now it gets really confusing and potentially is a contentious debate about whether the open meeting law can even be applied to a meeting where the moderator is the officer that's overseeing the discussion being held by the voters. Is there a public body involved as the open meeting law apply. I certainly don't want to be the one to make that interpretation for all of my legal colleagues out there in Vermont. But here we're saying in general terms, you can hold this meeting electronically and do not have to designate a physical meeting location. Thanks. Any more questions or clarification for Tucker. I know that. And I agree with you, Senator calmer I don't know how it could have been misinterpreted but clearly it was, even by some town attorneys. And so that's why we're trying to make it very clear. And the other thing I think that was misinterpreted was that I think the only, the only town that was given permission to have their town meeting. Virtually or remotely or whatever, however we call it was Brattleboro, and the reason for that is because they have they know who their 150 people are that are attending their town meeting because they're representatives. But there were towns out there that did that held these crazy town meetings that were both in person and virtual and they were pretty chaotic I think. So I don't know. There's nothing to do about that but I, I think some towns just went ahead and did it anyway. So, um, what do you think about that? I mean, I think just while we have Tucker, I think this is a technical question I'm trying to better understand, you know, obviously communities are coming. Towns are reaching out to us and saying they'd like to do other municipal meetings with remote options. And just while we're on the subject so I can go back and tell them, you know, what I understand. I mean, was there a time bound limit on remote meetings? Did they only have special emergency order permission? When did that expire? I do think, I get that this has to move quickly. I think that is valuable to move quickly as well. I mean, we have our highest case rate today and Omicron is extremely contagious. So I see it as something that we, we should be discussing with some urgency as well and I would better understand that. I'm going to respond to that. We do, we are going to do that and we will have a bill on open and Tucker will work with us to get that bill that will allow them to do it remotely without having to have a physical presence. But the, we can pass that next week. Okay, this one has to go because towns have to, they have to know what they can do before they set their agendas and their agendas I believe their articles have to be all done by somewhere around January 20th. Okay, so you may have said that in an email. I'm not, I didn't want to make it seem like you were hiding something. I just wanted to make sure I understood that like next week's urgency. Yeah, I think that is also very urgent. I've heard from a lot of towns and different regional planning people and everybody about that. So, but we, I, I made the decision not to put it on here because I think that's a little more complicated and we need to make sure we're doing that right and this one was so simple. Anybody else want to weigh in Gwen, Secretary condos Chris. Yes, Secretary condos, you are muted. Sorry, I thought I clicked it. Yeah, this, this bill was designed to be simple and to move quickly, because essentially we need to have this thing signed into law by not this weekend but the following weekend. So the goal is that that the House in the Senate can get together on this quickly, get it to the governor's desk and he can sign it into law as quickly as possible because as Senator White said, the first deadline I think for town meeting comes on around January 20th, the second deadline is January 24th. So we really need to get things in place as quickly as possible. I know we've had Chris and myself and will have had extensive conversations with VLCT with when and with with Karen about this issue, and we've all agreed that it needs to be kept concise simple and move quickly. Thank you. When would you like to. Hello, everybody. Good to see everyone's faces. Yeah, just to reiterate what the Secretary of State said we are in agreement that this needs to go first because of the timeline. I don't think even when this bill was anticipated to be drafted up we had any where close to the numbers of cases that we have now so the this issue of temporary meeting is becoming a real pressing concern. So hopefully that will be taking up very soon there after this moves forward but the reason Karen corn is not here right now is because she's actually on a webinar with Will settings from the Secretary of State's office to talk about the 22 town meeting and they're actually talking about this bill right now to let everybody know sort of like what's going on and what to anticipate so she apologizes for not being here but she'll be here later, but thank you for taking up this bill early on. So if they're in the middle of a webinar right now talking about this. Do I have any interest. Does anybody have any interest in moving this today. Yeah. Thank you madam chair. The only thing that's preventing me from saying yes is something Tucker said about one of the provisions having to be corrected. Okay. If not, I would vote it out today. Tucker, the question is, how soon can you make that correction. 15 to 20 minutes. Okay, I was going to say I bet you can do it this. So what we're going to do right now I'm going to suggest is that we move to the Secretary of State's office to hear their priorities for the year and then whenever Tucker is done he comes back to us. And the Senator column or is going to be so excited to move this. Works for me. Okay. Because I think that the sooner we can get this done that the better, the better it is and we, we don't have any delays but we don't know what's going to happen on the other side. And I don't, they're, they're set to take it up as soon as we get it but we just to make sure that we're allowing the time. So, okay, so I Tucker will see you in a little while. And so with that, can we switch to the Secretary of State's office to hear what their priorities for the coming year are for us. Certainly. Okay. So, first I want to thank you and welcome you all back. It's great to see you. I wish we could see each other in person. But we all recognize where we are. And I think, I think back to March of 2020, when the governor put us into a shutdown and whatever. We all probably thought we were only going to be four to six weeks and we'd be back back, you know, doing our business in person but here we are two years later and we're still having the same discussions. It's been tough on us. It's been tough on everybody it's been tough on the people who contact us. But thanks to the hard work of our team and all of our online systems that we've put in place over the last 10 years. We continue to provide the services and the responsiveness that that Vermonters have come to expect. We're fortunate because of all the planning and processing that we had done before that we were able to make the move to remote access very quickly. And in most cases, Vermonters have 24 seven access to the things that they need from the Secretary of State's office for instance, they can register their new business or, or file their annual report 24 seven they can go to OPR and submit their license application. You know they can go to elections and file reports, campaign finance reports lobbyist disclosure reports. It's all done online. It's a really good job about getting to that point. We know that this is a busy committee for this year, and you have many COVID related issues, including of course redistricting pensions just to name a few. And we appreciate the time. Senator white are you. Is this committee going to handle the Senate redistricting or you're going to have the redistricting committee separate separate redistricting committee. Okay. So the first thing on our agenda and our highest priority right now, obviously is the town meeting legislation which, you know, we, we've just heard and hopefully we'll be moving very quickly. We know that redistricting and it needs, essentially it needs to be signed into law by April 1. So the first deadline for our beginning of of petition, nominating petition deadline is starts on April 24. So it's not so bad for statewide. We're submitting a nominating petition but for for a house or a Senate member you need to know what your district is in order to start collecting those signatures as you go so we think that if you can get it by April 1. Since you only need 50 or 100 depending on whether it's House or Senate that that should give you ample time. We do know that the legislative apportionment board and I guess you'll be hearing from them as well if you haven't already, but they are the by a four to three majority so was definitely a split majority have proposed single member districts. I will say, from my perspective, it's noble and concept, but very difficult to do an application. If you go to the Vermont Constitution and the state statutes, both actually contemplate multi member districts, nominating petitions as I said are due between April 25 and May 26. That is those dates are not arbitrary they can't just be the only date that could possibly be moved would be the April 25 May 26 is really pretty much set. That's the final deadline that we need. So, but on the same hand, and this all of these deadlines for elections is coming your start with November election day. And we have to back up from there we have to back up 45 days for one ballots have to be mailed out to overseas and military and Vermonters get 45 days early voting. And then you have to back up to when the primary is and, and all these dates start to back up. And there is not a lot of room to pick up if, if for instance you guys went several weeks past April 1 on settling on on district maps. So I will just say simply, there's no room for delay. I do know and this is I'm just going to make you aware, but there is some election threat language, but also, maybe it should be including all elected officials and state workers and local boards and officials. This is to strengthen some of our laws. That's going to be in the judiciary committee I think Senator Sears has it. Part of this is the result of, as many of you have heard our office received death threats, I guess can't put any other way. Last year in November and December, and then we received more again in this up past October. It was, there was a national story about it. And it's also to be blunt, several of my colleagues are still under 24 seven security details, because they've been threatened considerably throughout the year. Part of the problem has been that the state law is not as strength strong as it should be, compared to the federal law, the federal law, and this is coming from the state's attorney and from public safety, the state the federal law has guard rails built around that have been through the Supreme Court. So we know we know what's allowed, but the Vermont law is much weaker and I know Senator Sears is interested, as several of your members in the House and Senate were also threatened. I'm not going to get into rank choice voting because I think Senator White has already spoken about that it's really not an issue until 24. So there's plenty of time to do something for that. We are considering. Although I don't think it's it's it's necessary right away but something that should be on the on the back burner somewhere is emergency powers for the Secretary of State in case of an emergency when you're out of session. And specifically, you know if if Hurricane Irene had hit at the same time as an election day, we wouldn't have had much, much chance to do anything with regards to elections. So, you know, I think there's, there's a lot that needs to be done, but that's at this point, I can't see dealing with it right now. I also want to talk about, and this is again something that could be dealt with next year probably but piggybacking on state primary and general election municipalities often will will put a bond vote or something on the same day as our state primary and general election. But then they the townspeople get upset because they get our our ballots from us for the statewide primary and for the general election, 45 days ahead of time. And they don't receive the ballots for the local election until 20 days before the election. And people it's confusing to people as to what what they're filling out and sending back. And town meeting I think is is also now that many towns are starting to go to to vote by mail. You know city of Burlington city of Montpelier and other towns. I think that the what is now considered to be the normal of 20 days before the election is just not enough time to be mailing a ballot out, having someone fill it out and getting it back. So we would suggest that you at least go to a 30 day for mailing ballots out instead of 20, but that's something that can be dealt with next year when we do a overall elections bill. And finally, on the elections front, I just want to make sure that the committee is aware the Hava dollars are starting to shrink. And if we don't, if the federal government doesn't step in at some point in the near future to start providing money to states for elections. We will be out of money where we're about to spend close to $3 million for new tabulators for the state of the tabulators we have have been around for over 20 years in some cases. They've reached their useful life life usefulness. And we really have to, we're going to go to new machines that are that actually work better. And instead of being optical scanner they're going to be digital scanners which means they're more accurate and have less chance of rejecting ballots that you see today. In the area of open meeting law will have this discussion next week or whenever Secretary Senator White brings it up. I think the the underlying points to remember is the open meeting law provides for the public's right to know the public's right to attend and the public's right to participate. So, we're, we think it's okay to lift temporarily lift the physical meeting requirements, but we're not sure that it makes sense for on a permanent basis at this point. So, if the committee wants to talk about temporary temporarily lifting those requirements. We're fine. We can have that discussion. One of the factors that you need to look at our when's what's the end date. If there's no state of emergency, how do you end it would we pick an arbitrary date April 1 or May 1 or, or whatever. Or do we tie it to coven levels if there's no state of emergency ever called for instance right now, we're not in a state of emergency, at least according to the governor we're not in a state of emergency. So, there's no backing that we have to defend ourselves for for going forward. I think anything that you do as far as lifting the temporary location physical meeting requirements should include requiring remote options including a telephone. I think there has to be a way for people to access the meetings, because again going back to the public has the right to know to attend and to participate. And not everybody has a computer, and not everybody's computer works well as, and I think exhibit a for me is, I was cut off twice today, while I was sitting here. So, as far as OPR goes, we got great news there. We have no OPR bill this year. So, Senator White there, there is no OPR bill that we're going to have to be pushing forward. There is a notary digital land record bill that is important to both OPR and to the side. And these are updates to notary to the notary laws. Basically it's, it's the revised uniform law called Rulona. There's also or Chris you know how to pronounce that. I feel like Chris handled this piece of it, but the uniform real property electronic recording act. This is about allowing town clerks to accept electronic records for recording and performing electronic recording of land records overall. I won't get into much more detail because that's something we can do later. We think that this should be a separate bill, perhaps a committee bill. And we'll go from there. Home improvement contractors. Nothing really to say this year as far because it passed the House it passed the Senate with changes, and then time ran out it's over, I think it's sitting in the house now, waiting for their action to move it to the governor's desk. I did issue three, four reports this year. OPR issued a report on telehealth. This bill is going to be dealt with I believe in some of the other committees. But essentially it's about COVID licensure waivers of Act 60 which expire on March 31. That needs to be updating this quickly as possible. Psychologist prescribing information report was was filed. There's the joint report from OPR and the Agency of Education about discipline. And the only comment I'll make on that at this point is time is that right now I believe the transparency and accountability has been misplaced and, and because this was a joint report we couldn't really bring that up but we can talk about that later. And then there was a real estate sunset review, which will be presented to the committee as well. So much if for us will obviously be here to respond to the needs of the committee. As you all know this committee isn't as important to me as I was once chair of this committee and Senator White was my vice chair. So this is a great committee. I love this, this, this committee and we stand before you to help as much as we can. Chris, did you want to add anything. I think you covered it Jim thank you. I'll just point out a couple of additions on that issue of local ballots getting out earlier. There is a National Guard caucus in the legislature representative Sibelius heavily involved in that they're going to be taking this issue up a week from today. So they may have some recommendations for you if they think that there ought to be any changes around getting those ballot or overseas and military voters. The digital land records issue also just for your information house commerce has put forth a bill. I don't know if it has a number yet but it's sponsored by representative Mark cotton representative Kimball and contains what the title insurance folks and bankers and real estate folks are proposing and we are proposing something different than what they are proposing we all have the same goal in mind of improving our land records and standardizing how our town clerks handle those land records provide access provide electronic real estate transactions but we differ on how we would get there. So there are some alternate approaches being proposed to modernizing our land records. And then the last thing I just wanted to say I'm glad to hear that the committee is really interested in the ethics standards for state employees and look forward to hearing your work on that bill. Jeanette you're muted. I see that Senator. Did you have a question. I did. I did. Just going back. Mr. Secretary to your report. The good thing we don't have OPR bills this year. One of the things I was interested in following up on was a change with I believe a change within OPR to make sure that we have good data about the types of business owners we have in the community. Women and minority owned businesses and other ways to do a better job, you know, tracking our data. Is that complete is that further along to have an update on that. So, I'm going to pass this off to Chris in a second but I do do want to say, are you talking about corporate registrations not not professional regulation. You know what, I'm mixing them up but we were also talking within OPR about understanding the demographics of people who sought licenses and give them a smaller businesses like sole proprietorship so I am merging the two in my mind probably. I think it's, I think it's both, you know, so there are some small businesses licensed by OPR and of course any small business has to register with the Secretary of State's Office Corporations division. We have our biz portal project that stalled out for a number of reasons over the last year, COVID being one of them on some contracting issues some document management issues. We do have a survey in place and ready to go when it finally does launch that will ask those demographic questions on women owned a BIPOC owned veteran owned so we can gather a lot more information and connect people who register these businesses with resources that might be available to them, and of course providing a lot of more information to the legislature to drive your policy decisions in the economic development workforce and other things in your work in the legislature. So it's definitely a work in progress we hope to have it as just as soon as possible we don't have a definite go live date on that yet. Senator Clarkson. Yeah, thank you Chris because you know it. There's so much on our plate. We need to remember an economic development to get you to come in to do an update on the portal, because that's been a baby we're very proud of and want very much to see launched. And that data is very important for us to be collecting. So one question I want to make sure we continue and I just had assumed it was going to be continued is the reciprocity licensure work because as we look at our workforce development crisis here in Vermont. One of the low hanging fruit pieces that we've been addressing with OPR and Lauren and, and in different professions has been the extension of reciprocity with licensure. I guess had assumed that would be part of the OPR bill and that was a clearly maybe a mistake on my part. But do you have an update or I guess we could ask Lauren, Madam chair we could ask Lauren to come in and update us on where we are with that and where some of those opportunities lie. And we should have Lauren in to talk about that I can get you off the top of my head, you have passed legislation that authorizes us to do expedited licensure for people who have three years of experience or more in other states, less than. Right, in every profession, right. And we've licensed. I think it's around 1200 people now this year that started on January 1, around 1200 people this year alone on that expedited processing, which is cutting edge for very few states do that. No, we're very proud of that. I realized but I felt that there were some additional compacts and you know other other expedited licensure. Yes, we're working on a night so I anyway we'll look forward we'll have we'll have Lauren come in and talk to us and Chris I assume you meant since January of 2021, you've done 1200 not since January of 2022. Because that would be pretty. If they're trying to keep up with our COVID cases. Oh, I see. So, are there any other questions for the Secretary of State's office. If not what I'm going to suggest. So we take a five minute break because I know some of us need a five minute break, but we come back at 317. My computer says 312 317. We'll hear from both Tucker and the LCT. So it makes sense everybody. Okay. In a couple of minutes or not in a few minutes we're going to vote on the bill to extend the options for town meeting day but before we do that we're going to hear from the Vermont League of Seas and towns in terms of the priorities that might be of interest to the committee. So why don't you do that. Either one of you start us off. Just so you know I put my mute on so that while I was under the desk if I swore you wouldn't hear me. Can you hear us now. Yeah. So we decided. I decided that we would do the League of Cities and towns first and then do the bill and you got back but if you're back and you'd like to just do that. You're muted anyway so we're not going to do that. Do which do the VLCT first as long as you decided that. Okay, Karen, take it away Karen. Okay, thank you. And thank you for the opportunity to talk to you about our priorities so early in the session. I did send to Gail. Maybe yesterday are prior are amended priorities for the 2022 session. And there are a few of them that relate to your committee so I thought I might just run through those. And Gwen is going to talk about some of them and and I'm going to talk about some of them. Firstly, thank you so much for taking up the town meeting bill as as quickly and efficiently as you did. We are was just on a webinar with close to 70 local officials who want to know what's happening with town meeting 2022 so we're very gratified that you that you're addressing that issue right off the bat. We would like to focus on a few additional issues, one being remote meetings. One, one being environmental justice legislation that's been introduced tools to address coven and then law enforcement and emergency medical services type issues which I believe. Of course, governance, how could I forget governance. Sorry. So, as I mentioned, we, we are wholly and enthusiastically in support of the town meeting legislation. I also hope that the committee will take up legislation that allows municipalities to hold wholly remote meetings select board meetings planning commission meetings boards and commissions type meetings, at least on a temporary basis we had 1700 cases kind of mind boggling to even think about, but the law right now says that there has to be one person in a physical location in order to hold a meeting of a municipal body or regional commission or any entity like that, and state agency I believe as well. And there's a couple of considerations there. Firstly, somebody gets to draw the short straw and be the person that's in the town office or the town hall for a meeting and welcomes. Somebody chooses to come through the door. And there are not only health considerations around that, but there are safety considerations if you have one person at a in a municipal building at night. You know that that's open to the public so we're suggesting that in much the same way that the Senate just voted this morning to stay remote for a while that that you would authorize remote meetings for municipalities and and state and entities like that, potentially through May 31. We're just throwing that date out but if you did that then we would know that the weather was good by the end of May, theoretically, and we would know that you would revisit it during the legislative session. So, we are also supportive of the climate action plan recommendation to make remote meetings a permanent feature for for municipal regional type meetings. I know that the Secretary of State has a different perspective on that on the permanent option, but at least in the near term, we urge you to pass something that allows for remote meetings during this pretty scary COVID season that we're in. I also wanted to mention the environmental justice legislation that was introduced by Senator Rom Hinsdale among others. Last session, our board did endorse that legislation at their meeting in November. And we're hoping that it moves there are 40 some states that have some kind of environmental justice law guidance policy on the books today so it seems like Vermont is actually way behind the eight ball on that front. We I'm going to let Gwen talk a little bit about the governance issues as she worked quite hard on coming up with a list of provisions that might be reasonable to pass in terms of ordinance authority for for local governments. So, when I don't see you but there you are. And thank you Karen, Senator Whitehead mentioned this when the committee was going through some of their priorities and bills that were coming through and S 181 is the this sort of governance bill we've been looking at we know that your committee has been champions on pushing forward more flexibility at the local level, doing local governance matters and we understand that the resistance is in the is in the house unfortunately but we're trying to find a way to sort of meet in the middle and find common grounds and sort of go with what the flow is from legislative council that we've heard in past testimony, especially when we've been looking at bills or sorry charter proposals that were before you that had asked to borrow other charter provisions from other towns or expand local authority on they legislative council had said that they were sort of unconstitutional proposals so I'm knowing that some towns couldn't go that avenue, we're trying to basically go via the statutory language just sort of what's already in place and we looked at through the lens of providing more 24 vs a 2 2 9 1 ordinance authority so that list of what towns can do via ordinance, expanding upon that. Also making tweaks throughout statute to adjust really local governance matters, basically eliminating archaic offices, allowing more flexibility for either appointment or election of certain officials expanding the number of board members on certain boards, or lessening the amount of folks on those boards, and you know matters like that so we are hoping that this is going to be the first step. I hate to call low hanging fruit but sort of take some easy steps this year and get some positive feedback from you folks and then. Every year they're after sort of add to that sort of list some of the authorities will have to go back to voters for approval some of it could be legislative body authority, but we can get into the details later but it's basically sort of trying to find a middle ground where we can get the ball rolling and sort of try to find some small changes that'll have big impact at the local level. Is that. Did you have more to say winner Karen, or is that for right now, where you are. Well we had heard in conversations late last year with representative Gannon that he would be interested in pursuing this kind of an approach on several fronts so it's somewhat more hopeful than previous endeavors I would say. We, he did indicate that he'd be interested, for instance, in extending local option tax authority to all municipalities without going through the, the, the, you know, charter process. And he seems fairly interested and receptive to the issues around like numbers of people on boards and archaic offices being eliminated and those kinds of things so I think we have a starting place for a conversation there. And we definitely will be taking that bill up and you weren't here when we talked about the open meeting law, but we will be crafting a bill here and I'm just wondering is if there's a possibility that we can do that on Thursday or Friday. Or if we can do that on Wednesday Tucker is Tucker with us. Yeah. Okay. If on Wednesday we have the, we're on the floor at one and then we have the governor state of the state at two. If we can start having the discussion on the open meeting law at 315 when we're done with the state of the state. And start crafting the bill. Does that make sense to anybody. Sure. Perfect. Okay. Because we do want to get that, that done pretty soon. And if we start the discussion on Wednesday afternoon, we can get the testimony from different people on and go forward. Okay. The, the next issue that we wanted to talk a little bit. I just like to add the, the jurisdictional issue on local option tax isn't just gov ops. No, I, we, we're not going to go into the details now when we get. I'm just curious because that's a, you know, the big impediment for that as ways and means so I know it's great that john is willing to chat about that but that's like just the beginning. Yeah, I just don't want us to go into detail on any of the issues right now. We're just raising the issues. But if we get into the detail, we won't have time to vote out our town meeting bill. Okay, we're ready. We're poised. So no, I think that the LCT has a few more issues to bring up. There's just a couple more to mention. And if you look at our priorities, you'll see that there's quite a few that are not necessarily related to gov ops committee housing being a huge priority for us this year. But one that does land in your committee has to do with law enforcement and invert emergency medical services and sort of the, the, the difficulties that we're having with both those sectors at the local level and and again when is the best person equipped to talk about those a little bit. But I don't want us to talk about them now because we really, I just want us to highlight the, what the issues, what the topics are because I really want to make sure that we have time to discuss and make sure that we have the town meeting bill. And we will take that up. We taught we did talk about that a little bit earlier, and about regionalization and dispatch and that whole ball of wax so I'm sorry to cut you off but we'll, we definitely will take it up. Okay, we're finished. Oh, okay, I didn't know if you had more more things on your list. To hundreds of things in our list, but we paired it down for you. Okay. So any questions for BL sat about there. Is the environmental justice bill in our committee or is that in natural resources. I'm not really sure where it is. It's in natural resources. I did a lead sponsor and introduction last session in the last couple weeks and it's right and natural resources. Okay. It's Chris's increases. It's across the hall. All right. Thank you. And what we're going to do is let's vote on the town meeting bill if we have a motion and then we'll talk about our, the schedule for the next couple days. Is that okay. Sure. Okay. So Senator column or did you want to make a motion. Thank you, Madam chair. I do. I'm kind of trapped because I don't know what the number of the bill is it s 172. Yes. All right. Version two, version two as amended. Version two. As amended. So I would move that the committee vote out favorably. S 172 version two as amended. I think that first we have to vote on amending, amending the bill s 172 and then voted out. So what my mom, I'm sorry, go ahead, Senator Clarkson. My question is we haven't actually had Tucker walk through the amendment. So he went off to draft the amendment, which is I believe section F. No, he went off to make a fix on some language. We did a correction, but I think the amendment was what he walked through it before. Right. But what he was going off to fix, we don't need to go through. You just fix. We can. Okay. Let's go through it just to make sure. Tucker. Good afternoon again, everyone. Version two of the amendment has been posted. The only change from version one to be walked through earlier is there is a new instance of amendment that removes that incorrect reference to the requirement that voters request early absentee ballots. So that used to be subdivision to a took that out. Now it's all collapsed into one clean subdivision to without that language. That's the only difference between the amendment you heard earlier and the amendment in front of you now, version two. Perfect. Are we okay. So procedurally do we still need two votes. Yeah. And the first one would be to vote out. Version two of the amendment to s 172. So moved. All right. All in any discussion. All in favor. So you want to treat this as an informal vote and not call roll. Maybe I was treating the amendment as such, but we could, we, maybe we should call the roll on it. There's a whole section. Okay. So you want to call the forms. I do. And Gail sent me a reminder of how this is working because we've sometimes gotten in trouble with secretary bloomer. So after I call the roll, really the stars of the show are the reporter of the bill. And Gail, she'll get a clean copy with Tucker's help or with whoever from legislative councils help to secretary bloomer. And she'll also let them know exactly when it was voted out favorably. The reporter of the bill then lets them know the votes. And that they're the reporter of the bill. Gail, did I miss anything? Nope, that is correct. Okay. Thank you. It's so much more difficult doing it this way. Isn't it when you're in person, you have that little piece of paper that you just. So anyway, all right, so we do have a motion by Senator column or and. Senator Rom Hinsdale. Do you want to call the roll on that motion? Yes. Version two amendment. Senator Clarkson. Yes. Senator column or. Yes. Senator Polina. Yes. Myself Senator Rom Hinsdale and we'll want to change that. Gail. It's just as my. Oh, yes, I will change that. Thank you. Yes. And chairwoman white. Yes. Okay. All right. Now we have a. Motion to report the bill. Favorably as amended. Okay. Would you like to call the roll? Sure. Senator Clarkson. Yes. Senator column or. Yes. Senator Polina. Yes. Myself Senator Rom Hinsdale. Yes. Senator white. Yes. And thank you. And Senator column or would you like to. Report. Certainly. Okay. We've passed our first bill. Yay. I think from here, what Gail will do is. Confirm with me that the vote looks correct. Okay. And then one of us Gail. What, what makes the most sense after I confirm it's correct. Will you forward it to Senator column or. Senator. Yes. So I did fill out the record of action on this end. And I will forward that to you and you can concur. And then I'll take care of that. And then I think the clean copy. Of the bill actually has to. Come from me. I mean, come from Tucker to me and then on to. Senator column or. So is that possible to do by the end of today so that we could have the first bill and get some special gold star. Absolutely. I think the clean copy is actually the one that's posted. Correct. Yeah. It should be. So we can, we can get it up to go ahead. I'm in the, I'm in the building. I don't know whether that will facilitate any speed on this, but I'll be glad to go up and check with the. Yeah. John Bloomer. It would be great if we, because if we passed it today, it would be on tomorrow. And, and I don't, and I believe that we have agreements to. Suspend rules. To advance it. So we could actually vote on this bill tomorrow and get it to the house. Very exciting. Okay. So we'll do. You guys will do your magic. We'll see when it comes up on the floor. Okay. Thank you. Everybody. Yeah. That's, that may be a record even for our committee. I, uh, Senator Doyle. When he, he was chair of the ops when I first was on the committee and he, he always wanted to get the first bill up there. I. I think it was so funny because come on, come on. We got to get a bill up there right away. So. All right. So committee. Let's look at our. Tucker, is it possible for us and, uh, having Gwen and Karen and Chris, Jim, whoever. Join us tomorrow afternoon at three 15 to talk about the open meeting. Okay. So. Can we start the discussion tomorrow? Does that work for. Okay. And Tucker, does that work for you? I can't see you for some reason. Yes. His thumb is up. Yes. Okay. Oh, there you are. Okay. Um, All right. So let's, let's start that tomorrow. And there are a couple of people who I know. Have, um, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if they've expressed an interest in. If they can, um, join us. Chris Campany from a regional planning commission. And I don't know if, if you know of other people who at this point. Want to join us. It's pretty short notice, but. We won't, we won't finish it tomorrow. I'm pretty sure. So. Just let's let everybody know. If you. If you want to join us. Let's, let's let them know that we're going to start tomorrow at three 15. Yep. Great. Um, Catherine Demetric, who's the Franklin grand dial regional commission. She would be interested. Okay. Can you send her information to Gail? Yeah. Okay. And I'll send Chris's. So if anybody has a select word person or whoever that they've been asked to join us, we're going to start the discussion tomorrow. If they can join us, that would be great. We may not have time for a lot of testimony because we're just starting at. Three 15. Um, but. We'll at least let people know. So if you get there, their information to Gail, that would be great. And if they want to testify, great. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Tomorrow because we may not get to them tomorrow, but we'll get them on the list. Okay. And then Thursday committee, Thursday and Friday, I thought we would start walking through the. The bills that we've defined. So far as priorities. And I thought we might start with the ethics bill, but I don't know. I don't know. Does that. In it. Does that. Make sense to start. We could have, um, Emron walk us through it and, um, invite the, the new director. Of the ethics commission. Um, Anthony, is that. Does that make sense to you? Yes, it does. Okay. And, um, So we'll start with that one. We don't, and then I'll, I'll see if there are, um, If 147, if we can have somebody walk us through that one. Um, That's the language access one. So if we can walk through at least those two on Thursday. And, um, Okay, we'll figure out what else we're going to try and walk through, but, um, and get people here to not to take testimony necessarily, but to walk through so then we can decide if, if we want to go forward with the bills or not. Is that. Okay. All right. So I'll. I'll try and schedule as many of the ones that we've. Um, Identified already as priorities to walk through on Thursday and Friday as we can. Sounds good. Good. Okay. Thank you. I think this was a very productive first day.