 introductions and before we're kind of going over the agenda and fully launching the meeting does that sound good for folks? So Pam, I just said hi. If you want us to go, I live on Kent Street and I'm the chair and during the rest of my time, yeah, I do organizing with communities fighting pollution threats in their neighborhoods and I'll pass it to Michael. I'm Michael Sherman. I'm a long time resident of Montpelier and I've sort of done a couple of and currently serve on a couple of other city committees and I've served on a few more and I'm as I said mostly retired except for all this volunteering that I'm doing. Cameron, do you want to go? Sure. My name is Cameron Niedermeyer. Realize that my screen says Morial Room. I will change that briefly. But I'm the assistant city manager here for the city of Montpelier and I am staff support for this committee. And Pellen, do you want to go? Hi Pam, welcome and hi everyone. I am Pellen Kohn. I work at Norwich University and I'm a kind of drama fighter right now because I have two teenagers at home, 14 and 12. So every day is a new and interesting day for us but I'm surviving. And Jeremy? Good evening everyone. So I'm Jeremy Bodry. I live in Montpelier on Elm Street with my partner and our three youngest kids. The oldest of which just turned 12 yesterday. That's exciting. Yeah, fairly new to the city. Just passed our four-year mark. When I'm not doing things like this, I do work for the University of Vermont Medical Center doing kind of design and innovation types of work there. Jeremy and Julia? I'm Julia Schaffitz. Pam knows me. Right, exactly. Well, it's a reminder for Jeremy too. This is Jeremy's third meeting, second meeting. There we go. Let's see. I've lived in Montpelier for 11 years I think and I have a seven-year-old who's in first grade at Elm Street and I'm active with the caregiver's alliance there. And she's what we now call the parents group. And I'm a therapist in private practice, social worker by training. And Bethany? So, oh, I was just going to say the other box here is Orca Media. I don't think you guys have ever introduced yourselves if you want to. I'll hold on for a second. But again, it recorded, put on Orca Media, FYI. All right, go ahead, take it away, Pam. So, my name is Pam and I'm a, I guess I'm a friend of Julia's for about 11 years now. If you've been in Montpelier that long. But I live on Liberty Street and I've lived in Montpelier for about the same length of time before that I lived in Washington, Vermont. And, but I'm not a Vermonter, although this is the longest I've ever lived anywhere. So, in my imagination, I am a Vermonter. Julia, we got talking and she brought up, well, she actually sent out an email and the first time I decided I wasn't the right person. And then when she sent it out again, I thought, maybe I am the right person. And so, I'm just really looking forward to seeing Julia's filled me in and I've read some of the work that you've been doing. My intention is to be probably pretty quiet during this meeting. But I'm very supportive of this work and I hope that I really have something to add to it. I've worked on committees before and probably here in Vermont outside of work. I was on the board of the Orchard Valley Waldorf School, which is challenging work because they have a consensus mode of work. And so that that can be really it's a flat hierarchy. And so go to be very patient. And so that's me. Thanks so much, Pam. And I got a note from Lauren that she's running a little bit late and they have not heard from Alitha or Janelle. So I'll try checking on them. So seeing them a little bit. So for the agenda that I draft that I've got here is reviewing and approving the agenda. Public comment. Minutes from November 19th meeting. Check in about the budget, the city budget process, fundraising check-in, our kind of creative discourse outreach work plan check-ins. And then to dive into the strategic planning discussion that Pellin had raised at the end of our last meeting. And then for other business I just wanted to check in about upcoming meetings because I was just like, we just had a meeting and I haven't done anything since then. So just if we wanted to space things out a little bit more over the holidays, knowing that things are going to start picking up in January. So can I get a motion to approve the agenda? So move. Thanks, Michael. Julia, were you going to second? Yes, I second. All in favor? Bye. Bye. Any post? And Cameron, we're still expecting that Robert's rules for under the tree, you know. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm going to hand bind them. Yeah. I'm joking. Please don't. We are learning. We're struggling. Okay. So let's pull up the November 19th meetings. Minutes. Thank you so much, Michael. And just spend one minute looking them over now. I'm sorry, did you want me to pull them up on the screen? Oh, okay. I don't think so. I think I just sent them out with the email. Sorry, Pam. It's okay. I don't know if you got the version where I corrected my misspelling appellant's name at the very end. Is it correct there? Yeah. Okay, good. How important is that stuff? Because I didn't see my name is spelled wrong at the bottom of the first page, the bottom of section four. Where is it misspelled? At the bottom of section four. Oh, I see an extras S. Yeah. All right. No, it's just my clumsy fingers. When you say that you want to be able to approve, you just say with amendments and then Michael can just move forward. Cool. I move that we approve the meeting notes from last meeting with amendments. Thanks, Julia. Thanks, Jeremy. All in favor? Hi. Any opposed? Awesome. Nice work team. Okay. So budget process updates. Maybe I was hoping that Lauren would be here for some of this as well, but maybe we'll get the update from Cameron before the update from Jeremy. If that sounds good. Cool. So I did send, Jeremy had reached out to me. I did send the council your note. Hopefully you all saw that. I did not receive any questions. So I think it was pretty straightforward and made sense to me. So I actually just got finished right before I came here as meeting with our finance director and bill to put our final stamp on our presented budget. We will be presenting out to council next Wednesday. They'll be getting their budget books by Monday at the latest to look at it. So where we're at is a we're presenting under under a 0% tax increase. So what we're really doing is level funding across everyone's budget, which is probably approximately $1.6 million deficit, right? So we had this huge deficit that we needed to make up. We put in some very aggressive capital projects and equipment cuts along with cuts throughout our general fund and our general operations. So what that sort of means is that we prioritized people over projects because you see this is a temporary thing that we need to get through, not a new state of being, right? So we wanted to be ready and have our staff prepared to jump back on any projects that we may get funding for. If new federal money comes on the table, we want to be prepared and ready to bring that back on board. So we have a list of projects that have been sidelined for the school year 22, which again, we're talking about, you know, 2021 July at this point. So quite a ways away. So we really are trying to prioritize being ready and keeping our service levels as high as we possibly can in this situation that we find ourselves. Council will have a lot of policy decisions to make if funding back. And I think that's where your work is going to be the most impacted because our budget right now assumes zero dollars for a lot of some of the more community service oriented outreach that we do. We do a lot of transfers to things like the community fund and some other larger ticket items. Let me stare at this. So I think that will be where the conversation comes into play and where you guys might want to speak up to council, if you have an opinion, one way or the other. So that will be out hopefully, like I said, Friday or Monday, and we will also send that to y'all so you can see it. And I'll highlight what page is important that I think you would find important. They are all important, all 47 of them, but the ones that you might find interesting and where those cuts have been proposed. Staff has taken kind of a hard line at what we think we have no, I guess, the political opinion of what should be included and what shouldn't be included. We just basically zeroed everything out and allowed council to be to add things back, accepting a few things and y'all are on that exception. So are the proposed budget for 22 has y'all fully funded at that 10k that the council committed to because council committed to multiple years. Your project is that we're not trying to back out and not everything I'm saying has to be taken with a grain of salt like council may change things. The voters may change things, but the way we're presenting it includes that $10,000. It also includes Montpelier alive and the cemetery flags, which can never be taken away. So they're off limits. So that's a really bizarrely hasty introduction to where we're at with the budget. It's just right now it's still a moving target, a lot of policy decisions that council will have to make. Just like a persnickety question, but you know $400,000 persnickety. I thought it was a $2 million deficit and so now it is 1.6. Is that because look what where's the change there? I'm just in general revenues are shaking slightly different than what we projected them to be. Okay. So that's really where the issue comes in is that we're facing a large revenue right as we have such a diversified revenue stream. I think a lot of single revenue stream governments are doing a lot better than us, frankly, because they have a solid state where everything's coming from property tax. But since we don't rely as heavily on property tax and we have things like parking sort of regulate self-regulate our tax, not everything is relying on the tax increase. We do have a lot of ups and downs. We did get the state, bless you, that's all your background. I'm gonna, I don't want to misspeak, but I know we got a pilot that came in higher than we anticipated from the state. Okay. And that is something that we don't anticipate to continue to go up. We assumed $300,000 loss going into $22,000 from pilot funding just from the state because, you know, things are really not picking up and they probably won't, we want to be as conservative with that as possible. And that's the payment in lieu of taxes from the state instead of paying property taxes. Cool. Okay. We also have a local pilot that we're also down, downgrading our local options tax coming in low. And then we also assumed that we will have less delinquent taxes that will have less payment for penalty for taxes and the interest on that as well. So there's, it's a lot of moving parts, to be honest, but I think we've come in at a really good conservative effort to try to, to mitigate some of that without being a burden on the tax rate. Any other questions for Cameron on this? Therefore, hand it over to Jeremy. I didn't realize that I got and sent in. So thank, like, I don't know why I goofed there. So thank you so much for sending it in. Would love to hear how the process went and any response that you've gotten or anything else? Well, I think as Cameron said, I mean, I didn't hear anything. If she didn't hear anything, it would be nice to hear from Lauren, if and when she joined to see if she has any buzz about how it was received. But thanks everybody for weighing in with comments and feedback. So I think given the short turnaround time, what we were able to put together as a committee, I mean, it felt like a substantial thing to offer the city council. I think, and this kind of came through in the letter, and I felt you all were in agreement with it was that this could be the start of a larger conversation about how the city engages in an equitable budgeting process kind of from day one. So in some ways, you know, in terms of playing the long game, that's a more interesting prospect. In my opinion is how can we start thinking about, you know, the budget process for FY 23, right? Like, and how do you start socializing and also institutionalizing perhaps a different approach of thinking about, you know, how programs and services are funded and how revenue is generated to. So I think that'll be something for us to keep our eyes on. Apart from the immediate urgency of the pending budget is, you know, where can the conversation go next? You know, I think with anything like this, you know, quote unquote a tool, you know, it's tough to just dump something in somebody's lap and particularly in the 11th hour and be like, okay, here's this thing, you're going to use it, right? So, you know, an item for discussion now might be, are there things we can do to support council and having this conversation with this tool that we've provided? And, you know, being unfamiliar with the process, I don't know what the opportunities are, but is it, are we attending council meetings? Are we participating in other ways? Are we reaching out to council more than we might otherwise to offer support? So I think that's kind of where things stand and curious if anybody has any thoughts about that. Well, I can certainly talk about the process and like sort of where I see availability to like key in without being on the agenda. So we're, we're really our budget or the budget will take up the majority of every agenda moving forward through January. I think we have like one other thing on the next week. Their meeting next week is the first sort of public hearing for the budget. That would be a 1000% appropriate time to talk to them about not only this, but your feelings on the budget. Also, we will be launching our public budget priority survey. So we have a place where people can openly talk about their budget priorities as residents or interested folks. Have to be a resident to take that by any means. And that is sort of where I see writing to the council is also appropriate. But we will be meeting the ninth and then the next meeting is not till the 6th of January. We're meeting next week and then the 6th of January. I mean, yeah, Jeremy, I think you bring up a really good point that we can't just dump this in their laps and expect them to take it up. And so I guess I wonder if again, we haven't seen the parts of the budget that are zeroed out, but maybe as like individuals and not as a committee, you know, we could, you know, take on different pieces that have been zeroed out and make the, like do the analysis just so that it's not like, I don't, I don't know why I said that, but I guess that kind of, it does kind of make sense to me, but like have us as individuals make do the analysis of, of here's, here's why I think that the, we should prioritize this. Here's what the, you know, unintended consequences are going to be by zeroing out this budget and you may be like, you know, calling up some of the folks involved in, in that budget item or, you know, just doing some of that work and recognizing this is like a super tight turn around. Like if we get it on, you said Friday or Monday, Cameron, is when the draft will come out. And then if the first meeting's on Wednesday, and yet either like sharing those by email to the city councilors or, or presenting, you know, at, at city council meeting, like, yeah, what it just says, starting the conversation, some idea of what could happen. Yeah. Does the, the, but does the document you've been talking about Cameron show, show what has been zeroed out or is it only show what's, what's in? No, it will show you zeroed out. Okay. Good. No, that's good. Yeah, budgets, they'll usually, they, our budget will show you what was adopted the year before. So it'll show you 2020, the actual for 2020, the adopted budget for 2021, and then what we're proposing for 2022. That's what I would have expected. I just wanted to confirm that. And just to get a sense, how many, like, what is the total number of line items that were zeroed out? Oh, a lot. So that goes through the whole budget. We weren't, this isn't just like we're not picking on anything in particular. But if you look in past budgets, you would find a lot of, it's not a discretionary in a way that under, I want to underscore that we think these are not discretionary. Does that make sense? They're funds that are optional based on council's priorities. Council makes the final decision on what to include. But you would see them under our general fund expenditures under community enhancement. I'm saying I think you would be most interested in talking about. And normally those are towards the end of any budget document. Let me drop in the chat a link for you to find our past budget so you can get an understanding what I'm talking about. Yeah, I think I had it last year's in last week's email too, if folks want to pull that up. But yeah, if you can drop it in the chat, that would be great. So yeah, would folks like have the capacity and interest in going through this, this sheet for, you know, two or three items that matter a lot to you? Yeah, I can, I mean, I'm, I'm interested in willing to look at some things that I don't know what I don't know. So I don't know what it's going to be like to actually get in there and feel like I have my footing. But yeah, I'd like to, I'd like to try and use the tool. Yeah, I also just wonder if stuff showing up at the beginning of the, during the public comment period and just telling about this a little bit too, like maybe giving an example, walking them through what it is and how we might do that. Because will there also be a, would want to make sure that we, this gets discussed, like at the beginning, could this be in the public comment at the beginning or would this be under the budget discussion piece or is it just going to be the public comment for the budget regardless? I could see, well, I could see the mayor going neither direction on do you want clarification of the budget tool, but I think if you, if I'll give Anna the mayor a heads up that you would like to speak on that. And so she can be aware that that's coming. I think she'd probably be okay with putting that under the budget public hearing because that's you know that pertains to that. So cool. So it is a public hearing, so it's basically free time to chat about it after council's chat about it. So yeah, we could email them out before, during or after as well, but talking through the tool and then if folks are available to talk through the particular line items. So yeah, so yeah, 38 buildings and hall maintenance, tree management board. Oh, here we go. Sorry, I can't talk in school. I'm going to let the mayor know right now. Cool. So yeah, it looks like community arts program was allocated $20,000. Unity ENH, oh, Montpelier alive $32,000 for the July celebration $4,000. Mmm. Some other things, holiday lights, community enhancement, homeless tennis task force $45,000, cemetery flags $1,500, us $10,000. And then does that include the tree board stuff here too, Cameron? $145,000. What page are you on, Shannon? 38. Now I'm on page 40. 40. Okay. So when, when we have the final document out, I don't want to like misspeak. I'm not the arbiter of the document. If the city manager has last minute changes that he would like to make, I don't want to speak out of turn there. So as soon as I have the copy in my hands, I will send it to y'all and highlight lines in there that I think would be important to look at. Change. So what you'll see, what you'll see a lot of when you look at this, when I send it out is transfers to other funds have been cut quite a lot because we're not transferring general fund money into some CIP projects. We've really cut back on most of those. A lot of our departments are really getting by with the equipment that they have for this year. And so I also, you know, council has talked about the budget a few times now and with staff and staff went into this exercise this year really understanding that we wanted to create this budget as sort of a stop gap, not so much like again, I think I said this before, we do not want to see this as because we really do appreciate the high level services that we offer in our city. That's like a really important thing to us. So it's, it is pretty drastic. We're looking at reduction. Okay, that's unhelpful. Never mind, but it is a big cut. Sorry. I'm just looking at it and it looks like it's all like under $100,000. Like it like library is separate like. Yes, library is separate. Yeah, there's those, you know, other pieces that I would really, really, really want to make sure are still included that are not included in what's being zeroed out. What is that? Oh, the community justice center gets most of the state. So they're unaffected by our cuts. How is that? How is if these are kind of like under $100,000 each, how is that going to be adding up to 1.6 million? Oh, okay. So I think I miss, I miscommunicated. So our total cuts across our CIP, our general fund equal the gap. Does that make sense? So they're not all coming from this section. And anyway, they're just included in part of this is just the section of the budget. I think that you guys would have stronger opinions about the other things that we've cut. Or proposing to cut to correct my language there. So I just am directing you to this section because I think it's just knowing this group would find important. There's some other, there's tons of stuff we cut. The amount that we cut outweighs what we kept in honestly. So some of these items I see are showing up actually as applications to the community fund board, which I'm on that board as well. So for example, Good Samaritan is asking for money, people's health and wellness. Where else? So those are all zero. Those were zero in our 21 budget and remain zero in the 22. Right. But what is what they're asking? I don't know. We are meeting in the middle of December. But I know that some of those are asking for a lot more than they got in previous years, possibly because they were anticipating being cut out of the budget. So they may get funded. Those used to be by petition instead of as items in the budget. That predicates the community fund being funded, which is, you know, everything is on the table this year. We were told, well, last I heard, we were told that we would be able to, we should consider giving an equal amount from last year, but that was, and that was not so long ago, but I don't, I haven't heard anything more since then. So is that, but is that for fiscal year 21? You were level. No, and we're not looking at 22, FY 22. Excuse me. So, wait, I have the numbers here last year. 130. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So I don't know if we've heard, I have not heard from our chair that we've been told that we should not even bother with this because no, there's no money there. Well, we don't, well, we, we couldn't tell you that with any sort of solidarity yet because council hasn't weighed in, but everything is on the table this year to be cut. All right. So I, I'm feeling a little caught on how to proceed here. Besides saying we should go on Wednesday, like Jeremy, can you make Wednesday, next Wednesday to kind of present the tool and, you know, share the, like intentions and like how, the how to, and then based on what we hear on Friday and Monday, we can just send some emails to see it, like to make sure we're not duplicating efforts or if there's anything really atrocious that we want to flag for other people. But so Jeremy, does that, does that work for you? Yeah, I can do that. I'm just wondering about how we coordinate around reviewing the submitted budget to kind of divvy the work up. Is that happening? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Jeremy. No, I'm just, I still am uncertain about how much conversation should or could happen through email. It doesn't sound like any, um, so maybe Shana, you just want to assign sections and we'll take them as we can. Okay. Or Julia, did you have? I don't feel, I don't feel competent to do that on my own, but I would feel happy to have a phone call or video call with somebody to go through something, like to just bounce ideas off each other on Monday or Tuesday evening. What I will do for y'all is when I send the electronic version out, highlight what I think you would find interesting that might be not holistic at all, but I'll try to highlight that. And if y'all have opinions personally, I really do recommend emailing City Council those issues that you have. And I think the more redundancy you have, the stronger your opinion is, right? I don't, my opinion is that divvying it up maybe counter protective to what you would like to do. And then we're doing them also as individuals and not, you know, we don't have to have consensus around and have people review the things and things like that. Sorry, Julia. If we were to be able to, if anybody wanted to join me for a conversation on Monday, I feel like what we could do is kind of pick one fine item to take through the tool and to not, you know, A, for the purpose of some advocacy, but kind of more importantly, for the purpose of showing Council how to use it. And to be able to say like, here's an example and we did this in the course of 30 minutes. So it's not like a research project you have to write about each line item that's coming, but like here's an example of how you might run through this tool. And I think that might be more effective. I mean, obviously we should all do our own individual advocacy and voicing our opinions. But I think in terms of the role of this committee, if what we can do is teach them how to do it, that would be probably much more effective and like, you know, work toward our long-term goal of having them be able to like know how to use this tool and use it more effectively. Yeah, Julia, if that makes sense to me and since it sounds like I'll be presenting, why don't you and I chat? Sorry to throw you there, but that would be awesome. And we can do that, do that exercise. No, I think it makes sense. So yeah, we can find a time, Julia. That's cool. Thank you, Jeremy. Any other thoughts or reflections on the budget process when moving into the focus groups? Cool. Okay. I would love to move through these a little bit quickly if we can. So we'll have enough time for strategic planning discussion as well. But so fundraising check-in. Anyone have anything to share? Yeah. I've been busy with other things, but I just sat down early this afternoon and found the Abelard Foundation East. Has someone looked into them already? I did. It looks like we would be eligible. I printed out their guidelines and frequently asked questions, and they do give money to government organizations, the government institutions, which many of the others do not. What had you found, Shana? I'm trying to see if I can find my notes. Sorry, one moment. It's still loading. Apologies. Oh, wait a minute. I was wrong about that. About Abelard? Abelard. They do not. I just had them in the wrong category. What types of organizations do you not fund and include government agencies and programs undertaken by tech-supported institutions? So I guess that was reading, hopefully, rather than literally. My notes are literally, looks like we would be a good fit. And then the neck, like from the space, then it's not the right fit now. So I don't remember. But that was, those are my notes. So I don't know what I was talking about. But I did not think we should apply. Okay. Was there another, it was not the only one, Michael, that you were? I know it was like they looked so good. And then once you start looking into it. I didn't, you know, my mind skipped over the word not. And for an editor, that's bad news. But I'll keep going. I still have this page, that these couple of pages that I assembled, and I'm working my way slowly through them, crossing things off as they work my way. But so great. And we should be hearing back from my community foundation soon too. So fingers crossed on that. And when, Julia, you applied to the awesome foundation. When do they, when will they tell you, tell us? It kind of sounded like we may or may not ever know. Unless we got money. It was sort of like, you know, we don't respond to all, it's a very informal, I think a very informal organization. And I, I haven't heard anything. But it was a really low output of energy. So it was worth it. There's one of the foundation that was not on my, on my list, which is the Haymarket Foundation. And I will look into that, that one. They're, they have some pillar connections. And that was someone I was trying to meet up with one of their former board members. And we never made it happen. So I apologize. He used to teach Spanish at CCV. What's his name? He's an Asian guy. I was thinking of a player. So I don't think so. Yeah. Oh, different people. What was it called? The Hayes Foundation? Haymarket. I heard that wrong. Yeah, yeah. Well, I can look into it too. And I know, I know someone who was the connection for the grant that when I was at the Vermont Historical Society, we got a grant from the Haymarket Foundation for a conference on the McCarthy era. And the person who, who did it was a friend of the guy who was on the Haymarket board. That's a long time ago. That's 1986 or something like that. He may still be on their board, but, but, but I'll check out about that. That would be to say Julia or longevity. That would be some serious longevity in a board position. Yeah. But there are boards like that. Or maybe, you know, maybe you could put you in touch with someone who's Isn't that what Claire Wheeler was? Is that the one that? It was Claire Wheeler. Thank you. That's, yep. Well, if you know somebody who's there currently, it would be, it's worth asking. He just left, but I, it can be worth asking. She might be able to guide us on how to. Well, I'll go to their, I'll go to their website, see what I can find. And, and if it looks like it's promising, I'll push forward with that. Thanks so much, Michael. Um, outreach, I have once again this week done. I can't believe the week has gone and have not done any additional outreach. And I apologize. Um, and we have not had our meeting with creative discourses yet. So I don't know when we don't, I don't have any update from them, from the questions that we had last time. Cameron, I owe you an email draft that I didn't do yet, but I will. That's okay. I also have, um, because we've been in deep in budget, I had a follow-up item about a commitment statement. I have time carved out of my calendar for tomorrow. And I knew it was after this meeting. And I just also, I feel like we're just all apologizing. So, so let's not feel bad about it. Yeah. Yeah. When is your meeting with creative discourse so that I make sure that it's done and dusted before then? 16. What are you thinking? Are we supposed to be recruiting for the first three, um, focus groups, or are we looking at, are we trying to do it all, all a bit at once? I mean, I put off, I put off mine because thinking that the first three were where we were mostly focusing our attention. But what, what, what is the, what should I be doing? My sense is that like soft out, like if you, like awareness raising type of recruiting at this point, like so informal, um, because we don't have the like, or we don't have, we don't know exactly what's happening when. And so like, what would you be asking someone to do at this point, other than just like, Hey, like I thought of you and I just wanted to put this on your radar screen that this could be coming up and please let me know if you have any questions and here's what the work looks like kind of thing. And who else should we be asking? I think like, yeah, starting the conversation. Yeah. And then is the, the action there to send to creative discourse that individuals contact info? Correct. If they're, if they're down. Okay. And I will say, I, I also included the link of the groups and all the contact information for the point people who had volunteered for these different, um, like focus groups to the newsletter list. And I will also, yeah. So I sent the newsletter out by, um, BCCing emails, not through Action Network. And got so many response and not so many, I got like three response, but like people who like either texted me or emailed me back. And we're just like, I'm like, so, this looks so great. I'm so excited that you're doing this work. But a really good note from Jamie who used to be on the, on the, on the committee and who was just like so grateful that we're still pushing through on this. So, um, that was just, that was like affirming to be like after sending it through Action Network and getting no response. This is the right way to do it. And I will, um, you know, just keep, uh, trying to, you know, keep, keep the steady drum beat up there as well. So also for that though, sent, you know, like trying to include, have it not just be like, here's our, you know, tiny step forward update that we've done with creative discourses, but also just anything else that, um, that we, um, that we can share about what's going on in our community around social, economic and racial justice. So feel free to just like keep forward me stuff. I kind of go through the front porch forums, um, and pulling it together, but would love your guys's thoughts. Yeah. Julia, were you going to say something? Okay. I was going, I was going to ask when your next one is just to put on my right. Sometimes when I have a free hour, yeah. Okay. Um, and so also though, just noting that I sent out this document that has all of your emails. So if someone is interested, they should be reaching out to you. Um, I don't know if we should be doing other like general outreach like this as well, or if she should wait till January of like, you know, if you're interested in, in having this type of conversation, you know, maybe we'll wait until after we have the draft from Julia and do that for the internal stuff first. And before doing the, you know, more broad outreach, I suppose I answered my own question there. Does that make sense? Okay. Cool. Anything else on the outreach and work plan and fundraising? I just want to ask Pam, if you have any, like we're, we're kind of talking about things we don't know about, but is there anything you want clarification on? You're muted. Just so the newsletter comes out monthly or no. Went, that's the goal, but not with a specific date in mind. Yeah. And then, um, what is it that you're drafting, Julia? Um, a, um, one of the first focus groups with the consultants is going to be for, um, BIPOC city staff, current and former, I think. Yeah. And so I was going to draft, uh, in like an email to, to invite folks. Okay. Thank you. And that, that letter is going to go to Cameron to distribute. Is that, is that right? So you, Cameron, you'll be the person's basically scoping out who's there, right? Yeah. So I have, um, already sort of broke this topic with staff. Folks know that this is happening. This isn't going to be a surprise, but, um, you know, I've, I've randomly selected folks for like the more general conversation, but. Entity groups, I want to make sure that we're being sensitive in our language. We're not making folks feel, you know, singled out, um, for participation. Um, definitely want folks to know that they don't, if they don't want to, they don't have to, um, especially with our past employees. We're not trying to, um, get free labor out of folks. Just, you know, a betterment of the city. So, um, uh, just trying to be sensitive. And I really do appreciate Julia's, um, help with this. So, but yeah, people know it's coming. So the most part I just to editorialize are just really excited about this. It's definitely, it's one of those things that it's so important to have done. And then so important to have done right. It's doing it wrong. Causes more damage than anything. So it's really exciting. Yeah, especially if we're not going to be zeroed out in a time when a lot of other organizations are going to be, we'd better be sure this gets done well. Um, I was actually one question that I had as I started to think about a draft. I have like a half big draft. I wanted to talk about confidentiality and like, you know, I'm sure that the, that the specific statements will be confidential, but I also want to be careful not to promise confidentiality. Like if it's three people and we, and like, you know, who the people are, it's going to be kind of, uh, tricky. So I, I wasn't sure how to, if anyone has input as to like how I should, um, guess, so my, my understanding, and this should maybe Shayna, it'd be a good thing to ask creative discourse is. Is making sure statements aren't presented as statements, right? So it's not quotes from this. It's general ideas, if that makes sense. So like your, what you discuss will be, you know, we will distill the, or creative discourse will distill the core issues out of those statements. Right. So like if you gave me just a core statement of what's going on by the three staff, I won't know who's like saying what, right? Um, because I think that's a good point, especially in such a small organization. I know how people write sentences, right? If you gave me an email, took the name off, I'd probably be able to point out who sent it. So, um, you know, making sure that it's not a quote. It's a core takeaway. That's what I'm hoping for. And so just double checking with creative discourse. That's how that information will be presented. See, I mean, I'm also working on this environmental justice policy projects with Kesha for the past year. And we've been having these focus groups. And for those, we, we say very explicitly at the beginning of them that this is not a confidential meeting. Like, well, we will try our best to ensure your confidentiality. Like, and what's said here stays here and what's learned here leaves here. Like this, the group is made up of other people in the, that same often tight knit community as well. And so it is, you know, just recognizing that it's, it's not a confidential space. Like, although, you know, there's that commitment and there's that, you know, named thing that there isn't that base of, of trust necessarily. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll find a way to say that, you know, privacy will be honored, but we can ensure. However, that, that efforts will be made to make sure that, I don't know. Find information. Yeah. That was shared out publicly and gets shared on the level of. So I don't even, I actually realizing like, I don't know, I don't know how they work. And I'm not going to say that on behalf of the. But I will. I actually maybe it's making me wonder if we should check on, we should run this draft by them as well. Yep. And just to get on the same page about what is the goal. Yeah. Not just for the language, but for the intention. Yeah. In terms of what like sort of like, what to ask from them, like making that draft and just send it to, to them and to Cameron together and just say, here's the job we're working on. Feel free to comment or we can talk about it on the 16th. This is great. Really great. Thank you. Awesome. Do you know if it is CDs practice to tape record these or do they just take notes? I don't know the project I've worked on. It was a, an IRB approved record. Right. Yeah. No, no, no, no, but we're, it was like a, it was a, you know, whether we're then transcribing all of the meetings and like de-identify, you know, it's a very academic process. So I don't think that's, I don't know what they do. We should ask. Yeah. Okay. Good question. Cool. Any other questions for creative discourse? Yeah. Let's, let's open it up. Quite the list growing. Well, yeah, I'm feel free to email too. All right. Let's talk about our strategic plan. I had put this in my notes coming out of the last meeting of having it be more about like COVID relief and COVID response in Montpelier. And I really appreciated seeing it as like what, like having this bigger picture conversation about what is our strategic plan and what is our, what is our, like, what is our task as this committee writ large and in this moment. And so I think like taking that big step back of saying, like, you know, who are we as a committee and why as a way to start this conversation does make, make a lot of sense to me before diving into we're in a global pandemic and a economic crisis and what is our role of how we show up in our community in this time. So before going into that, I did send out like our most recent kind of campaign plan that we had come up with. I over a year ago now, it was kind of like our last iteration before we said, you know what, we need to hire some consultants. So thank you so much, Julia, for facilitating this process and for drafting this plan. And so do you want to kind of walk through it or should I just as our like overarching? You're welcome. I think it was you. Was it me? Yeah, I think you did it. I think it was you. But I, I, I haven't looked at it since then. So I would love if you would, if you're willing to. Well, so I'm just gonna like talk at you guys for like five or so minutes. So just as a quick reminder, you know, we were created as a committee back in 2018. I'm making this up. I should have looked this up beforehand. And out of this recognition that, you know, Montpelier, that there are these, you know, historic and ongoing systems, instructors in our nation, our state and our community that perpetuate racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, ableism and other forms of injustice and oppression. So it's kind of why we were formed to address and reshape the systems, policies and practices that perpetuate these barriers as a specifically charged with identifying and nurturing potential projects, policies and opportunities that address systemic oppression and word towards greater equity within our city, engaging a genuinely broad range of city residents and discussing and addressing systemic oppression at the city and community levels in order to move our community increasingly towards equity and justice and partnering with other city, county and statewide groups working towards equity and justice to foster long-term, far reaching projects, goals and developments that will ultimately serve to increase equity and justice in Montpelier. And so kind of coming out of that charge, now I've lost it, of having kind of four main campaigns, so to speak. So one of like projects and policies, and this is kind of like what are the key issues that we need to respond to and are tasked by the city council to address. So like for example, the, by the city council and by our community, right? So for example, we, you know, the city council said we're looking at doing a living wage ordinance, and so can you guys look into that and like draft up, you know, what should we do about a living wage ordinance? Or we're considering body cameras as a requirement for police, can you guys look into that and, you know, let us know what your thoughts are about this? And so that's like historically a role that we have played. And then we've also done that like for the community as well. So of, you know, when folks have come and said, you know, a high school student has dealt with this really horrific racism by, you know, city police, like what should we do? You know, we don't want to, you know, make this public. So like, what are, what are pathways that we could go forward? So, you know, both responding to the two individual requests just through our personal networks and through from the city council. And so we, our plan was kind of just to continue doing this work. So just continuing to identify some specific campaign goals. And this is where he said, we don't know what those campaign goals should be, if we're going to prioritize them, let's hire a consultant. So I'm not going to kind of read through all of it. So then the second one is like committee learning. And so I think this is what Julia did a really good job with that. I've like totally dropped the ball on as clear the past six months of just as a committee being a space for us to continue to dismantle our own internalized, you know, systemic oppressions that we hold and perpetuate. So continuing to like have this be like a learning and growing space together. So having, you know, a plan for, you know, going to different workshops and reporting back to the committee or, you know, participate in other, other retreats or trainings or readings or things like that and sharing, sharing to get back together as a team. We also have the public engagement. So I'm just going to read it again, engaging a genuinely broad range of city residents and discussing and addressing systemic oppression at the city and community levels in order to move our community increasingly towards equity and justice. And so I've, you know, engaging with some of these different groups that we're reaching out to for these, for these focus groups. And again, I think we realized that we didn't know how, you know, how to go about doing this in a way where it would not be like not transactional. We're like, we're getting the information and providing nothing in response, you know, as a, you know, majority white city committee. And then there is the cross pollination. So of partnering with other city, county and statewide groups working towards equity and justice to foster long-term far reaching projects, goals and developments that will ultimately serve to increase equity and justice in Montpelier. So we had some great ideas of how to go about this. I'm seeing a pattern here of where we have these like really great and thoughtful plans. And I have not been touching base on this plan or moving forward in it. But, you know, developing a plan and structure to interface with other city committees. So we were going to like have, you know, each of us go and present to all the other city committees about our work and see if there were opportunities to collaborate, having a framework to review policies, which we did do, but haven't been like implementing necessarily. And so then, yeah, so it came up with this, these goals and these plans and then decided to hire consultants and then COVID hit. So that's basically the whole, I think, arc of our committee's work. I guess primarily looking at Michael and Julia, like who were here for the development of this. Is there anything else around like intention or outcome around this that I'm missing? I would say no. I mean, I think when, by the time you came on, the committee was just on the verge of collapse. Because we couldn't, we, for one thing we were just kind of, it was a revolving door of membership. And we really couldn't agree on very much of what we were going to do. There was some who were pushing very hard in one direction, some who were resisting some of that. So I think we've achieved a level of stability and then that's that to me is represented by this contract that we have with Creative Discourse. And as much as I like the idea of strategic planning, it seems to me that we may be doing this a little bit too early, because some of what I would see coming out of the report from the end of our project or even partway through the project will help us figure out where we need to put our attention. Some of the issues that you went back and mentioned, Shayna, you know, they've either been resolved or been shelved. The issue with the body cameras, I'm on the police report and that's coming up now. And as Cameron pointed out, it's not just whether you buy a camera and pin it on, you know, the patrol, the patrol person's lapel. It's what do you do with all those records? How do you manage them? How do you make them accessible? And all of that has big financial implications. So we were given, you know, a policy statement. This committee was given a policy statement, which subsequently was then withdrawn because of what happened in Burlington where there was a big suit, a lawsuit about access to them. And I don't know how that ever got resolved, but it certainly raised the whole question about the costs and the way you go about it. So I'm not sure where we are that we can actually do planning. No, I completely agree. I just, I think I wanted my intention of going over the plan was to center us again into where we've come from and what our intentions and our our path has been before having the conversation about COVID response. Can I say something? I think I found it very useful for me because I wasn't here when this plan was done. So I didn't know that there's a like community learning part. Which I think Julia and Tabata, right, they are in the school board. So they know what our kids need in terms of social justice and equity. And we can develop projects in schools to teach kids because I think it is very important if they are aware of in a younger age, right? I am, you know, Turkish and my kid when we moved here three years ago, she was in the middle school and she brought Turkish food for lunch. And her friends, I know they don't have bad intention, but they made fun of the food. And now although my daughter loves eating Turkish, but she doesn't bring any with her outside when there are friends around her. And I was very shocked that middle school didn't teach those kids like cultural, you know, differences. It is not that they need to eat or enjoy, but the reaction and that age, peer pressure is huge, you know, on the kids. So I understand my daughter, but yeah, she doesn't eat or bring any Turkish food with her school, camp, you know, picnic. I find it very hurtful, right? So we can do something in schools we can talk about it doesn't have to be, we will just start right now, but at least we can start talking about these things. So I don't know, maybe storytelling with the kids about social justice and having like very short workshops, you know, something like that. But I didn't know that we have that education part or piece. So it was very good for me. So thank you. And I'll just how Julia incorporated this as chair was at the beginning of every meeting, we would like do a pair share like do breakout, you know, essentially what would be breakout groups on zoom and just share about like something that you've been working on or learning personally and kind of report back to the group. And so yeah, I would love to reincorporate that into our agendas, if possible. So this was a really good touchstone. I just want to say it's really interesting that you mentioned that particular anecdote, Helen, because I was listening to a podcast today that was talking about racism with food and food. I'm going to put a link in the podcast because it was really good and you might either find it interesting, you might want to share with your daughter. Yeah, thank you. It will be great. Yeah, exactly. You're right. Thanks. So I think, like you, Helen, it's really helpful to see this document even though it's, you know, a little bit from a year ago and things have changed, particularly with the creative discourse engagement. But I think it's, it's actually really, it's something to hold onto as we do wait on what we're going to learn from the creative discourse work. So I'm looking at some of these tactics do feel like they would be useful to do in parallel to what creative discourse is already doing. So for example, you know, building more awareness about this committee and doing that by meeting with other city committees, other departments in the city. I mean, I don't know what the awareness is in general of the committee, either within the city staff or just in the community in general. But I think my point is, I could imagine us going through this in a kind of a systemic way that to identify, well, here's the things that we think we could actually do now or start working on while we wait for this larger research to unfold from creative discourse. So that, you know, perhaps we're laying some groundwork so that when we do get that really rich data, we've got some things in place that we can launch into. And really, I think it's, I guess I'm thinking of it as like network building. Like how do we become a more visible presence? How do we become that interface between residents and the city when it comes to these kinds of issues and kind of just position ourselves to do that work when we're kind of ready. So I think great segue to dive in to talk about COVID stuff, because right, this is, oh, I'm so sorry, Pam, go ahead. I just want to make one comment also about the strategic planning, because in my past life, you know, one of the things that we would always talk about whenever we're talking about a strategic plan is that this is a living document. So it shouldn't be something that it's kind of like, oh, this is from last year. It's kind of like, I think it's really great to, it sounds like everyone really appreciated revisiting it. And I think that it helps to, it's great to have it outsourced and found, you know, like an authority that can really help us how to be relevant in, you know, with our charge, but also to have the work be relevant to committee members. It's great to, you know, keep on with just like Jeremy was saying. And I also think that it would be a great idea to reincorporate the committee learning, because I think that we all have some sort of passion that brought us here. And that helps to keep the committee itself, you know, okay, I want to go on Thursday night, because I know I'm going to get to share this podcast or hear about another great book or, you know, something that learned something from another community or something of that nature. So I just wanted to throw that two cents in there. So thanks for sharing it. Sorry, create this course of, it's my personal opinion and, you know, just my observations. I think creative discourse wouldn't bring any new thing to us. I think they will support the things we are already feeling and we will have a good source in our hands to say, look, we want to do this because this is our data. This is why I just want to talk what the, you know, future projects will be for us. I know that reports will be very helpful. But I also know that when I read the report, I wouldn't see like any surprise in things. You know, maybe some, I don't know, I have been living here only three years, maybe I will see and learn probably I will. But general idea, I think will be the same thing that we are feeling right now about social justice, equity, racism, all the other things we have been discussing in our community. So we can start talking slowly about our future projects. It doesn't have to be, oh, let's do it and talk about, decide, go. Just brainstorming for the future. Yeah. I just want to, I would say, like looking back at this document, it just seems like the public engagement line, the purple one, is sort of what we've, I think, very smartly hired other people to help us with. And then that will probably feed the policy priorities, although as, like, I think, Taylor, that's a really good point that as we start to learn from the community through the process of public discourse, creative discourse, we can probably start to really start to look into some of those policy priorities. But the other two line items, the committee learning and the cross pollination, like as Jeremy said, those really aren't their separate work. I mean, they're interconnected, but they don't rely on us having that data yet to do. And so maybe that we want to start kind of really dig into like the committee learning at Latin Adam and the cross pollination one and have someone take point on them or have really like move on them a little bit. Yeah. Well, this is sort of a segue, but one of the things that we've already, whether that's happening is the police review committee is we've, Lauren and I brought to them the response about getting, the question about getting information from our focus groups here to the police review committee so that they don't have to go through the same the same process. And then at the next meeting, we'll be discussing specific questions to send to this committee, CJAC, to send forward off to create a discourse so that they can figure out if they want to and how they would integrate those questions into what they're going to talk about. So there is one connection that we've made. And obviously, whatever's going on at the school board about the school resource officer is one of those places where the jury is there, at least to be able to report back to us what's going on. So I just want to be mindful of time. We only have about 10 minutes left. And I think we're already starting to build our agenda for our next meeting of checking in on these questions that are going to be coming from police review committee of just starting to incorporate learnings and check-ins and report backs at the beginning of every meeting. I am wondering if we should just punt our COVID conversation to the next meeting as well. I don't want to start that and not be able to get far at all. But I guess just to start it. I think just to respond to what Pellin had brought up at the end of the last meeting, it's just like, right, this is the biggest crisis of my lifetime. And I have just felt really like stunted in knowing how to respond locally. I'm not going to go volunteer anywhere. I'm not going to, besides donating money or checking in on my neighbors, it's just feeling like there are a lot of people who are better at setting up the structures that need to happen. And so wanting to check in and have that conversation about how we can, how we are, what we are uniquely positioned to do to help as Zjack. Because I think it is at the question that we want to address as part of that conversation or is there more to it or to something different, I guess. Okay. Is there anything that I can provide information wise to y'all that would make that conversation easier? Like any data report? Yeah, I mean, I would think it's whatever data is available to see how the pandemic is impacting people broadly, but in particular, if there's a way we can drill down to some of the kind of underrepresented groups that are our focus. Yeah, anything you could scrounge up, I think would be awesome. Well, for underrepresented groups like writ large too, that has been the focus of our focus groups for the environmental justice policy project. And we're actually going to be pulling them together into a report. And so over the next week, and so I should be able to be able to share some of those findings and recommendations coming out of that work as well. That's that's more focused on state level stuff, but I can just pull it too. There was a conference and I did attend. It was over several days on housing that was sponsored by the Human Rights Commission. I believe, but I'm not entirely sure that it was recorded. And I'm just looking around to see if I still have the agenda. But oh yeah, here it is. At least the keynote speech was by Richard Rossin on the he wrote a book called The Color of Law, Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America About Housing. That was the focus of the conference. And and I guess it's just possible to talk to to talk to Boyang, who is the head of the Vermont Human Rights Commission and find out what if that those if they if they did record and if it's going to be made accessible. So that was a state focused conference, Michael? Yes, it was. Yeah, it was it was sponsored by the Human Rights Commission and they sent it around. I thought I don't know how I got on the list, but I thought everybody in our committee would have gotten on the list, but it took place November 17th to the 19th. So I just need to I have, I just need to understand what Shayna, what is it that you're, what is the COVID conversation that you're wanting to have? I don't I'm not quite clear. I think that is my question, Pam. What I was proposing was what, what is CJAC uniquely positioned to do to support our community during this crisis? Is that okay? Like what where's the gaps in in is that the helpful? Is that the question though? That's I think what I was yeah. You know, one of the things that I might could do if you guys want to is invite some folks in the community who are doing that work right now. I know our capital areas group is really doing a lot of grassroots support and they would probably be uniquely positioned to tell you all that you could, where you could plug in. So I'll reach out to the folks. I know there I'm seeing some nods. Maybe they'll just want to be part of that discussion. What was that community Cameron? They're called the capital area neighborhoods. If you live in Montpelier, you might have seen. I've gotten stuff on. Yeah, exactly. So I do just want to, yeah, be mindful of time. So I think our agenda for the next meeting is, you know, interest agenda review, committee learnings, breakouts, you know, minutes, wanting to check in on the budget and check in on our work plan and outreach and fundraising, maybe clump all those together and all the creative discourses work. And then this specific conversation around COVID and before other business and next meeting agenda. Does that sound good? Okay. So should we just, should we just invite folks to join us at like six, six o'clock? Would that make sense? Cool. Okay. And then I just wanted to check in about our next meetings over the holidays because we, so we're going to have Wednesday's the city council meeting and then Cameron, you're always so good at this of putting it right on the calendar. I already sent those to y'all? No. So the next one is going to be on the 17th. The 17th. Stick to your schedule. Yep. Is the last day of Hanukkah. Right. And so I think that's why I wanted to bring it up because I might be heading over to my parents. So they're in my pod. No, no worries. So would it be, but then the next week is is like right at Christmas Eve. So that does not make any sense either. So is this our last meeting that was just like so bonkers to think about? Or we can continue to meet, we can meet on the 17th. It may also choose to reschedule your day or have a different day. Have tons of time to warn it. No issues there. Or you could take a holiday break, which some committees do choose to do and meet again. Well, that's New Year's. Well, so your every day is a holiday for the future. So whatever the committee wants to do, I'm here to help. Does anyone? Well, so my opinion is to wait until after the New Year is a long time. A long time. So I would suggest if we could find another time either the week of the 14th or early the week of the 21st. And I know we just switched to evenings after meeting in the mornings for a while. Would like, yeah, 530 to 7. Okay, I'm just going to draw to date 530 to 7 on Monday, the 21st work for folks. The 21st, okay. Pam, does that work for you too as a check right now? Cool. The 21st. At 530 again. 530 to 7. I'm fine with that. Cameron, that works for you too. Awesome. That was great. Nice work, team. Okay, so Monday, the 21st, 530 to 7. And then after that will be Thursday, January 7th from 530 to 7. Is that right? Go back to our Thursday time. Cool. Great. Thursday. January 7th. Okay. And then we'll just go back to alternating every other week, right? Every other week from there. Right? Is that? Is it every other week or is it first and third? I wasn't sure of that. Right now it's every other week for easy scheduling. I got to run to do bedtime. I know I got to run too, but thank you guys so much. Appreciate the meeting. Happy holidays. Thanks, y'all. Michael, I didn't really take that many notes today, so I don't really have anything of substance to send you. Okay. Well, I'll do my best from my chicken stretch here. Okay. Thank you. I'll talk to you soon. Okay, but oh, and I want to let you know that the check. I saw your email, I'm just very behind on my replies today. I'm so glad. So don't, don't bother replying, but anyway, just, you know, thank you for monitoring that. Okay. Bye. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you.