 Morning in progress. Morning in progress. You are welcome to the full show as I have a piece on my mind, or I will help you. I saw that we were both. Hi, Pottery. I would like to not have to think about this. Matt, I have a microphone. Oh, speaker. Yeah, I was at a town and I've been so absent from following all the emails for the group. I just assumed somebody else would get back to you. So you guys will let us know that way. We're always looking for. Yeah, so whenever you know that we're good to go. Happy spring. Yes, I know. No, you guys have no agenda handouts. I didn't think of it. So thank you. All right, folks. And we can, are we going to be able to hear zoom people? Sweet. I'm right. Welcome. Welcome to your awards four and seven NPA meeting. My name is Lee. My pronouns are they them. I'm going to be your moderator this evening. So let me just run through the agenda. We do have some changes. We're going to be kind of experimenting with a format in the coming months and really fine tuning what works best for everybody. So we're going to be doing introductions first starting on zoom and then in the room. And we're also going to experiment with if there is a question you have our state reps may or may not be able to be here. I believe we do have some school board folks. And we do have city council folks. So if you have questions for city council or school board, you can start thinking about that now and maybe add that when you introduce yourself. I also want to drop a note that we are planning a really exciting meeting for April 26 something we're really excited about is we are going to be having a hate free Vermont forum. The Vermont attorney general's office serves as the state's clearinghouse for reports of bias incidences discrimination and suspected hate crimes. Through the hate free forum series the office hopes to identify existing gaps in the state's response system. And then also tonight. Matt and I are going to be talking a little bit about of our community work and our service of the community that we both do. We're going to be hearing from the school board. We're also going to be hearing from our city council on a little bit of a town meeting day recap and what comes next for those measures. All right, well, let's get started with zoom folks with introductions Jeff do you want to get us rolling. Hi everybody. Welcome. I am from Ward four, and I am on the steering committee. I don't think we can hear Jeff. Oh, no. Hold on there. All right, can we try again Jeff. Sure, Jeff Clark Ward four and steering committee. Loud and clear. Welcome everybody. And let's go with Mary next. Mary Danko director of the Fletcher free library. Excellent. And Bridget, do you want to say hello. Hi from Washington DC, Jerry Blossom are in peak peak peak. Welcome everyone to the NPA and thank you very much to Lee and Matt for meeting and organizing this meeting. Thank you. And let's see Al, am I seeing that name right. Hello my name is Al. I use he him and I live in Ward seven and echo kind of sort of where Bridget said, thanks to, you know, all those in the background that make these NPAs happen. And I know I'm missing a lot of folks in the background so but thank you for your work. Thank you. And Sylvia. Hey, Sylvia night from Ward seven. And thank you all again for your work. I can only be here for until seven 30 when I have another Zoom meeting. Well, thanks. Thank you. And Sarah, do you want to grab a microphone and start the introductions on that side of the room. Sarah carpenter Ward four city counselor. Mary Capriccini Ward four resident, dipping her tone to NPA meetings. I've been to several and zoom one other here in person and really get a lot out of them. All right. Thank you. My name is Tyler Davis I live in Ward four. This is my first word for seven word meeting but I was a founding steering committee member for Ward eight when it was created and I was a student, six or seven years ago. So, trying to get involved in my new community. Great. Welcome. Kendra Sowers North District School Commissioner. Monica advantage towards seven school commissioner. I'm Robert Bristol Johnson and I live in Ward seven. And I had something to do with Ward eight when it was created. It's myself. Yep. I am. This is working. I think so. Okay, Matt Robert Ward seven and steering committee member. Would you like to start with our community work. I would like to start with what the steering committee thought of as sort of a brainstorm in last month's meeting was to be the catalyst for the first few months in hopes of getting audience members to also bring what they're doing in their community. So, one of the things that I'm involved in is the boys a girl's club of Burlington and I'm just going to talk about it for a couple of minutes, and then we is going to talk about something that is important to leave. There's a lot of cool things that learned through my involvement I've been involved for probably, I don't know five or six years and I'm a sitting board member right now for the board of directors. So, one of them sees on a daily basis 200 kids on a yearly basis 700 kids and feeds approximately 25,000 hot meals per year, which is really cool. At the heart of their work really is to just be a safe place for the kids in the community to basically spend time at when they're not in school, and that's primarily through being at the club through after school programs and summer camp. They pride themselves in not being a typical club, typically around the country clubs goals are to serve more and more kids all time. This club is different. It's not about more and more but it's about quality. They serve their kids in really deep ways. They really build relationships. Their staff is just amazing and the more time I spend around them. The more I kind of see what good humans they are. They help break some of the kids out of maybe poverty that they were born into and really kind of project positive influence for a positive trajectory in their lives. So, one of the coolest programs that the club is proud of is what they've dubbed the early promise program and early promise was developed as a brainchild about 12 years ago it's specific to Burlington, Vermont it's not a national program. Currently, the club provides partial scholarships to all of their early promise graduates, while they're enrolled in college, and the goal is in the future to provide even higher levels of financial assistance through a program that they have named the promise. The other promise is that once the club's endowment for scholarships reaches $5 million, they're going to provide debt free education to students that have enrolled for Vermont State College, to all the members that in the sixth grade, sign a contract with the program to commit to their school and their community. So it's really neat stuff. And they're also proud of being more than halfway towards that goal. So it's not a pipe dream, it is happening, and you will see it. Similar to the creation of this program which again was about 12 years ago, they had precisely zero attending club kids that would go on to college on a regular basis. This year, they have 35 kids in college with scholarships. They have 19 that have graduated through this program already. And of those 19, I've just got a little sprinkle. So for examples, one is employed at Burlington Police Department. One is a CPA with an MBA working in New York City, and one other is a behavioral analyst with a master's degree. So smart kids coming from our little town, our little club. So it's more than just, you know, a busy sidewalk that I used to roll my eyes at when the kids would make me stop traffic across the street. It's just really good people. So that's my two cents. That's really cool. Well thanks for all your work with that. Really, really a great program. So once again my name is Lee my pronouns are they them. So I'm going to talk a little bit about my community work. I say a lot that I am a civic engagement nerd. So a lot of my involvement is in the realm of civic engagement city government and anything that surrounds that. I've been appointed this year to the community development block grant advisory board that operates through CEDO every year Burlington gets an amount of money to allocate towards projects that address anti poverty strategies. I'm not really too much about the specifics until after the allocation process, which is the final allocation happens actually tomorrow night. And then at some point soon I will be giving a bit of a presentation on that although anyone can access the 2023 application the grant applications on the CEDO website. And what I will say is, I'm very excited by a lot of the applicants and I'm just part of Burlington that I really love is the different the different groups in Burlington that really address address some some systemic problems in some ways that I feel are really meaningful so I'm just really excited to be a part of that. And also, I was recently appointed to the Parks and Rec Commission. I just had my second meeting last week so I'm still learning a lot about about what we do. We had one thing that I was really excited about is we had a presentation from the lead arborist for Burlington who talked about the use of a aerial drone study from UVM to help determine what wards had the least amount of canopy coverage from the trees so that they could equitably address tree planting and I thought that that was really cool because environmental equity is a part of equity that can be a little nebulous and hard to nail down and so the fact that the city was really tackling that in a data driven way I thought was really cool. But yeah going forward I plan to be writing a monthly recap of our Parks and Rec Commission meetings and send those out citywide so that should be appearing in your front porch forums shortly. I also am a city council enthusiast. I go to most meetings because I think they're really interesting. Yes that makes me a nerd. I love them and I encourage everybody what you can do is you can go on the city's website and see the agenda for the upcoming meetings and I when I was first starting to get into city council meetings I found it really handy to go and look at the agendas and if I was interested on an agenda item to go speak at public forum it's a really accessible way to start getting involved in the city I would also encourage people who are interested in public safety to take a look at the to do the same for the police commission meetings look at the commission agendas go and speak at the police commission public forum and you can access all of these recordings on town meeting TV on the YouTube channel. It's a great resource that's what I use to watch the meetings that I can't attend in person. Not on a committee or anything unofficially I also do a lot of houselessness and recovery advocacy work that can be in, you know, going and speaking at public forum on relevant agenda items, bugging city counselors with emails, which there is familiar with, or doing doing direct work with with people out in the community. So that's, that's my word on that. We're now going to move into the Burlington School Board agenda item. And have you folks come up to this table and we since we just had an election just to refresh people's memories if you could give us like a little synopsis on what the school board is. Before we move on to school board. Could we see if there are any announcements that folks have. Oh, yes, I must like Mary has one. That agenda item. Yep, go ahead. Thanks, Jeff. That's what exactly I was going to do. I can't say for the whole meeting but I just wanted to give a quick announcement. The library is doing our next strategic plan. And we have a survey that we would love for folks to fill out. The URL is super easy fletcher free dot org slash survey. So if you can promote that for the folks here if you could fill it out that would be great and if you would be so kind as to promote it in your minutes as they go out. That would be awesome too. We really do take community input very seriously when we start looking at what the library needs to be doing for our community in the future so please take some time and fill it out it's only four questions with a place for comments so it won't take long at all. Did you say the link again. Sure, it's fletcher free dot org slash survey. Thank you. Thanks everybody have a good rest of your meeting. Thank you. Sarah. Can you speak into the microphone. So folks can hear you. Thank you. Just a couple of announcements I think you all saw that last council meeting, we passed a resolution to support our trans neighbors, and just wanted to call out that March 31 is trans visibility day. And I'm not sure what public events will be but I just wanted to be aware of it. Simple as maybe wearing a pin to support neighbors or whatever but I just want us all to be very, very aware of it and it's the first time we've done that in Burlington. What happened to pop up tonight to front porch forum things which you can look but the new Elmwood community shelter is looking for volunteers to support providing meals so go on the front porch forum, and there's a link to do that. So our neighbor in ward for Jonathan Farrell who's head of the of cuts just happened to be looking they're really desperate for personal hygiene products shampoo. So all of those kind of things and you can drop them off at cuts. Thank you. Any other announcements. All right, school board. So you asked about what the school board is so we're elected representatives in the city composed similarly like city council so there's one from each ward. And one, so that would be eight wards and then one from each district, North, South, Central and East. And our terms are two years each. The wards are elected were not elected this past town meeting day but will the next one, and then the district representatives were elected this past town meeting day. And I'd say the seats are not as hotly contested as city council seats. It's sort of like a community oversight of our school our school district, and our taxpayer money that goes towards educating the children in our community. And this past election cycle, I think both Kendra and I would like to thank all the voters for passing the budget. And that that simplifies our job and that we can keep with what was planned and, and, you know what we plan for the FY 24 budget, and we don't have to go back to the drawing board so thank you voters. And also our district representatives we had three district representatives get reelected including Kendra. And we have one outgoing member from the Easter district, Kathy all well we said goodbye to her at her last meeting was last night, and a man named Gary Golden will be sworn in beginning of April. So. So that's in a nutshell what our school board is. So yeah, thank you all for voting for the school budget as, as Monica said, I'm Kendra Sowers and the, I just want to clarify I am the north district school commissioner because I know the, the agenda said that I was ward four. Monica, I mean, Martin Gullick is still the ward for school commissioner so I'm Ward, I cover both Ward four and seven so I was one of those district commissioners so I'm for the north district so I'm for all of you here as well. And I do feel like as Monica said, we while we represent our wards and our districts, we're really here for the entire city of Burlington. So I, I always love to listen to constituents from across the city, but I do hope that you guys always know to email us when you have any questions so our web information is always online you can go to our bsd vt.org website, and look under our e-mails are there. And we really welcome comments, feedbacks questions. Sometimes we every couple months we're at the bagel for Saturday mornings to answer your questions. And as Monica said the school board is really that oversight of, of school at a high level so we look at policy. We have a couple of functions which is the superintendent evaluation, which we take really seriously we do that every year, and also the oversight of the budget, which is huge. And so we're already starting to look at next year's budget. So that is a big thing with what we do, and we look at kind of from a policy standpoint. We're not in the operations side of things which I think is important for everyone to know so schools are run by the school professionals by the, the, the principles that the bsd leadership. And so that is not where we are. So we're kind of the 30,000 foot view, helping to manage the policies of the district. So the only school district employee that the 12 member board overseas is our superintendent. Correct. Happy to answer question. Oh, I have a few more things. We did the bhs btc groundbreaking last week, which was really exciting we had a lot of the city counselors there we had Mayor Weinberger there we had our school board representatives Mayor and chair will and the superintendent and teachers and just families and it was really fun to kind of kick off this exciting new venture for Burlington. I think we're extremely lucky and again thank the taxpayers for approving the bond. And it's going to be kind of fun to watch this new building, they're starting to have an abatement in building a so they're looked right now you can't see anything but it is happening inside building a they're doing asbestos containment. So important stuff, before you see the big, the big demolition come down, and you'll start really start seeing construction I think starting like mid to late summer. So exciting. Yeah, in our neck of the woods. They are we're starting with a like we're, yeah, at different times, all the way up. Yep. Yeah. Does anyone have questions or things that we haven't addressed or anything on your mind. What's the timeline of the new school. So the original timeline was to be in there and in the school year of 2025 so end of August and I think it's pushed by a couple of months but we're going to have at the next school board meeting, a full timeline given to us. So we started had to start a little bit late because as you all know we are, we have a lawsuit against Monsanto for the PCBs. And there was some back and forth of them needing to collect evidence and stuff from the before we could do anything and tear down the building so that has a ripple effect on timing but we you will see a full schedule and they'll be presented at the next school board meeting next month. Yeah. So the thing is that if it's getting pushed past August 25. Well, how are we going to move into the new school if the school year started. So, so that'll be something that will, I think we discussing at the next school meeting. I just want to say my daughter is a freshman this year so if it had been finished in August 25 she'd be a senior there. So, you know, I'm and I'm like 15 minute walk from. The school so I'm like, come on, finish it on time. I guess there's a question online. I'm not seeing one. Okay. Okay. Well, and that last night's meeting we have proved the first of three bids. Yep. That one last night was 35 million I believe. Yeah. So like the first phase. Yeah. Yeah. And some projects, all three bids would be approved all at once. But we test it was explained that if we wait for that which wouldn't happen until May or June, we would miss this construction season. So we're doing it in three steps. That's smart. Trying to be expeditious. Yeah, we need a high school so yeah. Yep. Good. Well if there's no questions please always reach out to us if you do. Yeah, do you see any of the bricks. I know you know it's so funny it's like we really want to but apparently because of the contamination. Yeah. Use your microphone sir. This is Cecilia. When I went to high school, we built that brand new high school. And there were so many kids, they couldn't put the ninth graders there. But I couldn't go until I was a sophomore because there was too many kids they held us back. Yes. Oh my goodness. You have fond memories. So you want to break you want to break is what you're saying I want to break you want to break. I think the new high school is planned for is it 1150 1150 kids. Yeah. So a few more than we have enrolled now, because likely people will move to the city with a nice brand new high school. My high school class was over 500 one class. Wow, that's huge. That is big. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you for moderating. Thank you. All right, well we do have Mark did text he is on his way. Him and Ali are in a meeting that's wrapping up. But we can start with Sarah and our counselor update slash town meeting day recap, what happens next. I know I just I was pulling up the ballot items myself. Oh you do good. That does help. I'm going to just read the list or. Um, sure. I've got it here. I'm only partially organized because I was afraid I was going to get thrown into moderating. Um, the list that was a reminder in an email a few days ago was the school budget. The ranked choice voting, all resident voting redistricting carbon impact feed. And last but not least, polling place locations. Um, it's where to start. I could sit at the table. That's a subtle suggestion, Robert. I can let Mark and Ali type in when they get there. That's them now. Also, I actually had asked the manager there in spring to join us, but I don't think he was going to join us until around 745 just because. So we might swing about item two. Yeah, the implementation of the carbon impact fee for new construction and existing commercial large commercial over 50,000 feet. So this ball item is actually the one that will begin the soonest, because it was, we already voted on the carbon tax in 21. And so this is implementing it. And I'll let Darren explain what he sees as the implementation process. But in the big picture it will, it will go to the ordinance committee. And then there'll be quite a bit of discussion around what are the, the really the next steps which will be quite, quite detailed. I'll let Darren hop on out. I'll invite him. Just maybe as a comment to, and this relates to item number eight, which did not pass, but you'll hear us talk and our other two counselors about processes like the ordinance process. I encourage everybody if you're interested in an item. Those can be tedious, but that's where the work gets done. And, you know, if you've got a question on a particular ordinance or rule that's going in, get in touch with us. You know, Lee mentioned the city website. They're all filmed. And, you know, that's where we really, really, really do get the public input. The city council meetings. We, we very much enjoy their public input but because of the timing it's, it's limited usually the committee meetings are more informal and you, you often have a chance to go a little more back and forth on something so any of these things that pop up. If you've got an interest in them contact us, we may or may not be on the committee. We will have more information. One of the things that the steering committee had asked us was for each of the counselors to talk about our committee assignments, but we won't have those till next month. So I think the steering committee decided to delay that. And we may or may not be all. I suspect that some of us will remain on the same committees, but some of us may change. Now, again, in particular, it's all on the city website. If you see our name on one of the committees, very much get in touch with us. If it looks like something that would sort of come into into our daily work redistricting. This was 18 months of very painful work. I don't know what do they say about if, you know, nobody's happy you've done a good job or something like that. It's like that analogy, you know, the punch the balloon, something pops out and I think in total we officially looked at 27 maps of all varieties. To be honest, a lot of them did not directly affect the new North and the first sort of varied reasons. The growth as of 2020 census was more in the center city. And in particular Ward one was the most the largest ward. That meant we had to sort of pair Ward one down and move people around. We Robert and those who made reference award eight. I think it was an experiment that didn't work great. Primarily because over 75% of that word were students on campus, not just students and one of the difficulties with that is, it's very hard to campaign there. They're only freshmen and sophomores, they tend to leave in their junior and senior years. So it's very transient. It's very hard to get engaged. And after many iterations, we have, I think the word eight is around 50% in in dormitory students, and then we moved a few another streets to try to encourage more permanent residents and Ward eight so that took a significant amount of focus for us to try to get something. It made Ward one people somewhat unhappy because because they were the biggest ward we had to, we had to move them. So then the question is what pieces of them. Do we move to where now when you say we had to move them can you talk more about that like what are like why does redistricting happen. And what are the rules around the objectives. Sure. So basically, one person one vote so every jurisdiction, be it award a district the city has to represent an equal amount of student or equal amount of residents. So when it changes in one ward or one district, then we have to basically equalize it so and the census is every 10 years so we were operating on the 2020 census data, and there can't be effectively more than a 10% difference between the largest ward and the smallest ward. And that's to make sure that everybody is as equally represented as possible. And that is the put the push. How do you make each ward and subsequently each district, fairly equal in size and one of the complexities of that is the city of the city the census Bureau, put you in something like a census block, and it's not like we move individual houses, you kind of have to move streets or parts of streets or blocks. One of the confounding issues was, was all the students in the dormitories, which is, I think and Robert can correct me for my it's just about the largest census block in the state. So we did in fact divide it. Generally speaking, in larger areas you wouldn't do that but it has such a overwhelming effect on the city of Burlington that we made provisions to divide that at least that census block and we did and a few others again you want to follow the boundaries of neighborhoods but sometimes that's just plain hard to do to equalize the number of people in the ward that you want. We, we, the city council and the Charter Change Committee in particular which I happen to sit on did have a conversation around. Can we do this any less painfully and one of the problems that the city of Burlington has is sort of a timing issue. We, because the current districts are embedded in our city Charter. That means we have to go to the state legislature to get the permission. So we're, we're actually a year behind because we didn't make it soon enough for last year's legislative system and to get it on last year's ballot. One of the things that I hope we do in the next couple of years is do a charter change that will allow the city onto itself the voters to change the districts without having to go to the legislature. The city of Montpelier at least does that and I think there's a few other cities that do that. And that doesn't mean we'll necessarily redistrict more often it just means we can do it more on our timeline. And in theory, we could redistrict more often I mean if we have an influx of 1000 new people in the neighborhood, you know we could relook at it sooner than 10 years we've not done that in the past because we've write predominantly on updated census data but in theory we could do it sooner than 10 years if one part of the city is outgrowing it, growing itself. Yes. I just had a quick question so when you're talking about the number. It's not the number of registered voters it's the number of people. Right. And that's why the other is a problem. Yes. Yes. Interesting. Yes, it's, it's the Census Bureau determination of people who live in the neighborhood, or the street. And it is and in that one of the other confounding things about Ward 8 was the lack of voters. Just this election. I think they were, we, we are well I have word for I think we're about 1800 voters I think seven was about 1500 voters. Ward 8 was like $400. And is there a reason why it's census is registered voters. That, that's the law, basically, for my law. No, I think it's not in the US. One vote. Okay. And you are a vote you you're a resident. If you declare yourself to be. Got it. Thank you. We all know the stress around that particularly in the university town but that is allowed. And actually required. So the redistricting past the voters right. Yes. When does it go into effect. I believe it's well. Okay, I like when are the lines going to be read. When the legislature, after the legislature approves it, then the city itself will adopt that. So we're waiting for the legislature to prove it. We, we hope they do it this session before mid May. There's a possibility they might not I think on redistricting they generally are pretty good about following through in that what will happen with each one on each of these but many of these ballot items is, you'll be at like a separate bill the legislature so the redistricting bill is will get probably put in first. I'm going to assume that we will be able to pass for July one. We won't have another election until March of 24. Okay, yeah. And that's really the predominant use of it I guess you might argue the NPA is having use for it but in terms of all the legalities it's really only related to voting. You know, you never know, could have a special election, and then it would be in, in effect. Well, welcome to Mark and Ali and also Darren is joined us online. Okay. We got any more questions on Mark actually spent a lot of time on it. So he is more of an expert than I think we're happy to be done with it. And the vote that was passed by the voters retained the district system, which we heard is not necessarily ideal, but it was the trade off of keeping the neighborhoods as close as they were in the past which was difficult, keeping the same number of counselors. And so you do all of that exercise and that is that is where we have landed until we until and if we choose to change it again. Right now, unless we introduce the legislation I mentioned earlier about letting the city decide would have to go back through another charter change and back through the legislature to change that really just on redistricting and retaining districts it is that it's really about a compromise on math and the size of the council and the school board so there was a group of folks who thought 16 was too many and so we didn't have a politically viable path forward for using the district system and keeping small words with two count eight words with two counselors age. It's, it's hard to predict where the growth in the city will be in the future to and I'm sure but I'm sure it's going to come we we know ward. For now seven. There'll be growth in Cambrian rise and in case you didn't realize the biggest change for the new north and is that everything south of Institute Road is going to go in word seven, rather than word for. So that's predominantly the Cambrian rise development, and then those homes, most of the homes on the east side of North Avenue are already in word seven. So it's really predominantly just yeah. And we know there'll be growth there, but they're going to be growth at city center. There'll be growth at UVM. And so when those all officially kind of come online as something we're not very clear on. It's a safe bet we'll be struggling again with it after 2037. Before we walked in I just started and there and I started a little bit with item number two, which was passage of the carbon impact fee. And I had explained that that is actually the first thing that we're going to start implementing, and that it will go through an ordinance process so I thought there maybe you could just spend a couple minutes on how you see that going forward. Thanks Sarah good evening everybody. Good to be with you Darren Springer general manager Burlington Electric and board seven resident. My understanding just from having some some further conversations is that it is likely that there would be a resolution introduced at some point, perhaps as early as April to start the ordinance committee process to look at implementing ballot item two, which is the set of buildings policies related primarily to new construction, also the large existing buildings and implementing the alternative compliance carbon fee for buildings that don't use renewable fuels and heating systems. So my understanding is now that voters have approved that on town meeting day that will go through an ordinance process. We do have some existing policy related to new construction already. So I think there is ordinance that can be built upon, as opposed to being created brand new. And Burlington Electric and the department permitting and inspections will be looking forward to working with the entire council and the ordinance committee to help implement that with the goal being that it would start in 2024. So hopefully this is something that over the next couple of months can be put into effect and then folks who are looking at doing new construction or have a large existing building will know that they have some time to plan before 2024 comes around. Glad to answer any questions or any additional information if that's helpful. Yes. This is concentration would seven Darren, can you hear me right. I can hear you. It seems that we're talking about the ordinance committee and also the city council but what will be the involvement of the committee while creating this this this policy. Yeah, my understanding is ordinance committee would be the lead committee that would help to draft it but the council would have to refer the resolution to the committee first and then ultimately the ordinance would come back to the city council full council for approval. And, you know, will be the department Burlington electric department and the department permitting will be available for any ordinance committee meetings that happen that, you know, where we can assist with any of the work going on there. So basically it's just anyone who is interested in the crafting of this to show up ordinance committee meetings and also city council. That's it. Right. That's right. Okay. Three months. It's a redistricting. The statement of votes cast. Okay. So number four was all. All legal resident voting. Yes. I'm in. We contacted Sarah Montgomery. Who's our city clerk about what's next. This one will definitely have to go through the legislature. Yes, you may be aware when new ski and my pillar have done that already. This is crafted fairly close to that language, and it has gone through that whole process there was one court case that it passed through up to the state court system. So we feel pretty confident that it will remain, but it's still got to go through the legislative process and will have to be approved by the governor. And because in that news ski and my pillar have done it, we stand to learn from their processes. And, you know, I think Sarah Montgomery from the Brooks offices already had multiple conversations with those two back the nitty gritties of how you register a voter. We need a lot of education, and I know the board of voter registration is going to be gearing up to do some of that, as well as support from folks like trusted community voices, which is the program we have the does works and all the translations of languages in particular for me. We need us to recap any of the key killers of that. It essentially says if you are a legal resident, you're here with green cards or other kinds of documentation, you'll be able to vote in local elections, not state elections, not federal elections, but local. And also just to add that the Charity Change Committee while crafting this proposal also did work in effort collaboration with the Vermont New American Advisory Council, right, and they are also ready to, you know, work with them along all those elements about immigration and the important item about this is how is it is it ethical to keep non residents separate from the bigger community. And what does it mean with immigration. I think there are those are some of the concern. The second concern is also with the city of Burlington be challenged into court, because how they have done it in the other two municipalities of Winiski, and in Montpelio. Winiski is getting sued a second time. You see. And I am, you know, Burlington we need to be ready. And this is this came out very, very, very, very timely, because the last board of finance meeting. You know, we were talking about the insurances, the city insurance like premium of all of this item, but we have one specific insurance about these type of processes such as the ballots, or elected official being being challenged. But the update that we received that the city is really will have a strong representation when we when we get there. Yeah, just to add that, and thank you the voters for supporting this. Does anyone else have any questions on all resident voting. This means that if there weren't the same question, do you have a microphone Robert. We want to make sure everyone can hear your words. To be a city question that we would have in the fall. We would have to have three different checklists, essentially wouldn't. The regular state election. These folks still are not going to vote in. We would and actually just for the school board members if you're not familiar that second suit really relates to voting on school budgets and a premise is that that involves state money so therefore, these voters should not vote on it. We see where the carts land on that. I think the sentiment is that's a stretch because the voters of the city of Burlington actually vote on the budget, and the city itself gets lots of state and federal money all over the place that's a good that's a good thing. And that for, for example, wouldn't discount you from voting on a city budget either, but the particular suit, I think is around, can these neighbors vote on a on a school budget because technically it's going through the state. It's going through the funding process. So we'll see a minute, maybe one of our state reps can answer that question but that's where it is right now. This is not really very dramatic. It's just flexibility to determine where polling places can be with the presumption will be adjacent towards, and it came up for two reasons that came up and part in this end of the town about to have some flexibility if we needed it to find to find another place. I think as people who go live to the polling places diminishes there's opportunities for joining polling places. During redistricting, there was some conversations about where a polling place was and it, it didn't seem prudent to have redistricting being driven by we're building I mean Edmunds was the biggest example because it. It's on the corner of three words. So we didn't want to have that be a driver. I don't in the short run expect anything immediate. I've just expressed my own personal opinion I hope born seven can vote in the new high school whenever that comes. But it's really just to give us flexibility. I just have the yeah word in word six they voted at Edmunds Middle School for years and years and they wanted to be able to do that so with this they still will be able to anybody. And whether or not people came in person to vote, or they simply just send a ballot to them now. What the data is saying, anybody. We have that on the break out you have we have it. I don't know. We have it right with us tonight. You should just total votes. These are not broken. This is a general question. It's interesting we should get that next time I think it was something like in this area about two thirds voted in one third person, but I'm not totally sure about that so it was a big change but. There's a sort of a combo thing that I noticed a lot is a lot of people bring their mail and ballot to the polls, which is sort of an interesting. It's maybe because they don't have trust in the US Postal Service. There's something nice about voting first. Oh, it is fun. Absolutely. We all spend a lot of time there hanging out on election day so it's, it's fun. It's quite fun. Well, chilly sometimes. It's really good. I saw a lot of people though that brought their voted ballots to the polls. I'm guilty of that. Yeah, I think I mean you should get to say hello but you make sure you can take all the time you want at home. And that's a good thing too. And then, and it's with eight ballot items that was a lot. I just wanted to say, I had a trip planned on February 22. Well, which was a Wednesday, well the ballot barely got to me I think that Saturday before. So I was a little concerned about, and then Monday was a holiday, a postal office holiday. So I was concerned I wasn't going to get my ballot before we had to leave. I hope so because it put it in the mail before. And I put in the extra envelope signed it followed the instructions I mean I've done it several times before so. Yeah, but it was just the timing of this one was tight. It's compressed. Yeah. One of the problems we had with having eight ballot items, just getting the ballots printed and out. ballot item seven was the, you know, long. So it, it was like we have this sort of narrow window I don't have any big thoughts on how we, how we change that but I think it's within November. Yes. Yeah. Because it has to do with all the. There's certain public hearing requirements. So we haven't really adopted. And actually you can be, I think the filing date for city council was like, January 28. So I mean up until January 28. So you could have had somebody running for work as of the 31st you really wouldn't. So getting us on the city council to a pine on the final ballot and then getting it out to the printer in the format, all that good stuff is, they really just have two weeks to do it. I have to give the city clerk a lot of credit. All right. A lot of attention did not pass. And I want to, from my perspective and I'll let my colleagues and or because this of course took much of our attention. I'm very committed and very committed that we need to go forward and do something about continued civilian involvement, civilian oversight. And the counselors on February 6 fast resolution, committing to do that right at the moment. Council President Paul has asked the charter change committee and the ordinance committee to set a joint meeting date. Being mindful, the new committees won't be in effect until after April 3. We will have some idea about that that will, that will be officially probably decided on April 3. And there's been some work already to try to pull people about when some dates would be for those of you don't know, after the similar proposal was vetoed and have to get my dates. November 21. There was work done by the Public Safety Committee and the police commission start looking at this through a lens of ordinances versus charter change. And at the time, former city council Dan Richardson made several drafts and there was sort of some back and forth between the Public Safety Committee and the police commission. And, you know, looking at varied possibilities, a lot of which would have been based on more authority before the police commission itself. And there still is a, I was going to call it a glitch within the charter, and I believe this is true and almost all municipal charters that you, the police chief has the final say and all this matters. And that was to me loud and clear that we need further appeal process and process for that. I think it's fair to say, we may end up with a small charter change but I think the work to be done. And I hope we hit the ground running between charter change and ordinance is looking at what we can do through ordinance and the value to me of ordinance is. It's a very dynamic process. I encourage you all to attend those meetings and have your input. And when it's embedded in charter, unchanging it becomes very, very cumbersome, things like, you know, the membership of if you if we end up with an outside group, who can be on it how it's done you couldn't. You couldn't change any of that if it had been adopted in charter, it's adopted an ordinance, then we can, you know, look at a variety of things I also personally these are my personal opinions. I think we can look at different models a lot of not a lot of a number of communities have added something called an independent monitor. That's a paid position professional that would say support the police commission in if, if a disciplinary person goes to appeal, they would have, they could have access to somebody to assist them in investigation and oversight so I think we need to look at some models like that, rather than necessarily a whole new department to do it, but what, what do we do for police force now 65 sworn officers, the complaints are, you know, 15 or so a year, a number of those are probably don't rise their behavior things but they wouldn't rise to the level of something like excessive force so we need to sign you know having an independent presumably maybe under contract or something would give us a flex on I think we need to look at like size cities of 45,000 people and sort of sort out, and that's what those two committees, and I think the council himself is committed to doing. Yeah, and I think you know there was also a lot of misunderstanding or unfactual things about this but if we want to be frank here. Right, and I think one, it was never about a department. It was just about an independent community oversight, and I think what voters received in in the mail. Some of them were unfactorial. And I think we need to think into just being authentic about what we saying to people what's right. And just allow people to have a voice. What I'm interested about is to look into by words, how it passed, or how it did not pass. I think that's the element that people need to think about and also look at where it passed the most, which is in 47 and six in war three. It passed narrowly in World two, it didn't pass in World eight, it did not pass. And also if you think about it we're talking about 70 30% 70% said, or even maybe even less, basically one third. Right. We knew that this proposal was not perfect. But it was owed to the community to have a say about the police. I personally knew, and I told the mayor that this will not pass right before the vote, the people who were organizing behind this email to prepare a statement, we all knew but it was to be put on the ballot, so people can have a say about the police. And I think right now to these sentiments that yes we have 62 police officers or 66. There are actually more that are in the academy that are coming. It's no longer about we do not have more police officers, but now it's about the oversight. And I'm glad that the city council did pass a resolution before even this ballot, so that we can take control. And I think to me, from my perspective, this is a win for Burlington, because we having the courage to at least have this conversation. Yeah, I'll just finally add that yeah I think it's a priority of the city council high priority of the city council to take this up immediately after we, you know swearing the new counselors I think the and get and get the committee's form and I think this will be one of the first orders of business. Second or third that I think everyone on the councils committed going forward, and we need to look at what will work best from Burlington. We passed, or failed 36% or yes 16. 4% or no and it, the two words that passed the order to an eight and it failed and the other words are words were 74% no 25% yes. And on seven it was 70. 3% no and or 20 and 27% yes. I did also feel and I haven't talked to marker alley about it but I think we, as soon as these committees get a little honed in on what might be some reasonable recommendations that I would like to have this MP a or outside, have a meeting just specifically on that discussion and what, what, you know what makes some sense to look at I mean, for example, if we look at an independent monitor or some structure like that what, what would that look like. If we do need a charter change what would that look like. So I think there's, there's, there ought to be an input specific to every neighborhood to get input. I think that's a great idea because you know like, like Lisa just looking at the vote on question seven word by word clearly each ward has different perspectives and experiences with different different elements of public safety like our, our public safety experiences in the new north end is going to be very different as compared to downtown or the old north end so I yeah I think you know having it like NPA by NPA would be amazing. I really think we need to do that and we'll have a better sense the first week in April. The timing. I'm thinking maybe towards the end of May or some kind of in that range would be a time to maybe maybe the main meeting I don't you know I can talk about that. We'll talk about it in our steering committee meeting next week. Hopefully, joint ordinance charter will have met to her for your some number of times, and there already has been the work and I think Ali referenced that. Again I get my dates earlier. When, before the petition started but after the veto, we did actually have a unanimous resolution about going forward with a number of ordinance changes, and that there is been a body of work done on that. So we're not starting from scratch. Any questions. Frank choice voting did you folks talk about that. No. Yeah, again, has to pass the legislature. We passed it. It has been approved by the legislature for the election of city counselors. The thing that was voted on this time was to extend that to all city elected officials, including the mayor school board word clerks. So any elected city official will now be elected using rank choice voting. We basically have in ordinance. We have to do it, one that Robert hasn't always agreed with what it is an ordinance. So my expectation is that's what will happen the city clerk, because we had, we've now had two elections with it one the special election in December and the one we just had here in March. So it has been implemented. So we'll be waiting to hear from the legislature about whether how that goes. And I don't know if a lot of times when the legislature votes on something like that, they'll voted on approved upon passage. So it just depends on how quick the legislature moves and as I think as I mentioned before. I think that Cooper will actually sit on the committee that gets to review that each ballot item comes in as an independent bill and has different timing depending on whether if it's something going to move quick. I know Bob do you want to comment on that at all or the ballot change on rank choice voting for Burlington team. Okay. Mike. Right in the front chirping. Yes, sir. What do you think on so. I don't rank choice voting. We've been rounded round on this. My personal opinion, personal opinion is that if we go back to the system that we used before that had noticeable flaws in it. It's not advancing the best foot forward sort of thing. My deep well of rank choice voting knowledge sitting beside me here. And people that he has made us familiar with. I think there are better systems you might remember when I put out a front porch forum thing about, you know, it's not front. Rank choice voting. It's one of the systems of rank choice voting. There are all kinds of them. And some are more reliable than the others. So that's kind of the conversation we're having in my pillar at this point I put in a bill that laid out a particular framework that any system that we adopted should fit into. But still on the wall and we've already had crossover and who knows what's going to happen with that. But that's sort of where that stands on the approval at the state level. And there are a lot of these things that city counselors have talked about that I could probably throw a. It's really hot in the Senate. It's hot in the Senate but it's kind of the wrong system. And it, you know, there's a tendency to opt for the easy one, as opposed to the most reliable one. And I think we should do better. I'm not sure that these charter bills don't have to be processed or they can go in and they'll go in each with their own number. They have the charter changes that were just passed were introduced are being introduced they haven't yet. As separate bills we ran into that last time with having to separate them out after they all got put in as one. So, learn the lesson I guess. So yeah, but they have not been written and haven't been assigned to the committee yet. This is lapping over your state time, which is almost your time. I'll make two count one. S 75 which would have allowed municipalities to set up oversight boards without charter change that did not make crossover did it. I quite honestly did not follow what was happening in the Senate I can look it up. But I did not hear it and I should have heard it if it was coming over because it should have come to us. That's what I'm unclear about and you can still do committee bills and I don't know. Yeah, yeah, there's there's really no limitation on what we as the government operation committee can do. Although there is, I think a general idea that if we do it, we should do the best job on it that we can. Just for background at 75 was introduced by the judiciary committee, which would have allowed municipalities to develop citizen oversight without going effectively through charter change. So that would have would and still would make things easier if that had passed I don't know if it has or hasn't I just was curious about that. Now when you say citizen oversight are you specifically talking about the police police law enforcement. Yeah. I agree with you, if, if you do it again, locking yourself into a charter change is the worst possible way to be able to respond to changes that you want to make. We're lapping into I just going to make one comment. Item eight did not pass which is known as proposition zero which would have allowed by petition binding referendums and binding ordinances. As I encourage you before. There's a lot of process and opportunity for citizen involvement and ordinances, and I find people don't join us in it so I encourage people to take that opportunity if there's something you want. I think any one of us are, we're always open to new ideas and new referendums my personal concerns for around the binding nature again because if it's instituted as binding it is very difficult to change. And but I think there's still plenty of opportunity for us to make more citizen input. I also just want to one of the things I did bring research is, there is a group national group very credible group that has called themselves proposition zero, which has to do with using the police commissions as a source of citizen oversight for police commission. It's good it's getting confusing. I know the commission brought that up as a model to look at, and it got very confused with proposition zero which was the file item to petition. Well as we close out this agenda item I do want to take a moment to recognize the council as Sarah mentioned there was a vote at the last city council meeting. It was unanimous but got quite a lot of contentious public feedback on the resolution regarding transphobia and I just want to thank the council for taking that up. I don't think that was an easy meeting for anybody to sit through. I'm so thankful honestly that people who are against the resolution came and spoke up because I think Burlington in general is not aware of the veracity of those conversations and I think having those comments in the light of day was a really important part of people understanding what's going on and I just want to thank the council because I know it hasn't been really easy for you folks in that regard either so thanks. Thank you. I just wanted to comment we passed another resolution, which was both thanking city staff for the work they do with cold water, cold weather shelters, but embedded in that was a renewed call for the city to do work around overdose prevention sites, and I did suggest to the steering committee that that might be a topic timely. It's not going to happen overnight because it would need state involvement but I really want the whole community to understand what we're talking about with overdose prevention sites. That's a good idea. Okay, well thank you folks. I think we're going to move on to our view from Montpelier. And we also have Carol joining us via zoom. Hi. Hello everybody. I suppose. I'm always going to be here. She went to kids probably signed on. I don't see your sign on. So introduce yourself, please. State rep thing. I'm going to pass the street here dealing with both wards and district 18 Carol and Carol Odie. I am a district made of Bob Hoopers and just in Chittenden 18. So, you want to start Carol. Sure. Well, our legislative priorities this year are passing and maintaining a fiscally responsible balanced state budget that supports Vermonters and all 14 counties. We always balance our budget even though it's not mandated for us to do so. That's been our tradition in Vermont for many, many, many, many years. We are tackling the complex internet interconnected challenges of housing workforce and childcare. We're enacting forward looking inclusive strategies to combat climate change and transition to the most sustainable way of life we can. While we're achieving emissions reduction requirements is outlined in the global warming solutions act. We're creating affordable housing stock for Vermont's working families and combating homelessness statewide by modernizing zoning laws and increasing funding for construction. And we're supporting business ability and growth in all corners of the state and increasing the capacity of our rural communities to access resources and plan for a vibrant future. We're moving all 14 counties forward. Though some highlights include universal school meals which has passed out of the house, and it is creating partnerships with local farms between local farms and school districts, feeding all kids breakfast and lunch throughout the state. And really leading to the reentry of dollars into the Vermont economy as we more and more buy the food that the kids are eating from Vermont farms. So very important farm bill as well as something to feed our children. We have an organic dairy farm crisis between inflation and the fuel and feed costs going up because of the war in Ukraine so we, we approved from the house, a $9.2 million appropriation to protect organic dairy farms that did not go completely through but we still think we can help them as we go along. We just tell me when my time's up because I could just keep going for a long time. I do think Bridget did you have a question. Yeah, I did. Can I ask it now. I saw your hand up so I didn't know if that was times go go right ahead. Okay, so I don't want to interrupt Carol either but, but for Carol, and maybe for Bob. The 2023 budget. How impacted. Will it be from the drying up federal Monday, various federal funding from the cold that accounts. I'm sure Vermont got a huge slice. Is that on. Is that now completely dried up we've used up all the funds or what's the status. No, well, you know, eventually it will dry up but we're still in the middle of spending money on. Trying to spend the covert dollars on one time expenses, but those those things that we're spending it on are things that could take years to complete like water projects in small towns to fix their water and sewer and so forth. So, we're, we're our challenges to make strategic use of those one time funds to meet state priorities, and to try to put those things into investments in housing broadband expansion workforce training clean energy. And childcare, to the extent those things are one time expenses. Thank you. More money from infrastructure. It, it'll continue to create jobs for years because once allocated it, it follows project completeness but the opportunity to allocate more is getting pretty limited because you hit the nail on the head rigid the money is drying up. I don't know if it's a good toss up to say bring back coven so we get money again probably not. Thanks Bob thanks Carol. You're welcome. Carol is on ways it means. That's kind of where the funding government side comes from. That's where the corporations, which is where the spending side comes from so she has pretty good handle on what's going on in terms of projects etc and their status. Did you have a. Yeah, this is more of a comment and I appreciate it. You're about microphone. Thanks Robert during culvin in addition to the one time money. We had funds to deal with houselessness. That is really drying up on the kind of operating side. We've done it. I think a big slog of allocation to build new housing. That's all a good thing, but that's still two and three years out because it takes you that long to find sites build and really some of it's probably as long as five years out because you just can't build quick enough fast enough. So I'm sort of offering that as an observation because I think we have such a crisis and we're going to have this gap, I guess if you would, where we have less are for operating money to deal with houselessness. And we haven't built housing fast enough so that's a big concern. It's true it's very very frustrating. And it's, it's frustrating to me because I think that a lot of times we aren't stringent enough with the expectations of what we want built. So, you know, instead of looking at something for elderly people to move into. We're seeing South Burlington with four or five bedroom houses. I always say, there's a difference between affordable housing and housing that's affordable. So, you know, that's something I think we need to be more diligent about making sure that the need in Burlington is not dictated by a needed barrier. Some other time. Because we have different populations with different sort of industries to serve. To be tailoring our needs and being the builders, if they want to participate, build what we need. But did you want us to keep going with some, some other things happening or, or is our time up. I don't know my why your, your, your time goes till 845 so. Okay, good. All right, so let's see. I'll talk about building our workforce. We've got historic low unemployment in Vermont, which is 2.6% as of December 2022. But we have a desperate need for more trained skilled worker in every sector, especially essential sectors, including healthcare, nursing, construction and education. So we're developing and improving incentives and workforce training pipelines for these essential workers. And so far, we've made revisions to the nurse preceptor grant program. And we've got members of the House Commerce Committee serving on a cross committee group to expand teacher retention and hiring incentives. And you will see in a few months, probably in the July timeframe, you'll see that there'll be $2 or $3 million available. Well, a million dollars this year, and then a million in each of subsequent years to for people to take courses for free at UVM to upscale. In a job to upscale, or if you are just started wanting to start college to get your skills going up. We also have one of the things that were bound by in this is, I mean, my generation generations after it was going to college get a good job. And I think we need to pretty much revamp our training perspectives to because if you look on Front Forge Forum today, if people are still asking for a plumber, and they're virtually impossible to get. So we're also looking to people off to vote. Because quite frankly, a lot of the academic jobs just aren't paying as much as they used to. And the number of them is decreasing. So happy campers are working campers. So in front of people, get that in mind. Yeah, follow up after you take us somewhere. Okay, all right. So for veggie, which is the Vermont employment, Vermont's employment growth incentive program. That's a funding vehicle for Vermont employers that incentivizes the creation of good jobs. And we are working on a bill to to extend that programs lifetime. Bob, do you want to add anything to that. The auditor doesn't like it, but frankly, any office that or anybody that has any ability to drag businesses into the state, I think we should really look for it. And there are certain problems that are compounding this. I mean, UVM you see a large percentage of their nurses are traveling nurses and you pay a traveling nurse, two to three times what we pay a regular staff nurse. One of the reasons they can't recruit people is they don't have housing so they're solving the problem themselves by building residents basically. And a lot of other organizations in Vermont could help by doing the same thing. When IBM was here you remember they used to ship jobs out to New York and places like that because they couldn't get help here. Training is crucial for our state economic plan to go forward. True, true. Our corrections and institutions committee, they are continuing to fund critical infrastructure projects in the state by. And this is good for the state in terms of improving, for instance, state police barracks and state offices, and it's also provides jobs. And one of the things that we're looking at very closely or that committee is is the replacing doing something about the women's correctional facility which is now housed in South Burlington, which is a bad place for people to work. It's not a bad place for people to live. It's not. It was set up as a jail and not as of as someplace for people to get programming and to be in the safest environment that they can be when they're incarcerated. One of the models being looked at right now is the one in Maine, where, yes, there is a small portion of the building that is a more of a traditional correctional facility, although it's full of light and it's different from what we have in our correctional facilities in Vermont right now. But it's the place where if you need the highest amount of supervision you can be, and then there's a step down facility or where people actually are, you know, serving the sentence but they're also going out to a job and coming back at night. And there are rules around how they're living there, but basically it's getting people ready to women ready to live in the outside world by essentially living and working in it during the daytime hours. So that's a pretty exciting idea and we're not only working with buildings and grounds and Department of Corrections on that, but we're working on with people like Mercy Connections and Vermont Works for Women and agencies and nonprofits who work with the women in the facilities and when they're coming out of the facilities. So we have something that really works for everybody in corrections. Bob, do you want to say anything about that? Well, hitting on corrections. Corrections is probably the department that is in the worst overall shape of any in state government. Staffing is minimal. People are working two or three shifts. They're basically pleading for people to come in and work there. I think the perception is that it's a really rough job that it is, but it's a decent career if you stick with it. I've been getting emails that they stay away from building a new prison, don't build a new women's prison. And I urge people who have that perspective to go down there for a tour. It's, it's a rough place. It was never designed, as Carol said, to be what it has become. It was basically sort of the idea was to get people in there so they could go to court in County. We need to do something else if we're not going to be a corrections for punishment, but corrections for rehabilitation statement, which is what we should try to move towards. Yeah. Then we've got on the Education Committee they are looking at addressing school construction needs. Right now we have had a moratorium on school construction aid. And so everything that we do is passed through the education formula, which may or may not make sense depending on what's being recommended instead of using that formula. And so right now the Education Committee is looking at the Rhode Island formula where they provide a minimum state match of 35% with certain projects eligible for greater state level support. Like if you have a high degree of poverty in your district, you get an extra 5%. And if you're trying to solve certain problems, another extra 5% like that. So that would be helpful for us because as you know, we're rebuilding, we're building a new high school. I will tell you that we are working all the time in the house and in the Senate to bring home the money that we have said we wanted to bring home to you. And I don't want to announce anything till it really happens, but you should know that we are trying to get the money to take down the old high school, and to remove all that material, including all the contaminated material and safely get it out of our state actually to go to Ohio, I believe. And the other thing we're trying to get the money for is for the building of the regional technical center. So those are two items, two big, big, multi, multimillion dollar items that we're going for. And then the third item, I like to say, okay, take down the old, put up the regional technical center, and then we need help building our new high school. And so I'll end with where I started, which is the idea of maybe a new construction formula. And if that works better than what we have now, which would be adding the amount that we would be paying per pupil in interest payments, adding it to our per pupil expenditures. And if we have to look at what works better for us. But, but basically, we are, we're on good track right now if things hold to really bring home the kind of help that we want to bring home to you. All right, we're going to pause a moment. Ali question. Thank you. Thank you. Can you hear me. Yeah. Yes. So, I mean, the other side of the coin, which is around education is about age 208 and as 56. I was just wondering where those two bills will intersect or where do they stand right now. Can you say what, what bills they are? I'm sorry. Age 208. What is, what are they about? I don't know them by number. Oh, okay. So it's a childcare bill. Oh, yes. Yeah, early education childcare. For sure. There's huge, huge movement on childcare in both the house and the Senate and the versions look different. And in that Senate childcare is combined with paid family medical leave. Well, paid with, with paid leave for parents and in the house childcare is separate is one thing. And then we have a very comprehensive paid family medical leave bill advancing in the house. So those two huge items are moving in both chambers. And they're different in each chamber. And we're going to have to negotiate how that pans out. But a lot of mine is it's a huge priority and both chambers have added positive things to the minute. So when we come together, assuming that funding is available. I think that'll be a good thing. People will be happy with it. That's another one of those clogs in the wheel of preventing people from coming Vermont. Can't find a place to live. You can't find child care. You go back home. And Carol mentioned something else. It is inappropriate at this point in time to start throwing numbers around. But I think we've done so far one, one out of three steps, maybe. Pretty good results on the whole high school situation. We're very, very hopeful. Bridget, did you have a question. I didn't have a question. I have a comment. I'm sitting here in Washington. I'm sitting here. Right here in the park in Washington. Excuse me. And I'm listening to an NPA of Burlington, Vermont. And I have to tell you, especially to the Montpelier representatives, but also the city council representatives. Let me shout out Sarah. Thank you so much. I think the way that what I heard for the last two hours, I really do. I like the trends of the legislation that Carol and Bob have described. I think it's all the right things for Vermont. You're hitting all the right things and the right areas of need. And if the, if all of you don't hear it enough from this resident. Thank you. I was just in the say house today, we just were worked on some very hard things. And as somebody who, you know, had won on some things and lost on others and some things came up last minute and we had to deal with them and put a bill through quickly. And there was a lot of talk in the hallways about how lucky we are to all work with each other and that it's so incredibly wonderful to live in a democracy where other people are trying to solve ridiculously hard problems. And it's really inspiring. So thank you. So getting on to targeting toxins. We've got a bill that just passed that is that requires the manufacturers of household products that contain hazardous substances to belong to a program that pays for the collection and disposal, as well as public health outreach and education about those things. And there, those are called producer responsibility organizations and the household hazardous waste has to be collected and and then disposed of in a safe manner. And those similar programs already exist in Vermont for paint batteries and electronics. It reduces the amounts of such waste from ending up in our landfill. And that's very, very important for clean water and for clean earth. And, and also is the updating and Spanish expansion of Vermont's bottle bill. It was first enacted in 1972, and expanding the bottle bill to just about all contained containers will help reduce landfill waste litter and greenhouse gas emissions by increasing the amount and quality of plastic aluminum and glass recycling that happens. So that'll be pretty exciting. Bob, do you want to add to that. In fact, Bridget's comment this is going to sound hyper political. And I apologize for that I don't mean it to be but this year we have a majority of the house that I think allows people to be comfortable. Taking that next step into the what's possible as opposed to, you know, the safe. I think in the corner sort of the skills that we're talking about that are coming out that rigid is complimenting. There has been a hesitancy, I think in the past. So, that's what we get the bottle bill I've got a lot of email on. It's not as bad as the seaweed but crappy island of plastic filling around in the Pacific Ocean. It would be nice if we could get to a point where either disintegrated or went back to a milkman and glass bottles. Okay, so now in under health care, you have a question. Thanks Ali. I don't have a question, but I just have a comment and I'm going to just speak for the from the school board and thank you. Thank you so much for all of the work that you are doing for the for the schools, and especially for Burlington high school and there's been and the tech center, and we're talking about jobs and we're talking about good paying jobs and the tech center is super important for this whole area. And so, to get some money from the state to help us support that facility because we had to make some hard choices when we were deciding to keep the tech center or not. And we as Burlingtonians made the decision to before we knew, you know, if it would be supported or not, that we were going to move forward with the tech center. So this is exciting. This is super exciting like I'm sitting here like, yes. Thank you. We are, I cannot tell you, thank you so much for all the work you've done, and all the work the school board's done. I, I don't want to celebrate too early but I can only tell you that the, that the angels are in alignment because we have set we have the senate senate pro tem is Phillip lives in Burlington, and we have the speaker of the house who lives in Burlington, and we have Bob and me, and others live in Burlington and there isn't anything and I just, we can't even tell you how hard we're working on this and I am just really hopeful that we will have good news for all of you and boy do we deserve it. And I just want to say, the sending schools, which we hear from as well, are also pushing for this so it's really not just for Burlington. This is such an important research, you know, a place for everybody. That's kind of the approach. When you go to the legislature and you say for a lot of people repeat, but it's the future of the state. Yes. It melts a lot of people down I think when you start to talk about, if, you know, what do we have 20% of the entire academic population here in the county you can't ignore the fact that you don't want to send your kids someplace that they're going to get sick. Right. A lot of law seems elementary. Thanks. And I'm sure when you talk about the support from others, Kendra brought together a coalition across the state, which helped us to pass the waiting bill, which was something that was dear to me and I started seven years about, and we will finally see the impact of those weights in a year. Talk about having patients. I don't have patients but there's nothing else you can have. Let's see. We're expanding and enhancing our health care workforce through interstate licensure compacts. And a licensure compact is a mutual agreement that allows health care providers to work via telehealth or in person in any of the member states with a professional license issued by their home state. Without these compacts the health care providers have to undergo costly and time consuming process of receiving separate licenses in each state where they intend to treat patients. So we're really trying hard to make it easy for Vermonters who live here to get health care. And also like when you send somebody off to college they can keep their health care provider, or if you move and you want to keep a health care provider trying to make it easier for that to happen. We just had a vote today on a suicide prevention bill. Hold on a second girl. Add to the compact. The other aspect compact thing is it allows us to recognize the credentials of nurses physical therapist psychologist we've done five or six of them we have not gotten to the nail salon one yet. But it allows people to fluidly go across minds and continue their profession here. The person we did have any significance was in the nurses one because as I mentioned before traveling nurses are incredibly expensive. We're supposed to get a report back next year of whether it was a benefit or a detriment. People calm people go. But those are things that we're doing to make working in Vermont easier. You're on. Okay. So we will we will we know is that more than 700 Vermont residents died of gunshot wounds in the decade from 2011 to 2020, and 88% of those deaths were suicides. And children are 4.4 times more likely to die by suicide in the home with a firearm compared to a home without one. So what we're trying to do is and our suicide rate is extraordinarily high in Vermont. What we're what we passed today out of a house on second on third second reading, excuse me, we vote again tomorrow is to reduce suicide by lethal means with three distinct strategies. One is to mandate safe storage of firearm firearms in places where they might be accessed by children and those legally ineligible to possess them so such as felons. It does not mean that if you have if you have a firearm in your home, you do, and it's within your close proximity. You do not have to have it stored safely you are in. You are in close proximity to it so you could have it for example on your bedside table if you feel unsafe, you know, during the night or whatever. But it's to it's meant to say if you've got children or a felon around you have to keep it within your close proximity, or to keep it locked up to keep them safe. Okay, to or. Okay, and then we also have instituted a mandatory waiting period for the purchase of firearms. You can purchase them actually, but can't take them home for 72 hours to be sure that that you are legally able to have the firearm and also this would be to prevent suicide because very often people contemplate suicide and very quickly make the decision very quickly to kill themselves and then if they use a gun they're most likely to almost always die when they try suicide that way whereas if they don't use a gun. They most likely only something's like 4% of the people actually die and then they're, they don't attempt it again. Let's see. And then the third one is to extend our extreme risk protection order to include family members, and so that they can help protect their, their loved ones. Let's see. We are working to reduce overdoses. There's increased prevalence of fentanyl now. And what we're trying to do is to reverse that trend by strengthening access to life saving services in our communities. And Bob, do you want to talk about that at any. I don't know. I want to see the list that you have in front of you there. She knows what she's talking about. We've done some moderate changes to the cannabis bill changed some of the packaging and some of the license criteria. Nothing that's really going to much here the package size might increase, but the amount of THC that's in each package days the same and five grams per treat. We have taken up. I feel compelled to talk a little bit about the charter change things here and what we've done in committee with things like that before. But at this point, I will say again, that police oversight thing would not have made it through the state house. Just because of the way of setup. And I threw that out on front porch forum a couple days before the election. Too many, not enough days before the election I got chastised for dropping a bomb. And it was legitimate, but I personally support that 100% but it has to have balance. The mechanism that the state believes that means for a long time is a combination of civilians and leadership and regular troopers and there's this perception that I sort of took away from the composition of the group in the in the charter that, you know, you just can't trust cops to police themselves. And I've worked as a union for a good while with the state police and they have just as much disdain for somebody that doesn't respect the law as anybody in the community. So, you know, referenced recently by the guy that got arrested for stealing stuff out of the property room. I think there are people on our police force that we can trust and have to trust because they're out there doing the job every day. And, quite frankly, we have a hiring problem in a lot of areas in the city. And I wouldn't come to work in a police department that had that type of ambiguous oversight. So those are unintended consequences I think of some of those things, but do not leave here with the idea that I would not support and vigorously sport at the State House level, a change that would universally allow oversight from outside. A lot of places I'm going to give you a one minute warning. We're approaching the end. And then appeal to the council sort of area. So, this is really bad thing. I want to make sure we tell you, I happened to hear when I was at home baking of Vermont edition, they've talked about everybody else in the state having having free bus rides. And they're continuing on and that Burlington was going to lose that so. And at the same time I got a letter from Jean Bergman saying, help us, we're losing our free bus rides in Burlington. So I got to work and Bob and I both worked together on this. And we, we made sure that the transportation bill had help for for Burlington that extends now for a number of months more, I think through January. And at that point in time, because Green Mountain transit is separate from the way the rest of the state is run. There will be a variety of not a variety I want to say. There will be charged and some people will ride free. And they have time to work out how they're going to deal with this but we got a million dollars to help over the next month. We've got a protecting health care providers and patients with the shield bill providing protections for patients and providers from prosecutions and investigations by states that have banned a restricted reproductive and gender affirming care that is legal in Vermont. And it also provides some protections for out of state patients receiving this care from Vermont protect providers. And finally, we have a very progressive tax system in Vermont. We're creating we create an overall system that taxes those with fewer resources less than those with more resources and last biennium we passed something that's incredibly important which is the child tax credit and that and we also increased our income tax credit and child dependent care tax credits. And we also had last biennium increase the amount that you have tax free from Social Security, and we instituted a military retirement benefit. Exclusion from taxes, partial, but so those are some of the things we did in the tax world and health care. Great. But it's an example of what happens in the legislature everything moves so quickly you're done with this you move on to the next. I'd forgotten about it. As lovely as we do have to wrap up. Thank you everyone so much thank you for our representatives our counselors our participants online and in person. And those of you who are in person if you have the time please help us pick up chairs to be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much everyone have a great night. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes.